"I know I haven't written for a long time." "But let's face it, life in Wheelerville, is not exactly life as we know it on this planet." "For a long time, there just wasn't anything worth writing about." "And then it happened." "Lucas woke up one morning with an idea so weird, everyone thought he'd gone nuts." "He was gonna make Wheelerville the way it used to be." "Mainly, full of people." "He was gonna get the people from the city and to make them wanna come, the bank would loan them money to fulfill their wildest dreams." "Dreams they couldn't afford to make happen in the city." "Whatever they wanted to be, they could be it in Wheelerville, Ohio." "Told you it was weird." "The bank thought so too, but it didn't matter." "Since Lucas is the president, Lucas got his way." "The Nesbitts were the first." "He was a computer analyst in Chicago who always wanted to farm." "The bank set him up in business even though he told Lucas he'd never even been on a farm." "He should have told him he'd never been on a tractor either." "Mr. Chadway was next." "He'd been a reporter for The New York Times, but what he really wished for was to someday publish his own paper." "So Lucas loaned him the bucks and for the first few days, he was still wishing he could someday publish his own paper." "The rest of the summer was pretty much the same." "People showing up from all over the country." "Half of them expecting to find" "Barney Fife and Arnold the Pig." "Take the Fishers." "They're from LA." "He was in advertising." "She was an interior designer." "So why did they come to Wheelerville?" "To open a diner." "A diner!" "At least their lives are changing." "I've been in the same Wheelerville rut for 14 years." "It wouldn't be so bad if there was somebody to talk to about things." "Forget my friends." "Bring up anything deeper than Madonna's wedding and they get brain deaf." "Tug's just too young," "Lucas is too busy, and Mrs. McDaniel..." "Amber Wheeler, you get down here this instant, do you hear me?" "She's too involved giving herself a heart attack." "I never will understand why" "Mom didn't come get us when Daddy died..." "But I sure could use her now." "Amber!" "Why this family can't get to meals on time is beyond me." "Close your mouth." "I've got a whole lot more to do around this house than wait on people." "A whole lot." "Relax!" "The soaps don't start for another hour." "Don't get smart with me, Tug Wheeler." "Greetings, everybody!" "Well, now I have a feeling that this is gonna be one fine, fine day." "What's left of it." "Come on." "Bye." "Where are you going?" "What about breakfast?" "Oh, I'm not eating breakfast this year." "Biology is my first class." "Yeah, you're gonna be dissecting frog guts and everything." "You're disgusting." "Could I borrow some money, Lucas?" "I gotta get new clothes." "I just gave you some money for some new clothes." "I know but the thing is," "I kind of don't have it anymore." "What happened to it?" "It's kinda complicated, Lucas." "She spent it all on gross tapes." "Thanks, slug face." "I like to think of music as clothes for the soul." "Ah, well now, that's a real nice way to look at it, Amber." "Then you'll give me the money?" "No." "Fine." "I just hope you're prepared for the emotional scarring that's gonna result after I'm ridiculed about these embarrassing rags." "Billy Fisher says it's her hormones." "They're all screwed up or something." "Why are you leaving so early?" "I gotta meet Billy." "We're walking." "He's never walked to school before!" "Never!" "What is the big deal about having tablecloths and flowers?" "It'll put people off!" "That's absurd!" "Look, Cynthia," "I didn't spend 12 years in the advertising business for nothing." "I know what people want." "Your biggest client sold sporting goods, Hal." "The next time I've got athlete's foot, you can give me all the advice you want." "Look, Hal, this was supposed to be a joint venture." "Bye!" "Bye, Billy." "Bye, kiddo." "Fifty-fifty, you said." "I left a good job too, you know." "I appreciate that, but I have all the expertise about small towns." "You read a book, Hal." "One book!" "It was a very informative book." "Look, Cynthia, why are you fighting me on this?" "We open in an hour." "My dream is about to come true." "Can't you just do it my way this once?" "Just try and remember this, Andy of Mayberry." "It may be your dream, but it's my cooking." "Take the rose." "Ow!" "What're you doing that for?" "Saw it on TV." "Thought that's what you guys did." "Well, I don't, 'cause it's real irritating." "Don't matter to me." "I thought it was a geek move anyway." "Why are your folks arguing?" "Just my dad was fighting." "My mom was having a constructive encounter." "It's part of her therapy." "Your mom sees a shrink?" "Everyone in LA sees a shrink!" "She didn't wanna be in dad's shadow anymore." "My dad's dead." "Got