Danny Orlis Goes to School (3 page)

"Trust to luck, I guess."

For an instant Danny sat there silently. Clarence Gray could trust to luck if he wanted to.

With his heart pounding and his stomach squeezed into a tight little ball of ice, the young woodsman bowed his head and began to pray silently,
Heavenly Father, You know the way things are. You know how the radio beam is being jammed so we can't find our way. You know about all these mountains around us. Be with us and watch over us and help us to get safely back to the ground. In Jesus' name. Amen.

"I...I'm scared," Esther Gray stammered.

Clarence turned and saw that Danny was awake. "S-s-sh," he whispered, "we don't want to scare Danny."

"You don't need to worry about scaring me," the young woodsman said. He had been afraid before, but now he almost surprised himself by being so calm. "I just asked the Lord to help us. I'm not afraid."

At that instant the plane shuddered from nose to tail and lurched violently, as though some huge giant had hit it with his fist and had knocked it a glancing blow high into the air. Danny was almost thrown from his seat. A man behind him cried out in terror, and a woman across the aisle screamed.

For a split second Danny was certain they had crashed headlong into a mountain. But the motors continued to hum evenly.

The plane cabin was alive with fright. Everyone was talking at once. Some got to their feet and began to crowd into the aisle. Some clung tightly to their seats. Others fumbled hurriedly with their safety belts. Almost instantly the stewardess popped into the cabin and switched on the lights.

"Please sit down," she said firmly, "and fasten your safety belts. We just hit a strong updraft and are going into an area where we might find some turbulent air, so remain in your seats and keep your safety belts fastened. We'll be in Iron Mountain in a very few minutes."

A few minutes later Clarence Gray loosed his safety belt and got to his feet. "I'm going up front to check on that radio," he said. "Come on, Danny. I'd like to show you what unauthorized broadcasting can do."

Danny got to his feet and followed the government agent to the front of the plane. "That was some updraft," Clarence said to the crew.

"You don't know the half of it," the co-pilot answered. "Another few feet lower and we'd have taken the top off Iron Mountain. That updraft was all that saved us."

There was a long, unnatural silence.

"I tried to get those call letters for you, like you asked me, Mr. Gray," the pilot said at last. "But everything was so garbled that I couldn't pick them up. Anyway he's off the air now, and we're going in on the beam."

"That's one good thing," Clarence replied, putting his notebook back in his pocket and sighing deeply. "And as for our broadcaster, the monitoring stations probably got a fix on him."

"Boy, I hope they get him and get him off the air," the pilot said fervently. "I don't want to go through many nights like this one."

Even though the plane had been lost for a time, they were not far from the little mountain community. In a matter of minutes, trusting the firm, sure waves of the radio beam, the DC6 had circled through the clouds and dropped lightly onto the long cement runway. Danny bowed his head and thanked God for answering his prayer.

As the big plane rolled to a stop and the ground crew wheeled out the loading ramp, Danny pressed his face to the window and peered out into the darkness. Not many people had come out to meet the late plane, but there, on the edge of the little crowd, stood a man and woman and two boys.

"Are your friends going to be here to meet you, Danny?" Clarence asked.

"I...I think so," the young woodsman said excitedly, pointing toward them.

They seemed glad to see him. Bob and Larry crowded about him, asking questions rapidly.

"That's enough of that, guys," Uncle Claude said at last.

"But I just wanted to find out if Danny plays football," Larry answered.

As they walked back to the car, Clarence Gray hurried over and called Danny to one side.

"Listen," he said softly, "there are a few amateur radio stations here in Iron Mountain. It might be that whoever is jamming the radio beam lives right here, so keep your eyes and ears open. If you get wind of anything, let me know."

"O.K.," Danny whispered.

"My address is on this card," Clarence went on, slipping a small white card into the young woodsman's fist.

They all crawled into the car then, and Uncle Claude began to drive toward town.

"You know," Danny said. "This is the first time I ever rode in a car."

"You mean you never rode in a car before—not even in an old wreck like this one?" Bob repeated.

"I've always been going to ride in a car when I got down to Warroad," Danny said defensively, "but I never got the chance."

"What a hick!" Bob declared under his breath.

"Robert!" Aunt Lydia scolded. "You remember what I told you!"

Uncle Claude changed the subject quickly, but the young woodsman still felt the hot shame in his cheeks as the car crunched to a stop on the graveled driveway. So that was what they thought of him—a backwoods hick who didn't know how to take care of himself. He was someone they were going to be ashamed of!

Nobody said much until after they had gone into the house and Aunt Lydia had given them some milk and cookies.

Danny watched the others start to eat hungrily. Then he slowly bowed his head and silently asked God's blessing upon the food.

"What's the matter, Danny?" Larry asked when he raised his head.

Danny turned to his cousin hesitantly. "I...I...was just praying before I ate," he explained.

Both boys looked at him questioningly.

"Praying?" Bob repeated scornfully. "We might have known it!"

GETTING ACQUAINTED

A
UNT
Lydia showed Danny to his room—a neat, clean basement room with a desk of his own and a small radio in one corner.

When she had gone, he sat heavily on the side of the bed and for a long while stared at the floor. Back home Mom and Dad would have long since finished reading the Bible and gone off to bed. Laddie would be lying on the hearth asleep, and if the wind was blowing, the lake would be lapping gently on the shore.

The young woodsman got up and walked over to the desk and back again. He could still see the disgust that had flashed across Uncle Claude's face when his uncle had realized that he was praying. He could still see the surprise and scorn in Bob's and Larry's eyes. It made him weak and sick inside.

