Her father was livid, but he backed off and yanked Betsy inside, her feet dragging across the lawn. The next day Children’s Services came out to talk to her dad and mom and to her. The lady was nice to her, but Betsy was petrified because her father whispered to her, “Don’t say anything bad about me or you will go to hell and I will spank you there.”

Betsy also knew that her dad would hit her with the Bible again or lock her in the closet in the basement and tell her to copy a book out of the Bible if she opened her mouth. While she was locked up, he would give her only bread and water, as if she were Paul in one of the jail cells in the Bible. She hated that because when she became super hungry her whole body shook and she became dizzy. She told the Children’s Services lady that everything was “happy at home.”

The next time Miss Jane saw her father, she called him “Mr. Monster Father” to his face. She was fearless! Betsy tried not to laugh, but Hansen heard her and she spent an afternoon in the closet.

Betsy knew exactly where three teenagers were lost when she was twelve because she saw one of them falling off the path and into a ravine. The three lost teenagers were on the news, and everyone was talking about them. “The news is grim, folks,” a newscaster said. “The temperature is expected to drop below freezing tonight.” Betsy knew what that meant: The boys would freeze to death.

When her father left for men’s Bible study, she called her friend Collette, from school, and asked to speak to Collette’s mother. Aurelia was a police officer. She told her everything, knowing what her father would do if he found out. But they were kids, too! Like her. They shouldn’t freeze to death. Aurelia and a police lieutenant came to her home only a minute after her father arrived home. Her father tried to prevent her from speaking. “She is possessed,” he told the police. “She knows nothing.”

The lieutenant, whose nephew was one of the three lost teenagers, insisted that she be allowed to speak. Aurelia had to haul her father, screeching Bible verses, spittle flying, away from her. Hansen was doubly embarrassed that a woman was stronger than he was and that she was able to wrestle him to the floor, his head in a head lock. Betsy told the lieutenant what she saw, her body trembling, as she knew she was in so much trouble. As usual, her mother stood by, a weak mouse.