killed in a car crash." "Where's your mom?" "I don't know." "You don't know where your mom is?" "I said I didn't, didn't I?" "Well, how come you call your grandfather, Lucas?" "I don't know." "'Cause Amber does." "Well, how come?" "She just does!" "Race you to school." "It's not fair!" "I don't know where school is!" "Detroit." "Who do you have for PE?" "Salter." "She's not so bad." "Yeah." "I heard she shaved her mustache." "Wonder what Adams is like for history." "Can't be much." "Who leaves New York for Wheelerville?" "Probably a social wart." "Thinks her chances are better here, to get a man." "Boy, was she wrong." "I don't know." "What about Mr. Krebs?" "He's an old guy, nice-looking." "Down-to-earth." "Yeah, real down-to-earth." "He died two months ago." "San Francisco." "Look, that's them." "Who?" "The Slovaks." "They're real weird." "What do you mean?" "Mr. Larson got a heart attack." "Lucas loaned him money to buy a garage and they've been here for two whole months and their garage still hasn't opened." "There's something else." "Something real weird." "Heading for lunch?" "Huh?" "Oh, hi!" "Hi." "Why don't you try Fisher's Diner?" "I hear the food's pretty good." "What do you call this?" "A mushroom omelet." "Oh, really?" "There aren't any mushrooms in it!" "I know." "We're out." "Yeah, so, you took it upon yourself to substitute artichoke hearts?" "You know, there was nothing wrong with this town till you started getting creative." "Why can't you just paint by the numbers, like everybody else?" "Hmm?" "What's burning?" "Six hamburgers, two patty melts and a grilled cheese sandwich." "Oh, God!" "Plate!" "Plate!" "Mark my word, Lucas, before you get finished with this, the whole town's gonna be ruined." "Yeah, so Amber tells me." "Uh, now, why don't you loosen up?" "Come on." "Hey," "I'll tell you what." "Um..." "Let me take you to lunch here." "All right?" "Here?" "Yeah." "What are you doing?" "I'm going to get my hair done." "Are you out of your mind?" "It's not working for me, Hal." "What about the customers?" "It's not fifty-fifty, Hal." "You promised it would be fifty-fifty." "You're overwrought." "You need a break." "Take five minutes!" "Bye, honey." "Cynthia!" "Cynthia!" "How about that?" "I can't believe this." "Can you believe this?" "I can't believe this." "So, when you think about it, history's a lot like watching a movie or reading a novel." "It's full of wonderful characters and exciting thoughts." "Revolution, war, romance," "murder." "And the best part is, it really happened." "I think we're gonna have a good time this year." "And some of you girls, I'll be seeing on Fridays too, I think." "Somehow I got stuck with the health class." "Well, I know it's customary to wait for the bell, but since I don't have anything else to say..." "Bye-bye." "All right, yeah!" "It's the same thing, every morning and every night." "He stays in there for about an hour, then comes out." "So?" "Why would anybody go into a storm cellar at the same time, every morning and every night?" "How should I know?" "I don't even know what a storm cellar is." "Amber?" "You're supposed to be asleep." "How come we call Lucas, "Lucas"?" "It's too hard to explain." "Besides, he doesn't look like a grandfather." "Oh." "What was Mom like?" "She was beautiful." "Like someone you'd see in Vogue." "How come she left?" "I told you." "She and Daddy were having problems." "How come she didn't come back when he died?" "Go to sleep." "I can't believe it." "Wheelerville actually has a person over 30 you can talk to without getting a stomachache." "Miss Adams is, well..." "Excellent!" "The most excellent." "Oh, yeah." "Lucas got me a job giving the Fishers a hand after school." "I need the money for clothes and the Fishers need help." "A lot of help." "Tug's been acting pretty goony lately." "More than usual, I mean." "He and Billy Fisher are up to something, but I don't know what." "I don't really care, as long as it doesn't have anything to do with any aspect of my life, now or for the next several hundred years." "Whiskey, 6, Foxtrot, Romeo, Mike." "Calling Victor, United, 2." "Able, Baker, Charlie." "Calling on schedule and standing by." "Whiskey, 6, Foxtrot, Romeo, Mike." "This is Victor, United, 2, Able, Baker, Charlie." "Greetings from Moscow." "I hope you have good news." "Over." "Negative." "The information has not arrived." "My government contact assures me it will be in tomorrow's mail." "Over." "All right, that's good." "We've all gone along with you up to now, Lucas." "The low-interest loans, the equity sharing, no-downs, everything." "But now you're asking us to put up capital, exclusive of the bank's reserves." "Our capital." "I'm asking you to invest in the future of this town." "It's just expensive!" "How do you put a price on a way of life?" "You know, I can still remember going to Mays' store as a