Operation Yes (17 page)

Mrs. Purdy put that story up on her cash register.

“A milk run is a
routine
mission,” said Mr. Nix to his class as they came through the line. “Does anyone know what the opposite of
routine
is?”

One of his first graders tried to raise her hand and dropped her pudding. A glob of it landed on his shoe.

“No, that's not it,” said Mr. Nix.

But that week, Miss Candy called him for help to log over three hundred new donations through Shaunelle and Kylie's Web site.

 

A TV reporter from Raleigh saw the
Stars and Stripes
story online and phoned Colonel Whaley.

“The maintenance sergeant's son is your son's best friend? Your niece is masterminding the project…. Her mom — your sister — is deployed and … The wounded soldier's sister is the teacher for all of the kids…. And that's how they all got involved? Is that right?”

He invited her out to Reform and the base to see for herself.

“Could I get a ride in an F-15E too?” she asked.

“I'll check with Public Affairs,” said Colonel Whaley.

“No fair,” said Trey when he found out. “I got her to come here. I should get the ride.”

The local TV report opened with a shot of Young Oaks.

“Inside these lackluster buildings and rundown exterior …” began the report, with a close-up of the rust on the Young Oaks bear, “… lies a story that gets to the heart of things….”

The day after the TV piece aired on the local news, the School Commission announced that they too would be visiting Young Oaks. Mrs. Heard greeted them at the door and showed them every inch of the school.

The
Reform Chronicle
wrote up both visits:

 

School Commission, Local News Organization View Thousands of LGM (and up to 5,000 Cracks) at Oldest School in the District

 

Each member of the Commission bought several LGM. They agreed, though, that the cracks needed further study — perhaps two or three studies. They called the news station and offered to do a follow-up interview about their proposed solutions.

But the local news did not call them back. Its video had been picked up by a national news organization, which teamed up with them to do a follow-up piece. The national news interviewed Marc in the rehabilitation wing at Walter Reed Medical Center. He showed them how his artificial foot attached to his leg and the exercises he was doing to get stronger. He talked about the other airmen and soldiers there with him. At the end of the inter
view, he held up a little green army man and mentioned Miss Loupe and some members of Room 208 by name.

The national news team then talked to people who had sent donations and letters, from Maine and Louisiana and Wyoming and California. From Ohio and Florida and Rhode Island and New Mexico. They filmed Mrs. Heard in front of the U.S. map she was repainting, state by state, outlining each one as Room 208 received a donation from someone who lived there. Utah, Kansas, Connecticut, Tennessee.

“Go VOLS!” said Bo when Mrs. Heard outlined the state in bright orange.

 

At rehearsal, Bo taught Gari how to salute, first the right way, and then the wrong way.

“Right way! Wrong way! Right way! Wrong way!” he drilled her.

Gari begged Melissa to rewrite the script.

“No,” said Melissa. “You're good. You really are.”

 

And so, by early spring, Room 208 had collected 99,999 “yesses,” which meant that 99,999 little green men and women had joined the first LGM, who was still quietly guarding a framed quote on Miss Loupe's desk in Room 208.

When they heard, Gari, Bo, Melissa, and Trey went to Miss Loupe. Melissa showed her the play she had almost finished writing. Trey showed her a sketch of the program he was designing. Bo and Gari acted out the opening scene for her, and Gari,
with Bo proudly looking on, demonstrated an extraordinarily awful fall.

“Will you direct the show?” they asked.

Miss Loupe put on her soft black slippers and said her loudest YES of the year.

 

Not long after, Bo's dad finally got official word of his assignment. He would be going to the Combined Air Operations Center in Korea.

“Korea?” said Bo.

“That's a long way from Paris,” said his mom.

“Are you kidding?” said Gari.

“It's a remote assignment if I take it for a year by myself,” said his dad. “But if we accept for two years, I can bring my family with me.”

“When would we go?” said Bo.

“Early summer.”

“Before my mom gets back?” said Gari. “So …” She was already forming a plan to go to Korea with Bo and Uncle Phil and Aunt Donna, and then fly back when SeaJA started in September and stay with Tandi until her mom finished her deployment. But she didn't say anything. Yet.

“What do you think?” said Bo's dad.

“I think I need more thinking time,” said his mom. She turned to Bo. “What about you?”

“Me?” said Bo. “I get a vote?”

His dad cleared his throat.

“You can vote when you're eighteen,” he said. “But I would still like to know how you would feel about this family saying yes.”

Bo framed his answer carefully. “Could we go to Hog Heaven? I can't think on an empty stomach.”

“Yuck,” said Gari.

“They have vegetarian banana pudding,” said Bo. “And beans.”

They all got in the car together.

The Audience

(gathered in the cafeteria)

Proud parents and assorted siblings, grandparents, and other relatives of the players, including, of course, Colonel and Mrs. Whaley;

most of the sixth grade (except Dillon, who sent a postcard from Germany);

Principal Mary Heard (who was clutching a large box of tissues);

twelve wiggling first graders in their own special seats up front;

Mr. Eric Browne of Los Angeles, California, who had earlier that day looked at both one Ugly, Ugly Couch, and one rundown theater in downtown Reform;

one Expeditionary Medical Group (by video link from Iraq);

one Special Forces Operational Detachment Alpha, at an undisclosed location (who would watch it, many weeks later, on tape);

Young Oaks teachers from every grade, and their spouses and children;

Mrs. Purdy, who had painted her fingernails gold for the occasion;

Gunnery Sergeant Patrick Yancey, U.S. Marine Corps, Retired, grandfather to Allison Yancey and president of the local POWMIA chapter;

Airmen Peters and Kresge, both in uniform, sitting with Miss Candy;

a reporter from the
Reform Chronicle
, who estimated the crowd at “up to 600 excited students, friends, parents, teachers, and supportive towns people”;

Mr. Nix, who fell asleep during Act Two; and

Miss Loupe, wearing a tangerine shirt, sitting between

her parents, and

her brother, Special Forces Sergeant First Class Marc Loupe.

Backstage

(also known as the cafeteria kitchen)

I can't find my script! My script! Yes, I put it
right there
and now it's …

How's my hair? Is it okay in the back? How about the side? The front? Okay, how about the back again …?

She's not going to make it.

Do you think anyone will notice that I'm wearing two different shoes? I think Indy ate —

Oh, my gosh … I'm losing my voice…. I'm losing my voice…. I'm losing …

Do you see him? Is that him? No,
him
, sitting next to
her.

Who ordered pizza? Get that out of here until after the show!

Hey, somebody tell the couch to break a leg. Ha ha!

She's not going to make it.

No, you're supposed to be GREEN, not pale lime. Put some more face paint on … and don't forget your neck and …

Don't leave the trumpet there! Somebody will step on it!

If she doesn't make it …

Five minutes, players, five minutes!

I feel sick.

Pre-Show

… Small knots of parents waved and greeted one another; programs rustled as they were opened and searched for names; digital cameras purred in standby mode….

“Please sit anywhere you like.”

… Tennis shoes and combat boots and sensible square-toed pumps and dainty heels and loose flip-flops all crossed the highly polished floor….

“Go ahead, find a seat.”

… The mayor arrived, speaking urgently into his cell phone.

“This way, sir, we have a seat reserved for you.”

Feet and more feet tramped down the hallway; folding chairs unfolded to make an extra set of rows….

The mayor was still talking into his phone: “Bring her to the door! Flash your lights, if you have to!”

“This way, this way. There are a few more seats back here.”

The doors to Young Oaks thumped open, and open, and open, again.

“I'm sorry. There are no more seats. Do you mind standing?”

The mayor closed his phone.

A woman in digitized army fatigues stepped from a Reform County police car in the Young Oaks parking lot.

“Thank you for the ride,” she told the officer.

She ran into the school between two giant oak trees with fresh yellow ribbons. A student met her in the hallway.

“This way. Gari's backstage. She's got the trumpet.”

The Introduction

Melissa consulted her notebook.

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, ma'ams and sirs. Welcome to the Ugly Couch Players' production of
The New Recruit,
brought to you by the students of Miss Loupe's Room 208.

“We would like to thank Mrs. Purdy for the use of the Young Oaks cafeteria in which to stage this show. We would also like to thank Miss Candy and Airmen Kresge and Peters for their help in building the set; Sergeant Obermeyer and his maintenance unit, for lending us floodlights from their night work crew while they are deployed; and to everyone who generously gave to our goal of raising one hundred thousand dollars for the care of wounded troops. This night is our thank you to you, and to all who serve.”

There was loud applause at this. She looked down at her notebook once more. “Oh! A BIG thank you to Mr. Nix, who sat guard all night, watching over our set.”

Then she closed her notebook and spoke directly to the audience.

“Miss Loupe didn't tell me to say this, but she wants to start a youth theater camp here in Reform. And we want to help her. The grant she's applying for says she must have community involvement. That means US. And it means YOU.”

She waved to Miss Candy, who was now standing behind a video camera at the back. “So if you want to help, see a member of the Ugly Couch Players after the show. And if you like our play, JOIN IN!

“Thank you, and enjoy the show!”

