Chapter 22: Stepping Up

The bat shattered next to my head as the bullet hit it. I turned towards the women to see who had the gun. As she pulled the trigger again, I was lucky enough to trip over the woman with the broken arm at my feet. The fall took me out of the line of fire.

“DROP THE GUN! DO IT NOW!”

The loud voice was from the police officer with the pistol aimed at the woman. She turned her head and slowly raised her hands over her head to point at the ceiling. Another officer ran from behind the man with the gun trained on the woman and took the gun from her. Other men came in and began to frisk the women and place them in handcuffs.

I went to my girls and they all jumped up to smother me in a hug. I wanted to pick up the whole bunch but I’m not that strong.

“Sir! Who are you?”

“He’s our Daddy!” Penelope Erin said with authority.

“Yeah, I’m their Daddy,” I said scooping Penelope Erin up in my arm and standing before the officer. “There is an injured woman outside by the car and I have another daughter hiding out in the woods.”

The officer I spoke to ran out the back door.

“Can I take my girls out to their mothers? They are outside with the head of Family Services.”

“Go ahead, Mr. O’Dell,” an officer wearing a bright yellow arm band said.

I walked through the sanctuary and out the front door with my girls. Out near the curb I saw Margaret Erin in the arms of her mother. Lynn was being held by Margaret Williams, her eyes obviously full of tears. When Lynn saw the girls and me, she broke loose from Margaret and ran to us.

“My babies!” Lynn screamed as she ran.

When she got to us, she dropped to her knees and took all three girls in her arms. Penelope leaned down and stroked her hair.

“It’s OK now, Lynn Mom. It’s OK.”

Lynn stood and kissed Penelope Erin and then me.

“I was so worried when we heard the gun shots. Are you OK?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. I’m afraid that I had to hurt a couple of those women though. One had Margaret Erin in a car in back and the other came at me with a knife.”

“But the gunshot?”

“Yeah, a woman had a pistol and shot at me a couple of times. She missed.”

“She missed? What were you doing in there in the first place?”

“I’d like to know that as well, Mr. O’Dell.” I turned to see a man in a suit with a badge on his pocket. I handed Penelope Erin to Erin, who had now joined us, and looked at the cop.

“You are?”

“I’m Detective Schnyder. Special Victims Squad.”

“Hi Detective, now what is it you wanted to know?”

“What were you doing in the church?”

“Oh yeah,” I smiled and told him the whole story from when I saw the woman come out of the side of the church.

“So you broke the one woman’s jaw and gave her a concussion and you broke the arm of the woman with the knife inside?”

“I was protecting my children.”

“I understand but you must understand that it was a foolish thing to do. You should have come to the nearest officer and told him.”

“I was concerned that had I not gone after her that the car would have driven away with at least one daughter before you guys could get to her.”

“Don’t you dare get after my husband for saving my babies,” Erin interjected. “You people were sitting out front while those women were getting ready to run away with my babies. My husband is the rock that we build our family on.”

“That’s right,” Lynn added. “Can we go home now? I would appreciate it if you could find out about that. The last thing our family needs is a mess of crazy feminists trying to steal my daughters.”

“Yeah, I’m just now getting reports about the school and their connection to this church.”

“Really? Well I guess we don’t have to sorry about taking our children back there. Lynn, have we paid the tuition yet?”

“No and I’m not going to. But I may look into the whole bunch.”

I knew that meant that Lynn was going to turn the Foundation’s money loose on this bunch. I didn’t feel sorry for them in anyway.

“OK, O’Dells, let’s go home. Lynn, have you called Blossom about us being late? She may expect us home for dinner.”

“I’ll do that when we get in the van,” Lynn said. “I’m worried about you, Erin. Are you OK?”

“No. I almost lost my ... Our babies. What are we going to do?”

“Erin O’Dell, we are going to take our girls home and we are going to sit down, the four of us, and we are going to come up with a plan to educate our children and we are going to be sure that this church will not be a threat to us any longer. Let’s get the girls into their car seats and go home.”

I gave a nod to the detective asking for silent permission to go. He nodded back and we all walked back to the van. Then it hit me and I turned around.

“Margaret! You came with us in the van, do you want us to drop you off at the school and your car or will the police take you over there?”

“If you have room, I’ll come with you.”

“Room?” I said incredulously. “Margaret it’s a freakin’ van! Come on.”

She got into the front passenger seat. Lynn got in the second seat with her two girls and Erin got her three girls in the third row, while she took the last row, leaning forward to look her girls in the eyes.

“We don’t have the car seats so make sure your seat belts are tight, OK?”

“Yes mother. This going to be different, riding in the van and looking forward.”

Erin chuckled at her daughters observation, then asked, “Margaret Erin before all this craziness, how was school?”

“I didn’t like it, mother. All they talked about was how girls were better than boys. When a girl answered a question wrong, the teacher took the time to teach her what was right. When a boy answered a question wrong, the teacher told him he was stupid, like all boys.”

“And my teacher,” Penelope Erin added, “Kept calling me Penny.”

“And she called me Jenny! And when I told her my name was Genevieve Lynn she told me I was too young to know what I should be called.”