boy." "Fletcher's daddy owned it then." "He was more stubborn than Fletcher." "Can you believe that?" "That didn't bother me." "All I cared about was a vanilla ice cream cone with sprinkles." "Can't hardly get sprinkles anymore." "Once spent half a day in Cleveland looking for them." "Yeah, nobody has sprinkles." "All right, Lucas." "But these are getting to be the most expensive sprinkles in the country." "Well..." "Pay for what you get, John." "Always did, always will." "I'll tell you what." "To show my appreciation," "I'm gonna take you all to lunch." "At Fisher's Diner." "Hmm?" "Uh..." "As you know, this is Health 1-A." "Does everybody have a textbook?" "Uh-huh." "Yeah." "Good, 'cause I have some news for you." "We won't be using a textbook." "Or any of the other prehistoric films they used last year." "What we will be doing is, uh..." "Talking." "About our bodies." "How they work." "About how they're changing." "About our reproductive system." "How it works." "About our feelings and how they relate to our bodies." "We're gonna talk about a lot of things, but most importantly," "we're gonna talk honestly." "Now..." "What should we talk about first?" "Oh, come on." "Surely, there must be something on somebody's mind." "Mary Lynn, what would you like to talk about?" "Getting a refund on my book." "He's gotta be a spy." "You're due for a brain scan real soon." "He's supposed to be a mechanic, but he never works on cars." "He also has a radio in his storm cellar where he goes every morning and every night." "Where he talks to Moscow." "That's in Russia!" "And what does he tell Russia?" "His contact in the government is giving him information." "He's a spy!" "A Russian spy." "What would a spy be doing in Wheelerville?" "What am I doing in Wheelerville?" "You know, for someone who..." "Who knows it all, you don't know a whole lot." "Spies all over the place!" "That's a fact!" "So what if he is?" "Nobody'd believe us anyway." "That's why we need evidence." "Like what?" "Like the letter from the government." "Stealing mail's a federal offense!" "You wanna fry?" "We gotta get that letter!" "Oh, thanks." "I'm starv..." "Cynthia!" "Relax!" "The egg salad walked out with the tuna melt 20 minutes ago." "Why?" "Oh, something about anything over three hours for lunch and they get docked." "What are you doing in here?" "I'm cooking, Cynthia!" "That's the way you wanted it, remember?" "I may not be fast, but at least I'm good." "Oh, and all four customers who waited really appreciate it, Hal." "What do I tell Lucas about his order?" "You didn't tell me Lucas was here." "I tried to, Hal." "You said you didn't wanna be disturbed." "You said if you could only have your creative space something magical might happen." "Well, you were right, Hal." "I don't know how you did it, but you made all the customers disappear." "Okay, and do it exactly the way we rehearsed." "Fall out of the tree and pretend you broke your leg." "Now scream real good." "This guy's a mental case and I'm listening to him." "My leg!" "Somebody!" "Help me!" "Ow, my leg!" "Somebody!" "My leg!" "Ow, my leg!" "Somebody, please!" "Slovak." "Help me!" "Yeah." "Oh, my leg!" "My leg!" "Ow!" "Ow!" "Ow!" "Mmm, thank you." "Amber, sit down." "I just got off the phone with a very angry Fletcher Mays." "What went on in health class today?" "Nothing." "Nothing?" "We talked about biology." "Yeah?" "And how it relates to our bodies." "Right." "And how it relates to sex." "Sex?" "Now, if you expect me to be shocked," "I'm sorry to disappoint you with this." "I know it may be hard for you to believe," "I am familiar with the subject." "Where are you going?" "I'm gonna talk to Miss Adams." "You're gonna tell her to stop aren't you?" "No." "I'm gonna explain to her that she can't teach the same way in this town as she teaches in the city." "Well, this town is full of redneck geek heads like Fletcher Mays." "Uh, wait a minute." "Now, Fletcher Mays, may be a lot of things but he is..." ""Your elder."" "Right." "And I don't respect him." "Oh, come on." "And I'll tell you something else," "I don't respect you, either." "At least Fletcher Mays is consistent." "You're worse." "You're a hypocrite." "You were saying something about striking a nerve in this town." "Say, are you familiar with the two most popular ways of giving a cat a haircut?" "I don't think so." "All right, one way." "You take the cat by the tail, flip it over on its back, and you take the clippers in this hand and you start to clip away." "Then pretty soon this hand is all bloody and, like, cut to ribbons and you gotta quit or else you're gonna lose..." "Lose your hand." "Ah, but there's another way." "You take that cat and you start to pet its head and it starts to purr and..." "You know how a cat purrs." "It's a real nice sound." "And then with this hand with the clipper you clip just a little bit at a