Gwendy's Button Box

2

Her mom and dad both work, so when Gwendy gets back to the little Cape Cod on Carbine Street, she has it to herself. She puts the button box under her bed and leaves it there for all of ten minutes before realizing that’s no good. She keeps her room reasonably neat, but her mom is the one who vacuums once in a while and changes the bed linen every Saturday morning (a chore she insists will be Gwendy’s when she turns thirteen—some birthday present that will be). Mom mustn’t find the box because moms want to know everything.

She next considers the attic, but what if her parents finally decide to clean it out and have a yard sale instead of just talking about it? The same is true of the storage space over the garage. Gwendy has a thought (novel now in its adult implications, later to become a tiresome truth): secrets are a problem, maybe the biggest problem of all. They weigh on the mind and take up space in the world.

Then she remembers the oak tree in the back yard, with the tire swing she hardly ever uses anymore—twelve is too old for such baby amusements. There’s a shallow cavern beneath the tree’s gnarl of roots. She used to curl up in there sometimes during games of hide-and-seek with her friends. She’s too big for it now (I’m thinking you might top out around five-ten or -eleven before you’re done, Mr. Farris told her), but it’s a natural for the box, and the canvas bag will keep it dry if it rains. If it really pours, she’ll have to come out and rescue it.

She tucks it away there, starts back to the house, then remembers the silver dollar. She returns to the tree and slips it into the bag with the box.

Gwendy thinks that her parents will see something strange has happened to her when they come home, that she’s different, but they don’t. They are wrapped up in their own affairs, as usual—Dad at the insurance office, Mom at Castle Rock Ford, where she’s a secretary—and of course they have a few drinks. They always do. Gwendy has one helping of everything at dinner, and cleans her plate, but refuses a slice of the chocolate cake Dad brought home from the Castle Rock Bake Shop, next door to where he works.

“Oh my God, are you sick?” Dad asks.

Gwendy smiles. “Probably.”

She’s sure she’ll lie awake until late, thinking about her encounter with Mr. Farris and the button box hidden under the backyard oak, but she doesn’t. She thinks, Light green for Asia, dark green for Africa, yellow for Australia… and that’s where she falls asleep until the next morning, when it’s time to eat a big bowl of cereal with fruit, and then charge up the Suicide Stairs once more.

When she comes back, muscles glowing and stomach growling, she retrieves the canvas bag from under the tree, takes out the box, and uses her pinky to pull the lever on the left, near the red button (whatever you want, Mr. Farris said when she asked about that one). The slot opens and the shelf slides out. On it is a chocolate turtle, small but perfect, the shell a marvel of engraved plating. She tosses the turtle into her mouth. The sweetness blooms. Her hunger disappears, although when lunchtime comes, she will eat all of the bologna-and-cheese sandwich her mother has left her, plus some salad with French dressing, and a big glass of milk. She glances at the leftover cake in its plastic container. It looks good, but that’s just an intellectual appreciation. She would feel the same way about a cool two-page spread in a Dr. Strange comic book, but she wouldn’t want to eat it, and she doesn’t want to eat any cake, either.

That afternoon she goes bike-riding with her friend Olive, and then they spend the rest of the afternoon in Olive’s bedroom, listening to records and talking about the upcoming school year. The prospect of going to Castle Rock Middle fills them with dread and excitement.

Back home, before her parents arrive, Gwendy takes the button box out of its hiding place again and pulls what she’ll come to think of as the Money Lever. Nothing happens; the slot doesn’t even open. Well, that’s all right. Perhaps because she is an only child with no competition, Gwendy isn’t greedy. When the little chocolates run out, she’ll miss them more than any silver dollars. She hopes that won’t happen for a while, but when it does, okay. C’est la vie, as her dad likes to say. Or merde se, which means shit happens.

Before returning the box, she looks at the buttons and names the continents they stand for. She touches them one by one. They draw her; she likes the way each touch seems to fill her with a different color, but she steers clear of the black one. That one is scary. Well… they’re all a little scary, but the black one is like a large dark mole, disfiguring and perhaps cancerous.

On Saturday, the Petersons pile into the Subaru station wagon and go to visit Dad’s sister in Yarmouth. Gwendy usually enjoys these visits, because Aunt Dottie and Uncle Jim’s twin girls are almost exactly her age, and the three of them always have fun together. There’s usually a movie-show on Saturday night (this time a double feature at the Pride’s Corner Drive-In, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, plus Gone in 60 Seconds), and the girls lie out on the ground in sleeping bags, chattering away when the movie gets boring.

Gwendy has fun this time, too, but her thoughts keep turning to the button box. What if someone should find it and steal it? She knows that’s unlikely—a burglar would just stick to the house, and not go searching under backyard trees—but the thought preys on her mind. Part of this is possessiveness; it’s hers. Part of it is wishing for the little chocolate treats. Most of it, however, has to do with the buttons. A thief would see them, wonder what they were for, and push them. What would happen then? Especially if he pushed the black one? She’s already starting to think of it as the Cancer Button.

When her mother says she wants to leave early on Sunday (there’s going to be a Ladies Aid meeting, and Mrs. Peterson is treasurer this year), Gwendy is relieved. When they get home, she changes into her old jeans and goes out back. She swings in the tire for a little while, then pretends to drop something and goes to one knee, as if to look for it. What she’s really looking for is the canvas bag. It’s right where it belongs… but that is not enough. Furtively, she reaches between two of the gnarled roots and feels the box inside. One of the buttons is right under her first two fingers—she can feel its convex shape—and she withdraws her hand fast, as if she had touched a hot stove burner. Still, she is relieved. At least until a shadow falls over her.

“Want me to give you a swing, sweetie?” her dad asks.

“No,” she says, getting up and brushing her knees. “I’m really too big for it now. Guess I’ll go inside and watch TV.”

He gives her a hug, pushes her glasses up on her nose, then strokes his fingers through her blonde hair, loosening a few tangles. “You’re getting so tall,” he says. “But you’ll always be my little girl. Right, Gwennie?”

“You got it, Daddy-O,” she says, and heads back inside. Before turning on the TV, she looks out into the yard from the window over the sink (no longer having to stand on tip-toe to do it). She watches her father give the tire swing a push. She waits to see if he will drop to his knees, perhaps curious about what she was looking for. Or at. When he turns and heads for the garage instead, Gwendy goes into the living room, turns on Soul Train, and dances along with Marvin Gaye.