1. An uncertain destination
2. Who cares what Brigham Young said? I certainly don't!

• (character chart)
• (polygamy note)

1. Young Women's
2. Youth Conference
3. Saturday's Warrior
4. Brigham Young University
• Gratuitous Love Scene
5. Polygamist
6. Temple Wedding
7. Orem High
8. Bordeaux Mission
9. Exmo Conference

When I was done eating, I got a drink from a drinking fountain, and then I couldn't keep myself from going back into the library. After all I'd been through to earn this reward, I wasn't about to let a sideways look from one librarian stop me from immersing myself in it.

I went back to the same shelf and read a few more books about various types of great apes and their social behavior until finally it was closing time and I had no choice but to leave.

Walking back to my uncle's house, I was really hoping that Spencer had succeeded in convincing his parents. If I didn't get some proper shelter soon, I wouldn't be able to continue like this much longer. I'd probably end up having to go to a government official and be put in some sort of institution. Or maybe I'd starve to the point where I'd break down and go back home. I didn't even want to think about such a possibility.

All I wanted to think about was going back to the library. The books I had read that day had been unbelievably fascinating, and all I had done was grab the first thing I had stumbled across. I imagined that that whole huge library was like that, and I could spend every day for the rest of my life just exploring and reading everything in sight. The last thing I wanted to worry about was a mundane survival strategy when I was this close to paradise.

I'd always been taught that the last days were nearly upon us and that all but the very righteous would be destroyed. This frightened me to no end since I knew I could never be righteous enough. But seeing a world that was so much bigger than the world of darkness and fear that I had known, I knew that I didn't ever want to go to the fundamentalists' paradise. Their suffocatingly restrictive paradise seemed as terrible as any hellfire.

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I remembered how proud my father had been of my intellect and how he had always planned for me to one day become a great scholar of church history and doctrine. What a horrible, sick joke that seemed now that I'd touched the tip of the iceberg of the things I could study and learn.

I couldn't imagine going back to that limited place where I'd have to bow to the wishes of the prophet for any important decision in my life such as where to live, my choice of employment, and who to marry. I was ready to do anything to stay here in this new place.

When I got back to the house, I figured I'd better just go back to the club fort and wait. After a while, Spencer came around.

"There you are!" he said. "You're finally back."

"I was at the library," I said.

"Well, it's a green light for coming to live with us. All you have to do is renounce your parents' religion and agree to be baptized LDS."

"I can do that," I said.

"Great," he said, "then come with me." He started leading me back to the house. "Supper's already over, but Mom saved you some in the kitchen." Then Spencer set up a bowl of soup for me and some bread, which I sat at the table to eat.

While I was still eating, Uncle Wes came in and stood at the head of the table and looked at me. I just looked back up at him, not knowing what else to do.

"So," he began, crossing his arms across his chest. "Spencer tells me that when you denounced your parents' religion to join the true church, they disowned you, and now you need a place to stay. Is that right?"

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