The Dragon in the Cliff Read Free Page B

result was that only rarely did we have a chance to go the beach with Papa.
    I went to school for almost three years, during which time every effort was made to break my will, as Mrs. Gleed predicted. I remember one such incident with pain to this day.
    It happened soon after I started school. There was a storm that lasted for several days, soaking the town and the surrounding cliffs with rain and lashing the beach with ferocious tides. Except for our forays to school, where we arrived wet through to the skin, Joseph and I stayed at home. We grew increasingly irritable with each other as one rainy day followed another. The rain finally came to a stop on a Sunday, and though it is customary to do little that day but go to chapel and read the Bible, Papa, Joseph, and I were eager to get out of doors. “To stretch our legs,” Papa said to Mama. “We’ll return in time for the Reverend Gleed’s sermon.”
    Being the Lord’s day, we were not going to hunt for curiosities. We just wanted to see if there were any new slides. In our search for a slide, we wandered far to the other side of Black Ven and did not hear the bells for afternoon services. We did not realize how late it had become until we met Mr. Clerkenwell coming home from chapel. He saw us but, turning away, did not acknowledge our greeting.
    â€œMama will be angry,” Joseph said.
    Papa and I knew that he was right, and we also knew that there was nothing we could say to excuse ourselves. Missing chapel was an unpardonable sin for which we were certain to be punished. The first punishment came from Mama. We were not greeted when we arrived, nor did Mama ask us what we had seen. We washed up in silence. No one but Ann and John spoke, and even they soon grew silent.
    Joseph and I read our Bible lesson aloud under Mama’s disapproving gaze. The lesson was one I love, the first chapter of the Book of Genesis telling how in the beginning the earth was without form and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God separated the light from the darkness and the light became day and the darkness night. On the second day God created heaven; on the third earth and the seas and all the plants of the earth; on the fourth day the sun to rule the day and the moon and stars to rule the night. On the fifth day God created the great sea monsters and all the creatures of the sea and the winged birds; and on the sixth day he created man.
    I had heard this passage any number of times, but listening to Joseph read this time, my mind wandered to the curiosities. If the curiosities were once living creatures, as Papa said they were, then they must have been created by God. Most of the curiosities we found were like creatures that live in the sea. Were they the creatures that God made on the fifth day? How did they turn to stone? And how did they get from the sea into the cliffs? I wanted to ask someone these questions, but I knew not to ask Mama. She would have been shocked by such thoughts and would have given me a slap if I had dared to utter a word about them.
    Instead it was she who was asking me questions. “What did God do on the seventh day?”
    I stood and recited: “God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on that day God rested from the work of creation.”
    â€œAnd what are we, his children, to do on the Sabbath day?” Mama asked Joseph pointedly.
    â€œOn the seventh day we are to rest from our labors and worship God and his creations,” Joseph mumbled.
    Mama turned to me. “Why?”
    â€œBecause it is God’s commandment. And those who disobey his commandments are punished,” I replied.
    She nodded, satisfied that we had learned our lesson. She closed the Bible, but she did not relent in her punishment. We ate our bread in silence, and then went to bed without as much as a good night.
    The second punishment came the next day.