Smiles to Go

Will Tuppence, a ninth grader who prides himself on being sensible and organized, recalls a formative childhood lesson from Jim, a science-obsessed high-school neighbor. When Will was five or six, Jim explained that protons, the subatomic particles composing all matter, are indestructible. Jim smashed a jawbreaker to dust: The candy was gone, but its protons remained, unchanged and eternal. Will absorbed the comforting idea that everything, including himself, is made of protons, and protons last forever.

Years later, on a Saturday morning, Will's close friend Mi-Su Kelly calls with urgent news. Scientists monitoring a water tank deep underground in Yellowknife, Canada, have detected a proton decaying, converting entirely into energy. The discovery means protons are mortal, and nothing in the universe will last. Will begins counting the days since the announcement, labeling each "PD" for Post-Discovery.

Will's life revolves around predictable routines. Every Saturday night, he plays Monopoly with Mi-Su and their best friend, BT (Anthony Bontempo), a carefree, impulsive boy who loses every game without caring. Mi-Su routinely bends the rules to lend BT money, which Will grudgingly tolerates. When Will tries to discuss the proton discovery, BT is more interested in his own news: He has become the first person to skateboard down Dead Man's Hill, an unpaved, dangerously steep slope. The school celebrates BT's feat with a standing ovation while the proton discovery goes unmentioned.

At home, Will's younger sister, Tabby, wages a relentless campaign for his attention. She turns his chess trophy backward, attempts to ride his prized skateboard, Black Viper, and drops his favorite black jelly beans into a wastebasket one by one while he watches cartoons. Will sees this as pure torment and forbids her from touching his possessions. He reflects that, aside from her pestering, he would hardly know she was around.

Will secretly visits Dead Man's Hill at sunrise, confronting a long catalog of fears: heights, speed, failure, rejection, change, and death. Peers nickname him "Old Man" for his calm demeanor, but inwardly he quivers with anxiety. The proton's death deepens his dread. In church, he writes a twelve-step life plan ending with "Heaven (angel) (Forever)," reasoning desperately that a non-material dimension might be exempt from decay.

At a star party at French Creek State Park, a nighttime telescope-viewing event, Will must bring Tabby along. When she wanders off, he searches frantically, torn between finding her and seeing the Horsehead Nebula through a massive telescope. Tabby leads him instead to Mi-Su, silhouetted on a moonlit hilltop with BT, the two kissing. Mi-Su later insists the kiss was about the setting, not about BT, but the image haunts Will for weeks.

Will confides in BT's father, Mr. B, a compassionate man whose house overflows with junk he plans to display in a "Museum of Yesterday." Will confesses that he keeps seeing tiny flashes, like sparklers or fireflies, and is tormented by the idea that even his own protons will eventually vanish. Mr. B listens without judgment and later warns Will to "Beware of solipsism," the belief that the self is the only reality.

Realizing his feelings for Mi-Su have shifted beyond friendship, Will devises an elaborate Valentine's Day plan: invite her to a park to search for the Horsehead Nebula, share hot chocolate, dump gold paper stars over her head, and kiss her. On Valentine's night, he executes the plan, blurts "Happy Valentine's Day!" and kisses her so hard their teeth clack. Mi-Su smiles and kisses him back. The aftermath, however, is ambiguous. Mi-Su gives no special acknowledgment at school, though she squeezes his hand in passing. When Will tries to arrange a movie date, Mi-Su casually includes BT, and when BT leaves the theater, Mi-Su follows, leaving Will behind.

Mi-Su lands a chorus role in the school musical, The Music Man. Will leaves an anonymous gift on her doorstep: a figurine of a trombone player labeled "76 TROMBONES," a nod to the show's signature number. When he reveals himself, they spend the day together and share a long kiss goodnight. But when Will asks Mi-Su to the freshman dance after the final performance, she says Danny Riggs, a stage crew member, already invited her. Will is devastated.

Meanwhile, five-year-old Korbet Finn, a neighbor boy hopelessly in love with Tabby despite her constant rejection, offers Will a model of resilience. Korbet acknowledges Tabby does not like him back but is undaunted: The sadness lasts only seconds before he loves her again, and he does not understand the concept of jealousy.

Will's distraction costs him during chess practice. Blaming Tabby's interruptions, he insists she stay home from the upcoming tournament, denying her a promised trip for ice cream. At the tournament, Will finds his groove and reaches the quarterfinals, but his father pulls him mid-move. Tabby has stolen Black Viper, ridden it down Dead Man's Hill, and crashed. At the hospital, she is intubated and sedated into an induced coma, her face so swollen that Will insists the nurses have the wrong patient.

Mi-Su comes to the house and cuts through Will's attempt to blame BT. Everything Tabby did, the trophy-turning, the jelly-bean-dropping, the skateboard-stealing, was an attempt to make Will see her. Mi-Su tells him that Tabby loves him and that he is a "stupid idiot brother" for not seeing it. Outside, BT sits crying, blaming himself for inspiring Tabby. Will comforts him, acknowledging that BT has been more of a brother to Tabby than Will himself.

Will's mother sends him to look inside Ozzie, Tabby's stuffed octopus. Inside is a container labeled "FOR WILL, TOP SECRET!!!" filled with black jelly beans. After every performance of dropping them into the wastebasket, Tabby retrieved and saved them to give Will on his next birthday. The pestering was love.

In the dormer, his private thinking space, Will tears open his great-grandparents' unopened wedding gifts, kept since 1930 when the couple left as missionaries for Africa. He reenacts Tabby's earlier Mischief Night rampage, dumping cereal on the floor, turning on faucets, and answering the phone with her joke greeting. Then he carries Black Viper to Dead Man's Hill, imagines Tabby pushing off terrified, hears her voice whispering "see me," and kicks the skateboard down the slope.

At the hospital, doctors reduce Tabby's sedation. Her first words, eyes still closed, are "See me." Will reads to her, whispers promises, and tells her he loves her. He lifts her eyelid and sees a bold green he recognizes but cannot place. Her fingers curl around his thumb.

During the summer of Tabby's recovery, Mi-Su cancels her dance date, and she and BT visit daily. At a Monopoly game, BT improbably bankrupts Will, and Mi-Su offers Will an illegal loan, echoing all his previous rule-bound speeches. Will bursts out laughing for the first time in his life. He no longer needs to control the future.

The novel closes on September 2, First Day at Roosevelt Elementary, the ceremony for entering first graders. Will walks Tabby down the aisle. She wears a green dress matching her eyes, a color he finally placed: Granny Smith apples from his mother's kitchen. He carries the blue pebble from his own First Day, ready to pass it to his sister. The Brimley clock tower, which BT has been secretly setting back all year, is now three hours behind. Will has not seen a tiny flash in months. Tabby is here and now, and so is he, and that is all there is. The final lines repeat: "and I'm walking down the aisle with my sister."