FAITH, HOPE, CHARITY
by
CQB
CHAPTER
1
THE CHAPTERS
She rose with the sun, from beneath her weathered winter coat;
Kicked away her bed of frozen twigs and soggy leaves.
She tucked her tangled pig-tails up into a tattered stocking cap;
Her little hands brushed the mud from her sleeves…*
* * *
“I don’t know how you talked us into this, Prito,” Joe Hardy confessed as his twinkling blue eyes peered through the van’s windshield. Past the rhythmic swishing of the wiper-blades, the light December snow danced like ice fairies in the headlight beams.
“Yes,” chimed in Joe’s year older brother Frank. While his brown hair was the opposite of Joe’s blond waves, and his brown eyes were different from his brother’s blue ones, they held the same teasing twinkle as Joe’s. “Pulling us away from Callie, Vanessa and Liz on Christmas eve. I don’t know what we were thinking!”
“Worse than not being with the girls, we passed up Aunt Gertrude’s homemade macadamia nut chocolate chip cookies and Mrs. Hardy’s cinnamon laced eggnog to come out in this blustery cold,” added Chet Morton from the seat behind Frank. “We must be totally nuts!”
The victim of the verbal banter sat in the seat directly behind Joe. Even Tony Prito’s dark olive complexion couldn’t hide the crimson coloring on his cheeks. “Come on you guys,” Tony urged, “I promised my Mom and Father Minnetti that I’d recruit some help for the mission tonight. They’re expecting a big crowd.”
“You know we’re just teasing, Tony,” Frank said with a smile.
“Yeah,” Joe spoke up, “we really want to help. Our own preacher, Pastor Thomas, just spoke this past Sunday at church that Christmas was all about giving, not getting.”
“He made me feel guilty,” Chet said glumly. “I told my parents after church that I really didn’t need all those things I had put on my Christmas ‘wish list’.”
“What did they say?” Tony asked.
Chet sighed. “They said I wasn’t getting all those things anyway.”
The four boys laughed together as Joe pulled their black van to a stop beside the front door of an old church building.
The boys climbed out of the van and Frank pulled open the rear doors. Each boy grabbed a bag or box of food from the floor of the van and Tony led the way into the church.
Joe pushed the van’s doors shut with his shoulder and awkwardly reached for his keys. He dropped them as he tried to keep hold of the box and hit the ‘lock’ button on his key ring at the same time.
He sighed as he started to put the box down so he could retrieve the keys. Before he could set it down, Joe felt a tug on his jacket sleeve.
“Here mister,” a little girl smiled up at him. She handed him the keys. Joe couldn’t help but smile back; her grin was infectious.
“Thank you,” Joe said, but as he reached for the keys, they fell again into the slushy snow that covered the church parking lot. The child giggled and picked them up again.
“Why don’t you push that little button for me?” the Hardy boy suggested, indicating the red button with the key pictured on it.
“This one?” the child asked.
“Yup!” he replied. When the locks clicked in place, Joe added, “Good job! Thanks so much.”
The girl grinned again and managed to put the key ring securely in Joe’s hand. Before he could say anything else, she dashed across the parking lot into the alley behind the church.
‘Cute kid,’ Joe thought, heading for the door Frank and their friends had gone through just minutes ago.
As he carried the box through the vestibule into the sanctuary, Joe noticed several people already seated in the pews. They ranged in age from scarcely older than Joe’s own seventeen years, to seventy or more. While their ages varied by great contrast, their appearance didn’t. All wore tattered, shabby garments; all were grubby with an allover filth; and all held a look of utter despair in their eyes.
The room carried a scent of unwashed clothing, urine and body order, despite the fragrant incense burning near the Nativity in front of the pulpit.
Joe hurried through the room to a stairwell in the far corner. He moved quickly down to where he hoped he’d find the kitchen.
“It’s about time,” Frank called from the other side of the large basement room, “I thought we were going to have to send a search party out to find you. What took so long?”
Joe flashed his brother a grin, pushing aside the images and smells he’d encountered upstairs. “I was flirting,” he announced as he set the box on the closest counter top.
Frank’s eyebrows shot up. He’d just passed through the same rooms Joe did and he knew there were only a bunch of homeless men upstairs.
From Frank’s expression, the younger boy realized what his brother was thinking. “Outside,” Joe added.
“So who is she?” Chet asked, catching the conversation between the brothers.
“Don’t know,” Joe replied, pulling cans of pineapple from the box he’d just set down. “But she was adorable.”
“Adorable?” Frank questioned, coming over to help his brother unload the box.
“Yeah,” Joe answered, smiling as he pictured the child’s face. “She had cinnamon colored freckles across her nose and dimples in her cheeks. Her eyes were hazel and she had the most incredible smile.”
“Sounds like Mary,” Father Minnetti said as he took the now empty box off the counter. “She’ll be here tonight with her mother.”
“So you know her?” Joe asked.
“Well, they’ve been coming once in a while to get food,” the priest answered, “but they’ve never stayed. I don’t even know their real names. I just refer to the mother as ‘Martha’ and the child as ‘Mary’.”
“Child? You were flirting with a little girl?” Chet asked.
“I was joking about the flirting part,” Joe replied, rolling his eyes.
Their discussion came to an abrupt end as Sister Margaret clapped her hands, getting everyone’s attention.
“Father Minnetti is going up to start the service now,” she began, “and we must have everything in order down here.” She began directing everyone, getting the food ready to serve. Once everything was in place, she loudly clapped again.
“I know some of you are first-timers,” the sister stated. “There are a few house rules you need to be aware of. First, we don’t have contact with the homeless. You may feel compelled to hug someone to even give them a compassionate pat on the back, but you must remember they have been living in the streets; many of them have diseases, including HIV, not to mention lice or other parasites. Wear your gloves at all times, and should you accidentally touch someone, go wash quickly, and then put on fresh gloves.”
“That seems rather harsh,” Frank said softly.
Sister Margaret faced him and smiled. “What is your name, my son?”
“Frank,” the dark-haired Hardy boy replied, embarrassed that the sister had heard his comment.
“Yes, Frank,” she responded, “it does seem harsh. But it is for your own protection. You may, however, use your words to bring them comfort.”
She turned her attention back to the whole group. “Let’s get busy folks. We have a lot of hungry people to feed.”
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Disclaimer
The Hardy Boys belong to Simon and Schuster and the Stratemeyer Foundation. The Hardy Boys Fan Fiction authors of the Hardy Detective Agency have just borrowed them for an adventure or two. The authors promise to put the boys back when they are done with them. The authors do claim copyright to the original characters in this story. Please do not borrow original characters without express permission of the authors.