“Margaret,” I asked Mrs. Williams, “How does a place like this exist in this day and age?”

“A better question would be how is it more schools are NOT like this in this day and age,” she replied. “It seems that it’s more important to teach new age thinking that reading, writing and arithmetic. I don’t even know of a school in this town that still teaches Civics. Children are not being taught how to be citizens of the city, county, state or country they live in.”

“Then we are going to continue to teach our children ourselves,” Lynn declared.

“I won’t argue with you but someone will need to get certified as a teacher.”

“Does that require a teacher with a college degree and does it have to be a degree in education?”

“Yes and no,” Margaret replied. “Paul any college degree will do.”

“Good. Blossom has a degree, so does Lynn and so do I. We can form our own private school. I’m sure that we can work out any financial requirements. What do we have to do to be an official home school?”

“I’ll send you the information I have tomorrow morning. Take each step piece by piece. Once you start doing this, the bureaucrats get their fingers in. Just don’t take their money and they’ll have no hold on what you teach or how you teach it.”

“Mother, does this mean Blossom Mom is going to be our teacher from now on?” Margaret Erin asked.

“If we can work it out, yes my little love,” Erin answered.

Then she looked at me and smiled because I had been the only one to call the children,” My little love”. I returned the smile.

“Margaret, how does a group like that get to open a school like that?” Lynn asked.

“Money and political influence. Extreme Christian politicians, not your normal run of the day Christian politicians, mind you, will do anything they can to change the world into their image. The other side does the same thing. Look at the public schools and the reasons you didn’t take your children there.”

“I’d rather send the Herd to a public school. Those folks are only going to try to steal their hearts and minds and not their bodies. I can get their hearts and minds back,” I said as we drove.

“Let’s first see what we can do with Blossom and home schooling, Paul. Then as the children get older we can filter them into the regular schools,” Lynn said.

“Once we’ve been able to teach them to be the kind of people WE want them to be, we can turn them loose on the schools and watch the mayhem,” Erin added with a chuckle.

“That sounds like a plan I can endorse,” Margaret Williams said with a chuckle. “I’m so happy that I got to know the O’Dells. You have no idea how much I’ve thought of you when I see the terrible things that parents do to children. You have no idea how many times I’ve wanted to foster children with you until their situations stabilized.”

“Why haven’t you Margaret? We’d be happy and proud to help wherever we could.” Erin asked warmly.

“Because of the nudity, Erin. Even I couldn’t justify putting a child from an abusive situation into a house full of naked, although happy and joyful, children and adults. Can you imagine what the papers would say when they found out?”

I looked over at the head of Family Services and saw the sadness and regret in her face.

“Yeah, I can imagine the shock waves when we drove them to eat White Castles.”

“PAUL!” “Daddy!” Lynn and Margaret Erin said at the same time.

“What was that about,?” Margaret Williams asked.

I looked into the rearview mirror at Erin. She had a wicked twinkle in her eyes. She saw me looking and told our guest the story of our family visits to White Castle and the resultant effects. The girls were all in rear facing car seats and they chimed in with their own version of the story between bouts of gasps, laughter, and the occasional “Oh no”.

Then from the back, in her car seat next to her mother, Genevieve Lynn said, “Mrs. Williams, you should come with us next time.”

I looked over at Margaret Williams and smiled and I’ll be darned if the older lady didn’t blush and knowingly shake her head.

“Nope, been there, done that.”

We all laughed about that.

I pulled into the parking lot at the school and stopped next to Margaret Williams car. The police were still there ad as soon as she got out, she went to the nearest officer. They spoke and she quickly turned and came back to the van.

“Paul, get out of here and back to the house, now! I’ll call you later. Now. Get!”

She backed away from the side of the van and I pulled out carefully to miss the police officers and their cars. I turned onto the street and headed in the direction of Taylor Erin’s Savannah. We’d gone about two blocks when the questions started.

“I wonder what that was about,” Lynn said.

“Did she seem as worried to you and she did to me?” Erin asked.

“Yeah. Maybe the woman I hit with the bat is going to sue me for assault. Or the woman that had Margaret Erin. I’m pretty sure I broke her jaw ... at least.”

“Or maybe this church/school had some vengeful members or lawyers or worse,” Lynn added.

“Worse?” I asked.

“Zealots!” Lynn replied.

“The woman that was trying to run with Margaret Erin was saying she was trying to save her.”

“Great,” Lynn said. “Get us home, I need to get online and do some checking. Maybe the power of the purse can slow them down.”

As I approached the gate, it opened responding to the signal being sent out from the van at all times. I drove in and as the gate closed behind us, I drove to the spot next to the bus and stopped. By the time I turned off the motor, Lynn and Erin had begun to get the girls out of their car seats. Margaret Erin came around to the driver’s door and waited for me to get out.

“Come on, Daddy. Let’s go inside.”

“Let’s wait for your mother, Lynn Mom, and your sisters. Then we’ll go together.”

“OK, Daddy.”

“Are you afraid, Margaret Erin?”

“Yes, Daddy.”

“Don’t be, my little love. Anyone trying to take you will have to go through me first.”