Danny turned back to the dresser and picked up his Bible. It was the first time in his life he had ever stayed with anyone who wasn't a Christian. Slowly he laid down the precious Book, switched off the light, and dropped to his knees beside the bed.

He did not know how long he stayed there praying, but when he finally got to his feet and began to undress in the darkness, he felt better. After all, he wasn't alone. Jesus was with him.

He hadn't thought that he would sleep at all that night, but he closed his eyes, and the next thing he knew it was morning.

There was registration for school that afternoon, and the next morning classes started. Danny got through the first afternoon easily enough because Larry was with him showing him where to go and what to do, but the next morning he was on his own.

"There's your homeroom," Larry told him. "Do you think you can find your way around school?"

"I don't know," Danny said hesitantly. "I can track a deer through the muskeg or find my way around a lake, but I...I'm not sure whether or not I'll ever find my way around here."

"Oh, you'll be okay," Larry laughed. "Just follow the rest of the kids when the bell rings, and you'll get along."

Danny pushed his fingers through his rumpled, sandy hair and walked timidly into the room and found a seat.

The other kids were laughing and whispering, but Danny didn't feel like joining them. The bell rang so suddenly that it startled him, even though he had been waiting for it anxiously. He started to get up and then saw that the other kids had quieted hurriedly. The teacher stepped into the room and looked over the class. And in another moment or two a second bell sounded.

This time there was a stampede for the door, and Danny was the last one out. He hesitated, trying to decide which direction to go, then began to move off uncertainly in the direction most of the kids seemed to be going. He walked past stairways and corridors and finally turned into a big, airy room at the end of the hall.

He was inside and had closed the door when he heard a high-pitched snicker. He knew, then, that something was wrong.

"I...I beg your pardon," the teacher said, smiling, "but are you enrolled in Home Economics?"

Then he noticed for the first time that the room was entirely filled with girls.

"I...I..." he stammered, his face flushing scarlet. "I..."

With that he whirled and fled. He could still hear them laughing when he got to the other end of the hall. In spite of himself he laughed too.

When he finally got back to the house that evening after a bewildering day at school, Aunt Lydia handed him two letters. "One of them is from your mother and dad," she said, "but the other's an awfully important-looking letter."

Danny took the envelopes, and for an instant his heart leaped as he saw that he had a letter from the Federal Communications Commission. And then he saw Clarence's name typed under the address.

"You know someone in the Federal Commission?" Larry asked.

"Oh, a guy who was up at the lake."

"Boy!" Larry exclaimed. "Do you think you could get him to come over and speak to our amateur radio club?"

Danny straightened quickly. If he could just join a group like that, he could listen to the short-wave broadcasts himself, and he could find out about a lot of the guys in Iron Mountain who were interested in radio.

"I think Clarence would come," he replied.

As soon as Danny was alone, he opened the letter.

"I'm just writing to let you know," Clarence Gray had written, "that the monitoring stations got a fix on that broadcast that almost wrecked us. It came from somewhere in the Iron Mountain area. We know that much but can't go farther until they broadcast again. Keep your eyes and ears open."

For the first time Larry acted as though he were glad to have Danny around, and the next afternoon he took him around and introduced him to all the guys. And the next evening Bob and Larry asked him to go to a party with them.

"It's the bunch from the radio club," Larry explained.

They all gathered in the basement of the house where one of the guys lived and sat around talking radio until almost eight o'clock. Then one of them looked at his watch and got to his feet. "Well," he said, "we'll be just in time for the first feature if we leave now."

Danny turned to Larry. "Where are we going?" he asked.

"Why, to the movies, of course," his cousin replied. "Didn't you know?"

The young woodsman got slowly to his feet. He had never been to a movie before.

"You're going, aren't you?" Larry demanded.

Reluctantly he followed along. He had heard people say things about movies, but there wasn't anything like that on the Angle. He didn't even know what they were like.

One picture on the poster out in front of the theater showed a man with a cigarette dangling from his lips and a gun in his hand. The other showed a couple of guys and a woman drinking.

Danny hesitated again. If that was the kind of stuff he was going to see, he didn't know whether or not he wanted to go in. He shuddered to think what the actual movie would be like if the pictures on the outside were like this. He felt miserably unclean. He professed to love Christ and follow Him. He had tried to tell Larry and Bob what it meant to be a Christian. What would they think of him if he went in and saw a film? Would his testimony mean anything to them if he did exactly the same things they did?

Danny bowed his head momentarily and tried to pray, but he could not. At that instant he knew what he had to do. The other boys had just come from the ticket window.

"You'd better hurry and get your ticket," Bob said.

Danny turned to Larry. "I'm not going," he said seriously.

"What do you mean?" his cousin demanded, grabbing hold of his coat. "Don't be a fool. You're coming in to see this movie, or I'll know the reason why!"

“
Don't be a fool. You're coming in to see this movie, or I'll know the reason why!”

A PAL FO
R DANNY

"
W
HAT'S
the matter?" Larry demanded, his lips curling angrily. "Is your conscience bothering you?"

"I guess you could call it that," Danny Orlis replied.

"I suppose this is some more of that Christian business," Larry snorted.

Danny looked about. This was the first chance he had had to make friends with any of the guys at school. Now it would probably be the last. For a brief instant he hesitated, almost yielding before the angry, taunting stares of his cousin and the rest of the gang.