Dad’s eyes widen a little when I come out of the changing room. “Wow, kid. When did you grow shoulders?” He steps forward and adjusts my lapels.
“It feels like I’m wearing broken glass,” I tell him honestly. “And the shirt collar is strangling me.”
“You kids today—anything more fitted than pajamas is formalwear. My mom used to put me in a jacket and tie every Sunday for church.”
The word hangs in the air between us—church as opposed to the synagogue we’re buying this suit for.
“Thanks, Dad,” I say finally. “I know this is something you never thought you’d be doing.”
“You got that right. But hey, I hear the Levinson girl says you’re pretty good.”
I shrug out of the jacket and put it back on the hanger. “I don’t know about ‘good.’ I’m trying.”
“You’ll get there. Any son of mine having a bar mitzvah is going to nail it. Giving a hundred and ten percent, no matter what you’re doing—that’s a good sign for your future. But if you change your mind, you don’t have to go through with this.”
I regard him sharply. “Why would I change my mind?”
He shrugs. “You’re young. Kids your age do things on impulse all the time. For all I know, you’ve had second thoughts, but you’re too embarrassed to admit it. I get that it’ll be a little awkward to tell your friends the bar mitzvah’s off—”
“But it’s not off,” I interrupt. “This isn’t about getting attention or making a point. I need to do this!”
Dad turns to the tailor. “I guess we’ll take the suit.”
The tailor makes a few more measurements and gives me a lecture about not having a growth spurt. I promise to do my best, and we get out of there with a ticket to pick up the suit next week.
“Should we grab lunch while we’re in town?” Dad asks as we leave the store.
“Can’t,” I reply. “I promised Jordie I’d go over and cheer him up. Pamela broke up with him, so he’s kind of bumming.”
“I had no idea seventh graders have anything to break up from,” Dad puts in, surprised.
“Get a clue, Dad.” He has to be the only person in town who doesn’t know Jordie and Pamela have been on-again, off-again since second grade.
That’s when I spot the TV crew. Their van is hard to miss, with the satellite dish on the roof and the splashy logo of one of the Denver stations painted on the side. They’ve got a reporter on the street interviewing people.
I can almost feel Dad’s spine stiffening. On the one hand, there’s nothing he loves more than getting publicity for our town. But it has to be positive publicity, and these days, Chokecherry’s claim to fame is the paper chain. In my father’s mind, that’s not good. Follow the paper chain and it will take you to the swastikas. Follow the swastikas and you’ll eventually arrive back in the seventies with the KKK. And that’s a huge stain for the whole area.
A lot has happened with the paper chain since that truckload of construction paper arrived at school. It turns out that canceling the project was the best thing that ever could have happened to it. When you take something away, that’s all anybody ever wants—especially with ReelTok posting video after video accusing Chokecherry of silencing its kids because the town doesn’t have the guts to face up to its racist history. So when Mr. Brademas gave us the okay to start paper-chaining again, we took off like a rocket.
It’s not just the volunteers anymore. Practically the whole school is in on it now. The art teachers signed on first, followed by the social studies teachers, so now paper links are under construction all day, not just before and after school and at lunch. We never knew the elementary school was helping us until their custodian drove up to the loading bay with the payload of his truck overflowing with chain. The high school signed on next—anything the little kids could do, they could do better. Families are paper-chaining at home. So are the residents of Mountain View Retirement Village. Caroline got her parents to take some of our paper to the community room at the YMCA, so production from there comes over every evening when they close.
By the end of the first week, our gym was so jam-packed that the next link anybody tried to cram in there would have blown the roof off. So the owner of Shadbush County Farm Equipment lets us use his empty warehouse for paper chain storage. Kostakis Brothers Trucking sent three giant dump trucks to move everything from gym to warehouse free of charge. It’s not just our school anymore. It’s not even just kids. It’s like the whole town has bought into our project, and if you’re not cutting and gluing, you’re finding other ways to help. Even the local restaurants are sending over snacks and drinks.
