Gwendy's Button Box

6

Gwendy’s worries about the box being discovered or stolen are like a constant background hum in her head, but those worries never come close to ruling her life. It occurs to her that might have been one of the reasons why Mr. Farris gave it to her. Why he said you are the one.

She does well in her classes, she has a big role in the eighth grade play (and never forgets a single line), she continues to run track. Track is the best; when that runner’s high kicks in, even the background hum of worry disappears. Sometimes she resents Mr. Farris for saddling her with the responsibility of the box, but mostly she doesn’t. As he told her, it gives gifts. Small recompense, he said, but the gifts don’t seem so small to Gwendy; her memory is better, she no longer wants to eat everything in the fridge, her vision is twenty-twenty, she can run like the wind, and there’s something else, too. Her mother called her very pretty, but her friend Olive is willing to go farther.

“Jesus, you’re gorgeous,” she says to Gwendy one day, not sounding pleased about it. They are in Olive’s room again, this time discussing the mysteries of high school, which they will soon begin to unravel. “No more glasses, and not even one frickin’ pimple. It’s not fair. You’ll have to beat the guys off with a stick.”

Gwendy laughs it off, but she knows that Olive is onto something. She really is good-looking, and gorgeosity isn’t out of the realm of possibility at some point in the future. Perhaps by the time she gets to college. Only when she goes away to school, what will she do with the button box? She can’t simply leave it under the tree in the backyard, can she?

Henry Dussault asks her to the freshman mixer dance on their first Friday night of high school, holds her hand on the walk home, and kisses her when they get to the Peterson house. It’s not bad, being kissed, except Henry’s breath is sort of yuck. She hopes the next boy with whom she lip-locks will be a regular Listerine user.

She wakes up at two o’clock on the morning after the dance, with her hands pressed over her mouth to hold in a scream, still in the grip of the most vivid nightmare she’s ever had. In it, she looked out the window over the kitchen sink and saw Henry sitting in the tire swing (which Gwendy’s dad actually took down a year ago). He had the button box in his lap. Gwendy rushed out, shouting at him, telling him not to press any of the buttons, especially not the black one.

Oh, you mean this one? Henry asked, grinning, and jammed his thumb down on the Cancer Button.

Above them, the sky went dark. The ground began to rumble like a live thing. Gwendy knew that all over the world, famous landmarks were falling and seas were rising. In moments—mere moments—the planet was going to explode like an apple with a firecracker stuffed in it, and between Mars and Venus there would be nothing but a second asteroid belt.

“A dream,” Gwendy says, going to her bedroom window. “A dream, a dream, nothing but a dream.”

Yes. The tree is there, now minus the tire swing, and there’s no Henry Dussault in sight. But if he had the box, and knew what each button stood for, what would he do? Push the red one and blow up Hanoi? Or say the hell with it and push the light green one?

“And blow up all of Asia,” she whispers. Because yes, that’s what the buttons do. She knew from the first, just as Mr. Farris said. The violet one blows up South America, the orange one blows up Europe, the red one does whatever you want, whatever you’re thinking of. And the black one?

The black one blows up everything.

“That can’t be,” she whispers to herself as she goes back to bed. “It’s insane.”

Only the world is insane. You only have to watch the news to know it.

When she comes home from school the next day, Gwendy goes down to the basement with a hammer and a chisel. The walls are stone, and she is able to pry one out in the farthest corner. She uses the chisel to deepen this hidey-hole until it’s big enough for the button box. She checks her watch constantly as she works, knowing her father will be home at five, her mother by five-thirty at the latest.

She runs to the tree, gets the canvas bag with the button box and her silver dollars inside (the silver dollars are now much heavier than the box, although they came from the box), and runs back to the house. The hole is just big enough. And the stone fits into place like the last piece of a puzzle. For good measure, she drags an old bureau in front of it, and at last feels at peace. Henry won’t be able to find it now. Nobody will be able to find it.

“I ought to throw the goddamned thing in Castle Lake,” she whispers as she climbs the cellar stairs. “Be done with it.” Only she knows she could never do that. It’s hers, at least unless Mr. Farris comes back to claim it. Sometimes she hopes he will. Sometimes she hopes he never will.

When Mr. Peterson comes home, he looks at Gwendy with some concern. “You’re all sweaty,” he says. “Do you feel all right?”

She smiles. “Been running, that’s all. I’m fine.”

And mostly, she is.