Dad snorted, and looked up from “Jubilee” fat black ladies in choir robes on TV, bouncing around to gospel music. It was about 11:00 in the morning, and Dad was still in his pajamas.

I would have been too, but Mom had dragged us out of bed early so she could get us over to Dad’s apartment. I hated this. Not just getting up early on Saturday, driving half an hour to Dad’s in Chicago, but actually getting there, to this weird place with the little “kitchenette” stuck off to one side. Like you wouldn’t mind having a stove next to your bed. Dad didn’t even have a bed. He had a messy old mattress with messy old sheets piled on top. Not that I was so hot at making my bed, either. But at least if Mom had company, all I had to do was close my door and nobody’d see it. But this apartment had one room. One room for everything, just like jail.

Even in jail, they let you watch what you wanted on TV. I usually watched this one cartoon with fairies and talking animals and this handsome blond prince guy who played the guitar and wore bell-bottoms. But Dad laughed at it and said it was stupid until I turned it off. That’s when it really got like jail, because everything was all quiet and boring for a couple of hours until “Jubilee” came on, and that was worse, because you had to pretend you liked all these weird Jesus songs that people were yowling. “Isn’t this great?” Dad would say, clucking his tongue, singing along, yelling Hallelujah. He looked mad when I said yeah, because he could tell I wasn’t all worked up about it like he was. My brother Tony was always better at faking being enthusiastic.

Maybe Tony was still acting enthusiastic when I asked him if he wanted to come with me to Evanston. I was nine and he was six, and he listened to anyone older than he was. But everyone I knew was older than he was. Before we started out, I had a scared little voice in my head telling me that this walk business was probably not a great idea. I tried to reassure myself by getting Tony to go, as if he did, that would automatically make it a good idea.

“You’re going to what?” said Dad.

“We’re going to walk back to Evanston. That way you don’t have to listen to us complain,” I said, ready to laugh when he would. But he didn’t.

“Okay,” he said. I realized that I had wanted him to say no. I didn’t know what to say next.

“Well, when are you leaving?” he said, and his voice was all smooth. Just the sound of it said: Go ahead and be stupid. No skin off my nose. I gave in to the scared little voice in my head.

“Actually, we don’t want to anymore.”

“You said you would, so you’d better,” said Dad.

“Um... okay,” I said, swallowing. Even though Dad was saying it was okay, I still felt scared. But he would probably make fun of us if we didn’t, so...

“Have a good time,” said Dad. I could tell he was mad, and trying to hide it. His eyes looked like my stuffed tiger’s at home, kind of like marbles, sparkly and blank. “Jubilee” bounced around in his eyes, reflecting from the TV.

“Bye,” we said. In my head, I told the scared little voice to shut up, and we walked out into the gray sunlight. Another good reason to leave Chicago. Ugly light.

I knew the first place we had to get to was North Shore Drive. I found this with no problem, because Lake Michigan was nearby to the right. All we had to do was walk until we got to Sheridan Drive, then turn left, and then everything would be easy.

“Don’t be scared,” I told Tony, because he wasn’t talking, and the only time he didn’t talk was when he was scared. “It has to be longer walking than by car. We’re doing fine.” Part of the problem was that the sidewalk kept repeating itself, like we were in a cartoon, the same background over and over again. First there would be a straight part, then the sidewalk veered right, towards the lake, then back, then down into a little tunnel, then out. And all over again. I kept looking left into the distance for the short buildings of Evanston. Lots and lots of cartoon backgrounds went by, but the tall buildings stayed on our left.

Don’t be scared, I told myself.

“I hate those Jesus songs,” I said to Tony. If Tony would just start talking again, everything would be normal.

“Yeah,” he said.

“Religion is boring.” It’s not like we never got any, that was for sure. We had to go to church with Mom tomorrow, because she was the organist. And lots of times we had to hang around the church while she practiced, because she couldn’t get a babysitter. Boring. “Hey Tony. Know what’s weird? You know how Mom’s church music reminds me of old people, because the choir sings with those curly voices, but Jubilee has all that jumping around and shouting?”

“So?” he said.

“Isn’t it funny how Jubilee and Mom’s church are both boring, even though they’re supposed to be opposites?”

He looked unimpressed.

“I bet I know why they’re both boring,” I said.

“Because you have to keep quiet?”

“Yeah, but there’s even a reason for that.” I looked at him. “It’s boring because there’s no reason to be there, and it’s quiet because everybody has to pretend there is a reason.”

“You mean they don’t really like it?” said Tony. His eyes were wide. “Those church ladies smile all the time.”

“It’s because they believe in God, so they have to pretend they like church. They have to sing, or God will notice they aren’t and he’ll get mad.”

“You know,” I said, taking a deep breath, “you don’t have to believe in God.”

