Shining Night Read online

  Dad finished the call by saying, “Talk to you soon,” and hung up.

  Ashton looked at me and said, “It’s okay, Lena. She’ll call back.”

  I guess she could see the disappointment on my face. I smiled to let her know I appreciated her for trying to cheer me up.

  The rest of the evening dragged on. I finished my homework—still no phone call from Mallory. We ate dinner and did our family devotions with still no phone call from Mallory. We took showers and got ready for bed— still no phone call from Mallory.

  Mom and Dad called everyone to my room to say goodnight. Dad sat next to me on the edge of the bed and pulled me in close to him. He whispered, “For tonight, all we can do is pray.”

  Chapter 2

  I tossed and turned most of the night. So many thoughts swirled around in my head. I prayed and I knew we would talk to Mallory soon, but no matter how hard I tried I could not stop my brain from thinking of ways I could help. I could set up a lemonade stand, make bracelets, write letters to my friends and family, and even create a huge sign and attach it to our front door and our car! That way people could learn about Caroline’s situation and give money no matter where we were.

  When I wasn’t thinking of new ideas, I was picturing Caroline’s face. I remembered visiting the hospital that day with Mallory. Seeing the kids smile when they saw us made that one of the best days ever. Now I couldn’t get Caroline’s face out of my head. She probably wasn’t smiling anymore. I could not imagine how scared she and her family must be, and I was even more determined that I needed to help them somehow.

  As soon as I saw the sun peeking from behind the clouds and through the curtains the next morning, I sat up in my bed. It felt like I hadn’t slept at all, though the drool on my pillow told me otherwise.

  I wiped my face, jumped out of bed, and hurried down the hall and to my parents’ room to tell them my ideas. I lightly tapped on their door and waited for a response.

  “Come in.” Mom’s voice was raspy and low.

  I pushed the door open and cautiously took two steps forward.

  “Good morning, Lena,” Dad said with a big yawn.

  I climbed in bed between my parents and started talking.

  Mom laid her head back on her pillow, listened, and smiled.

  Dad sat up on the edge of the bed. “Lena, this is great and I love your heart. These are some really cool ideas. Hopefully Mallory will call us back after school today, and we can come up with a real plan.”

  “A real plan?” I asked with confusion in my voice. I didn’t understand why he said we needed a real plan when I had just given him my perfect plan.

  “Yes. You can’t do all these great ideas at once. And depending on how much Caroline needs, it may not be enough anyway. I am just saying we need to find out all the information before we can decide the best way to help. Okay?”

  I know that Dad wasn’t trying to make me feel bad, but it really felt like he didn’t believe I could help.

  “Let’s talk about it more after work and school today. There is nothing we can do right now. Tell your sisters it’s time to get up and get ready for the day.”

  Dad flashed a quick smile.

  It may not be enough? I thought to myself as I walked toward Amber and Ansley’s room. At least it’s something. We have to do something.

  Dad was right about one thing. There was nothing else I could do right now. So I did my best to focus my attention on getting to school on time. When the bus showed up at my house, I was ready.

  Morning classes went pretty well, but by lunch I was so glad to be headed to the lunchroom to be with my friends. And it wasn’t long before I was laughing until my cheeks hurt, with my best friends Savannah and Emma. They always knew how to make me smile.

  We were having so much fun already planning some fun time together that I waited until almost the end of our lunch break to tell them about Caroline. Although they had never met her, they remembered me talking about her. From the expressions on their faces I could tell they felt just as sad as I did.

  “You’re right, Lena. We have to do something,” Savannah said.

  “But why do we have to do something?” Joey said as she scooted closer to Emma and across from me—she had been talking to someone else for a few minutes and missed the first part of our conversation. Although I haven’t known Joey nearly as long as I have Emma and Savannah, she was really starting to mean just as much to me. She’s funny and she cares about friends just as much as I do.

  “Well, we were just talking about Caroline’s hard time,” Emma responded. “She’s the little girl Lena met at the children’s hospital while she was on tour with Mallory. She’s sick and needs our help.”

  “Apparently all the kids from her hospital may need our help. The hospital is closing,” Savannah added.

  She was right. I was spending so much time thinking about Caroline that I kept forgetting about the bigger problem. The entire hospital was closing. There had to be more kids than just Caroline that needed our help.

  “That’s so sad.” Joey’s entire expression changed. “So, girls, what are we going to do? Can’t Mallory help?”

  “I’m sure she told me about Caroline so that I would pray for her but I want to do more than that. She is helping as much as she can but they need more than one person to help. Mom and Dad figure they need lots of money.”

  As soon as I finished that sentence I had a new thought. “That’s it! They need a lot money and they need more than one person to help . . . let’s have our own fundraiser—a concert!”

  Emma cheered, “Yes! Yes! Yes! Let’s do it!”

  I smiled and cheered with Emma but then quickly looked to see Savannah’s response. Savannah doesn’t get excited easily and she has a way of thinking things through better than Emma and me. Emma gets excited about everything. She thinks all my fun ideas are good ones which sometimes gets us into a little trouble, like the time we lost track of time while I was filming Above the Waters. Savannah didn’t think wandering around a strange building when I was supposed to be working was a good idea, but we didn’t listen. I guess I didn’t want something like that to happen again.

