First Day of Forever--
And Other Stories for LDS Youth

Jack Weyland

Review

Jack Weyland made his debut as a master story teller in The New Era magazine. Since that time he has written dozens of stories for young people. His ability to bring his characters to life and to relate real-life situations to the reader has made Brother Weyland one of the most popular LDS story tellers of today.

The stories in this volume have been previously published in The New Era magazine, and are reproduced here with their permission. Brother Weyland's other books have been extremely well received by young and old alike. The original short-story version of Charly is reprinted here in First Day of Forever.

In each story the characters become you and your friends. Each incident becomes very real. And each conclusion makes you a better person and leaves you with a stronger testimony of the gospel.
You'll laugh, you'll cry, but once you begin reading First Day of Forever, you'll find your reading to be a pleasurable experience you'll never want to finish!

Table of Contents

Foreword, 7

First Day of Forever, 11

The Award, 23

Last of the Big-Time Spenders, 31

Home Cooking, 45

The Least of These, My Brother, 57

Sometimes a Phone Call, 69

The Emergence of Butterflies, 81

The Flowers of Early Summer, 95

Charly, 103

Onward Christian Soldiers, 117

You Can't Save Cotton Candy, 131

The Changing of the Guard, 137

Pesky Little Brother of the Bride, 143

This Could Be the Big One, 149

Sample Pages from Two of the Stories

The Award
Football season was over, but the glory lingered on. The high school team had enjoyed an undefeated season, romping over each opponent by at least two touchdowns. Even after the season ended, the team stuck together. Some of them ate lunch on the balcony that overlooked the main dining area of the school cafeteria. There was no official reservation for the team to sit there, but it was just something understood by other students.
Kevin, a sophomore, was the only Mormon on the team. He wasn't as mean as some of the others, but he was faster. He played end and had caught eight touchdown passes during the season. It had taken the team a while before they could accept him. They couldn't understand why he wouldn't drink with them on weekends. To make matters worse, he was the only one who worried about grades.
One day in January, as Kevin set his food tray on the table, the quarterback, Craig Williams, stood looking at the students eating lunch in the main dining area below them.
"Why are there so many ugly girls?" Craig asked.
"Look who's talking," someone shot back. "You've got a face like a Halloween mask."
"Well, that's different," Craig said with a grin, "I've got character and style. Besides, guys don't have to be good looking, but girls are supposed to."
Kevin sat down and ate his lunch.
"Now you take that girl, for instance," Craig continued. "I bet she's the ugliest girl in school."
The fullback, who loved competition, rose to the challenge. "You're crazy. I see one who's twice as bad as yours."
The competition continued as Kevin ate. Five of the team stood by the railing and bantered back and forth over their choices for the ugliest girl.
Finally they decided on one girl.
"If ugly were money, she'd be a millionaire," one of them said with a grin.
"She's easily the world champion," Craig agreed. "She deserves a trophy or something. Why not give her an award? Maybe a corsage with a card telling her what we think about her. We could leave it taped on the outside of her locker. It'd be anonymous. Kevin, you're a scholar. Write us a poem for the award."
"What kind of poem?" he asked, finishing his custard pudding.
"A poem telling her how ugly she is," Craig answered.
Kevin took a napkin from his tray and began to work on a rhyme. He enjoyed the feeling of being part of the group. In a few minutes he finished and read aloud.
"When we speak of ugly, you're the subject of talk.
You've got a face that could stop a clock.
Accept this gift for what it's worth;
We think you're the ugliest girl on earth."
"All right!" Craig shouted, laughing. "It's perfect! Let's all chip in some money, and I'll get a corsage on Saturday. We'll give it to her Monday. Does anybody know who she is or where her locker is?"
Kevin stood up to see who they were talking about. The girl sat alone, eating quickly, with her head lowered. He recognized her. She had a locker next to Colleen, an LDS girl he was dating.
"I do," Kevin said.
"Okay, you can deliver it. I'll get the corsage to you Monday in history class. You put your poem with it and tape it to the outside of her locker just before the bell rings."
After school Kevin drove Colleen home. She was one of five other LDS students in the high school. When they got to her home, she invited him in for some cookies and milk.
"What's the name of the girl who has a locker next to yours?" he asked between bites of a chocolate-chip cookie.
"That's Mary Beth Allen. Do you know her?"
"No, I've just seen her around. She's ugly, though, that's for sure."
"She's not so bad when you get to know her ."
"Who'd want to do that?" he joked.
"I don't know. If she'd just do something with her hair, she'd have more friends."
"Don't tell anybody," Kevin said, "but the guys on the team have chosen her the ugliest girl in school. We're giving her a corsage and a special poem I wrote." He recited the poem to Colleen. When he finished, she looked at him in shock.
"You're not really going through with this, are you?"
"Sure, why not?"
"Do you know how that's going to make her feel?"
"I don't care how she feels."
"Kevin, you're the only member of the Church on the team. Doesn't that mean anything to you?"
"It's taken me all this time for them to accept me as part of the group. I'm not going to preach to them and destroy everything."
"But you're willing to destroy that girl, aren't you?" she asked.
"She's ugly. Even you agree to that," he shot back.
"She's a child of God."
"Okay, but she's an ugly child of God."

