“He kissed you and then he held your hand?” Ashley asked.
“Cut it out, Ashley. It was a stage kiss and then we shook hands.”
“Kids don’t shake hands. That’s totally lame. You might pound it. You might high five it. You might even wave. But no one shakes hands. No one.”
“We shook hands,” I repeated.
“You didn’t shake hands. You don’t make sex jokes, slip them the tongue, and then shake their effin hand. You just don’t do it. He held your hand.”
“It was a shake Ashley. And there was no tongue. I was there, remember?”
“No tongue?”
“No tongue.”
“But definitely a hold.”
“Stop!” I said.
We were back in Tom’s Mine following another round of flag cutting. American had come back and marked the identical trees just as before. We had cut them all down. The flags, not the trees.
And we had also ripped down the signs that they had nailed up all along the road.
PRIVATE PROPERTY
NO TRESSPASSING
ANY DAMAGE TO THIS PROPERTY WILL RESULT IN
ARREST AND CRIMINAL PROCEEDINGS
AMERICAN COAL COMPANY
Once again, we hadn’t really thought about it, we had just done it. We didn’t have a plan. We hadn’t even talked about it. It just seemed to be the thing we had to do. Part of what was expected. The new normal.
The whole way up the mountain it was a snip snip here and a snip snip there and down came the flags.
“Is it my imagination or are our little Tomsters a bit chattier than usual today?” Ashley asked as we cut down the last flag. We called the animals on Mount Tom “our Tomsters,” and like the trees, we had even named a few of them.
There was Lady Gaga the barred owl, which we’d sometimes see at dusk, staring us down with her deep brown, almost black eyes and asking us, “Who cooks for you, who cooks for you all?” in her haunting hoot. She’d sit at her perch and twist her head round and round in that freakish way that owls do as if their necks were wind-up toys.
“If I could do that,” Ashley said, “I’d join the circus and make a million.”
There was Jay-Z the red squirrel, who’d chatter-rap nonstop as he raced back and forth across his old stone wall, hurling zingers at us fast and furious. It was unclear to Ashley and me if he did this because he was totally pissed or actually quite delighted to see us.
There was Taylor Swift, the whitetail deer that never stuck around long enough for a proper introduction but instead high-tailed it out of there—flight at first sight.
There were the Black Crows, TNTC (too numerous to count), that laughed at our every move as if we were the funniest effin things this side of Comedy Central.
I know, I know. It all sounds so juvenile and lame, so Walt Disneyish, as if we were third graders. But somehow, the act of giving them names made them all that more real to us. They weren’t just animals. They were our animals. Our very own Tomsters.
There were a lot more of them as well. We couldn’t see them, we couldn’t even hear them, but we knew they were out there. We could feel their presence, watching our every move, eyes staring from behind the trunks of trees or camouflaged under leaf litter. Not staring at us in a creepy-stalker, horror-movie kind of way. Not like “better watch your backs girly-girls or you’ll be breakfast, lunch, and dinner.” But in a comforting “hey, welcome back” kind of way.
They knew we belonged here, too.
“It seems as though they approve,” Ashley said.
“Approve of what?” I asked.
“Us cutting down the flags. Listen to them. It’s like applause. It’s like we’re rock stars.”
Ashley was right. The noise level was definitely ratcheted up a notch. With every cut flag it had seemed to grow louder and louder until the entire woods was a symphony of sound. Hoots and churs and grunts and caws. The Tomsters were twittering and tweeting the news to the whole wide world. “Go for it!” they were shouting.
“Do it!”
“Yes!”
The angst I had felt after the first time we had cut down the flags was still there. I was, once again, confused and uncertain. But there was much less hesitation this time.
My father was a great fan of an old-time folk musician named Pete Seeger who once said, “The world will be saved by a million little acts.”
This was starting to feel like one of them.
“Do you think they look good?” Ashley asked.
“Of course they do,” I replied.
“Seriously?”
“Duh! How could they not? They don’t have flags on them anymore.”
