This Journal Belongs to Ratchet (18 page)

On Monday morning, I sat at the kitchen table looking at The Blainesfield Beacon searching for an article to summarize for one of my social studies assignments.

When I turned to page four, I immediately saw my name: Rachel Vance
—
Winner of The Blainesfield Beacon Essay Contest. And there was my essay printed for the whole town to read.

Why would my essay win and be printed in the paper the very day the trees were going to be cut down?

My heart sank. I didn't want this in the newspaper. I didn't want people reading about the poor daughter of the crazy guy who wanted the park saved but didn't find a way to save it
—
it made Dad and me look pathetic. I felt sick.

I shoved the newspaper into the trash can, which in our house was considered a cardinal sin. Dad would have a fit if he knew I threw a newspaper into the garbage can instead of the recycling bin, but I didn't want to take a chance on Dad seeing my essay. It would've been like pouring salt in his wound.

And then the phone rang.

“Did you see it?!” Hunter practically yelled into the phone.

“Yeah, I saw it! And that's why I didn't want you to send it in. I don't want everyone reading my essay. It makes Dad and me look like losers.”

“You're not happy you won?”

“We didn't win, Hunter! The park is history, remember?”

“Maybe because of your essay they'll change their minds.”

But I knew it was way too late for that because I could already hear the Chain Saw Cousins Lumber Company starting up their chain saws.

Buzzing,

Cracking,

Branches

Breaking.

Moss

Tree

Park

Falling.

Dad's

Heart

Splitting

In two.

And

So

Is

Mine.

Finally a sound

Breaks through

The sawdust.

The phone rings.

A buyer

For the Mustang,

And Dad stretches

The truth.

Again.

He tells him

The engine

Runs,

Even though

It doesn't.

The buyer for the Mustang comes, and I know who he is right away. He looks just like her. It's Ms. Wilkerson's son.

I wonder if his mom ever talked to him about the park. If she did, he's not thinking about that right now because he
loves
Dad's car. Until...he asks Dad to start it, and Dad says, stalling a bit, “It needs a little tweaking,” which is more than a stretch of the truth.

“Give me till tomorrow, and I'll get it running,” Dad says.

But Ms. Wilkerson's son looks at Dad's hand still all bandaged up and shakes his head.

“Wait!” I say. “I can do it!”

And Dad nods his head.

“She's right. She can,” he says. “I'll tell her what to do. Her hands are as good as mine. Even better now.”

And I feel some of the heaviness slip away as Dad's pride fills me up with something else. Something good.

(A SINGLE SPARK CAN BECOME A ROARING FLAME.)

“Maybe...” Ms. Wilkerson's son says. “But I don't know.”

Dad does his magic, and before I know it, Ms. Wilkerson's son is giving Dad a down payment and driving away as the future owner of Dad's yellow Mustang.

And I wonder how I can be so happy and so sad at the same time.

(THERE ARE TWO SIDES TO EVERY COIN.)

Dad takes the check and heads to the sheriff's office to pay his fine. As the Rabbit backfires out of the driveway, he tells me he'll be right back, and I wish so hard that he was driving the Mustang all tricked out and that he was using the money to buy back the park. But before Dad turns the corner, the fried chicken smell reminds me of reality and the sound of the chain saws in the background reminds me of just how much we're all

L

O

S

I

N

G.

While working on the Mustang,

Afternoon turns to evening.

The engine worse than Dad thought,

Dad promised it'd be done,

And though Dad may stretch the truth sometimes,

He doesn't break his promises.

Dad still can't use his hand

So he tells me what to do.

And I do the work,

But I'm tired.

My fingers sore from twisting nuts,

My palms blistered from squeezing pliers,

My neck stiff from straining to reach parts.

Covered in grease but too tired to scrub it all away,

I collapse into bed,

Leaving grease marks on my sheets.

The next day as soon as the sun's up

I hunch over the engine again,

And even though I'm more tired than I've ever been,

My heaviness turns into something else.

My anger about the mystery box and

My guilt about the accident

Slowly seep out of me like air

Leaking from a tire

With a very tiny hole in it.

And when the engine finally starts,

It runs like a charm,

And the old, stale air in my leaky tire is all gone.