  Savannah was smiling but sitting quietly.

  “Well, Savannah?” I prodded. “What do you think? Will a concert work?”

  Savannah sat up straight. Her eyebrows moved closer together and she leaned forward and started to speak. “I think . . .”

  She paused. Joey, Emma, and I focused all of our attention on her. “. . . It’s not a bad idea. It could work.”

  Emma jumped up from the lunch table and began doing her happy dance, which also serves as her hunger dance, birthday dance, and congratulatory dance.

  “But . . .” Savannah tried to catch us before we began celebrating too much. “You do know concerts cost money to put on and they require a lot of time to plan, right?”

  “Oh, yes! I know that. But I learned so much while I was on tour with Mallory. I know how to plan a good one! And we can ask people to do stuff for free so that it doesn’t cost us anything.” I was confident. Maybe too confident. But I was positive that together (and with a little adult help too, of course) we could do this!

  “Do you think Mallory would perform . . . for free?” Joey asked the obvious question.

  “Yup! I am sure of it! I’ll talk to my mom and dad as soon as I get home! We are supposed to call Mallory tonight!”

  Chapter 3

  I couldn’t wait to get home. I had my conversation with Mallory all planned out in my head. I knew exactly what I was going to say to her, and I was confident she would not be able to resist my request for her to come to Dallas to perform at our fundraiser for free. I knew she cared about the kids and the hospital as much as I did.

  “Mom!” I called out as soon as I burst through the door.

  “In here, Lena!” Mom called from the game room. She was sitting on the floor, holding a hot glue gun in the air. All around her were little pieces of colorful fabric. Ashton
and Amber were on their knees organizing little buttons.

  “What are you doing?” I asked. I wanted to tell her our idea but I couldn’t ignore the hot glue gun she was waving at me.

  “We are making your sisters’ costumes. It’s book character day at school this week.”

  “Ohhhhh!” Now that what they were doing made sense, I was ready to tell her that my friends wanted to help Caroline too.

  I told her word-for-word about my conversation with my friends, and she agreed with Savannah. “Oh, yes,” she said. “Concerts can raise a lot of money but they are a lot of work! Are you ladies prepared for that kind of commitment?” she asked.

  I assured her we were. She told me she was proud of me for being willing to take on such a huge responsibility and said we could talk about it more over dinner, once Dad was home. I asked if we could call Mallory, and she repeated that we could talk about it more with Dad.

  I did my best to keep busy while I waited patiently for Dad. I finished my math and history homework, folded a load of Ashton and Amber’s laundry, cleaned my room, and emptied the dishwasher. Finally, I just sat down at the kitchen counter and watched as Mom prepared dinner. I was out of chores to complete, and I was ready to talk to Dad and call Mallory.

  Every few minutes I looked at Mom and casually asked, “What time is it?” or “Has Daddy called?” Eventually she suggested that I relax a little bit and stop worrying so much.

  “Lena,” she said with a firm voice. “Stop worrying. When Dad gets home we will talk.”

  She was right. Dad arrived home shortly after that. I told him everything I had told Mom and asked if we could call Mallory. I was surprised that he agreed to call Mallory before dinner.

  “Should we FaceTime or just call?” he asked.

  “Let’s just call,” I said. Seeing Mallory sometimes made me a little nervous.

  Dad picked his phone up and pushed the buttons for her number.

  “Hi there, Mallory, it’s the Daniels crew!” he said while placing the phone down on the counter and putting it on speaker so Mom and I could hear.

  “Hi, Daniels family!” she shouted through the tiny speaker.

  “Hi, Mallory!” Mom and I responded.

  Mallory asked how everyone was doing and Dad asked her the same. Within a few seconds Dad and Mallory were discussing a few specific questions about the hospital and about Caroline. My heart was beating fast with excitement. I listened carefully just waiting for Dad to finish before I chimed in with the concert idea.

  When Dad asked Mallory what exactly we could do to help, she said, “Pray. I sent Lena the information about Caroline because I know how much meeting her impacted her. But I don’t want you to feel pressured to help financially. Caroline and the others need a lot of money.”

  “Oh, I know!” I responded quickly. “I just really want to help. I have been praying and I think I can do more!”

  Dad quickly spoke next, “If we wanted to try to help raise money, what are some of our options?”

  “Well, Lena, that’s great!” Mallory continued. “So . . . the hospital is no longer trying to raise money themselves. They have made the decision to just close. So I am focusing my efforts on helping Caroline and the five other children that will have to go back to their homes in Peru. I would love to raise enough money to keep them here in the United States until they finish their treatments at another hospital. We have already found another one that is willing to provide the services they need but their families need the basics—places to live, food, and clothing.”

  “How much is that going to be?” I asked.

  “Well, for all five families, it’s going to be about $150,000.”

  Mom and Dad looked at each other and shook their heads. Dad’s shoulders drooped some and Mom’s eyebrows scrunched together, making her face look worried.

