Saving Wonder

by Mary Knight

  “Ma says there’s nothing like fresh-cut flowers to remind you of why you’re alive,” Jules told me. Funny, my ma used to say that, too.

  “Anybody home?” Papaw bellows. My heart thump-thumps at the sound of his voice.

  “In here, Papaw!” I yell, signaling everybody to hush.

  And then, there he is, filling up the doorway.

  “Surprise!”

  I was planning to act all casual-like and cool when I saw him, you know, in front of my friends. But when he strolls through that doorway and into our kitchen, I can’t help myself. Aunt Gertie is standing behind him, waving her hands like a crazy woman, but I ignore her.

  “Papaw!” I shout, and leap into him for one of those bear hugs only he can give.

  “Whoa there!” He winces. “Still a little tender in the chest.”

  “Oh, Papaw …” I step back, ashamed. “I forgot.”

  “That’s okay, Curley. Come on over here.” And with that, he pulls me in real gentle-like. “I sure have missed my boy.”

  “Awwwww …” JD croons behind me.

  “Awwwww …” Mr. A, Jules, and Mrs. C chime in.

  “I see you’ve called the welcome wagon for us, Curley,” Papaw says with his chin resting on my head, “or is this a posse?” Everyone laughs.

  After Aunt Gertie has been introduced to our friends and she and Mr. A exchange a longer hug than I feel comfortable watching, she declares, “Well, John … do you think it’s time to show Curley what we brought down from Cincinnati?”

  “As good a time as any,” he says.

  She comes back from the living room with a shopping bag from Computer World.

  “Oh, maaannn,” JD says. “I like the looks of this.”

  “What the heck?” Believe me, I can read, and I know what JD thinks it is, but I figure there’s got to be some kind of trick, like the kind Papaw plays on me at Christmas. But no, I reach for the bag and pull out a seventeen-inch laptop computer.

  “Awesome!” Jules and JD shout together.

  “Oh my gosh, Papaw. Can I keep it?”

  “It’s not a puppy. Of course you can keep it.”

  “But I thought you said you’d never let one of these newfangled contraptions into the house.” I’m pretty sure that at any moment, someone’s going to swipe it right out of my hands.

  Papaw looks over at Mr. A, who’s grinning like all get-out. “Let’s just say I’ve had a change of heart.”

  “Don’t let that ol’ cuss fool you. It wasn’t that easy.” Mr. A hangs an arm around my aunt’s shoulders and pulls her closer. “Your Aunt Gertie and I have been prodding him like a stubborn mule to change his ways.”

  “It was that video you and your friends made, Curley,” Papaw says. “That’s what did it. If I hung on to those old beliefs I had about computers being no good, I’d be holding you back from what’s good for you. I see that now.”

  “But, Papaw … what about the money?” I’m a little embarrassed to bring up the topic in front of my friends, but I have to know.

  Papaw looks over at Aunt Gertie, who nods. “Let’s just say it was an interfamily loan, but never you mind. You shouldn’t be worried about that right now.”

  He has no idea.

  “Come on, Curley, let’s get this thing up and running.” Papaw slaps me on the back and watches over my shoulder.

  “Yeah, Ketchup. Let’s take this baby for a spin.” JD scoots his chair over closer to me. Jules does the same on the other side. The screen lights up and chimes its welcome. “Too bad you don’t have Internet. We could check how many hits we’ve gotten over the last twenty-four hours.”

  Ever since his dad took away his electronics, JD’s been going through what he calls “withdrawal.” I guess computers and such are like a drug to him. Honestly, every waking minute at school when he’s not in class, JD’s in the computer lab, clicking onto You2CanChangetheWorld.com to check on our video.

  “Wait a minute.” JD peers into the right-hand corner of the screen. “This says you have service. But … How can … ?” JD, Jules, and I look across the kitchen table at Mrs. C, who’s covering her mouth, trying to hide a smile.

  “Hey, there’s more to my life than staging sit-ins,” she says.