“Really?” Tony looked relieved, but then his eyes got wide again. “But what if you don’t believe in him, and he gets mad and throws you in hell? Can’t you believe just in case he’s there?” His voice had this begging sound in it, like he was talking to Dad. It annoyed me.

“Listen,” I said. “I already decided I don’t, because I tried really hard to obey all the rules in the Bible, and it’s too darn hard. Plus, the last thing I prayed for was that God would keep Mom and Dad from getting divorced.”

Tony looked down at the sidewalk. We stopped walking.

“So I decided God and Heaven and Hell don’t exist, because I’m tired of getting bossed around by some invisible guy who doesn’t care.”

“Well, what if they do... ex-ist?” he said, whining.“You can’t make a house disappear just by not believing in it.”

Dummy. “So? You can’t make God appear just by believing in him. And let’s put it this way. Mom was Dad’s wife, right? Well, when they got a divorce, she stopped being his wife. And they did that just by not believing in their marriage anymore, and by writing it down everywhere and telling everybody they knew. So don’t tell me that not believing doesn’t work.”

Tony sat down on the ground. I’m tired, I thought. Then I thought to myself: No I’m not. I don’t believe in tired. I felt my face twist into a sour grin. “Look,” shouted Tony, pulling himself to his feet. “Dad!”

Sure enough, there was Dad’s big red van from the 1930’s. You couldn’t miss it. 1930’s vans are pretty ugly, for one thing. Also, Dad had painted “Jesus is Lord” in huge yellow letters on both sides of the van. “Yep,” I said, relieved and scared. “Here comes the Godmobile.”

Tony was waving his arms so Dad would see us. “Quit it,” I told him. “He’s slowing down. You’re making us look stupid.”

The Eyesore of the Lord swerved towards the curb, slowed, and coughed to a stop. My chest felt tight. I realized I had forgotten to breathe since I saw the van. Tony was running towards it when the door opened, and Dad stepped out. Tony stopped running. His mouth fell open. He looked stupid, but I couldn’t blame him, because I knew my face had stretched into a dopey expression too – like a balloon that wasn’t expecting to be blown up.

Of course Dad was angry. Why the heck did we think we could walk to Evanston anyway? Man, am I stupid, I thought. Why did I ever have to think that dumb idea up? Now he was walking towards us with a funny, tight jiggle in his walk, kind of like police when they’re busting a speeder. His keys jingled on his belt, the big wide leather belt that said “Maranatha – The Lord Cometh.”

His face looked like a stone mask with a bomb behind it. I had to say sorry quick, before his whole face blew up.

“We’re sorry, Dad,” I blurted out. “It was a stupid idea. We can’t do this. Sorry. Please take us back.”

“Yeah,” Tony chimed in. “Sorry, Dad. We won’t do it again.”

Dad quit walking towards us and stared at us. “Well,” he said. The wind blew. My hair flipped over my face. I wiped it away blindly.

“You’re right,” said Dad calmly. “It was a stupid idea. And you’re going to find out how stupid, so you won’t ever do it again.”

“What do you mean?” I mumbled. It came out Wharyumen. Start working, tongue, I thought.

“Speak up,” he said. His lips were tight.

“Please take us back. We didn’t mean to.”

“You didn’t mean to what?”

“Um... to be stupid.” My legs felt all wobbly. Maranatha. The Lord Cometh. I was staring at the belt.

I made myself look up at the stone head. “You made a decision,” it said. “And you’re going to stick with it.”

“I don’t want to anymore,” wailed Tony. He was smart enough not to cry. “I want to go back with you. You can punish me if you want. Just take me back.”

“Me too,” I said. We came up close to him, holding out our hands, hoping he would realize how stupid we were and let us come home.

“I think you better start walking,” he said. He turned away, and got in the van. Tony kept following him.

“Don’t stand in front of the van. Get out of the way,” called Dad as he started the engine. Tony ran back to the curb. We watched the Jalopy of Jesus pull away creaking, rambling off until it was a round speck in the distance. “Let’s go,” I said to Tony. The words were hard in my mouth, each word a little stone that came off the boulder in my stomach. My eyes felt like they were very round and bright and empty. Bugging out of my head, like my stuffed tiger’s. No crying.

We walked, the lake to the right, the tall buildings to the left. The cartoon background rolled on, rolled on under our feet. I don’t know how much later it was when I saw the sign. Sheridan Street.

Street? I thought. Wasn’t it Drive? Maybe I remembered wrong. Anyway, it’s Sheridan. And I’m... not tired. I’m bored. Close enough. We took one of the tunnels and turned left, to walk under North Shore Drive, instead of going up for more cartoon background. We came out onto the sidewalk, in the gray shadows of the tall buildings.