time, you know?" "That cat doesn't know what's going on." "He's just purring away, little by little." "Next thing you know..." "The cat had his hair cut, and the cat loves you." "You should have been a teacher." "Lucas..." "Sometimes it takes a bloody hand." "Is it so important?" "Amber is 14." "Jesus." "After one class, she already knows more about her body then I did at 21." "And believe me, it's still not much." "But you can't do it overnight." "No, not here." "And wait 10 years for this town to come around?" "That won't do Amber any good when she needs it." "You know..." "When I was in high school, I was so uninformed." "Then I found myself being ashamed and afraid of my body." "Well, you know what?" "When I look at the girls in my class," "I see the same fear and confusion." "Puberty is tough enough when you know what it's all about." "Lucas, you know, I didn't ask for the class, but there is a real need." "I can't argue with that." "No." "But which is better?" "Some education..." "Or none at all?" "Are you saying..." "They'd actually fire me?" "I'm just a simple country banker, Laura, but I know how a small town can make a big deal out of something like this." "And I'm just a teacher." "But I'm afraid I wouldn't know how to do it any other way." "So, I tried to find out what was going on with Tug, but he's not talking." "You'd think as nice as I am to the little worm, he'd trust me a little more." "I had my first payday yesterday." "Unfortunately, it's also my last." "The Fishers just don't have enough business to keep me on." "In fact, without a few hardcore regulars they wouldn't have any business at all." "At least, I have a few bucks for clothes." "If Miss Adams has the time, she said she'll take me shopping in Cincinnati." "That would be excellent." "Guess Lucas didn't get very far, cause she's still teaching the class honestly." "Just like she promised." "I know you're embarrassed to talk about these things." "I'm sure that every one of you thinks that you're the only one who doesn't know already," "but I'm willing to bet that the girl sitting next to you is thinking about the exact same question that you're afraid to ask." "That fence there, I threw it over when I heard the siren." "I can't believe you were that stupid." "How did I know it was the paramedics and you sprained your arm?" "I thought it was the cops." "Well, I didn't sprain it for nothing." "Let's get it." "I heard." "You gonna make a move?" "It's almost closing time." "Fletcher, we've been playing chess for 15 years now, you've never been in such a hurry, since you met that, uh, what was her name, Carmen?" "Yeah, the beautician that wanted to put a perm on the hair on your chest." "Just move." "Did you move yet?" "Oh, I didn't wanna do anything behind your back." "You know, you've gone too far this time, Lucas." "Bring those people here, that's one thing." "But that, that, woman..." "Teaching such, such..." "They're our children." "Well, that's supposed to be the point, isn't it?" "You listen to me." "You brought that woman here and I know you like her." "But it's up to you to control her, 'cause if you don't, there are a lot of people who see things my way." "Remember, you're not the only member of the school board, Lucas." "I moved." "Hey, it's only 5:10." "We ran out of coffee." "Oh." "Things'll work out." "Yeah, sure, by week's end we'll have every derelict in the state." "Oh, Hal, you know all businesses take time to get off the ground." "Let's face it, Cynthia, the diner is a bust." "Think there's any chance Harry'd give me my job back?" "You called him what?" "A gutless air-sucking bag of wind." "I don't know." "With a body like the Goodyear Blimp." "Oh." "Oh, you don't wanna go back there, Hal." "You said telling him off was the best thing you ever did." "Yeah." "We'll work something out, honey." "You shouldn't be so supportive, what would your shrink say?" "You know, Hal, all that I ever really wanted was to know that you thought I was an important person." "Well, I always have." "You never said so." "No?" "I think maybe it's time you and I had a little talk." "How about over dinner?" "I'm starved." "Yeah." "Gotta be a decent place to eat in this town somewhere." "You wanted Cincinnati." "Oh, thank you." "So, what do you think?" "Oh, excellent." "Excellent, you know what I mean?" "Well, just watch where you're walking," "I'd hate for that excellent traffic to squash you all over the excellent street." "Why in the world did you want to come to Wheelerville?" "It's that unbelievable to you, isn't it?" "That anybody would like it there." "It's Wheelerville!" "Oh, you have no idea how lucky you are, Amber." "To wake up to clear skies, to go to school without taking a bus or a subway." "To go anywhere, night or day, and not be afraid." "To have someone like Lucas to ask you how you are and actually mean it." "Yeah, what