  “We owe Mrs. Cavanaugh a debt of gratitude,” Papaw adds, “for helping to get us hooked up. Is that what you call it?” He looks over at Mr. A, who grins and nods.

  As I type in the website address for our video, Jules leans over my shoulder, so close her hair tickles my neck. JD is practically drooling over the keyboard.

  “Okay, JD. Go ahead.” I slide the laptop over. “Don’t want you having a conniption fit.”

  Our count took a jump on Wednesday after our photo hit the papers and has been climbing steadily ever since. Last count at the end of the day on Friday: 8,367. That seemed like a lot to me, but when I yelled, “It’s gone viral!” in the middle of the computer lab, JD said, “Settle down, Ketchup. We’re not even close.”

  “H-holy cow,” JD stutters as our video pops up on the screen.

  All chatter stops. Jules has a death grip on my arm. Papaw, Mr. A, and Aunt Gertie press in, hovering over JD’s shoulders, trying to figure out what he’s looking at. My own vision blurs as I search the screen for our listing.

  And then I see it. Topless in Wonder Gap: 957,444 views.

  “Whoaaaaaaa!” Mr. A starts the chorus as everyone else joins in.

  “This is it!” JD shouts. “It’s happening!” He’s out of his seat, pacing back and forth, laughing like a madman.

  Jules shakes me by the shoulders. “Curley! We did it! We did it!”

  The whole thing is so surreal (s word, fourth grade), I can’t even feel what’s happening.

  JD hits REFRESH. The view count has jumped by several thousand in just a few minutes.

  “How does a thing like this happen?” Papaw falls back into a chair, wiping away little beads of sweat with his handkerchief. Aunt Gertie races to the sink to pour him some water.

  “Somebody tweeted.” JD slaps his hand on the table with such force that the daffodils shake. “I guarantee it. Somebody famous saw our video and tweeted.”

  “Tweeted?” Papaw says. “What the heck is that?”

  “It’s when people talk about what they’re doing or thinking in very few words,” Mr. A tells his friend. “You’d be really bad at it.”

  Mrs. C, who’s been watching the whole scene with this silly grin on her face, suddenly straightens up in her chair like she’s all electrified.

  “I know who it was,” she says.

  “Who?” Jules slides around to her ma’s side of the table.

  “You know that country singer with the real pretty voice, Lena McFadden? The one who was born and raised in Kentucky?” Jules nods and squeezes her ma’s arm. “Well, I met her at a protest rally in Frankfort last year. I didn’t think she’d remember me, but I sent her the link to your video anyway. I figured it was worth a try.”

  “Mom, you’re a genius.” Jules gives her ma such an energetic hug that they almost topple over backward. I’m watching all this and thinking about how the two of them are just like sisters, when I start missing my own ma something fierce. I just wish she could be here to see all this. I think she’d be real proud.

  Papaw coughs and I look up in time to see him wince, not like there’s a knife in his chest or anything, but like somebody just jabbed him with a finger. He catches me looking at him and says, “It’s okay, Curley. Just a little tickle in my throat. I’m fine.” He leans across the table and grabs ahold of my hand.

  “I’m so proud of you,” he says.

  That’s when I realize that tweets and laptops and videos going viral are exciting and all, but the best thing in my life right now is Papaw being home. I glance at my new computer screen and then back at Papaw, who’s growing a grin as big as the world.

  “All it takes is one, just like you said, Papaw, remember?”

  He shakes my hand like he’s about to throw dow
n some dice.

  “To think I lived to see the day.”

  Well, it’s official. Our video has gone viral. We crossed the one million mark sometime during the cake and ice cream, although by then, JD was the only one paying attention. Don’t get me wrong, we were all pretty darn excited. It’s just that you can only stare at a computer screen for so long before you start feeling a little touched in the head.

  Right around that same time, the phone started ringing. After the first call, Mrs. C answered, keeping what she calls a press calendar. Last count, we’ve heard from three bloggers, half a dozen reporters, the Associated Press, and three cable news channels—all wanting to do a “piece” on me and Jules and what we’re doing to save our mountain.

