Chapter 17 Over
Over
Kate Shaw
I bribe the children to come through the last day because I fear no one will if I don’t. I promise cake and ice cream and a present if they come. Preacher and I started making plans after the good news was delivered.
“I want to give them something they can hold on to after I’m gone.”
“Like a lucky rabbit’s foot?”
“No. Something that reminds them of their success.”
We settled on framed copies of a Creekrise story that features each child’s contribution. Something they can hang on the wall. Something that has one foot in tradition and the other in their future.
The day before that final day, Eli goes to town and prints copies of Creekrise, buys black frames, and finds small plastic trophies that read 1st Prize.
He also buys chocolate cupcakes with white icing and ice cream.
He hides the treats at the Rusty Nickel.
That night we frame the students’ stories and place them on their desks. Now it’s Friday, June 13.
All ten children come this morning intrigued, and find their gifts, and then Eli comes bearing cupcakes and ice cream in little cardboard cups with wooden spoons stuck on top.
The children clap with excitement and eat treats and take turns reading their framed newsletter stories aloud, and I hand out diplomas with their names typed on the blank line and Eli gives each one a trophy.
We have made a bona fide party for them, and it is a proud, fleeting moment.
By midday it’s over. The children have gone and Eli and I stand alone in the empty quiet left behind and our shoulders slump. These last weeks have been exhausting since the good news was delivered, then Birdie died, and now school has ended.
“There’s only a few hundred left, you know,” Eli says.
“A few hundred what?” I say while I collect cupcake wrappers and cardboard cups in the trash can.
“One-room schoolhouses. Once upon a time, every county had one when people were born and stayed close to home their whole lives. Before roads and cars and opportunities multiplied and scattered them.”
“Where are the ones that are left?”
“Mostly out west in wide open spaces or deep in Appalachia. This was the last one in North Carolina. There may be one in Kentucky. You were part of history, Kate.”
I wipe crumbs from the desktops and slide them against the wall. Eli and I set up sawhorses and sheets of plywood he collected, lay out Birdie’s books as best we can, and stand before them overwhelmed. “Now what?” he says, exhausted.
I was waiting for that question, the one that would easily segue into my next sentence.
“I have an idea.” I hold out a business card.
The one with Lydia Brown’s name and telephone number.
“I believe we have two choices, Eli. We can wander for days and weeks and make a mess of Birdie’s things or we can call for help. ”
“You’d bring in a stranger?”
“This woman does this sort of thing for the library at the college in Asheville. And she’s not a stranger. She met Birdie two weeks back,” I say, but leave out the part where she had been dismissed by the witch. He doesn’t need to hear that.
Eli studies the card and I think he’s going to cry the way his nose reddens. He digs out his handkerchief to wipe his perspiring face. Maybe I’ve handled this idea all wrong. Spoken too quickly.
“Can we at least start on our own? Spend a few days by ourselves?”
“Yes. We can do that if it makes you feel better,” I say, knowing we’ll eventually invite Lydia Brown to bring order to this sea of confusion and hope she’s willing.
But before we do, something comes and takes us to our knees.