The Valley Worker

Chapter 1
I lay there in bed, wondering about what was going to happen, now that Mama didn’t have a job. Clarissa was still in Mexico with Papa, and they haven’t sent us any information or money. How were Mama, Teddy, and I supposed to survive when we barley have any money?
I smoothed out Cocoa’s dark chocolate fur as I listened to Mama’s soothing whisper and Teddy’s frightened one in the other small room.
Teddy is only four, so he gets even more scared than me.
I was just stroking the top of Cocoa’s velvet nose when I heard Mama call my name. I clumsily slid out of bed and shoved my feet into my green striped slippers. Then, I walked through the darkness into the next room.
Mama was singing a lullaby to Teddy. She has such a beautiful voice, I just wanted to stand outside the door and listen to her sing. All of the sudden, Mama called me again, this time in more of a harsh tone. I scurried into the room, tripping over my baby blue robe. She was holding Teddy, asleep in her arms. She said, “Put Theodore to bed, then come back.” I did as I was told and hurried back to Mama’s bedroom.
Mama was laying on her bed, her head propped up by a couple of pillows, and she smiled faintly as I walked back in. “Come and sit,” she said, patting the space on her bed next to her. I sat down and she started to talk.
“Anna, you are twelve, an age where you should know what is happening with our family. Your father has ...... has been , well, kidnapped.”
“Kidnapped!” I almost screamed the word. “By who!”
“Anna!” Mama said in a harsh tone. “Be quiet! You’ll wake Theodore. As I was saying, he was taken because, being a missionary, he made quite a few enemies. So, one day, when he was taking a walk with Clarissa, a truck drove up beside them and stopped. Papa had a bad feeling about the truck, so he hurriedly told Clarissa to slip into the tree-buried ditch beside the road. Just as she was about to protest, two men got out of the truck. She didn’t like the look of the men, so she slipped into the ditch as she was told. Moments after she did, one of the men muttered to the other man to do something. Clarissa could not hear him, but she didn’t like the way he whispered. After a few minutes of the men whispering, they walked up to Papa, took his arms, and dragged him into their truck. Clarissa screamed ‘Papa!’ and watched with horror as the men took Papa away. Right after she screamed, one of the men looked her way, whispered something to the other man, and started running towards her. She started running, too. “What happened next, Mama?” I questioned. “She barely escaped that man.” Mama shook her head and sighed. “That was all Clarissa told me in her letter. Now hurry back to bed.”
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Chapter 2
Two days later, I was walking to school with my best friend, Kelly. “Anna,” she said. “you don’t look like yourself today. Is something the matter?” Glad to have somebody to talk to about my family troubles, I quickly retold the story. “What are you guys going to do about it?” Kelly questioned.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “I need to ask Mama about it.” We didn’t talk any more until we got to school.
Once we got to school, our schedule was the same. First, second, and third period, then lunch. Since Kelly and I don’t have any classes together, lunch was the only time we got to talk.
Kelly had told our other close friends my story as well.
“Are you all right?” Those were the first words out of Dani’s mouth. She always was the one to be there for me when I wasn’t doing so well.
“Is Clarissa coming home?” Samantha asked. Clarissa had been hers, Kelly’s, and Dani’s baby-sitter when they had been young. That is how we all knew each other, and we were all very attached to her.
“I don’t know, Sam. Mama wasn’t able to tell me any more than was in the letter Lissy sent, and from what I can tell, it only told what happened, not what is going to happen.”
“Oh.” Sam never likes not knowing what is happening. It makes her feel insecure, she once told me.
Then the bell rang. Lunch is never long enough for us to really talk.
We said our good-byes, then went to our next class.
The next few weeks went along like this. Then it came.
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Chapter 3
The notice arrived exactly one month and three days after Papa had been kidnapped. It said that if we didn’t pay the remainder of our rent within the week, we would have to move. I liked our landlord, and I knew he couldn’t give us any more time than he already had, but I still couldn’t believe that we only had one week to either make thirty thousand dollars, or move somewhere else. It was well known that most missionary families had to face problems like this eventually, but our family had never had a problem with money until Papa was taken. Clarissa was still trying to earn enough money for a trip back home, and now we couldn’t pay the rent. Everything I had gotten used to with Papa being gone, and then Clarissa going with him, was now a total mess. Teddy had still not quite gotten over them being gone, and he didn’t even know what had happened to Papa yet. Mama wasn’t sure that we should because he gets so scared so easily. Once I read the letter, I ran up to my room and cried. Cocoa followed me.
