“It’s not bad. Parallels and Discrepancies Between Amish and Orthodox Jewish Lifestyles by Judith Hostetler Cohen. Is she related to your cook?”
“Somehow. And to me. Virtually all Hostetlers in the country are descendants of one man, Jacob Hochstetler, who immigrated to America from Switzerland in 1738. In fact, about eighty percent of all Amish are somehow related through this one man, as are heaps of Mennonites.”
“Even Jeff Hostetler, the former Giants’ quarterback?”
“Yes.” I knew nothing about football, but Susannah did, and Jeff Hostetler’s kinship had already been established.
“Bad,” said Joel.
“Pardon me?”
Joel smiled patiently. “Bad means good.”
“So you didn’t like the book then?”
Joel laughed. “No, the book was okay. ‘Bad’ and ‘bad’ mean two different things.”
“I see.” Of course I didn’t.
Joel held out a little brown sack of sunflower seeds and offered them to me. “Want some?”
“No, thanks. Are you still hungry?” There were plenty of raw carrots and apples in the kitchen I could offer him instead.
“Naw. I had some ‘peach jerky’ and kelp cookies up in my room. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Munch away,” I said. “You are, after all, on the Amish Lifestyle Plan, so I trust you’ll clean up all the crumbs.” I wasn’t worried anyway. Despite the fact that he was dressed in some homespun-looking fabric, and was wearing plastic sandals with navy blue socks, Joel Teitlebaum was impeccably neat.
“I hear that you’ve discovered our purpose for being here, Miss Yoder.”
I sat down in the easy chair nearest him. “And how did you hear that?” I had left Billy and Linda safely in the dining room just minutes before.
He took some shells out of his mouth and started stacking up another neat pagoda. “I couldn’t help hearing when I was in my room. The Congressman and his aide were in the hallway, and they didn’t exactly keep their voices down. The Congressman, for one, seemed pretty ticked.”
“What exactly did he say?”
“Enough to tell me that we’re going to have to get up pretty early in the morning to keep track of them.” His tone was only slightly accusing.
“How early?”
“Just early. They didn’t say when they planned to sneak out.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “I’ll have a vegetarian breakfast all prepared for you by seven,” I offered. I am a firm believer in at least postponing any confrontation that I can’t stop.
“Can you make it six instead?”
“Six-thirty.” I felt like I was bargaining away one of my quilts.
“Okay, I'll tell the others. Say, how much snow are we expecting by morning, anyway?”
“Not any that I know of. Why?” The last weather report I’d heard had called for fair skies with a low of thirty-eight and pockets of scattered frost in low-lying areas. Of course that forecast might have been from a week ago.
“I thought I heard the Congressman say something about snow.” He glanced down at his plastic sandals. “I just didn’t want to have to go tramping about in the snow in these things. They’re the only shoes I brought with me. Got caught up in one of my sculptures and packed kind of quickly,” he added sheepishly.
“If it does snow, I can lend you a pair of galoshes,” I offered gallantly.
“But Miss Yoder,” he said laughing, “I wear a size twelve. Men’s twelve. I doubt if even your feet are that big.”
“Thank you, sort of. But these aren’t mine really— these were my father’s.”
“In that case, thank you. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“No offense taken. Well, speaking of feet, I’m dead on mine. If you want to tell the others about breakfast, young Linda and Mr. Grizzle are still in the dining room quilting away like they were at a bee.”
“Linda and Billy?” He sounded genuinely surprised, but recovered quickly and said good night. I got the impression he would continue reading until milking time. Young people these days don’t seem to need any sleep. It must be all that fluoride they’ve been getting in their water.
As I closed the door behind me, all I could think about was crawling into my warm, snuggly bed. Then I remembered that I was going to have to share my bed and choked back a yelp of dismay.
Chapter 8
If you’ve never had to share a bed with Susannah, count yourself lucky. I hate to say this about my own sister, but unfortunately each year fewer and fewer people can count themselves lucky. Of course I don’t share Susannah’s bed in the same way these people do, but, still, I feel a weird sort of bond with them.