And I feel myself being pumped back up,

Pumped back up with something,

And it feels like

It might be

The “something”

I've been searching for

All along.

"I'm proud”

Is what he says

But the way he hugs me

Says more than his words ever could.

My dad.

Whitney Houston:

“She's (my mother) my teacher, my advisor, my greatest inspiration.”

What could a dad who loves me and won't ever let me go

Teach me to think

Except that

I am worth everything in the world to him.

What could a dad who loves me and won't ever let me go

Advise me to do

Except to

Dig deeper and try harder when things don't go my way.

What could a dad who loves me and won't ever let me go

Inspire me to become

Except a

Girl who's so full of good things

She knows she can do

Sitting on the garage floor

Leaning against the workbench

My body so tired it's humming,

But all I hear is quiet..

Not just regular quiet,

But loud quiet.

Big quiet.

Quiet that fills up your ears

And echoes in your head

Making it ring like a bell.

The chain saws had stopped.

They had just started yesterday,

They couldn't be finished.

All the trees couldn't really be gone,

Not yet.

Not all of them.

So why would they stop?

When Ms. Wilkerson's son, Adam, heard the Mustang's engine run for the first time, I think he was the happiest man in the world. He loved his new car, and he loved that he could drive it now thanks to Dad and me.

But when he drove off down the street to take it for a quick test drive, I could tell by the way Dad plunked himself down on the stool in the garage that he hated to lose that car, and then he told me why. It was supposed to have been
my
first car
—
he wanted to give it to me on my sixteenth birthday
—
those were his “big plans.” And now he would never be able to do that.

But Dad didn't know that he'd already given me a much better gift than a car. While we worked on the Mustang together, it hadn't just been me being “Ratchet” making his job easier. It had been Dad relying on me to do the whole job, the job he couldn't do, and believing I could do it. And it was me seeing how much I already am like Dad and me realizing what a cool thing that really is.

I thought finding out about Mom would help me discover who I was really supposed to be, but now I knew that fixing up the Mustang with Dad had just showed me a whole lot more.

By the time Adam came around the block and stopped at the end of our driveway, I think he was
happier
than the happiest man in the world. And I think I was even happier than that.

Adam leaned his elbow out the window and said, “Can't thank you enough, Lamar. This car's a real gem.”

“Pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Wilkerson,” Dad said, standing up again.

“You two were probably a little busy this morning and didn't have time to see the newspaper, but check out page two,” Adam said as he tossed a rolled-up newspaper up the driveway to us. Then he honked the horn and drove away.

I unrolled the newspaper, and Dad looked over my shoulder just as I turned to page two.

I couldn't believe it! There was my essay! They printed it again? I didn't want Dad to see this!

But then I saw right next to it that Ms. Wilkerson's son, Adam, had written an editorial about my essay. It wasn't just a little letter to the editor. He must've paid for a full-page spread because that's what it was. A collage of quotes about trees and a plea to the people of Blainesfield to save Moss Tree Park.

Before Dad or I could say anything, the phone in the garage rang.

It was the editor of The Blainesfield Beacon calling for me. To tell me some really great news
—
MOSS TREE PARK IS SAVED!

After my essay appeared in the paper, the mayor got several phone calls from people about the park. Adam Wilkerson was one of those calls. He demanded that the destruction of the park be stopped, and even though the mayor told him “no way,” he decided it was best to send away the Chain Saw Cousins Lumber Company until things settled down a little.

Adam knew that the mayor might be able to ignore a
few
phone calls about the park, but if enough people called he'd
have
to pay attention. So Adam decided to pay for a full page in today's Beacon so he could reprint my essay and add a few thoughts of his own. His idea worked because as soon as the paper came out this morning, the mayor's phone rang off the hook. The city council members had just met in an emergency meeting to reverse their decision about Moss Tree Park.

There would be a ceremony on Saturday at the park where I'd receive an award for my winning essay, and Mayor Prindle would officially announce the restoration of Moss Tree Park.

But the best thing of all, better than even the park being saved, was when Dad heard the good news, he grabbed me and hugged me tighter than a race car hugs the inside lane during the last lap of the Indy 500.

I sure could get used to all this hugging.