Never did Elijah think that losing a friend would save his life, and now, after surviving two months of frozen hell, he knows, without any doubt whatsoever, that anything is possible through God. This all began about ten years ago in the city of Covington, Georgia, where Elijah was born, raised, and still resides. He was a mere fifteen year old then.
Peter left the classroom with a cheerful smile and began running down the hall towards his locker.
“Walk!” shouted an elderly woman whom Peter recognized as one of the administrators. He immediately began slowing his pace. Elijah, his friend and locker neighbor, was already at his locker searching for his math book.
“What’s up Eli?” Peter asked happily as he dialed his combination and opened his locker.
“My stupid math book’s gone, and I just received it this morning!” he growled, “So, why are you so happy?”
“I’m pretty sure I aced the first test of my freshman year!”
“It’s the first day of school. What kind of test do you take on the first day of school?”
“We had to write our names and an interesting fact about ourselves for a test grade, and I know I aced it!”
“Wow,” he looked back in his locker, “Where’s my math book?”
“Oh,” Peter reaches in his bag, “I used it for class.”
“But I’m a sophomore, and you’re a freshman. What use would my book be to you?”
“We get graded on if we have our books for class. I just used it for show.”
“Where’s your math book?”
“Some big guy in the hallway took it from me,” Peter pulled out Elijah’s math book and handed it to him.
“Oh. Wait. How’d you get it from my locker?”
“You spent all morning saying your combination over and over: seven, twenty-eight, forty-one, seven, twenty-eight, forty-one, seven, twenty-eight, forty-one.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah,” Peter pulled a colorful paper from his bag, “Eli, did you get one of these?” He showed it to Elijah.
“Yeah, every guy in the entire United States has one.”
“Why?”
“The country’s looking for ten men to go on an expedition to some mountain in Pakistan. If you’re of school age, you get full school credit for going, but I doubt that any teenagers are going to be selected out of the hundreds of men from all over the states signing up.”
“I think I’ll sign-up just for the fun of it! Hey! Maybe you could sign-up with me! That way, if we get selected, one of us won’t be alone with nine strangers!” Peter closed his locker. “Do you think my parents will let me go?”
He pointed to the line on the paper that read: If you are under the age of eighteen, you must have a parent/guardian’s permission.
Elijah shrugged as he closed his locker. “I don’t know, but I’ve got to get to class.” He started walking down the hall.
“Okay! Well, I’ll see you after school, and we’ll finish our discussion!” Peter called out after him before turning and heading to his next class.
The dismissal bell rang through the halls. Elijah, along with a large group of other students, exited the building. He leaned against a tree, pulled out a book, and began to read.
Peter ran out the door. He scanned the crowd for Elijah, eventually seeing him leaned up against the tree.
“Eli!” he ran over to where Elijah stood.
“Hi Peter,” Elijah replied dryly as he continued reading, his eyes never leaving the book.
“Okay, so about that conversation we had earlier, I went to the office and got two sign-up sheets for the expedition thing: one for you and one for me. We have to go through some physical and mental tests to qualify for it, so, that means we’ll definitely need to study and exercise more. Plus, we need to start eating healthier.” Peter pulled an apple from his bag, took Elijah’s book, and replaced it with the apple. “So, here. I got these from the cafeteria,” he said as he pulled another apple out for himself. “And since I don’t have computer at home, I was thinkin’ that you could do some research on the mountain. That way, if we do get chosen, we’ll know where we’re goin’ and how to act. The mountain’s in Pakistan, right? We need to learn how to speak Pakistanian or whatever they speak there,” Peter continued speaking quickly.
Elijah interrupted him, “I was reading that.” He pointed at his book in Peter’s hand.
“Oh! Sorry!” he handed it back to Elijah before returning to his rambling.
“Peter! Shut up! Gosh! It’s like it never ends!”
“Sorry. It’s just that there’s so much to do if we want to be selected, and we…”
Elijah cut him off, “Listen. Peter, we are two teenage boys. Hundreds and thousands of men from all over the United States are signing up. They probably won’t choose two teenagers over fully grown men. Plus, who said I was signing up anyway?”
“Why wouldn’t they choose us? We’re young, fit, and really have no lives to leave behind. I just figured that we could sign-up together. I don’t want to go alone. Please, Eli! Please! Please! Please! Please! Please!” Peter got down on his knees.