  “I still want to help.” All the words I had been thinking about all day started to spill out of my mouth. I told Mallory about all my ideas including the sign on our car. She laughed at that one. But when I started to tell her about our idea of having a concert I could hear her quietly saying, “Mmm-hmm.”

  “So, would you come? Could you come? All of my friends would definitely pay money to meet you!”

  She giggled.

  As I was talking, more ideas started to pop into my head and I decided to share them all. “We could design T-shirts and sell them like the ones for your tour, except they could have each girl’s name on them! So when someone buys a shirt they would know they are helping someone real!”

  “I love that idea, Lena!” Mallory sounded really interested.

  “And maybe we get people to make and sell things like food or crafts!”

  “Wow, Lena, you really have been thinking a lot about this,” Dad said, smiling at me. Mom looked surprised by my new ideas too.

  “Yes, Lena, I can tell you have! So, if this is something you really want to do, I’ll do whatever I can to help!” Mallory added.

  I jumped up from the stool I had been sitting on and screamed! Ansley, Ashton, and Amber came running into the room to see what was happening.

  “Lena, Lena! What is it?” they questioned.

  “We are going to help Caroline and her friends from the children’s hospital!” I yelled again.

  Austin joined in the fun with a few loud yelps while my mom, dad, and sisters all cheered and celebrated along with Mallory and me!

  “Thank you, Mallory! Thank you, Mom and Dad!”

  “We’re proud of you, Lena.” Dad squeezed my shoulders and pulled me close.

  “Let’s get to work! Because let me tell you, Lena, there is a lot of work to do to make this happen! Let me know as soon as you have a date that will work and where you want to have it!” Mallory said.

  “Okay!” I responded and started celebrating with Austin and my sisters all over again, not realizing what I had gotten us all into.

  “Lena, one more thing—” Mallory’s voice sounded serious again. “Since you are making a commitment now, I think it would be a good idea to call Caroline and tell her your plans.”

  Dad spoke up, “Are you sure, Mallory? I wouldn’t want them to think we can for sure raise the entire amount. We don’t know yet how this will all work out.”

  “Yes, sir, I know you can’t make any promises but I think her family would love knowing that there is someone who cares enough to try to help. It would give them a little hope. I can stay on the phone with you if you would like.”

  Mom and Dad looked at each other and nodded.

  I waited for one of them to respond. I wasn’t even sure if Caroline would remember me. I had only met her that one time at the hospital. I was sure she had had a ton of visitors since then.

  “Okay, let’s do that,” Dad said.

  Mallory asked us to hold on. When she returned to the phone, Caroline and her mother were on the line as well.

  “Hi, Lena! It’s me, Caroline!”

  Hearing her voice made little goose bumps form on my arms, and my eyes immediately filled with tears. They weren’t sad tears, I was just so happy to talk to her again.

  I took a deep breath and said hello. I introduced her to my family and talked to her mother. I told her that ever since we’d heard the bad news about the hospital closing we had been praying for her and that I really wanted to be able to do something. I could hear sniffles as I talked. I could not tell if they were coming from my family or hers.

  Before we ended the call, I told her about my friends and that they were going to work with me to do everything we could.

  “So Mom, Dad, my sisters, and my friends Savannah, Emma, and Joey and I promise to work really hard to help.” I took a deep breath. “We’ve just got to do something for you!”

  Mallory’s voice slipped in. “And we will. Together with God’s help, we will do everything we can to help all the families stay here in the US, to get the medical assistance they need.”

  Caroline’s mother continued to thank my family, friends,
and me for caring but I wasn’t sure why. Caring about Caroline and wanting to help her family was not something I was being asked to do, it was something I was happy to do. Meeting Caroline seemed like a gift to me and it felt like I should be the one saying thank you.

  Chapter 4

  The next day I told Savannah, Emma, and Joey that we needed to meet during lunch. We all agreed to eat quickly and to use our extra time to find a quiet place where we could talk. I pulled out my black notebook and opened to a blank piece of paper toward the back. I flipped quickly because I didn’t want my friends to see my journal entries.

  I wrote:

  Who: Mallory Winston and Friends Concert

  Why: To raise money for Caroline and friends.

  Date: ?

  Place: ?

  I looked up at my friends and they each looked at me.

  I started, “I talked to Mallory last night. Turns out the hospital does not need the help. They have already decided to close. That’s why Caroline needs help, but she is not the only one. There are five kids. They are from Peru and were at the hospital receiving medical treatment for free. The hospital found another place that will get them the treatment they need, but their families need money to pay for living expenses—like a place to live plus food and clothes.”

  “They don’t have hospitals in Peru?” Joey asked.

  “I guess they don’t have the same kinds of medicines. They need a lot of care,” I answered. I told them everything I could remember of what Mallory had told us.

  “So what will happen when they finish getting treatment? Will they just go back home then?” Savannah asked.

  “Yes. I think so.”

  “So let’s get started.” I looked down at the paper and said, “Where do we start?”

  “Well, we need to pick a date,” Joey answered first.

  “But can we pick a date if we don’t have a place?” Savannah asked.

  “Good point,” Emma added. “Let’s pick a place first. That way we will have to narrow down dates based on when the place is available.”