Unwind

The fire alarm goes off, and a teacher wonders if she can continue her prep for class. She decides against it, thinking she needs to be a role model for the children. After she leaves the room, “she sees something strange” (81). Two police officers are standing near the front office. She continues walking, and notices that a door to the science lab is open. The teacher goes inside and hears a baby’s cry. She finds a boy, a girl, and a baby. The boy says, “If you turn us in, we’ll die” (83). The teacher interprets the plea as such: “What he’s really saying is: Please be a human being” (83). She tells them she will help them, but she can tell they don’t believe her, especially because “Unwinds exist in the constant shadow of betrayal” (84).

The teacher walks with Risa and Connor toward the exit. As they approach, cops swarm in. The teacher demands Risa give her the baby and tells them to separate and go outside with the other kids. Risa doesn’t see where Connor goes—“She’s completely alone” (86). A cop looks at Risa just as the talkative girl from the bus approaches her. When the girl talks to Risa, the cop’s attention turns to her, and he stops her for some questions.

After Risa finds Connor, Lev calls to them from behind and asks them to stop. They don’t. Instead, Connor tells Risa to run, and “This time Risa doesn’t hesitate. She runs with him, breaking toward the street just as a fire truck bursts onto the scene, siren blaring” (87). She realizes they need a big distraction. She tells Connor to start clapping. They begin clapping, and a boy sees them, turns, and yells, “Clappers!” Everyone panics and creates a stampede. “They stop clapping and join the stampede, becoming a part of the running crowd” (88). The teacher who agreed to help them stops them and tells them to go to a nearby antique store. They disappear from the scene with everyone else.

Though the crowd helps Risa and Connor hide, Lev sees it differently: “This is the true meaning of alone: Lev Calder beneath the trampling feet of a stampeding crowd” (89). Lev worries the crowd will prevent him from finding Connor and Risa. Despite his mistrust and earlier plan to turn them in, Lev feels things have changed. “He has to make them understand. They are his only friends now. They were. But not anymore. He’s ruined everything” (89). All around him, kids and police try to figure out what happened. He realizes his friends have left him. Lev runs away from the scene, crestfallen. “This is the true meaning of alone: Levi Jedediah Calder suddenly realizing he no longer exists” (90).

Risa, the baby, and Connor make it to the antique shop. Connor is angry about Lev’s betrayal: “He had risked his life for Lev. He had tried to save him, but had failed. […] You can’t undo thirteen years of brainwashing in two days” (91). The owner of the antique shop asks if she can help them. They tell her they were told to look for Sonia. The owner then asks them to wait in the backroom. Connor notices that the backroom is filled with “Things like broken picture frames and rusty birdcages are piled all around—all the items that weren’t good enough to be displayed out front” (93).

Sonia comes back and asks Connor to move a large trunk. She tells them it is full of correspondence, but what is under the trunk is more important. “This is an old building. […] Way back in the early twentieth century, during the first Prohibition, they hid hooch down there” (96), she continues. Under the trunk, a steep set of stairs greets them. Below, a girl and two boys wait. Sonia tells them they are all family. One of the boys is a big guy with a shark tattoo. He eyes Connor with distrust.

Once Connor meets Roland and the other kid, he considers the collective plight of the Unwinds: “Turns out, each of these kids, just like every Unwind, has a story that ranks a ten on the Kleenex scale” (99). The shark tattooed boy—Roland—explains he beat his stepfather for beating his mother. His mother took his stepfather’s side, and they sent Roland to be unwound. After introductions, Roland tries to assert his authority over everyone. Connor stays quiet, but he confides in the other boy that the baby is not his and Risa’s. “Don’t tell Roland,” the boy tells him. “The only reason he’s being so nice to the two of you is because he believes in the sanctity of the nuclear family” (102).

The other boy challenges Connor to think about things he never considered. He tells Connor he wonders what goes on inside harvest camps. Connor asserts everyone knows what happens, but the boy explains, “Everybody knows the result, but nobody knows how unwinding works. I want to know how it happens. Does it happen right away, or do they keep you waiting? Do they treat you kindly, or coldly?” (104). Finally, the boy talks about Humphrey Dunfee, a boy who was unwound. His parents were distraught after the boy was unwound, so they found the records of where Humphrey’s body parts went. Their goal is to find all the parts and reunite them.

One day, Sonia brings them upstairs one by one. She asks Connor to write a letter to someone he loves. When he turns 18, she expects him to come and get the letter and give it to that person. If he doesn’t show up, she will mail it. He decides to write to his parents. “Even before he signs his name, he feels the tears welling up inside. They don’t seem to come from his eyes but from deep in his gut” (110). On the way back to the basement, Connor tells Sonia he thinks she is a good person. She replies, “One thing you learn when you’ve lived as long as I have—people aren’t all good, and people aren’t all bad. We move in and out of darkness and light all of our lives” (111).

Sometime later, Sonia opens the trapdoor to lead the five kids out a back door into an alley. The teacher from the school is there. She wants to take the baby. She explains they will tell people they were storked. Risa is happy to know the baby will go somewhere it is wanted. Connor is somewhat upset by the baby being taken—“Risa knows he didn’t want it, but he had been willing to take it when the alternative was a miserable life with a miserable family” (113).

As they pull away in a truck, Risa believes she can hear the baby crying. “It makes her furious that she actually misses the baby. It was thrust upon her at the worst possible moment in her life—why should she have any regret about being rid of it?” (114). She recalls a nurse at the state home saying, “You can’t change laws without first changing human nature” (115). The nurse’s comment confuses Risa, and she wonders: “Which was worse…to have tens of thousands of babies that no one wanted, or to silently make them go away before they were even born? On different days Risa had different answers” (115).

No one on the truck knows where they are going. It is cold, but Connor puts his arm around her and brings her close. This, too, causes Risa some consternation: “And although she has an urge to push him away, she finds herself leaning into him until she can feel his heartbeat in her ears” (117).