The Secrets of the Rosary

Jason Learns Submission to God's Will

Jason first met Cassandra the day before Mr. Jenkins was mauled to death.

It had been a rather typical day to begin with. He had Mr. Jenkins' class third period and when Mr. Jenkins had announced, "I graded your Grammar tests, as usual they waere quite good except for one. Guess who?"

For a moment, Jason had dared to hyope that it migh be someone other thatn the expected but the class had merrily chimed, "Jason Davis" in unison and Mr. Jenkins had smiled grimly as he put the test on Jason's desk.

"42, Davis," he had said. "That's lousy even for you."

Jason wanted to go crawl into hole and die, but he knew that he couldn't, so he just sat quietly until the end of the period.

Fourth period was Lunch. Jason sat in the cafeteria by himself. Every once in a while, someone from his English class would stop by his table to jeer at "Mr. 42", but Jason would try to ignore them.

Lunch was about half over when someone else stopped at his table. It was a girl that he had never seen before. She had dark red--almost brown--hair, and her skin was a very pale white. She was wearing a purple tie-dye shirt and around her neck, there were several silver chains and necklaces.

"Hello," she said, "Are you in Jenkins' morning class?"

Jason frowned. "How would you know that?"

She smiled. "I'm afraid the whole school knows tt. Anyway, I'm in his afternoon class. My name's Cassandra, and I hate Mr. Jenkins just as much as you do."

Jason wasn't sure what to say to that. In a way, it made him feel good. Like he wasn't completely alone. But something about hearing that comment from a stranger was a little bit disturbing.

Without being asked, Cassandra sat down at his table. "Wouldn't it be nice if we could do something about Mr. Jenkins?"

"Like what? Complain to the principal? Or take up one of those petitions to get him fired?" Jason sighed. "I never believed that much in those things. One thing I've learned about parents and principals is that they alsways take the teachers' side when kids complain."

"God, no!" Cassandra made a face. "I agree one hundred per cent with that." She paused. "You know, Cassandra is also my Confirmation name."

"Oh. You're Catholic?"

"Yep. And you must be too, if you know what a Confirmation name is."

"Right, but I don't hink I've ever heard of St. Cassandra."

"Well, she was great. She was the patron of people who don't take s***."

Jason blushed. "There's no such. . ."

"Oh but there is! Even if the teachers in religion class don't like to talk about it. See Cassandra lived at at time when the universe was all messed up. But she went out on this quest and found the pages to an ancient book. And once she found the pages, she was able to fix the universe and make it the way it is today.

* * *

When he got home from school that day, Jason went into the kitchen and tore open a bag of corn chips.He was just about to pour a glassof juice when a voice said, "Aha! it hought I heard a crunc/crunch and where there's a crunch/crunch, there's usually a Jason."

Jason smiled. it was his older sister, Beth. The?se days, it seemed like she was one of the few people that had anything nice to say to him.

"So how was your day?" asked Beth.

"The usual," Jason sighed.

"Is that bad?"

"Do you really have to ask me that?" Jason paused again. "You know, I hate being me."

"You don't mean that," said Beth gently.

"Yeah, I do. I'm no good at school. I'm lousy at sports. And I'm pretty ugly, too."

Beth put her hand on Jason's shoulder. "You need to stop talking that way. God made you the way that you are, and he loves you."

"God?" Jason hated when his sister started getting religious epecially ata atime like this, and normally he would have gotten angry with her, but this time, it reminded him of something else that had happened that day. So he calmed down a little bit and said, "Do you know anything about St. Cassandra?"

Beth frowned. "That doesn't sound familiar. Why do you ask?"

Jason told her about meeting Cassandra at lunch that day. That made Beth smile. "Was she pretty?"
.
Jason felt his cheeks turning red. "Well, kind of."

Beth's smile turned conspiratorial. "Maybe it's not so bad being you after all."

"Well maybe, but, let me tell you what she said. . ." Jason went summarized his conversation When he got to the part about Cassandra being the patron of "people who don't take s***", Beth stopped smiling and swiped his hand.

"That's not funny!" she said. Then she pulled out her cell phone and did a search. "Well, according to this , there is no Catholic saint named 'Cassandra'. Apparently there's one in the Orthodox church, but that's something else. And, of course, there's no such thing as the "patron saint of people who don'tt take stuff.

"So why would she tell me that?"

"I don't know. I'm not so sure I like the sound of this girl, Jason."

* * *

The next day, the newspapers carried the story about hoe Paul Jenkins, teacher at the local middle school, had died. The death was as mysterious as it was tragic. His body was found outside his house. It appeared that the previous nigh something had attacked him and chewed his body.