Will I Go Crazy?

The Big Pill

The custom of "going on a retreat" has long been popular among Roman Catholics. A group of adults or sometimes teens would spend a weekend at a specially designated "retreat house" located in a quiet residential or bucolic area. There, they would pray, talk about their faith, sing and, in the case of teens, occasionally engage in social activities like roller-skating.

Sunday

There were a dozen tables in the huge retreat-house cafeteria. There were eight plates on each table. There was a big pill on each plate.

The high-school students, attending a weekend youth retreat, came in and sat down. Their bodies were stiff with tension.

Father Cushman, the retreat master, picked up the microphone. "Before you eat," he said, "you'd better take your pill." Then he waited.

Yvonne looked at the pill in front of her. Should she take it?

The Friday Before

Yvonne was a little nervous about attending the weekend retreat. She was painfully, hopelessly shy. If she had known what was in store for the teens who attended the retreat, she would not have considered going there at all. But she did not know, and she hoped that she would make friends during the weekend.

Father Cushman greeted each of the high-schoolers with a big hug as he or she arrived at the retreat house. The students all loved the warm reception. Except for Yvonne; she felt uncomfortable hugging a stranger.

Saturday

There were 207 people in the retreat-house gym, roller skating to music from an old stereo. But Sister Joseph knew that there should be 208. After checking off the young people on her list, she knew that Yvonne was missing.

Sister Joseph asked Dawn if she had seen Yvonne, who was Dawn's roommate. Dawn said that Yvonne didn't like roller skating and was going to stay in her room and read. Sister Joseph reported this to Father Cushman.

Father Cushman went up to Yvonne's room. He tapped on her door before he opened it. Yvonne's room was dark; he knew that she had not been reading. Gently, he asked if he could come in.

As Father Cushman's eyes became accustomed to the dark, he saw that Yvonne was lying on the bed. Her eyes were red and puffy. She covered the right side of her chin with her right hand.

"Why are you crying?" he asked.

"Because I'm ugly," Yvonne said. She hated crying in front of other people, but she broke into tears anyway.

Father Cushman couldn't understand why Yvonne thought that she was ugly until she took her hand away from her face to push herself into a sitting position. There on her chin was the biggest, reddest pimple he had ever seen.

"That pimple isn't going to be noticed by most of the kids, and it won't matter to the rest of them," he said. "There are lots of people down there who love you. Just come on down and have some fun!"

"But I don't know how to skate," Yvonne said.

So Father Cushman found two girls who stood on each side of Yvonne and held her up, "teaching" her how to skate. Yvonne didn't like it when they went fast, because that made death fantasies zip through her mind.

Meanwhile, there was a rumor circulating through the gym. As Yvonne took off her skates, she heard a boy tell Dawn that they were all going to go skydiving the next day. Skydiving! Was skydiving safe for teenagers? All the around the gym, Yvonne heard tense debate about the safety of skydiving.

"My mom doesn't know about any skydiving," a boy named Ivan said. "Shouldn't our parents be notified first?"

"Notified!" a girl named Sarah said. "Father Cushman should get their permission."

"I'm calling my mom right now," Dawn said. She left in search of a phone.

"Now everybody's acting as nervous as I've been feeling," Yvonne thought.

Sunday

The next day at breakfast, Father Cushman announced that the skydiving rumor was true. But he did not say, "Anybody who wants to go . . ." He just said that they would "all" go skydiving after supper.

Yvonne was suspicious, because Father Cushman had talked about the roller-skating event very differently -- as something fun, not an obligation or a dare.

As Sunday morning went by, everyone became more and more worried about the skydiving.

"I have a splitting headache," Dawn said as she and Yvonne sat in their room after lunch.

"I bet you're tense about going skydiving," Yvonne said. "Here, take some aspirin."

"You carry aspirin with you to retreats?"

"I carry it with me everywhere. I'm headache-prone.

"Then why don't you have a headache now?"

"Maybe because, now that everybody else is tense too, I feel better," Yvonne said.

After Dawn's headache had abated, she and Yvonne went back downstairs to join the others. The group was no longer joking or singing. Skydiving was the only thing on their minds, the only thing they could talk or pray about.

Sunday At Supper

On each plate was a big pill. Father Cushman explained that the pills were meant to prevent airsickness. Since they would all be skydiving after supper, they needed to take the pills now.

There was silence as the young people looked at the meds in front of them. Father Cushman waited. Yvonne thought that he was watching them all a little too closely.

Ivan said, "Oh, who cares?" and popped his pill into his mouth. A couple of girls who liked Ivan took their pills. Sarah, who had a crush on Father Cushman, took her pill. Twenty more students also took their pills just because they admired Father Cushman so much.

So many of the students had taken their pills by now that the rest of them were afraid that they would be laughed at if they didn't. Eventually, every student there had taken the big pill -- except for Yvonne. She was still looking around at the others, fascinated.

Then they started turning to look at her. Terrified, Yvonne picked up her pill.

But Yvonne had never taken a pill in her life. She had been taught that it's not a good idea to take any pill unless the doctor says that it's absolutely necessary.

Her hand shook with tension. She hated being laughed at, but she could not get over her suspicions; Father Cushman was up to something.

Yvonne put the pill back down on her plate. Although her lower lip was quivering, she was determined not to cry this time.

Father Cushman was baffled. The only one who had the courage to pass his little test was the one who had been hiding in her room the night before. He called her up to the front of the room. Yvonne wouldn't go.

Father Cushman quickly sensed why. "I'm not punishing you," he said. "Come on."

Slowly Yvonne walked to the front of the room. She hated the mean way the others were looking at her.

Father Cushman took the mic and explained that there would be no skydiving and that the pills were nothing but sugar. Then he lectured the teens on how gullible they had been. He told them that they needed to learn to take what people told them with a grain of salt.

"Yvonne," he said, "why didn't you believe the skydiving rumor?" He handed the mic to Yvonne.

"I did --" she said, then stopped, frightened by the unfamiliar echo-like sound the mic emitted.

"Go ahead," Father Cushman said.

"I did believe it," Yvonne said for all to hear. "Gullibility isn't the point. I just don't fit in." She handed the mic back to Father Cushman.

Father Cushman must have been angry, although he hid it well. The cafeteria was silent except for a few nervous titters. Everyone there knew how much trouble Yvonne was in. Only when Yvonne was out of sight of the priest did anyone talk to her.

"You do fit in!" one girl said. A few boys gave her high fives, grinning.

Dawn promised that she would call Yvonne the next day and be her friend forever. Several other girls took Yvonne's phone number too.

As her father drove her home, Yvonne smiled, thinking of the seven girls who were her friends now.

Not one of them ever called.

Home Page