“Yeah, that’s him! That’s the bar mitzvah kid over there!”
Suddenly, fingers are pointing in my direction, and the reporter and her crew are heading our way. Beside me, Dad groans.
Ever since I did that interview with ReelTok, everybody knows about my bar mitzvah. And even though it really has nothing to do with the paper chain, people seem to put the two together. I can sort of understand it. The paper chain is about the Holocaust, so there’s a Jewish connection. And a bar mitzvah is totally Jewish, even when it’s a guy like me who’s having one.
The microphone is shoved in my face. “Lincoln Rowley—will you answer a few questions for Denver Action News?”
I catch a pleading look from Dad, who’s dying for me to say no. But he doesn’t interfere when I agree.
“Talk about how the paper chain project inspired you to explore your Jewish heritage.”
I try to explain that I found out about Mom’s family first and the paper chain came later, but they don’t really want to hear that. It’s the same thing when you’re dealing with Adam Tok. Reporters have a way of turning your story into what they want it to be. For ReelTok, the theme is: Kids force their town to confront its racist past. For Denver TV, the message seems to be: Paper chain good. Therefore all good things must come from paper chain. When the sun rises tomorrow, it’ll be thanks to the paper chain.
Eventually, Dad interjects gently, “I think that’s enough bar mitzvah talk for now. Link doesn’t want to hog the spotlight away from the paper chain or our world-famous dinosaur dig. Did you know there’s a major fossil discovery right outside Chokecherry?”
The reporter doesn’t take the bait. “All right. I think we have enough footage. How about you direct us to the school so we can get some shots of the chain itself?”
“The paper chain isn’t at the school,” I tell them. “It got too big. We had to move it over to Shadbush County Farm Equipment.”
Poor Dad. Not only does Denver Action News ignore his dinosaur dig, but the next thing he knows, he’s driving across town, leading their mobile unit to the paper chain he never wanted them to focus on in the first place.
The sliding doors of the warehouse are wide open, and I catch a glimpse of the kaleidoscope of color inside. There are plenty of kids around, pushing shopping carts and wheelbarrows, and pulling wagons piled high with chain. As we park, a sixth grader wheels by on a bicycle, a clear plastic trash bag of links over his shoulder. Michael stands at the door like a sentry, clipboard in hand, checking in all the new arrivals, faithfully keeping the count. Yesterday we passed four hundred thousand, but the number has to be even higher than that now.
The mobile unit pulls up beside us, and the crew scrambles for cameras and equipment to capture this beehive of activity.
Dad slumps in the driver’s seat. “Greatest dinosaur find in fifty years and I can’t get anybody to pay attention. But a warehouse full of scrap paper is front-page news.”
Among the comings and goings, I spy Pamela and Pouncey leaving the building. If she’s trying to make Jordie jealous, she’s picked the wrong guy. Pouncey is about as romantic as an orange traffic cone. I also happen to know that he finds her annoying.
Dad and I follow the camera crew into the warehouse … and it’s almost as if we’ve crashed into an invisible barrier.
My father’s hand squeezes
my shoulder. I feel my jaw drop halfway to the floor.
Yeah, okay, it packed the school gym pretty much full. But this is an astounding sight. The cavernous storage space is already half full with mounds of paper links. The expanse of bright colors is so gigantic that my eyes almost can’t process it in one sweep. Every time I think I’ve seen it all, I turn in a new direction, and there’s another huge mountain. I stand at the entrance to the building, blinking, struggling to take it in. It’s hard to imagine that this landscape of loops was made one link at a time, starting that afternoon in the art room.
The camera guy almost loses his balance trying to pan the vastness of it.
Even Dad is impressed. “Incredible! There must be miles of it!”
Michael supplies the answer. “Twenty-eight miles,” he says. “You know, estimating about four inches per link.”
The TV crew makes him say it again on camera.
