Horse Camp Read Free Page B

can be healed? If you believe in Him, you will be healed! Dad got really mad and looked up to the ceiling, and I thought he was going to call down some punishment on Mom. But he didn’t. He’s a very forgiving kind of person. He’s a servant of God, after all, and how can you argue with that? But then he said this:
    Dad: Well then, I guess you won’t mind if I don’t post bail for you. You can sit in jail while you wait for your trial. Come to think of it, I don’t think it would be right to use the church’s money to bail out a criminal like yourself.
    Mom: You’d leave the kids without their mother just to prove a point?
    Dad: They’re better off without you, anyway. You’re a bad influence.
    Mom: You wouldn’t dare. Who’s going to care for them?
    Dad: That’s your problem. I’ve got to catch a flight out of here in the morning, to set up the next church. You figure it out.
    Then he left. True to his word, Dad cancelled the check on Mom’s bail.
    Mom likes to argue about everything. She thinks she’s above the law of God and everyone else. And that’s why we’re here at Horse Camp without Dad and Mom while they sort out their professional and personal lives. She’s gotten herself into trouble for acquiring and distributing pharmaceuticals without a license. If you think it sounds bad, that’s because it is. Even though Mom is a nurse in the United States, that doesn’t mean she can go to any old country and be a nurse there. They have laws! But did that stop her from helping people? No. Did that stop her from bringing prescription medications to people in Africa and the Philippines? No. Did that stop her from buying cheap generic drugs from Canada? No. Did that stop her from holding meetings with the women of the villages to talk to them about diet, health, exercise, and immunizing their children? No. Did that stop her from warning those women about big drug companies coming into their countries and using them as guinea pigs to test out their new medicines? No. Did that stop her from writing extensive editorials to all the major newspapers about how the pharmaceutical companies are using human beings in poor countries to test out their new drugs? No.
    What the trial’s really about is money, Mom says. She says that the big, fat drug companies are just mad that she revealed their dirty little secret, and they’re making an example of her. She says, shame on them. I see her point, but she is the one on trial and facing prison time. She is the one responsible for the disintegration of our nuclear family, and nothing’s worse than that.
    Since she was arrested and sued, Mom has been in the newspapers and on TV and the Internet, and not in a good way. Even CNN ran a story on her arrest. Someone put it on YouTube, and most of the comments below the video are very disparaging. Dad got really mad at her for embarrassing him and threatening his authority in the new church he’s been working on. The week before we kids got sent here, he even gave a sermon about how good people sometimes have to cut the ties with bad influences and evil forces in their lives. Mom sat straight and calm in the front row like she always does, but her face turned from tan to white. Dad was pretty harsh, but she shouldn’t have been doing things that were illegal, for goodness’ sake. He does have to think about his flock and the way things look. I mean, that’s just the nature of his calling. Anyway, a couple of days later, he filed for divorce. I was pretty surprised, but now I can see that he’s just trying to teach her a lesson and doesn’t really want to divorce her.
    You might think I’d be really upset about all of this, but I’m not. Dad is only trying to scare Mom straight. Being here seems like a sort of joke, and I don’t plan on having to stay for more than another week. Two weeks, tops.
    DEAR OKONKWO,
    EVEN THOUGH