about all the jerks like Fletcher Mays." "You have your share of them anywhere." "Yeah, well small towns have bigger shares." "That's debatable, but at least there you can recognize them." "Sometimes that's half the battle." "How is Lucas, anyway?" "Recognizable." "He's in a very difficult position, Amber." "He could stand up to this town, if he really wanted to." "Not that simple, honey, he's got a lot to lose." "So do I. You." "Oh." "All we need is a few pictures of Mr. Slovak going into his storm cellar." "No sweat." "And a few inside." "Inside?" "What are you, a stand-up comic?" "How else are we gonna prove there's a radio?" "I'll take a polygraph." "We gotta take pictures." "It's the only way." "Ever since the dog chewed up the envelope." "No way, Huck Finn, not me." "Do you love your country, Billy?" "Do you wanna keep it free?" "It's your duty, Billy." "As an American." "That's a fact." "Rambo, he thinks he's Rambo!" "Dinner's in the warmer." "Yeah, I don't know what we'd do without you, Mrs. McDaniel." "Starve, I suppose." "Is Amber back yet?" "On the porch, looking at those pictures again." "I thought I told you to throw those things away." "You can fire me if you want, but I won't go throwing out pictures of a child's mother." "It's not right." "Oh, do you think running off with another man and leaving those two children, is that right?" "Throwing out pictures won't change that, Mr. Wheeler." "Ain't nothing gonna change that." "Meat won't be fit to eat in an hour." "Yeah." "Hey, that's a real pretty shirt you got there." "You get it in Cincinnati?" "Look, I know you think I'm against you and Miss Adams, but that's not true." "I like her." "I like her very much." "You sure have a totally weird way of showing it." "Or are you just afraid to stand up to this town?" "Honey, I have stood up so much that my legs hurt." "You know something, I find that maybe by sitting down sometimes and sort of compromising, you can accomplish an awful lot more." "That's a cop-out." "Do you think that I don't want her to succeed, huh?" "Hey, look, I brought her here." "I don't know." "You can't live in the past, honey." "It'll only make you sad." "What would you know about it?" "If you had your way, I wouldn't know anything about the past." "I just..." "I just don't wanna see you get hurt, that's all." "Expecting your mother to come back." "She will come back, I know she will." "You didn't like her before Daddy died." "You were glad when she didn't come, I know you were." "Now, wait, wait, wait..." "And now you're gonna sit by and let Miss Adams go too." "That's not true." "I don't wanna listen to you anymore." "All you ever do is talk." "Talk and tell stories and everyone thinks you're great." "Well, I don't think you're great." "I think you're a phony." "A mean phony and I hate you." "Well, Fletcher Mays got his way." "A special school board meeting was called." "A public hearing." "Miss Adams says she won't go." "Can't blame her." "Who wants to attend your own funeral?" "I can't go, no kids allowed." "First they don't want us to know about our bodies." "Now they don't want us to know why they don't want us to know." "We need Miss Adams!" "We need Miss Adams!" "We need Miss Adams!" "The Fishers are talking about going back to LA." "It's either that or turn the diner into a halfway house." "Tug'll have withdrawal if they leave." "He and Billy spend more time together than Batman and Robin." "What are you worried about?" "The car's gone." "They're at the meeting, just like everyone else." "What if they come back early?" "Why would they come back early?" "Maybe they get bored easy, there could be lots of reasons." "Quiet!" "Please, quiet!" "Please sit down, quiet." "Quiet, please, we'd like to begin, so sit down, please." "You almost done yet?" "Almost, I just have one more on the roll." "Well, hurry up." "I wanna get out of here before someone..." "Comes back early." "Shh!" "They're going in the house." "Good, cause we're going." "Somebody down there?" "He's going away." "Okay, we gotta make a run for it." "On the count of three..." "One..." "And so far we've managed to grow up, get married and raise our children." "Now, I don't know about you, but I don't want to be like New York and we don't want their ideas on what to teach our kids." "You go down to 42nd Street sometime and you'll know what I mean." "Let me say that we all appreciate the good intentions of certain people on the school board." "But, uh, there are some things that go beyond the boundaries of decency." "Like open discussions of sex in public schools." "He's catching up!" "This way!" "Now this town lives by standards that were made by people of strong, good, moral stock." "Like you people!" "The suspense was killing me." "So, why not just get it over with." "I mean, Laura Adams should be fired." "Because if she's not, then you gotta ask yourself