Twenty-eight miles. And this is barely a fraction of the six million we’re shooting for. I feel a surge of pride—until I remember what the number six million really represents. I go cold all over, thinking of Grandma’s family. My family.
The reporter points to a catwalk just under the high ceiling. “Go up there and get a panoramic view,” she tells her cameraman. “We have to see just how huge all this is.”
So up he goes to the wrought-iron perch and begins a slow pan across the sea of multicolored chain. Everyone follows the camera lens as it moves across the warehouse floor and comes to a sudden stop.
“What’s the problem?” she calls.
The man’s voice is reedy. “You’re going to want to take a look at this.”
We head up the metal staircase—the reporter, Michael, my father, and me.
Dad is taller, so he spots it first. You couldn’t see it from floor level because of the mountains of paper in the way. But from here, the high angle gives us a clear view. Drawn on the light cement wall in thick black magic marker are three neat swastikas.
The cameraman shakes his head. “I think the focus of our story just shifted a little.”
From the YouTube channel of Adam Tok
Interview with Sheriff Bennett Ocasek
REELTOK: Thanks, Sheriff, for taking time from your busy schedule to share your insights with TokNation.
SHERIFF OCASEK: Spare me. I think you’re a loudmouth and a troublemaker. If it was up to me, you’d be run out of town on a rail.
REELTOK: Too bad that pesky First Amendment keeps getting in the way. Something about freedom of speech? So tell me, why are you here with me today?
SHERIFF OCASEK: Because I took a look at your fancy YouTube channel, and God knows why, but a lot of people tune in to hear what you’ve got to say.
REELTOK: Seventeen million subscribers and growing.
SHERIFF OCASEK: And I want them to know—and anybody else who might be listening—that we’re good people here in Chokecherry. Yeah, we’ve got our cranks. Who doesn’t? But anything that happened here in the past is exactly there—in the past.
REELTOK: So you’re confirming the Night of a Thousand Flames.
SHERIFF OCASEK: Don’t put words in my mouth. I’m not confirming anything. I’m not denying anything either. I was a kid back then.
REELTOK: But you can’t deny the swastikas that are happening now, practically every day. What progress has your department made identifying who’s responsible?
SHERIFF OCASEK: We’re working on it.
REELTOK: Are you working on it? You don’t seem to have much to show for your efforts after all these weeks.
SHERIFF OCASEK: There are six hundred kids in that school. You know how long it would take for one of them to pull a marker and scribble a few lines on a wall or a locker? I may not be some big-shot New Yorker, but I’m smart enough to know what you’re implying. You think we haven’t found the culprit because we’re not really looking. We think it’s fine to have swastikas all over the place because we’re the same bunch of rednecks and racists we were in 1978.
REELTOK: Your words, not mine.
SHERIFF OCASEK: If it’s racism you want, you should have a look at your own followers. Do you even read your comments section?
REELTOK: Are you kidding? TokNation are Chokecherry’s biggest supporters. Where do you think that art supply company found out about your paper chain? Schools all over the country are working on their own chains to send here to help you get to six million!
SHERIFF OCASEK: I guess you don’t read the ones that are not so nice. The lady who thinks it’s so terrible to waste learning time cutting and gluing paper. And by the way, she wants to know what’s so bad about swastikas? They’re just little pictures. Or the guy who says it’s a crime to waste forests of paper to commemorate something that “never happened.”
REELTOK: Free speech applies to everybody, even people who are mixed up.
SHERIFF OCASEK: Just to be clear, that’s the Holocaust he’s talking about.
REELTOK: You’ve got cranks; I’ve got cranks.
SHERIFF OCASEK: Yeah, so this message is for your cranks. Leave us alone. If you think that swastikas are fine and the Holocaust never happened—you couldn’t be more wrong. The hate shown here isn’t just about people who are Jewish or Black or anything else. It’s about us all—every single one of us! Hate is hate, and hate hurts everybody.
REELTOK: Well said, Sheriff. Bravo … and yet the swastikas continue.
