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On Tuesday morning, junior Thomas and sophomore Chloe were waiting in Emily’s classroom when she got there. They sat side by side, facing Emily’s desk, as if waiting for a meeting with a loan officer. Emily plunked her giant purse down on her desk. “Morning, guys.”
“Are you going to the meeting tonight, Miss Morse?” Chloe asked.
Emily felt a small panic. “What meeting?” she asked, trying not to show her alarm.
“The co-op meeting,” Chloe said.
Emily noticed Thomas was being unusually reticent.
“Why would I go to a lobster co-op meeting?” Emily asked.
“Not the lobster co-op—the power co-op,” Chloe said.
For a second, Emily still didn’t know what she meant. Then it dawned on her. “Oh, the electric company? Why are people going to an electric company meeting?”
Thomas looked up at her. “Are you serious?”
“What?” Emily’s eyes flitted between the two young, earnest faces. “What am I missing?”
Chloe didn’t seem surprised by Emily’s cluelessness. “They’re going to vote on the windmills.”
Emily started to ask, “What windmills?” but Thomas cut her off before she could.
“They’re not going to vote tonight. They’re just going to talk about it.”
“They’ve been talking about it since I was eight! Isn’t it time they make a decision?”
Thomas shrugged and looked down at Emily’s desk.
“Well,” Chloe continued, “my mom said they’re actually going to vote now that the whole thing is possible.”
Emily wanted to ask what new circumstance made the “whole thing” possible, but Thomas cut her off again.
“So how are the wedding plans coming?”
She gave him a smirk. “You’ll be the first to know.” She didn’t know how Thomas knew about her sort-of-engagement, but he wasn’t the only one.
James hadn’t really proposed yet. He had only promised that he would propose. And she had promised to accept. But she didn’t think this counted as a real engagement. Still, several people had already asked her when was the date, would the wedding be on the island, did she need any help. This all meant, of course, that James had told someone something. She hadn’t told a soul—not even her mother. She was too scared the whole thing wouldn’t happen and she’d end up looking the fool.
“Be patient, Thomas! She doesn’t even have a ring yet!” Chloe said.
“Well, there’s not a lot of jewelry stores on the island. The guy’s got to get to the mainland for a diamond. So why don’t you be patient, Chloe?”
“You know you guys bicker like a married couple, right?” Emily said. Chloe blushed and looked down and Emily regretted her quip. “So where is the windmill meeting?” she asked, trying to cover her faux pas.
“At the church,” Chloe said.
“You mean the real church?” Emily joked. She and Chloe were part of a small congregation that met for house church in their friend’s basement, and people loved to ask them why they didn’t just go to the “real church.”
Chloe smiled, definitely getting Emily’s joke. “Yes. That one. I don’t think we’d all fit in Abe’s basement.”
“How many people do you think will come?” Emily asked.
“Well, if we’re not going to vote, maybe only a hundred or so?” Chloe guessed.
Emily’s eyebrows went up. She wasn’t expecting such a high estimate.
“But if we are going to vote,” Chloe continued, “and I think people think that we are, then well, I think we’ll see, I don’t know ... everybody.”
Thomas groaned, and Emily started to ask him why a windmill-meeting was groan-worthy, but the bell rang.
“Have a great day, guys.”
“You too.” Thomas held out his hand for a fist bump, but it lacked its usual vigor.
Emily’s first period freshmen filed in, and she opened her laptop so she could put the writing prompt up on the interactive board. She had planned to use, “If you had to erase one color from the world, what would it be and why?” But instead she typed, “Should Piercehaven put up windmills?” Before she’d even typed the question mark, Tyler groaned.
“Are you serious, Miss M? We talked this to death yesterday in science.”
“Good!” Emily said. “Then you should be able to easily organize your thoughts into a paragraph.”
Tyler shook his head in disgust, but he did bend over his keyboard and look at the screen. Emily gave them five minutes to free write, and then, when she saw a few of them had gotten distracted, asked, “Would anyone like to share what they wrote?”
“You might not want to do that, Miss M,” Tyler warned melodramatically.
“Why’s that?” Emily asked, even though she had a pretty good idea.
“Because islanders are pretty passionate about their wind,” Tyler said. “And their birds,” he added, and several students laughed.
“Birds?” Emily asked.
Tyler leaned back in his chair, seeming to glow with the attention. “Yeah, birds. I never heard my grandmother even mention a bird, but now there’s talk about windmills, and she’s all, ‘But what about the biiiiirds?’”
The class laughed again. Tyler looked quite pleased with himself.
“As in, the windmills will hurt the birds?” Emily said.
“Well, look at it this way,” Tyler said. “A bird is only going to smash into a windmill once.”
More laughter.
“OK, why don’t you read what you wrote,” Emily said to Tyler.
Tyler cleared his throat and read, “I don’t care if this island gets windmills. I don’t have to pay the electric bills, and when I’m eighteen, I’m leaving this stupid rock and I’ll go live somewhere with cheap power.” He looked up.
“That’s it?” Emily asked.
“I’m a slow writer.”
“OK then, thanks for sharing. Would anyone else like to share what they wrote?”
Victoria raised her hand.
Emily nodded at her.
She began, “My parents love the idea of windmills. They’ve been wanting windmills for this island since Vinalhaven put theirs up. It will save us money and it will save the environment—”
“Except for the birds,” Tyler interjected.
Emily gave him a stern look and he shushed.
“People on this island are just scared of change,” Victoria continued. “Once we put the windmills up, everybody will get used to it. Then it will be a good thing.”
“Very good, Victoria. Anyone else?”
Sydney raised her hand. Then she began to read, “I have cousins on Vinalhaven—”
“No, you don’t,” Tyler said.
“Shut up, Tyler!” Sydney snapped.
“Guys, we’re not going to do this again,” Emily said. “Tyler, behave. Sydney, continue.”
“Third cousins twice removed,” Tyler muttered, and the boys on either side of him laughed.
“As I was saying,” Sydney continued, “my cousins say that they haven’t saved any money on electricity since the windmills went up. And they also have migraines now, which are caused by the windmills. My dad says it is never going to happen for Piercehaven, because we are smarter than Vinalhaven. Besides, the windmills are wicked loud.” She stopped reading and looked up at Emily.
“Migraines?” Emily asked, trying to hide her skepticism.
“For real,” Caleb spoke up. “They say they cause all kinds of junk—puking, can’t sleep, can’t see, heart attacks.”
Tyler swore to express his skepticism.
“Tyler!” Emily said more harshly. “Seriously! That’s enough!” Then she looked at Sydney. “How loud can a windmill be?”
“You can hear it from more than a mile away,” Caleb said. “I can hear Vinalhaven’s from my boat in the morning when I’m fishing.”
“But this island is only six miles long,” Emily thought aloud. “Where can we put a windmill that’s more than a mile away from everybody?”
“We can’t,” Caleb said. “That’s the point. They want to put it on Chicken Hill because that’s the highest point. And yeah, not a ton of people live out there, but enough do.”
“The poor ones,” Tyler said. “The poor people live out there.”
