Chapter Text
Waverly Earp turns seven on September 8th. The week before, her sister, Wynonna, had attacked a student at her school after he called her a “demon-worshiping family murderer”. Ineloquent, yes, but effective: The typical modus operandi for most thirteen-year olds. Wynonna broke the kid’s arm, fractured his wrist and dislocated two fingers. The other student was also left with two black eyes, an impacted tooth and very, very, angry parents. That was what made the case take off- playground scuffles were no uncommon occurrence, but several thousands of dollars in medical bills was certainly an oddity. Deputy Nedley had commented that the kid’s injuries looked more like he was in Fight Club than a playground, and the fact that a thirteen-year old did all of this was the cherry on top. So off to court they went. Aunt Gus and Uncle Curtis arrived at the meeting in their old pickup truck and their nicest clothes, freshly pressed that morning, Curtis wearing a polo shirt and tan slacks; Gus an old sundress she hadn’t worn in years. On September 8th, Waverly sits at her desk, swinging her legs and reading The Hobbit; Wynonna sits in a court meeting, listening to her aunt and uncle try to convince the judge of her insanity and begging him to send her to the psychiatric hospital again, instead of juvenile hall. Words like ‘unstable’, ‘victim’, and ‘maladjusted’ are flung across the room as if she is not even there. Wynonna is taken away to juvenile hall for the first time, kicking and screaming, after she tells the judge to bite her. Waverly goes to bed early that night. Nobody remembers the little girl turning seven.
A month later, Gus and Waverly are at the dentist’s office. