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Saturday morning, Gwen rolled over and gazed around her small bedroom in the Whippersnapper 3. She'd been staying there with the Curtins ever since she and Tom returned from their journey downriver two weeks earlier. They'd sailed at least a dozen more times since then, each time having to go less and less far since towns closer to home were beginning to recover.

Next door, she could hear the hum of the magnetic generator and she found it comforting to know she would have heat and light on that chilly October morning. She knew it would be brisk out because they'd been checking the weather report frequently, hoping for a good day. Hopefully, it would be sunny and cool, just as reported.

Outside her room, she heard voices talking amiably. The robust and distinctly Australian tones of Ricky Montbank, owner of the Whippersnapper 3, could be heard above those of Mr. and Mrs. Curtin. “I'm glad to do it, Mary,” he was saying to Mrs. Curtin. “I think what you want to do is remarkable, and my Whippersnapper Corporation is delighted to support it. This event today will bring lots of attention to the company.”

“That's not really why we're doing it,” Mrs. Curtin said. “You understand that, don't you, Ricky? We just believe it's the right thing to do.”

“Of course! Of course it's the right thing.”

“So no press,” Mr. Curtin requested. “Please. We don't want anyone to be embarrassed. Folks in Marietta are used to being on the winning side, and we don't want them humiliated by this.”

“Oh, all right,” Ricky Montbank said, relenting. “But if you're going to make Sage Valley a showcase for green living, you have to be more publicity oriented. I'm letting you all stay here because the time is right to sell this kind of home.”

There was scratching at Gwen's door, and she swung herself out of bed to open it just enough to let Larry wander in. Smiling, she ruffled his fur. “Hey, Larry, are you ready for today? Where's Tom?”

Gwen threw on a white terry robe as she followed Larry out the door, waving sleepily to the Curtins and Ricky Montbank. They were seated at the table in front of what used to be the solar window. Ricky Montbank had promised to have it replaced before the week was out.

“They're all upstairs getting ready,” Mr. Curtin told Gwen as she passed by.

Climbing the stairs to the garden room, Gwen found Niki, Brock, Hector, Carlos, and Tom filling baskets with fruits and vegetables from the garden room. “Nice of you to get up,” Hector teased. “Thanks.”

“You're welcome,” Gwen replied, poking him playfully. She found Tom across the garden room and waved to him. He smiled at her warmly as he returned the gesture.

“Go have your breakfast and then we need help carrying these baskets out. We have a guy coming at nine with a bunch of horses,” Tom told her.

“No kidding?” Gwen asked.

“Yeah,” Niki said, wiping her glasses on her sweater. “He has horses that can pull wagons, and we're going to load them up with the food.”

“How are they getting around the trees?” Brock asked.

“He knows a dirt road around the back way up,” Niki explained.

“Okay, I'm going to grab a bite and come right back,” Gwen told them. “Be right back.”

 

Gwen pulled her bicycle alongside Tom's as they rode into Marietta. Brock and Niki were ahead of them. They were all riding new bicycles donated by Ricky Montbank's company, as were the nearly sixty or so other residents of Sage Valley, most of whom were also participants in Mary Curtin's effort, underwritten by a grant from Whippersnapper, to make Sage Valley a completely energy self-sufficient town. Once spring came, there would be a program of local farming as well.

This, ultimately, was how they would survive. Even if there was gas to be had, it would only be had by the very rich or the very powerful. The police would need it and the army would need it. People like Gwen and Tom weren't going to be on that priority list. And until the area started using wind power or nuclear power or some other kind of power to fuel electricity, there were going to be some hard times. The town—and its citizens—would never be connected to the world in the same way again.

“Wow. Marietta is a wreck,” Gwen commented to Tom.

Tom nodded, gazing around at the closed, boarded-up stores, the abandoned cars, the trash in the streets. In his bike basket were some
of the toiletries he and Gwen had picked up during their last trip down the river: shampoo, toothpaste, toilet tissue, razors, and so on.

Beside him, a horse sputtered, causing him to startle. As it drew ahead, its open cart filled with baskets of produce, Hector, who was seated in back, waved to them. “I feel like a pioneer traveling west,” he said.

“We
are
pioneers traveling west,” Gwen pointed out. It was exactly how she saw them, as pioneers.

The procession stopped at an abandoned gas station, the one people had flocked to just a month earlier, the one with the private fuel tanker.

The crowd quieted to hear Mary Curtin yell out, “Start setting up your stands around this gas station. Remember, we're not taking any money for this. It's a gesture of goodwill. Be sure everyone gets a flyer telling them about our energy workshops and programs in town.”

“What if no one comes out?” a man on a bike asked.

“They'll come,” Mr. Curtin said. “They're still hurting for food and supplies.”

With a roar, Luke and his pals made a grand show of riding in with the Sage Valley group.

“Listen to this,” Gwen said to Tom. “Luke knows the guy who refitted your truck for ethanol, and they're teaching a workshop on how to do it together down at Ghost Motorcycle. Can you believe it?”

“Yeah?” Tom asked, interested. “I learned a lot when I converted my truck. Do you think they might want some help teaching it?”

“You'd want to do that?” Gwen asked.

“I think so.”

Gwen smiled at him. Looking around, she noticed that people from
Marietta had already realized what was going on and were streaming into the gas station area, helping the volunteers from Sage Valley to set up their food and supply stands.

A small fireball of happiness and new hope began to spin down at Gwen's very center and it grew stronger and brighter by the moment, until it felt like it filled her. Maybe the world didn't have to be a pit of greed and overconsumption; maybe something better—something like what was happening right then and there—was really possible after all.

It was true—the world had ended. And now the new world was beginning.