Birdie Tanksley had directed Noah's Ark at Vacation Bible School for fifty summers, and she had never once lost a giraffe.
She'd lost a lot of other things. A dove, in 1983, that turned out to be a real pigeon somebody's brother brought from home.
A Noah's beard, in 1991, which the church dog ate. Most of the roof of the ark in 2004, during a thunderstorm, when the fellowship hall leaked for the first time in its life.
But never a giraffe. Birdie ran a tight ark.
She was eighty years old. She'd been a member of First Baptist Church of Coosa Bend, Alabama, since she was baptized in the river at nine. She'd taught second-grade Sunday school for forty years and played the piano for weddings and funerals for longer than that.
Her late husband, Harold, had built the original ark out of plywood and two-by-fours in the summer of 1977. Birdie had repainted it every June since.
The Noah's Ark skit closed every Vacation Bible School on Friday night. The children dressed as animals. They marched into the ark two by two while the congregation sang "Rise and Shine." Noah closed the door. Somebody made thunder by shaking a sheet of tin behind the curtain. Then a dove flew in on a fishing line, the rainbow came down from the ceiling, and the fellowship hall ate banana pudding.
It went the same way every year. That was the beauty of it.
This year, the Whitfields brought the boys.
Ray and Donna Whitfield had been members of First Baptist for thirty years. Their own children were grown and gone. In March, they'd gotten their foster care license, and in May, they'd taken in three brothers from Birmingham.
Cameron was eleven. Eli was nine. And Bo was six, small and fierce, with a cowlick that stood straight up no matter how much water Donna put on it.
They'd been in four homes in two years. Their mother was in a recovery program in Gadsden, working hard to get them back. The boys didn't talk about her much.
They talked about everything else, loudly.
On Monday, Cameron was cast as a lion. He spent the first rehearsal stalking the paper doves and eating them. On Tuesday, Eli decided the flood needed more realism and dragged in the garden hose from the side yard.
The fellowship hall carpet was still damp on Friday. On Wednesday, the two older boys got into a shoving match over who got to be the bear and knocked down three sheep, a camel, and one of the deacon's wives.
And on Thursday, at the dress rehearsal, Bo disappeared.
He'd been cast as one of the giraffes, because he was the smallest and Birdie thought it would be funny. He wore a yellow sweatshirt with brown spots Donna had painted on, and a headband with two felt horns. Halfway through the rehearsal, the giraffes lined up two by two, and there was only one.
Birdie had never lost a giraffe.
They searched the whole church. The nursery, the kitchen, the baptistery, the choir room.
Donna Whitfield was white as a sheet. Birdie's knees were not built for searching under pews.
They found him forty minutes later, asleep inside the ark. He'd crawled in through a gap behind the back wall and curled up in the dark on a pile of old costumes, with his thumb in his mouth and his felt horns crooked.
Birdie stood looking down at him for a long time.
The deacons met that night in the church office.
Wendell Gaskin was chairman. He was seventy-two, a retired banker, and a good man in most ways. But he'd been in charge of the fellowship hall carpet for twenty years, and that carpet was still damp.
"Birdie," he said, "with respect. Those boys are tearing this thing apart. Half the parents are complaining. Tomorrow night is the whole congregation, and the Methodists are coming." He spread his hands. "Maybe the Whitfield boys could sit this one out. Help with the refreshments. Just this year."
Birdie folded her hands in her lap.
"Wendell," she said, "how many homes have those boys been in?"
He didn't answer.
"Four," Birdie said. "In two years. Their mama's in Gadsden trying to get well. Their daddy's not in the picture at all." She looked at him over her glasses. "I'm not going to stand up there and tell those three boys there's no room on the ark for them. Not in my fiftieth year. I'd rather lose the carpet."
The deacons looked at each other. Wendell sighed.
"Then you'd better keep them in line," he said. "Because I'm not cleaning up after another flood."
Friday night, the fellowship hall was full. Folding chairs to the back wall, people standing in the doorway, the Methodists in the third row. Somebody's grandmother had brought a camcorder from 1998.
Birdie stood at the side of the stage with her clipboard and her script, the same script she'd used since 1977, typed on a typewriter and taped back together twice.
It went fine. For six minutes, it went beautifully.
The animals marched in two by two. Cameron the lion did not eat anybody. Eli the bear walked in beside a little girl bear, and held her hand, because Birdie had told him the bear was the most important animal on the ark and had to set an example. The congregation sang "Rise and Shine." Noah, who was played by a seventh-grader named Tucker in his father's bathrobe, stepped up to the ark door to close it.
Then Bo the giraffe came out of the line. He walked to the front of the stage, reached up, and took the microphone right out of its stand.
The congregation laughed. Bo didn't.
Tucker started to swing the ark door shut, the way he'd practiced.
"No," Bo said into the microphone, very loud. He put his small hand flat against the plywood door and held it open. "Don't close it."
The laughter died out. The whole fellowship hall went still.
Birdie looked down at her script. There was nothing about this in it.