Joseph Makes a Puzzle
Joseph Anderson Donetti shifted to a more comfortable position on the bed. He loved the feel of the soft summer night air coming through the window. He took another bite of his peanut-butter sandwich. His peanut butter-and-tomato sandwich. Joseph grinned to himself as he remembered his reaction when G.M. had suggested this particular kind of sandwich for lunch one day. UGH! G.M. had frowned at him over the top of her glasses and said he shouldn’t be so close-minded. She had pointed her paintbrush at him and asked, didn’t he like peanut butter? Didn’t he like tomatoes? Well?
Well, of course he liked peanut butter! Peanut butter and jelly. Peanut butter and honey. Peanut butter and chocolate. But peanut butter and tomatoes?
Just to please G.M., Joseph had tried the silly-sounding combination. And much to his surprise, he really liked it! In fact, he had eaten a peanut-butter-and-tomato sandwich almost every day since. He could hardly wait to fix one for Danny back home!
Joseph took another bite and chewed slowly. He heard G.M.’s footsteps on the stairs. “I have half a sandwich left,” he called out. “I can share it.”
G.M. came into the bedroom and sat down on the bed beside Joseph. “Are you kidding?” she asked. “I stuffed myself at the potluck at Mac’s. That potato salad Hannah brought just hit the spot! I had three helpings.” She looked at Joseph’s plate. “I thought you pretty well stuffed yourself too. How can you possibly have room for a sandwich?”
“I don’t know,” Joseph said seriously. “I’m sort of hungry all the time.”
G.M.’s eyes smiled. “I guess it’s a good thing I bought that huge economy-size jar of peanut butter,” she said. “Have you tried peanut butter and pickles yet? Or peanut butter and onions?”
Joseph shut his eyes.
G.M. laughed. She stood up. “I love you!” she said. She leaned over and kissed the top of his head. “Don’t stay up too late. We have a lot of work to do tomorrow. It’s a mowing-the-lawn-and- working-in-the-garden day.” She closed his bedroom door as she went out.
Joseph stuck the last bite of sandwich in his mouth. He put the plate on top of the bookcase, plumped up his pillow, and settled back against the head of his bed. His mind began to sleepily mull over Pastor Chuck’s idea.
It would be kind of fun to do a project for the whole church. Joseph was glad he wasn’t one of those painfully shy people who got stomachaches when they had to do things in front of people.
What should he do? Should he just talk about all the things that he had learned about God since he came to Oregon? Pastor Chuck had said to think of it as a project. What kind of projects had he done in school? He had written stories. He had written poems. He had made puzzles. Puzzles! He loved puzzles! Maybe he could make a puzzle and pass it out to everybody in church.
Joseph reached over to the bookcase and grabbed his notebook and pencil. A word search. He would make a word search puzzle about creation! He began to draw lines side by side from the top of the page to the bottom, creating lots of little squares. And then he began to fill in the squares with words.
The first word Joseph wrote in was lizard. Of course! And that made him think of snake and crocodile. For other animals, he put in lion and bear and deer and camel and cheetah and eel. Then, for some reason, food popped into his mind. So he added peanut and tomato and coconut and apples and strawberries and the word food.
Joseph tapped the pencil against his cheek, thinking Ah! He wrote in some very important words—man, woman, day, night, light, and Sabbath. The puzzle was filling up nicely.
Joseph thought some more and then wrote down flowers, sun, and stars. He studied the puzzle for a little while and found places to add sand and gold.
Then Joseph began to fill in all the empty spaces with random letters—letters that didn’t spell anything. Letters that just filled up all the extra spaces.
“Is your light off yet?” G.M. called from across the hall.
“Almost!” Joseph called back. He looked at his puzzle and smiled. It was very good.