The Show

Silence. Lovely, expectant, hardly breathing silence. Then:

The sound of one brown shoe and one black shoe walking. A figure came out of the cafeteria kitchen, pushing through the break in the temporary curtain that reached from wall to wall. The figure entered a taped rectangle on the floor. Everything was dark, except for a circle of light around him. Bo lifted the mouthpiece of an oversized paper trumpet to his lips. He blew. Instead of music, there were words:

The first graders rose quickly from their seats, surprising everyone.

They threw out their arms and pantomimed swooping and soaring. The audience rumbled with scattered laughter.

The first graders bumped back into their seats. Bo took the paper trumpet from his lips and stared at it.

More laughter.

Bo walked out of the Taped Space and over to Miss Loupe.

 

The spotlight followed him. He handed her the trumpet, and she blew into it.

This time, the sound of Reveille came floating out from backstage. The sound of a real trumpet, played by a real soldier.

Awake! Awake!
it called.

More spotlights flooded the temporary stage with light as the curtain drew back. Row upon row of little green men and women stood at the ready, all 100,000 of them, carefully arranged on wooden risers painted stone gray.

Bo reentered the Taped Space and felt the audience come with him, even as he kept his back to the crowd and faced the thousands of LGM arrayed in front of him. He tucked his hands behind his back and squared his shoulders. A deep, booming voice rolled out of him and echoed through the cafeteria. He paced to the far side of the Taped Space. Every few words, he turned and paced in the other direction.

A lone figure rushed onto the stage. The figure wore black and her face was painted green. A bit of toilet paper stuck to
her shoe. She looked around, bewildered. Bo stopped pacing and turned on her.

Gari froze, then jumped to a painfully awkward pose of attention.

She opened her mouth, but only gasping noises like a dying fish came out of it.

Gari hung her head and looked down at her feet. She suddenly noticed the toilet paper stuck to her shoe and tried to stretch one arm down toward it while still standing stiffly at attention. She couldn't do it, and she fell over, a slow collapse of arms and legs. She saluted, with the wrong hand, from the floor.

The first graders broke into hysterical giggles, and the rest of the audience sent waves of warm laughter toward the stage.

Gari's heart jumped up and down. She had to force her self to lie still on the floor as the script demanded. The audience was out there! Everyone was watching! She should feel sick! But to her surprise, she didn't want to throw up anymore. She felt the script spreading out in front of her like a beautiful plan. She saw
that her mom had made it out the back door of the kitchen and circled around to slip into her seat.

Bo was beside her, saying his lines easily, loudly, with just the right touch of swagger and boldness. He sounded as if he were making it all up on the spot, but they had been saying their lines, over and over together, for the last several weeks.

The audience laughed as Gari, still on the floor, switched her salute from her left hand to her right hand and nodded up and down, up and down.

Gari shook her head no, as vigorously as she had been nodding yes a moment before.

He yelled toward the door at the back of the stage.

A chorus of actors jogged out in an orderly line from backstage. They formed up around Gari and pulled her to her feet.

 

CHORUS:
READY! (They saluted.)

BO:
Okay. Let's show this New Recruit what to do. First, we need a place —

 

Gari tugged at Bo's sleeve. She pointed to the audience. Bo turned, as if noticing them for the first time. He lifted his hand above his eyes and scanned the crowd.

Bo and Gari faced the audience, followed by the rest of the class. Time to move off the script and into the real improv. The videotape at the back of the room was rolling. Would the audience get it? Would they help carry the show?

There was a brief, scary moment of silence.

Then someone in the audience called out:

“Main Street!”

Someone else said: “Hog Heaven!”

“The playground!”

“Hollywood!”

“Reform!” said the mayor.

“I will, if you will,” said someone from the back.

The audience laughed, and Bo was glad for the split second
to think. What place should he pick? The first place yelled out? The loudest? Did it matter where you were?

Soon, he'd be gone from Young Oaks. Soon, he'd have a new house key attached to his red tag. He didn't know what friends he would have in the next place. Whether or not the Flying Farmer came to air shows there. Or if the pickles were good. He'd find out after they'd flown over the Pacific Ocean and landed in Korea, all of them together, in a place he'd never been before. But for now, he knew where he was.

Awake! Awake!
Reveille had called. The audience was leaning forward in its seats. The improv had started, and he, Bogart Whaley, was inside the Taped Space. Everyone he knew was with him.

“Okay, we'll start with Reform,” he said. “Now, we need an event….”

The audience started yelling: “Graduation!” “Yard sale!” “A parade!”

Gari looked out at her mom. Her leave was only for a few days, and then she'd have to go back. She had no idea what events might happen after that. Or what battles might be fought. Or what courage would be required.

But for now, they were in a space filled with 100,000 acts of kindness. No matter what happened, she knew exactly what her plan would be.

All the time, Mom. All the time.