  “It’s like you’re rock stars,” JD said.

  One of the cable guys wanted to send somebody down right away to start filming tomorrow, but Mrs. C told them there’s nothing much happening in Wonder Gap on a Sunday except for a lot of churchgoing and altar calls. Even Tiverton Coal takes a day off.

  So Monday it is. Mrs. C’s organizing a press conference after school so that Jules and I don’t wear out our voices. We all agree that Helen should be a part of it, too. That’s big doings down here in the holler, incidentally. Most days, the rest of the country doesn’t pay us any mind.

  Jules and I are beside ourselves about what we’re going to say. Actually, I’m worried sick about what they might ask me, and she’s worried about her hair. We told JD he deserved to be with us. We wouldn’t have a video if it weren’t for him.

  “Guys, you don’t understand,” he said. “My old man threatened to send me to boarding school if I so much as give you a boost up into Ol’ Charley.”

  So we let him be. Once the media rush was over, everybody went on home except for Jules, who offered to clean up the kitchen while Aunt Gertie, Papaw, and I got settled back in.

  It feels strange being home. As good as it is to have Papaw back, I’m already missing Jules. I’ll miss watching her feed her ma’s chickens, or the “girls,” as she calls them. I’ll miss seeing her wet hair up in a towel. I’ll miss lounging around on the pullout couch, watching Saturday morning cartoons, her in her reindeer pajamas, me in my sweats.

  I yank open the top drawer of my dresser to put away my socks, and there’s the dream catcher I stole from her back before we knew Red Hawk was in danger. The word for the week was kleptomaniac. At the time, I thought a word could make you do things. Now I know the decision to steal was all mine, just like the decision not to ’fess up. As Papaw would say, our words create our world, but we’re the creators. We decide what kind of world we want to create.

  I finger the beads and test the tautness of the web. It has taken a beating, but it’s held up pretty well. It’s time to give it back … but when? A floorboard creaks behind me. I turn, holding the dream catcher behind my back. It’s Jules with a fistful of daffodils.

  “I picked these for you, Curley.” She’s talking kind of shy, which catches me off guard. Never in a million years did I expect she’d ever bring me flowers. It’s such a girly thing to do. “I thought you could use your own personal ‘welcome home.’ ” She takes a step forward and I think she might hug me, but then she looks down. “Curley, what’s that?”

  I pull out the dream catcher and think about lying. I found it tucked inside your couch. I was going to surprise you with it on your birthday, but I guess you’ve found me out. But there’s no use. Jules can read me like a book. Besides, after all we’ve been through recently, it doesn’t seem right. My hands are shaking. The little black feathers hanging from the hoop spin and sway.

  “I took it, Jules.”

  “Took it? Why?”

  “I was mad at you for liking JD more than me, I guess. So I took it to see if you’d miss it.” I swallow hard. “And you did.”

  Her pupils are as dark as bullet holes. The daffodils are quivering in her white-knuckled hand. “I thought it was my fault,” she says.

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “You let me think it was my fault.”

  “I didn’t mean to … It’s just that … I thought you’d hate me if I told you the truth.”

  “I let you hold me …”

  “I know, Jules … but … but you were so … soft …” I try to give her back the dream catcher, but she knocks it to the floor.

  “I thought I could trust you, Curley Hines. I thought we could tell each other anything.”

  She throws the bouquet of daffodils at my feet, and before I can say “I’m sorry” one more time, she’s gone.

  When I finally drag myself downstairs later that night, the pot of chili Aunt Gertie made for dinner is stone-cold. I light the burner and wait. Papaw’s sitting at the kitchen table, staring at my new computer screen. I guess Aunt Gertie taught him a thing or two about computers up in Cincinnati. He doesn’t even look up.

  “I’ve got a word for you, Curley. Actually, it’s a phrase. It’s a perfect fit for everything that’s happened today.”

