Gwendy's Button Box

14

The day before she’s scheduled to attend junior prom with Walter Dean, Gwendy rolls out of bed late to discover that the basement has flooded overnight after a particularly heavy spring thunderstorm.

“It’s wetter than a taco fart down there and just as smelly,” Mr. Peterson tells her. “You sure you want to go down?”

Gwendy nods, trying to hide her rising panic. “I need to check on some old books and a pile of clothes I left for the laundry.”

Mr. Peterson shrugs his shoulders and returns his gaze to the small television on the kitchen counter. “Make sure you take off your shoes before you go. And hey, might want to wear a life preserver.”

Gwendy hurries down the basement stairs before he can change his mind and wades into a pool of ankle-high scummy gray water. Earlier this morning Mr. Peterson managed to unclog the sump pump, and Gwendy can hear it chugging away over in the far corner, but it’s going to have a long day. She can tell by the water line that marks the basement’s stone walls that the floodwater has dropped maybe two inches at the most.

She wades to the opposite side of the basement where the button box is hidden and pushes aside the old bureau. She drops to a knee in the corner and reaches down into the cloudy water, unable to see her hands, and works the stone free.

Her fingers touch wet canvas. She pulls the waterlogged bag out of its hidey-hole, puts it aside, then picks up the loose stone and places it back into the wall so her father won’t notice it once the water has finished receding.

She reaches to the side again for the canvas bag containing the box and coins—and it isn’t there.

She flails her hands under the water, trying desperately to locate the bag, but it’s nowhere to be found. Black dots swim in her vision and she suddenly feels light-headed. She realizes she’s forgotten to breathe, so she opens her mouth and takes in a big gulp of foul, moldy basement air. Her eyes and brain immediately begin to clear.

Gwendy takes one more calming breath and once again reaches down into the dirty water, this time trying her other side. Right away, her fingers brush the canvas bag. She gets to her feet and like a weightlifter performing a deadlift squat, she raises the heavy bag to her waist and waddles her way across the basement to the shelves next to the washer and dryer. She grabs a couple of dry towels from an upper shelf and does the best she can to wrap the canvas bag.

“You okay down there?” her father hollers from upstairs. She hears footsteps on the ceiling above her. “Need any help? Scuba tank and fins, maybe?”

“No, no,” Gwendy says, hurrying to make sure the bag is fully concealed. Her heart is a triphammer in her chest. “I’ll be up in a few.”

“If you say so.” She listens to her father’s muffled footsteps again, but going away. Thank God.

She grabs the bag again and shuffles across the flooded basement as fast as her tired legs will carry her, grunting with the weight of the box and the silver coins.

Once she is safely inside her bedroom, she locks the door behind her and unwraps the canvas bag. The button box appears undamaged, but how would she really know? She pulls the lever on the left side of the box and after a breathless moment when she is absolutely convinced the box is broken after all, the little shelf slides open without a sound and on it is a chocolate monkey the size of a jelly bean. She quickly stuffs the chocolate into her mouth and that gorgeous flavor takes her away again. She closes her eyes while it melts on her tongue.

The bag is ripped in several places and will have to be replaced, but Gwendy isn’t worried about that. She looks around her bedroom and settles on the bottom of her closet, where her shoeboxes are stacked in messy piles. Her parents never bother with her closet these days.

She removes an old pair of boots from their oversized cardboard box and tosses them to the opposite end of the closet. She carefully places the button box inside and adds the pile of silver coins. Once the lid is securely back on the shoebox, she slides it—it’s too heavy to pick up now; the cardboard would surely tear—into the shadows at the very back of her closet. Once that’s done, she stacks other shoeboxes on top and in front of it.

She gets to her feet, backs up, and surveys her work. Convinced that she’s done a competent job, she picks up the soaked canvas bag and heads for the kitchen to throw it away and grab some cereal for breakfast.

She lazes around the house the rest of the day, watching television and skimming her history book. Every thirty minutes or so—more than a dozen times in all—she gets up from the sofa, walks down the hallway, and peeks her head into her bedroom to make sure the box is still safe.

The next night is the prom, and she finds that she actually has to force herself to put on her pink gown and make-up and leave the house.

Is this my life now? she thinks as she enters the Castle Rock gym. Is that box my life?