Stephen King - Gwendy's Button Box

The old man’s eyebrows dance as he laughs. “I bet you can.”

He stuffs the money and the receipt into an envelope. He folds the envelope in half and uses about a yard of scotch tape to seal it tight. “See if that’ll fit nice and snug in your shorts pocket,” he says, handing over the envelope.

Gwendy stuffs it into her pocket and pats the outside. “Snug as a bug in a rug.”

“I like you, girl, I do. Got style and got sand. A combination that can’t be beat.” Lenny turns to the dealer on his left. “Hank, you mind watching my table for a minute?”

“Only if you bring me back a soda,” Hank says.

“Done.” Lenny slips out from behind his table and escorts Gwendy to the door. “You sure you’re going to be okay?”

“Positive. Thanks again, Mr. Lenny,” she says, feeling the weight of the money inside her pocket. “I really appreciate it.”

“The appreciation is all mine, Miss Gwendy.” He holds the door open for her. “Good luck with the Ivy League.”

Gwendy squints in the May sunlight as she unlocks her bike from a nearby tree. It never occurred to her this morning that the VFW wouldn’t have a bike rack—then again, how many vets did you see cruising around Castle Rock on bicycles?

She pats her pocket to make sure the envelope is still nice and snug, then straddles her bike and pushes off. Halfway across the parking lot, she spots Frankie Stone and Jimmy Sines, checking car doors and peering into windows. Some unlucky person was going to walk out of the Coin & Stamp Show today and find their car ransacked.

Gwendy pedals faster, hoping to slip away unnoticed, but she’s not that lucky.

“Hey, sugar tits!” Frankie yells from behind her, and then he’s sprinting ahead and cutting her off, blocking her exit from the parking lot. He waves his arms at her. “Whoa, whoa, whoa!”

Gwendy skids to a stop in front him. “Leave me alone, Frankie.”

It takes him a moment to catch his breath. “I just wanted to ask you a question, that’s all.”

“Then ask it and get out of my way.” She glances around for an escape route.

Jimmy Sines emerges from behind a parked car. Stands on the other side of her with his arms crossed. He looks at Frankie. “Sugar tits, huh?”

Frankie grins. “This is the one I was telling you about.” He walks closer to Gwendy, trails a finger up her leg. She swats it away.

“Ask your question and move.”

“C’mon, don’t be like that,” he says. “I was just wondering how your ass is. You always had such a tight one. Must make it hard to take a shit.” He’s touching her leg again. Not just a finger; his whole hand.

“These boys bothering you, Miss Gwendy?”

All three of them turn and look. Lenny is standing there.

“Get lost, old man,” Frankie says, taking a step toward him.

“I don’t think so. You okay, Gwendy?”

“I’m okay now.” She pushes off and starts pedaling. “Gotta get going or I’m gonna be late for lunch. Thanks!”

They watch her go, and then Frankie and Jimmy turn back to Lenny. “It’s two on one. I like those odds, old-timer.”

Lenny reaches into his pants pocket and comes out with a flick knife. Engraved on its silver side are the only two words of Latin these boys understand: Semper Fi . His gnarled hand does a limber trick and presto, there’s a six-inch blade glittering in the sunlight. “Now it’s two on two.”

Frankie takes off across the parking lot, Jimmy right behind him.

“Imagine that, Gwendy wins again,” Sallie says, rolling her eyes and tossing her cards onto the carpet in front of her.

There are four of them sitting in a circle on the Peterson’s den floor: Gwendy, Sallie Ackerman, Brigette Desjardin, and Josie Wainwright. The other three girls are seniors at Castle Rock High and frequent visitors to the Peterson home this school year.

“You ever notice that?” Josie says, scrunching up her face. “Gwendy never loses. At pretty much anything.”

Sallie rolls with it: “Best grades in school. Best athlete in school. Prettiest girl in school. And a card shark to boot.”

“Oh, shut up,” Gwendy says, gathering the cards. It’s her turn to shuffle and deal. “That’s not true.”

But Gwendy knows it is true, and although Josie is just teasing in her usual goofy way (who else would aspire to be lead singer in a group called the Pussycats?), she also knows that Sallie isn’t teasing at all. Sallie is getting sick of it. Sallie is getting jealous.

Gwendy first realized it was becoming an issue a few months earlier. Yes, she’s a fast runner, maybe the fastest varsity runner in the county. Maybe in the entire state. Really? Yes, really. And then there are her grades. She always earned good ones in school, but in younger years she had to study hard for those grades, and even then, there were usually a handful of B’s, along with all those A’s on her report cards. Now she barely hits the books at all, and her grades are the highest in the whole junior class. She even finds herself writing down the wrong answers from time to time, just to avoid, ho-hum, another perfect test score. Or forcing herself to lose at cards and arcade games just to keep her friends from becoming suspicious. Regardless of her efforts, they know something is weird anyway.

Buttons aside, coins aside, little chocolate treats aside, the box has given her… well… powers .

Really? Yes, really.

She never gets hurt anymore. No strained muscles from track. No bumps or bruises from soccer. No nicks or scratches from being clumsy. Not even a stubbed toe or broken fingernail. She can’t remember the last time she’s needed a Band-Aid. Even her period is easy. No more cramps, a few drops on a sanitary pad, and done. These days Gwendy’s blood stays where it belongs.

These realizations are both fascinating and terrifying to Gwendy. She knows it’s the box somehow doing this—or perhaps the chocolate treats—but they really are one and the same. Sometimes, she wishes she could talk to someone about it. Sometimes, she wishes she were still friends with Olive. She might be the only person in the world who would listen and believe her.

Gwendy places the deck of cards on the floor and gets to her feet. “Who wants popcorn and lemonade?”

Three hands go up. Gwendy disappears into the kitchen.

There are big changes in Gwendy’s life during the fall and winter of 1978, most of them good ones.

She finally gets her driver’s license in late September, and a month later on her seventeenth birthday, her parents surprise her with a gently used Ford Fiesta from the dealership where her mom works. The car is bright orange and the radio only works when it wants to, but none of that matters to Gwendy. She loves this car and plasters its meager back deck with big daisy decals and a NO NUKES bumper sticker left over from the sixties.

She also gets her first real job (she’s earned money in the past babysitting and raking leaves, but she doesn’t count those), working at the drive-in snack bar three nights a week. It surprises no one that she proves especially adept at her duties and earns a promotion by her third month of employment.

She is also named captain of the varsity outdoor track team.

Gwendy still wonders about Mr. Farris and she still worries about the button box, but not nearly with the same nervous intensity as she once did. She also still locks her bedroom door and slides the box out from inside her closet and pulls the lever for a chocolate treat, but not as often as she once did. Maybe twice a week now, tops.