“Oh, Cocoa! What’ll we do?” As I cried to him, he jumped on my bed with me and laid down by my side. I set my head down next to his and smiled. It was a real blessing to still have Cocoa, since we almost had to get rid of him a few years ago. Mama had said that he was too much trouble, but he was still a puppy then. We got him at a local animal rescue center near our house when I was seven. I was able to pick him out myself, and we hadn’t been more than a few miles apart since.
I listened to Cocoa’s steady breathing for a few minutes, then sat up straight and picked up my journal from beside my bed. I wrote down almost everything in this book, and it was very important to me. Papa had given it to me after one of his first mission trips. It had a very dark blue cover and was spiral-bound. On the front, in fancy gold lettering, read my name:
Annabelle Melody Harwood.
I passed my finger over each letter tenderly, picturing in my mind the day Papa gave it to me.
It had been sunny and very warm. Papa had gotten home only a day before, so he was still very tired. I could almost feel the heat on my skin as I imagined myself, as I had so many times before, when I had walked over to him as he sat on the porch swing. I saw his smile, and was just about to call out to him when I heard a loud crash, then Mama yelling.
“Annabelle!!!” I could tell she was mad, because she used my full name, not just “Anna.” I jumped up off my bed and realized quickly that Cocoa had already left my room to see what all the noise was about.
“Annabelle Melody Harwood! Get out here NOW!!!” Mama called to me once more, and I came fully out of my daze just as I reached the door into our kitchen. As I walked in to the room with Mama, though, I wished suddenly that I hadn’t.
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Chapter 4
On the tile floor of out kitchen lay the remains of two cereal boxes, a whole carton of eggs, and one loaf of homemade bread.
“So......” Mama gave me a chance to say something, but I just stood there, speechless. After a few moments of silence, she began the lecture.
“That is almost an entire weeks’ worth of food! Now, we’re down to just one half-full box of cereal and a few eggs! I’m not even sure that I’ll be able to make us another loaf of bread for your lunches tomorrow!”
“How....” It was all I could get out. I was still in shock from the thought of having lost all of this food.
“Your dog, of course! He ran into me as I was carrying in the groceries, and before I knew it, he had torn apart one of the bags I had dropped. He had already been working on that bread, which I presume he helped himself to, right off the counter. Everything else came out of that bag. Luckily, I was able to salvage the other bags, but these are completely RUINED!!!” She shouted the last word at me and I flinched. I really couldn’t believe that Cocoa had done all this. I had only left him alone for what felt like a minute or two, and he had gotten himself into all this! Now I wasn’t sure what to do, so I just kind of stared at the mess a little bit longer.
“So, what are you going to do about it?” Mama spoke sternly, interrupting my thoughts.
“Ummmmm......” I couldn’t even think straight enough to give her and answer, so I turned to look at her helplessly.
She just stared at me, as though she couldn’t believe I was still there. “Well, I’ll give you a hint, then. How about you start cleaning up! We’ll deal with the dog after this mess is taken care of.”
With that, I moved slowly forward toward the pile of cardboard and food that I could hardly identify anymore. As I cleaned, I couldn’t stop thinking, Cocoa, MY Cocoa, did this. After all my hard work training him, I thought he was finally out of his puppy stage. But now this.......What is Mama gonna do to him? I didn’t let my thoughts go any farther than that. I wasn’t going to let anything happen to Cocoa, especially after everything going on with Papa and Clarissa.
Mama came back into the room just as I was finishing mopping the floor. I had already filled up an entire trash bag with all of the pieces of cardboard, then used paper towels to wipe up any big piles of the cereal-egg-bread mixture. Now I was just mopping up anything that I hadn’t been able to clean by hand.
“I’m going to pick up your brother now. Have everything clean by the time I get back. And DON’T let that dog of yours get into anything else!” She gave me a warning look, then headed out the door.
I finished my mopping, then sat down on the couch and sighed. This can’t be happening! I thought. Cocoa’s a good dog, and Mama loves him too. She wouldn’t make me get rid of him! She just couldn’t.....