SHERIFF OCASEK: If you don’t like our swastikas, well, neither do we. We’re not perfect, but let us work out our problems in our own way. And if you don’t like our paper chain, I’ve got one word for you: tough.
Today, the paper chain hits one million links. The whole school goes nuts when Michael makes the announcement—but not for very long. We spend a couple of minutes cheering and then go right back to work making links. It’s an amazing achievement, but we’re still five times that many away from reaching our goal.
We’ll never get there. I mean, it’s obviously possible. As my scientist father puts it, “If you can do one million in a month and a half, you can do six million in nine months. The question is, can you get an entire town to do nothing but glue paper loops for nine solid months?”
It’s even more complicated than that. Will more paper donations continue when our current supply runs out? Will the carloads and boxloads of links keep coming? Thanks to ReelTok, the whole country knows about our project. Art classes everywhere are sending us big boxes crammed with paper chain to add to ours. We’ve gotten shipments from as far away as California, Maryland, and even Canada.
I guess what I’m saying is I believe now. I know I had mixed feelings about the project at the beginning. As the Jewish girl, I took everything about it too personally. When it petered out, it would be because nobody thought I was worth the effort. But I don’t own the Holocaust. Neither does Link—whose great-grandparents died in it. It’s called a crime against humanity because all humans co-own the responsibility never to forget it.
To stand in the farm equipment warehouse, surrounded by a million links of paper chain, piled to the ceiling, is an emotional experience that’s hard to describe. These aren’t just paper links; they represent a million lost souls, and you’re recognizing them in a physical way. Maybe it’s who I am, but I get choked up just thinking about it.
One thing is certain: If we do get to six million—or even two million—we’re going to need a bigger warehouse. The fire marshal says we can’t fill this one up any more. Going forward, our paper chain will be stored in the Chokecherry Municipal Garage. They’re moving all the snowplows and road graders outside to make room for our new production. All we have to do is keep it coming. Will we?
“It’ll fizzle out eventually,” Dad predicts. “Kids’ attention spans are notoriously short. A new video game comes out; a royal baby gets born. A hit song, a dance craze. And people will drift to other things.”
I can’t even disagree with him. Chokecherry Middle School has done something incredible with the
paper chain, but we’re only human. Just the fact that the entire seventh grade is so obsessed with the Jordie-Pamela breakup is proof of that.
I honestly didn’t even realize the two of them were together. Whenever I start to feel like the paper chain has brought the Wexford-Smythe kids into the mainstream, along comes something like this to prove we’re still outsiders. Jordie and Pamela are an item? All I’ve ever seen them do is fight. I once overheard them arguing over which was the luckier number—five or three. You’d have thought the future of the planet depended on it. It sounded like a lot of things; romance wasn’t any of them. And yet the same kids who have exceeded all expectations and gone above and beyond to pull off something as selfless and wonderful as the paper chain eagerly spend hours analyzing one pointless breakup that’s happened ten times before and, anyway, is none of their business. Whose fault is it? Who did the actual dumping? Was it in person or by text? Why is Pamela hanging around Pouncey now? Will Jordie find another girl on the rebound? Will they make up, or is this the end? Andrew says some eighth graders are taking bets on when the famous couple will get back together. If it happens December 17, he wins eighty-five bucks.
By the way, if those two never get back together, the money will go toward fresh supplies for the paper chain. So that’s what I’m rooting for. Call me anti-love.
“Hey, kid! Hey!”
Dad drives us to school in the morning, but he’s out at the dig all day, so we have to walk home. I’m on my way to pick up Ryan at the elementary school when I hear someone calling me. A quick glance over my shoulder. It’s that eighth grader, Erick Federov.
“Hey, you! Jewish girl!”
I wheel on him, and he adds, “Dana.”
“I have to pick up my brother,” I tell him.
He speeds up to me. “I’ll walk with you.”
I stare straight ahead. “You’ve got your gym back. What’s the problem now?”
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