“Peter, get up. Come on, get up. People are staring. You’re embarrassing me and yourself.”
“I don’t care. Anyway, pleeeease!”
“Fine! I’ll do it! Just get off the ground and shut up!”
Peter stood cheerfully, “Thank you Eli! You’re the best!” He hugged Elijah and started running towards his house. Elijah just stood there, frozen from shock. People were still giving him weird looks. He casually started walking in the direction of his home, which happened to be right across the street from Peter’s.
The next morning, Peter woke up, got dressed, grabbed a banana from the fruit bowl, and walked outside. At the end of his driveway, he spotted a mop of brown hair; Elijah was waiting for him.
Peter meets Elijah at the sidewalk. “Okay, Eli, I have one last question about the expedition thing.”
“What?”
“Where is Pakistan anyway? I’ve never heard of such a place.”
“It’s somewhere in Asia. That’s all I know about it.”
“Okay! Cool. So, how’s your day been so far?”
“I don’t know. I just woke up.” They started walking towards school. Peter peeled the banana and started eating and talking at the same time.
“Okay, so my only homework assignment was to write a one-page paper about myself. You’d be surprised at how hard it was to do. I mean, I really had to dig through my childhood to find all of the information I needed. For instance, it took me almost an hour to decide whether blue or red is my favorite color. I ended up choosing orange, but that’s not important. Don’t even get me started on my favorite number. Did you know that there is an infinite amount of numbers I could choose from? I took me forever to decide on zero. I chose zero because it’s a plain circle of nothingness. Oh! Eli, I got my parents’ permission for the sign-up sheet! Anyway, what’d you do yesterday?”
“Peter, you talk extremely fast.”
“Well, I have a lot to say and not enough time in the world to say it.”
“I can tell. Oh, and I got permission too. My mom was happy to see I was getting involved with something.”
“Great! The first physical exam is tomorrow!”
“Yay,” Elijah replies unenthusiastically.
“No. Y-A-Y!” Peter sounded it out.
“Wow. Anything else you would like to add?”
“Oh yeah! I went to church last night, and while the youth pastor was talking about Satan and temptation, the new guy fell asleep in the back of the room. It was hilarious because everyone got to crowd around him, and when he woke up, all of these eyes were staring at him. He screamed so loud, and everyone laughed so hard! Church was awesome last night. Gods’ cool like that. God makes church awesome.”
“Okay.”
They reached the school just before the late bell rang. At their lockers, Peter continued, “I can’t believe my parents are letting me sign-up!”
Elijah mumbled, “I wonder why.”
“Huh?”
“Oh nothin’.”
“Okay. Eli, what’re you doin’ after school?”
“Why?”
Peter brushed his dirty-blonde hair from his eyes, “I need a haircut. Oh, and we need to start working out if we’re going to go on this expedition.”
“We don’t need to work out.”
Peter stopped rummaging through his locker and looked at Elijah. He took Elijah’s arm and held it out, and he did the same with his. “Our arms are scrawny! We do so need to work out!”
In truth, both of them were scrawny teenagers. Neither of them were major athletes or big into exercise. Actually, the expedition brought out the natural-born athlete in Peter.
“Whatever. Peter, I have stuff to do for school. I won’t have time to lift weights or whatever.”
“Okay, well, I guess I’ll just exercise on my own. Oh! Eli, remember that test I took?”
“The one with your name and fact?”
“Yeah!”
“Yeah. I remember. Why?”
“I got a fifty on it!”
“How?”
“I forgot to write my name on it.”
“Only you could fail a thing like that.”
“Okay. Well, I guess I’ll see you in Atlanta tomorrow!”
“Why?”
“The first physical exam.”
“Oh yeah. Wait. Aren't you going home?”
“Not right now.”
“Why?”
“I got detention for talking a lot at the wrong times.”
“Figures. Well, I’ll see you in Atlanta!”
“Bye!” Peter grabbed his bag and started walking down the hall to detention.
Elijah calmly walked out of the school and went home happy to be rid of Peter’s rambling for even a little while.
That night, before going to bed, Peter prayed, as he did every night, but that night, he prayed for him and Elijah to do well on the physical exam, for them to do well in school, and he thanked God for giving him a friend like Elijah who would sign up for the expedition with him.