  Everything? He talks like he knows what’s going on in my life, and maybe he used to, but not anymore. Not since his heart attack. Not since I broke Jules’s trust and lost my only friend. Just the thought of the dream catcher and the daffodils lying scattered on the floor makes me want to throw this whole pot of chili against the wall. I grip the edges of the stove.

  “Please, Papaw … no more words,” I beg under my breath, but I guess he doesn’t hear.

  “Aunt Gertie gave me this book to read while I was recovering at her house. It’s about the tipping points of different kinds of trends, like how certain fashions become wildly popular and what makes a new idea catch on, that kind of thing.”

  The chili starts to bubble, spitting specks of tomato sauce against the inside edges of the pan. I grab a spoon out of the silverware drawer and slam the drawer shut. “Would you please get to the point, Papaw?”

  “I’m getting there,” Papaw says quietly, like he’s trying to turn down my volume. “So I looked up tipping point in an online dictionary, since I didn’t have access to our Big Book here at home. The phrase tipping point comes from the study of physics, but it is also used to explain cultural phenomena—like how your video went viral, for instance.” He peers into my face as if he’s trying to remember who I am. “I thought you’d like it.”

  “Yeah, well …” I slop some chili into a bowl and eat it standing up.

  Papaw clears his throat. “Seems to me, tipping point also could be used to describe the point at which someone’s life is never going to be the same.” He looks at me over his reading glasses. “Like ours, for instance.”

  My face flares hot, and it’s not from Aunt Gertie’s chili. I’ve had it with Papaw’s words. “Well, I think it’s a miserable excuse for a word, Papaw, not to mention that it’s two words and you looked it up on the Internet, for crying out loud.” A blob of chili dribbles out of my mouth and lands on my shirt. I flick it off.

  “Sometimes a word, or in this case a phrase, can be useful for helping us sort things out,” Papaw says in that obnoxiously calm voice of his. “Words can put a name to what’s happening to us and make it seem more manageable somehow. That doesn’t mean we have to like it—what’s happening, that is.”

  I throw my half-eaten bowl of chili in the sink. “And what is happening, Papaw? Would you just come out with it?” The weight of what he’s holding back hangs heavy in the air.

  “You’re right, Curley. It’s time I cut to the chase.” He closes the laptop and studies me for what feels like an eternity. “Regardless of what happens to our mountain,” he finally says, “we need to leave Wonder Gap … at least for a while.”

  On some level, this is the news I’ve been expecting, but it still feels like I’m being sucked into a black hole and the entire kitchen is collapsing around me. Papaw keeps on talking, but his words come into my head all garbled, like I’m underwater—something about closing up the house and moving up to Cincinnati when I get out of school,
how he needs to find a way to make money, how Aunt Gertie is remodeling her basement so I can have my own room.

  It’s the word room that breaks over me like a bucket of ice.

  “But I’ve already got my own room.” I push by Papaw, knocking over a kitchen chair. “I don’t care about your stupid tipping point. I don’t care about the money. This is the place my family is buried,” I scream. “This is everything I’ve ever known.” And for the first time in my life, I walk out on him.

  For the first time in my life, I have the last word.

  Tipping Point—noun

  : a moment in time beyond which a process or situation undergoes a significant and often irrevocable change

  About an hour after our fight (well, I guess it was my fight), Papaw comes up to my room and apologizes for everything that’s happening to us like it’s all his fault. As mad as I am about leaving Wonder Gap, I feel even worse for him taking all the blame.

  “No, no, no,” I tell him, “it’s my fault. I’m the one who spoke out against Big Coal.”

  We trade back and forth like that for a while, until Papaw finally puts his hands up like he’s stopping traffic. “I guess all this was bound to happen sooner or later, no matter what either of us did,” he sighs. “That’s the thing about tipping points. They get their start way before you know what’s coming, and once you figure it out, it’s easier to stop a train.”

  I thought about Jules and the look on her face before she threw those daffodils at my feet. “Once your life tips, can it ever tip back?” I ask.

  “What do you think?” He looks at me with his eyebrows raised, like I already know.

  Tipping point is only an hour old and I’m already sick of it.