Sheridan Street plodded on, on, on and didn’t change into Evanston, even though the buildings were smaller. It didn’t matter. I knew it was still Chicago. The shadows were too big, and there weren’t any trees, except for little stringy ones that looked like overcooked vegetables. People stared at us, because of my Barbie suitcase. A man came up to me and said something in Spanish. I was glad I looked in a Spanish book once, because I knew how to say “No comprendo.“ Unfortunately, I had to say it a lot before he went away.

“I got an idea,” I said to Tony. “Let’s go get a Coke.” Tony nodded.

There was a store at a corner with light green letters spelling “Luncheonette.” Kitchenette, I thought, and felt bad. The floor was made out of dirty tiles. There was a soda fountain counter, and behind it a man with a little white hat. He was surprised to see us. “Hi,” I said. He just looked at us.

“We’re lost,” I told him. “Can you call a policeman, please?” He gave us free Cokes while he called Mom’s house. Nobody home. Then he called Dad’s apartment. Nope. I finished my Coke and there was a police car slowing down outside.

I was relieved and scared again. I wanted to stay at the Coke man’s store, but I guess he had to clean up the store and get other people’s Cokes and that kind of stuff. “Are you running away?” the policeman asked me, looking down at me suspiciously.

My Barbie suitcase! Now I was really scared. I thought, They are going to put me in jail if they think I am. Real jail, not just a kitchenette with Jubilee. I said no, but I felt like I was lying, because they kept looking at me funny. I couldn’t stop looking at their belts, big wide leather ones with guns and handcuffs and sticks hanging from them. My voice went high and low as I explained that I couldn’t possibly be running away, since I had no clothes in the suitcase. It was just for my diary and books. Plus, why would we have called the police if I were running away?

They told us to come with them. We climbed in their car and we went to the police station. We sat down in a big green cave of a waiting room. There were lights everywhere, but the place was still dark. Telephones rang over and over again, like a cartoon background for my ears.

Unfortunately, I had read all the books in my suitcase, and I sure didn’t feel like writing in my diary in front of everybody. There was a TV on a desk across from us, playing a sports game. Nobody was paying attention to it. I wished someone would turn it off, but I was too scared to ask. I stared at it until I couldn’t see it anymore.

“Your mother’s coming to get you,” said a voice. A policeman with two styrofoam boxes. McDonald’s.

“Thanks,” I said. I felt embarrassed; wondered if the policeman had paid for it. “Sorry,” I told him.

“For what?”

“That you had to spend your money.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. His mouth went up a little on one side. A policeman smile.

Mother’s coming to get you. Good. Bad. Not that I wanted to stay in the big cave. But she was definitely going to be mad. I was nervous already.

She came. She was mad. She turned on the charm for the police, and thanked them up and down until they got embarrassed. Then we left with her. She didn’t say a word to either of us. We climbed into Mom’s banana-yellow Datsun. In the silence, the engine starting was like the whole world exploding. We drove and drove, and Mom turned left on Sheridan Drive.

“It was Drive,” I muttered to myself. We could have avoided the whole thing if I had just turned on Drive. I am so stupid.... I thought.

“What?” Mom said. Mad. Mad. Mad.

“Sorry we were so darn stupid,” I said.

“Don’t – you – tell – me – sorry,” she yelled. Each word was like a slap in the face. Her eyes wouldn’t meet mine in the rear-view mirror. I looked at my knees. All I wanted to see from now on were my knees. “Your goddamn father was sitting on our kitchen floor fixing a goddamn vacuum cleaner. Fiddling around with the little parts. ’Where are the kids, Abe?’ ’I donno,’ ” she said, imitating him in her dummy voice. “ ’I donno.’ ” She laughed, and it came out crazy, like a dog yelping. She jerked at the steering wheel of the Datsun, and it swerved expertly off the road. She was still laughing big deep thumpy laughs, when her mouth just opened, and she stared at the windshield without making a sound. A tiny little noise came out of her mouth, like this: “Mew.”

A funny picture came into my head: my stuffed tiger, only it was alive. The stuffing in it creaked. Its legs were twitching around, but it was sewn in one position and couldn’t really move. But the red thread that was its mouth split, and the tiger’s small jaws opened. It tried to roar, but it was only a stuffed tiger. It had no teeth.

“Mew...” Its little eyes sparkled, bulged. No tears. Tigers do not believe in them.

When we got home, I took the little tiger and spent the rest of the night in my closet. Nobody locked me in. I just wanted to be there, with no lights on, so that nobody could see my stupid face. I wondered if Dad had been as scared as I was, when Mom yelled at him for losing us. He must have looked just like me, some dumb kid getting yelled at, and not knowing what to say. It must have been double embarrassing, because he was not a kid.

But then I thought: Maybe he was acting like one, even if he was supposed not to be. But somebody has to be a grownup, or people get lost.

I left the little tiger in the closet.