Home Cooking
You're going to say I should have arranged housing in advance. But if I had, where would I be now?
After filling out a mountain of forms at registration, I drove around Provo looking for a place to stay. Finally I picked out one of the new apartment units near the campus. The office girl told me they had a vacancy. I walked across the lawn to number 33 and knocked on the screen door. Nobody came, although I could hear voices inside. I knocked again.
"Somebody get the door," a male voice yelled out.
I waited another minute and then knocked again, this time with my foot.
A thin, antiseptic-looking guy shuffled to the door, holding a piece of chalk in his hand.
"Hi there," I said.
He gazed at me with a lost expression. "Hi," he mumbled, turning around and plodding back.
I opened the screen door and stepped in. The fellow with the chalk was writing on a chalkboard that someone had hung on the wall crooked. "The trouble was," he mumbled, "I'm not assuming a frictional air force. Let's try it again."
There was another student on the couch, reading a Russian newspaper out loud.
"Excuse me," I said. "Do you speak English?" He ignored me.
Finally I turned to a fellow talking on the phone. "They said you had a vacancy. I need a room. Okay if I move in?"
He waved me away with one arm. "I know the concert was arranged, but the drummer got sick. So no concert. Do you follow that much?"
A girl walked in carrying a sack of groceries and three shirts rolled up in a plastic bag. She set the groceries on the kitchen counter, got an ironing board and iron from a closet. Pulling out one of the damp shirts from the bag, she started to press it.
"Look," the guy on the phone continued, "if there's no concert, then we don't need the popcorn we ordered from you for refreshments. It's that simple." He paused, listening to the man at the other end. "I know I ordered 200 pounds of popcorn. But that was when I thought the band would be here." He started walking around the room, gesturing to add emphasis. "No, I don't know how much space 200 pounds of popcorn takes up." Pause. "That much? No, I don't know what you're going to do with it."
The fellow at the chalkboard, who I later learned is named Harold Roberts, is a physics major and nicknamed Enrico, after Enrico Fermi the famous World War II scientist. The second fellow, Roger Thornton, was called Boris because he's a Russian language major. The third guy, Brad Jones, called B.J., is a student body officer majoring in pre-law. The girl, Cher Weiss, had a classic Greek face with high cheek bones and a dominant nose. She was wearing a pair of wire frame glasses. Her dark, shoulder-length hair fell in front of her face as she worked and was periodically being brushed aside.
I walked over to the girl. "Excuse me, do you speak English?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Talk to me, please. Nobody else will."
"Aren't you working with Enrico?"
"No. I just want to talk about the vacancy."
"All right, have it your way," B.J. said. "We'll pay for the popcorn at half price. Goodbye." He slammed down the phone, immediately picked it up again, and dialed. He walked over to the girl and touched the finished shirt hanging on the doorknob. "Not so much starch next time, Cher."
"This guy wants to talk to you," she said to B.J., who finally hung up because the line was busy.
"If it's about the concert, we'll refund the money at the Wilkinson Center desk starting Monday."
"It's about the vacancy. I want to move in."
"I'm in a hurry now," B.J. said as he picked up the shirt hanging on the doorknob and started for a bedroom. "It's okay by me if you move in. Did they tell you how much the rent is? We've got a phone. That's extra. Cher comes in each day and cooks our supper for us. We each pay $10 a week, and she buys all our groceries and takes a little something for herself. That's it. Take it or leave it."
"I'll take it," I said.
"Okay. Sure great to meet you," he said as he disappeared into his room.
I shook hands with Boris and Enrico, although they didn't realize why for a couple of days. B.J. came out of his room wearing the neatly pressed shirt, a tie, and a blazer. "Well, see you later," he said to nobody in particular on his way out.
Boris put on a pair of large, wraparound, stereo headphones and sat down on the couch, listening to Russian tapes. Enrico got his equations about two-thirds of the way down the chalkboard and then ran out of steam. He stood there, examining the first equation and its logical, muddy conclusion.
I brought in my luggage and deposited it in the room with the empty bed. After unpacking and washing up, I went back out into the living room-kitchen combination.
"I've got a few shirts that need ironing too," I said to Cher. "There's no hurry though."
"Take them to the cleaners. I'm not in the business."
"Sorry, I thought it was part of the service," I explained.
"It isn't. I just iron B.J.'s shirts."
“Oh. Why does he get special treatment?"
"I don't know," she said, hanging up the second shirt. "Sometimes I wonder. "
"Are you going together?"
"We used to. We still go out sometimes, but not much anymore. He's so busy with student politics and all."
"What year in school are you?" I asked.
"Senior."
"Me too. Feels great to be almost out, right?"
"Negative," she replied.
"How come?"
"I'm not engaged or married. If you're a fellow and that happens, you're just choosy. But if you're a girl, they say, 'Four years in a school with 8,000 boys and she couldn't find one?’"
"Who's they?" I asked.

	Order Information

Title: First Day of Forever-- And Other Stories for LDS Youth Author: Jack Weyland Retail Price: $11.98 Available: Now ISBN: 0-88290-136-2 Order Number (SKU): 1956 Pages: 152 Size: 6" X 9" Binding: Hardbound with jacket