“Jeez, Cyndie,” Ashley said, adjusting her bra. “I was talking about my boobs, not about the trees.”
This was one for the ridiculous jar. Here we were trying to save the world, or at least our little portion of it, and Ashley was once again obsessing about her boobs.
“Chill, Ashley,” I said. “If I had boobs like yours I’d think I’d have died and gone to heaven. If I was a guy or if I was into girls I wouldn’t be able to keep my hands off of them. They’re perfect. Quit your bitching. I mean, seriously, look at mine. I’ve got boy boobs.”
“Haven’t you been listening to a word I said?” Ashley asked. “That’s the issue. That’s the problem. I’m only fifteen and I’m already a C. If they don’t stop growing I’ll be flying past Z by the time I’m twenty!”
“I should be so lucky. Mine don’t even make the alphabet! What comes before the letter A?”
“I’d so rather have yours than mine any day. Before too long I’m going to need an effin wheelbarrow to cart these things up this mountain.”
“Let’s just hope there’ll still be a mountain to climb,” I said.
“Anyway, you do too have boobs,” Ashley said. “They’re perfect for you. Totally hot. No wonder Kevin’s all over you.”
“Kevin’s not all over me.”
Ashley snorted.
“Anyway, can we please change the subject? If I hear one more thing about your boobs I’m going to take out these scissors and . . .” I waved them menacingly at her chest.
“Message received,” Ashley said, removing her hand from under her top.
“So what are we going to do now?” I asked.
“About Kevin?”
“No, about Tom.”
“Tom?” Ashley asked. “Tom who? You have another guy after you? Jeez, when it rains it pours!”
“Yeah. Right. Sorry. I have an idea.”
“As long as it doesn’t involve boobs I’m all ears,” I said.
“A children’s crusade,” Ashley said.
“A what?”
“A children’s crusade. I was thinking about this the other day in history. You know the thing they did in the Middle Ages in Europe where tens of thousands of kids marched to the Holy Land to convert everyone to Christianity. We could do the same thing.”
“March to the Holy Land?”
“No! March on Mount Tom!”
“Thank God,” I said. “That’s way closer. But didn’t they all die of disease and starvation and get sold into slavery or something?”
“Whatever,” Ashley said. “And there was another children’s crusade in the 1960s down in Alabama. A bunch of African American kids marching for civil rights.”
I was impressed. Ashley had actually stayed awake in class!
“I hate to burst your bubble, but as I recall that didn’t go down so well, either. Like fire hoses sprayed on the kids and police attack dogs and beatings and arrests and all sorts of crazy racist crap.”
“My point exactly,” Ashley said. “Think about it. What if we got everyone to march on American? What if the police brought out fire hoses and attack dogs and those of us who survived died of disease or starvation or got sold into slavery. I mean, seriously! It would be totally awesome. It would go viral on YouTube. There’d be no way they could blow up Tom after that!”
“Yeah. And you wouldn’t have to worry about your boobs anymore either.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’d be dead,” I said.
“Or a slave.”
“Either way, not exactly appealing choices!”
But I had to give her credit. It was an interesting idea. What if we got a whole bunch of us kids to march on American? There were kids who would do it. There were kids at school who cared. There were a lot who didn’t, but there had to be a bunch who would be down for it.
And so, sitting in our mini-mine with the candles flickering inside and the animals frolicking outside, we began planning the Great Mount Tom Children’s Crusade.
American had their corporate office right in the center of Greenfield, across from the Burger King, about a mile from the high school. We could make up banners and signs and slogans and get a petition and march right on up there and demand that they listen to us. We could get a bullhorn and sing and chant.
We were a bunch of kids, for crying out loud. It was our town. It was our mountain. They’d have to listen.
“I bet Kevin Malloy would come,” Ashley said. “If you were up front and center with that hot hoop skirt, a banner, and a bull horn, there’s no telling what might happen.”
That sealed the deal.
The Great Mount Tom Children’s Crusade was on.