Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage

the local paper. One every couple of weeks, signed “Concerned Parent” or “Christian Taxpayer” or “Where Do We Go From Here?” They were well written, neatly paragraphed, competently argued, as if they might all have come from one delegated hand. They made the point that not all parents could afford the fees for the private Christian school, and yet all parents paid taxes. Therefore they deserved to have their children educated in the public schools in a way that was not offensive to, or deliberately destructive of, their faith. In scientific language, some explained how the record had been misunderstood and how discoveries that seemed to support evolution actually confirmed the Biblical account. Then came citing of Bible texts that predicted this present-day false teaching and its leading the way to the abandonment of all decent rules of life.
    In time the tone changed; it grew wrathful. Agents of the Antichrist in charge of the government and the classroom. The claws of Satan stretched out towards the souls of children, who were actually forced to reiterate, on their examinations, the doctrines of damnation.
    “What is the difference between Satan and the Antichrist, or is there one?” said Nina. “The Quakers were very remiss about all that.”
    Lewis said that he could do without her treating all this as a joke.
    “Sorry,” she said soberly. “Who do you think is really writing them? Some minister?”
    He said no, it would be better organized than that. A masterminded campaign, some central office, supplying letters to be sent from local addresses. He doubted if any of it had started here, in his classroom. It was all planned, schools were targeted, probably in areas where there was some good hope of public sympathy.
    “So? It’s not personal?”
    “That’s not a consolation.”
    “Isn’t it? I’d think it would be.”
    Someone wrote “Hellfire” on Lewis’s car. It wasn’t done with spray paint—just a finger-tracing in the dust.
    His senior class began to be boycotted by a minority of students, who sat on the floor outside, armed with notes from their parents. When Lewis began to teach, they began to sing.

All things bright and beautiful
All creatures great and small
All things wise and wonderful
The Lord God made them all—

    The principal invoked a rule about not sitting on the hall floor, but he did not order them back into the classroom. They had to go to a storage room off the gym, where they continued their singing—they had other hymns ready as well. Their voices mingled disconcertingly with the hoarse instructions of the gym teacher and the thump of feet on the gym floor.
    On a Monday morning a petition appeared on the Principal’s desk and at the same time a copy of it was delivered to the town newspaper office. Signatures had been collected not just from the parents of the children involved but from various church congregations around the town. Most were from fundamentalist churches, but there were some from the United and Anglican and Presbyterian churches as well.
    There was no mention of hellfire in the petition. None whatever of Satan or the Antichrist. All that was requested was to have the Biblical version of creation given equal time, considered respectfully as an option.
    “We the undersigned believe that God has been left out of the picture too long.”
    “That’s nonsense,” Lewis said. “They don’t believe in equal time—they don’t believe in options. Absolutists is what they are. Fascists.”

    Paul Gibbings had come round to Lewis and Nina’s house. He didn’t want to discuss the matter where spies might be listening. (One of the secretaries was a member of the Bible Chapel.) He hadn’t much expectation of getting around Lewis, but he had to give it a try.
    “They’ve got me over the bloody barrel,” he said.
    “Fire me,” said Lewis. “Hire some stupid bugger of a creationist.
    The son of a bitch is enjoying this, Paul thought. But he controlled himself. What he seemed mostly to do these days was control himself.
    “I didn’t come over here to talk about that. I mean a lot of people will think this bunch is just being reasonable. Including people on the Board.”
    “Make them happy. Fire me. March in Adam and Eve.”
    Nina brought them coffee. Paul thanked her and tried to catch her eye, to see where she stood on this. No go.
    “Yeah sure,” he said. “I couldn’t do that if I wanted to. And I don’t want to. The Union would be