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paraphernalia.
    “Here, let me help,” Ashley Richards said,
dumping the contents of Vera Weaver’s purse onto the floor.
    It was during those few frantic seconds when
Kenneth and Ashley were rummaging for nitroglycerin pills that Vera
Weaver spoke and took us all by surprise. Nobody was really sure
what she was saying. The words were indecipherable and obviously
part of a foreign language. Her eyelids fluttered like the wings of
hummingbirds and she twitched a little with each syllable, as if
she were holding a live wire in each hand.
    “Not now,” Jake Weaver muttered, thrusting
his hands into his pockets and turning his back on the whole
situation. “Not now. This isn’t even Sunday.”
    I think I was the only one who heard him, and
I had absolutely no idea what he meant by that. Yet, it was clear
by the way he said it that this wasn’t the first time Vera Weaver
had done this sort of thing.
    “What’s she saying?” Steven asked.
    “I think she’s speaking in tongues,” Pete
said in a shaky voice. “This sounds a lot like what used to happen
in those services my grandmother took me to.”
    “She’s done it before,” Jake replied.
    “Hush, boy,” Jesse Weaver snapped at his son.
Wisely, Jake closed his mouth.
    “Here are the pills,” Kenneth exclaimed,
fumbling with the top of the medicine bottle. After a few seconds
with no results, Ashley took the pill bottle away from him and
popped the lid.
    Once they had gotten one of the nitroglycerin
pills under Vera Weaver’s tongue, the convulsions and strange
mutterings stopped. She was able to sit up after a few minutes of
lying there. She was still a little pale and trembling like a
geriatric in a nursing home. Nonetheless, she was alive. Given the
amount of death around us, that was no small feat.
    Vera Weaver obviously needed immediate
medical attention, but that was out of the question at the moment.
Jesse Weaver looked relieved to see that his wife was still alive,
but it was also clear by the worried expression on his face that he
knew she wasn’t out of the woods yet.
    “What are you people looking at?” he shouted.
"My wife's sick. Haven't you ever seen anyone that was sick before?
This ain’t a freak show."
    Wisely, we gave him all the space he needed.
Kenneth and Jake stayed by their mother’s side, looking solemn and
hardly like the delinquents they were. In fact, none of them, Jesse
included, seemed quite so tough or menacing anymore now that Vera
was on the verge of death. We walked away from them, going in
search of whatever had made the explosion. I waited until we were
out of earshot before grilling Pete.
    “Explain what just happened back there,” I
said. “You thought Vera Weaver was speaking in tongues. What does
that mean?” The group stopped, waiting to hear what the plumber had
to say.
    “It’s hard to explain,” he replied. “Speaking
in tongues, from my experience, is usually an ability of those who
are most dedicated to their beliefs. It usually happens during an
extreme religious encounter, and it’s generally thought that the
words spoken are a message from God. The person speaking is simply
the conduit used to transmit the broadcast. Some denominations
think that the language is the language that the angels speak.”
    “If that was a message from God,” Terry
interjected, “it won’t do us much good. We don’t speak that
language.”
    Pete sighed. “I’ve had only limited contact
with this sort of thing. I got my exposure to religion while
spending summers with my grandmother. I’m really no expert.
However, the way it usually works is that one person speaks in
tongues, then another person in the congregation gives a
translation of the message. That, too, is given by God.”
    “So where’s the translation?” Steven
asked.
    “I thought you knew all about God,” Chuck
said.
    “I was raised a Baptist. We never spoke in
tongues at our church, but -”
    It was almost like Steven had given