Wobbly hand gesture.

What makes you actually Catholic. What other kinds of Catholic are there. Or does he mean are some of them Evangelicals. Miguel is not an Evangelical.

"I'm Catholic."

Riley doesn't know if he's a very good Catholic- Dr. Walsh has never once in her life prayed to anything, he thinks- but he's trying his best.

"...sorry, I don't know if that's ... I ask because I brought in the Eucharist but you can only receive if you're Catholic, it's not like Protestants. And you have to be in a state of grace and fasting. Obviously."

"I'm not that Catholic. - uh, I was looking into it. When I got pulled here."

"I was looking into it, too. My parents were, but my mom wasn't. I don't remember- I was a kid when they died. I was hoping someone on the inside could teach me."

"...I don't know that I can teach you but you should definitely get baptized if you're not because we're probably all going to die," Miguel says, and then realizes that was probably a rude thing to say.

"Yeah, I am baptized. My parents are non-denominational Christians. ...is anybody not baptized, who wants to be, that does seem important. Probably."

"Anyone who's not baptized might want to wait until, like, Field Day. For strategic purposes. Since it forgives all your sins and it's not like you can get to confession in here."

This is probably not the sort of thing you are really supposed to do if you are being virtuous, but being strategic about not going to Hell seems important enough to be a little unvirtuous about it.

Miguel thinks it's better to be forgiven sooner? But he's not exactly an expert so he doesn't say anything.

"They baptized me. They raised me in the faith as long as they could. They-"

He realizes he sounds defensive, so he stops before he can offend the only Catholics he's met so far. Swallows. Looks back at the shrine, such as it is- not a church, but they don't need a church. That's one thing Riley does know: the church is them, it's people worshiping together. There are four of them here, and more in the school. It's going to be okay.

"Thank you," he adds, so they don't think he's completely awful and unreasonable. "Dr. Walsh- the one who prepared me- thought all this stuff was a distraction, but I want to do things right, now that I'm here."

After about half an hour, a group of about ten kids walks in, most of them vaguely middle-eastern looking.

" - oh, they haven't put a new bulletin board up yet," says one of the girls, maybe a sophomore, after a moment of confused silence. "Are you kids - Catholic? Mostly?"

Wobbly hand gesture. Again.

You are not supposed to deny your faith!!!! Also if you die of  being Catholic you definitely go to Heaven. "Yes."

"Okay, well, the English language Catholic prayer service starts at eleven, and the Spanish language one starts at five thirty, so maybe you guys should come back then. Right now we're gonna have the Armenian Apostolic Church service. Which you guys can stay for, if you want, but it's gonna be in Armenian."

Oh. Cool. He will....leave, then.

...yup. That was embarrassing.

"It was nice meeting you," he says to Miguel, who's probably already out of earshot.

"See you at eleven? The name's Riley," he adds, because it seems good to know the names of the other Catholic students, even if they're only as Catholic in practice as he is.