Read Online The Lesson by Suzanne Woods Fisher - Free Book Online

raised to respect her elders.
    But, oh, how she would love to do it. Just once!
    And then she started to think she might be going crazy. How awful it would be if she really did go berserk one day. She could hear the women clucking about it now . . . “Poor, poor Mary Kate. There was always something a little off-kilter about that girl. One moment, she seemed right as rain. The next moment, a raving madcap.”
    Deep down, she knew she could never do anything tointentionally hurt her father, or her sisters, or Uncle Hank. Or Fern.
    It was a good thing she loved Fern, because that woman was impossible. M.K. knew Fern was behind this teaching job. It had Fern written all over it. Fern had a way of knowing what a person was thinking, without that person ever having to say it aloud. She had no doubt that Fern knew she was toying with the idea of leaving the Amish. Fern always knew.
    But teaching a roomful of slow-witted, obstinate children? What a cruel, cruel mantle to place on M.K.
    She was pretty sure Fern was savvy to the fact that M.K. had turned Ruthie down about joining this year’s baptismal instruction class. She probably knew she had turned Ruthie’s pleading down for the third time in a row. Fern knew everything.
    Or maybe Ruthie told her. Ruthie just didn’t understand. Every year, she begged M.K. to go through baptismal instructions with her, but M.K. just couldn’t do it. Not yet.
    She knew she would have to decide, at some point. She couldn’t walk this line forever—one foot in the church, one foot out. If she left before she was baptized, then she could remain on good terms with her family.
    And do what? The practical side of her always took over this internal conversation, and that was saying something because M.K. didn’t have a practical bone in her body. She wasn’t much of a long-term thinker. It was one of Fern’s continual complaints about her. “Act first, think later,” Fern said. “That’s why you’re always in hot water.” She was constantly trying to tell M.K. to think “down the road.”
    So what would it look like, down the road, to leave Stoney Ridge? What would she do? She wasn’t prepared to do muchof anything outside of the Amish life. Even if she had a car, she didn’t have a driver’s license. How could she get a job? She didn’t have a high school education. And she certainly didn’t want to clean houses for English people for the rest of her life. Cleaning houses and waitressing were the only jobs former Amish girls seemed to get. No thank you.
    She was a crackerjack beekeeper, though, thanks to her brother-in-law Rome. Maybe she could sell her bees’ delicious honey in Paris. That sounded like fun. She knew a Plain girl shouldn’t flame those desires to see such worldly places, but she did. She just couldn’t help herself.
    Oh, but there must be something or someplace or maybe even someone out there with enough excitement to satisfy M.K.’s restive nature. She just knew it was out there. Something was calling to her.
    She let out a deep sigh. For now, she was stuck. Stuck for two weeks and two more days. She pulled her small Igloo lunch box out from under her desk (there was no way she was going to leave her lunch in the coatroom where Eugene Miller could slip a frog or snake into it—after all, hadn’t she endured Jimmy Fisher’s mischief for countless years?) and locked up the schoolhouse. She wanted to go investigate the murdered sheep farmer’s pasture and look for clues. Solving this crime was the only bright spot of her day.

    After school let out, Jenny rushed to the corner mailbox with the letter she had written during the school day. She had to get it in the mail before the day’s mail was taken out. She knew Chris was over at Windmill Farm, but she still looked over her shoulder as she read it one more time before putting it in the envelope.
Hi Mom,
Just wanted you to know that Chris and I might not be able to see you for a while. We’re together and