Read Online In the Image of Grace by Charlotte Ann Schlobohm - Free Book Online

better or what. I wasn’t even sure.
    …………………………………………….
    When I got home Clarissa and Isabelle had some
interesting information to tell me. They buzzed me in and when I
got into the house Clarissa grabbed my wrist and pulled me all the
way upstairs to her room. “Boy do we have something to tell
you.”
    “What?” I asked pulling off my coat and hat. I sat
down on the edge of Clarissa’s bed. All of our rooms pretty much
looked the same, white four poster canopy bed with coordinating
dresser and shelves with a desk under the window. Except all over
Clarissa’s room was little stuffed animal monster like things she
stitched out of felt. A Clarissa original she called them.
    “Well, when Isabelle and I were at the bus stop, I
noticed something that was stapled to the telephone pole that’s
there. I went and looked and it was a pamphlet and on the front it
said, The Children of Grace and there was this line drawing
of….”
    I didn’t give her a chance to finish her sentence.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” I could feel my arms and neck cover
in goose bumps. “Well, what exactly is this, why, how?”
    “Wait, let me explain. It seems there is a group,
religious group, cult, whatever you want to call them and they
believe we are all in the image of Grace Fernando,” Clarissa said
scrunching up her face.
    “What! Why?”
    “Well it appears she is the perfect replica of what
the human species should be and behold and was sent by a group of
people, not of this planet, called the Xtials.”
    “No, you’ve got to be kidding.”
    “It would be one sick joke, but let me go on. They’re
having a gathering as the pamphlet said and guess who will be
giving what is called the opening address, Dr. Carl Williams!”
Clarissa shrieked.
    “What! This is insane. It makes no sense!” I was so
confused. Mr. Carl most obviously knew a lot more than what he was
telling us. “Is this is his way of giving us answers.”
    “I’m pretty sure he knew we’d be at that bus stop,”
Isabelle said.
    I looked down at the pamphlet. It was on red paper
with black writing and a line drawing of our mother. The top was
ripped from being pulled off the telephone post. The front and back
of the pamphlet was crammed with type. “What’s all this,” I said
referring to all the writing, tossing it on the bed. I didn’t want
to touch the pamphlet anymore. It all seemed so absurd.
    “Let me tell you,” Clarissa said. “It’s like their
beliefs and history and stuff. Supposedly there was this guy they
refer to as The Giver of Grace because he found and gave us Grace
and he found out Grace was the one because he was approached by a
man from this extra-terrestrial culture and he told this guy, The
Giver of Grace, that humans are really from another planet,
supposedly Pluto. Underneath all that gas there is a whole
civilization and Pluto got demoted from being a planet because they
weren’t ready for everybody to find out about it yet and they
wanted to take attention off themselves at that time….”
    “What,” I yelped totally astonished.
    Clarissa smiled and kept talking. “Well, humans were
put on this planet deliberately by these Xtials and were made in
the exact image of them and I guess we were doing good, but then we
started messing things up and stuff got out of control and there
was so much overpopulation mainly with people who weren’t fit to be
here like those with diseases and disorders and unpleasant features
and things and they were waiting for a new perfect human to arise
and that was Grace and supposedly she was to be reproduced and make
everything better again with her perfectness.” Clarissa raised her
eyebrows and shook her head. She looked over at Isabelle who was
looking down at the pamphlet.
    “And people believe this garbage?” I asked in a high
pitched voice.
    “It seems. They’re having a gathering tomorrow night
to discuss those made in the image of Grace,”