this..." ""What's gonna stop her from going even farther next year?"" "Whoa!" "I know a shortcut." "I thought that was the shortcut." "Wait here for a minute, okay, let's just take this creek to town." "And if we can just make it to the bridge." "We're here." "We made it." "We actually made it." "Well, I suppose the board has a pretty good idea how you folks feel about this." "Um, I suppose you have something to say, Lucas?" "Don't mind if I do." "You know, I guess I know most of you about as well as any man knows his neighbors." "Right?" "I mean, I see you every day at the bank, church, and your businesses on the street or wherever." "There's one think I know is a fact about you people here in Wheelerville." "And that is that you are fair." "Oh, that's not to say you don't have certain ideas about the way things should be done." "But you see, you've always been willing to give people a chance." "Now I know that Miss Adams has some ideas that seem different." "But, I don't think it's Miss Adams that you're afraid of." "It's your kids." "That's the funniest thing I've ever heard, Lucas!" "Why should we be afraid of our own kids?" "Because they might find out that their mamas and their daddies don't know as much as they did." "Hey, Elvin..." "Hey, Elvin, who told you about the facts of life?" "I don't know, Lucas, far as I recall, nobody did." "Who taught you?" "Well now, as far as I can recall, Elvin..." "You did." "It's very dangerous sneaking in a cellar like that, boys." "I could have shot you." "We're real sorry, Mr. Slovak." "Just a couple of stupid kids, you know?" "This is a very expensive radio, I saved a long time for it." "Lucky you didn't break the microphone." "We won't touch it again, Mr. Slovak." "Promise." "Good, you know, with this radio you can call over the world." "It's very powerful." "Even as far as Russia?" "Oh, yeah, every day I call Moscow." "Helping a family to find their relative in Ohio." "Mr. Volcheck." "Hasn't seen his brother for many years." "You mean, you're just helping some dude find his brother?" "Mmm-hmm, ham radio operators help many people in foreign countries." "I mean this time, the Immigration Department is very slow." "They promised to help, and still I haven't heard from them." "Everything takes time." "I'm getting used to that." "For two months now, I'm waiting for the hydraulic lift for my garage." "One more week they say." "Back ordered from the manufacturer they say." "How can I open a garage without a hydraulic lift?" "You don't actually believe him, do you?" "Give me a break, will you?" "Can't you see he's lying through his teeth?" "He had to tell us something." "Well, it sounded real good to me." "Sure, spies are smart, Billy." "How do you think they got to be spies?" "And that's a fact." "Besides, how can we condemn Miss Adams for something we spent the last few minutes doing ourselves." "And what might that be, Lucas?" "Talking about sex, Fletcher, in public." "Could you please get to the point, Lucas?" "We're getting later by the story." "The point is that ignorance is dangerous, it breeds fear." "And that fear grows, well it grows like a sickness." "And it destroys all reasoning, it takes on its own life and it'll destroy everything that all of you here are trying to save." "I mean, can't you see that?" "Do you really believe that by not talking about certain subjects the possibility of problems will just disappear?" "Just go away?" "Now, you all know that I have two grandchildren." "And I guess you know how much I..." "I love them." "I love them very much." "And truth is that boy and that girl mean more to me than anybody or anything else on Earth." "I just hope they don't fall victim to life's troubles because I didn't have courage." "The courage to let them know more than I did at their age." "The school board voted 10-to-1 to keep Miss Adams." "It would've been unanimous except that Fletcher Mays put a lot of heat on one lady." "If she didn't vote no, he said he'd divorce her." "And the Fishers stayed after all." "Until they get the hang of things, Lucas came up with a solution that everybody seems to be happy with." "Well, almost everyone." "I never did find out what was going on with the boys." "All I know for sure is they're grounded for two weeks for stealing some man's mail." "Had to apologize too." "They're better now, although once in a while, Tug still acts kinda weird." "As for Lucas, well, I was wrong." "Real wrong." "He's just about the most excellent thing around." "When I was little," "Lucas told me something a man named Samuel Johnson once said," ""Home is that part of the world where people know when you're sick," ""miss you when you die and love you while you live."" "Guess that's pretty much the way Wheelerville is for me." "For now, at least." "Anyway, it's not that bad in Wheelerville, how bad can it be?" "It's my town."