Read Popped Off for Free Online

lifted his chin in my direction. “The e-mails. Check the e-mails.”
    “Why?”
    “You may find some things.”
    “I thought you said you didn’t look at them.”
    He headed for the door. “I say a lot of things, Stilts.”

10
    Before I could skim the e-mails, Carly bounced out of the pool area, needing a towel and dry clothes. I supplied both, and we were out the door in less than ten minutes, as I didn’t feel the need to stand there and brush out her hair and make her pageant ready, like the other parents did with their children.
    “Daddy, we’re going to camp now, right?” Carly asked, chomping on a bagful of Cheez-Its I’d brought along for quick nourishment.
    “Yep.”
    “At that church, right?”
    “Yep. At that church.”
    “That church” was one of the mega-sized churches that seemed to pop up daily in the Dallas suburbs. I was pretty sure the only thing people in Texas liked more than barbecue was going to church. Julianne and I were indifferent to them—except when they created traffic and we were trying to go out to breakfast on a Sunday morning—but Carly hadn’t stopped talking about going to that church since Audrey invited her to attend vacation Bible school.
    Vacation Bible schools were a tradition in the South, and they were less about the Bible than they were about being summer camps. Swimming, games, sports, and crafts, all sprinkled with a generous dusting of Jesus. And they were usually dirt cheap. So as long as Carly wasn’t being brainwashed by some sort of religious cult, I didn’t mind her spending a few hours at a VBS.
    I pulled the minivan into the massive parking lot of New Spirit Fellowship Church. When I say massive, I mean the size of about three football fields. The church itself was more of a campus, with numerous buildings, fountains, athletic fields, and the massive main church, all metal and glass with high-angled rooflines. It was an impressive structure, and I was pretty sure that, like Cowboys Stadium, it was large enough for God to spot from Heaven.
    We walked into the mammoth vestibule. A long table was set up, with a bevy of smiling faces behind it, beckoning us in. We stepped up to a lady wearing a giant smile and a pink baseball cap with a bejeweled cross on it.
    “Well, good morning!” she greeted us. “How are we today?”
    “We are fine,” Carly announced.
    Pink Cross Hat directed her energy at Carly. “And are we ready for camp?”
    “Yes, we are.”
    “And are we ready to have a fantastic time?”
    Carly turned to me. “Daddy, why does she keep saying ‘we’? I don’t even know her.”
    I wanted to tell her because people thought using the first person was a cute way to build camaraderie, but that it just made people sound silly. I refrained.
    “Probably because she’s part of the camp,” I told her. I looked at the woman. “Last name is Winters.”
    Her smile did not fade at Carly’s interrupting her cavalcade of we’s, and she pressed on. “Well, of course you are.” She scanned the list and her finger stopped. “There we are. Miss Carly Winters.”
    Carly beamed.
    “And is Audrey Risberg here yet?” I asked. “They’re buddies, and Audrey invited her to come this week.”
    She scanned the list, then shook her head. “No, it doesn’t appear as if she’s here yet. But I’m sure the Lord will have her here any moment!”
    I pictured the Lord pulling up in a minivan. I wondered if the Son of God would prefer a foreign or domestic model.
    The woman handed Carly a name tag and a bright red T-shirt that exclaimed SUPER SUMMER FUN TIME ! The letter T was in the shape of a cross. I felt my skepticism rising at being surrounded by all this religion but managed to keep my mouth closed.
    She pointed in the direction of Carly’s group leader, and we weaved our way through the crowd of parents and children. The leader’s name was Elizabeth, and she was an older teenager sporting the same T-shirt Carly had just been handed. She welcomed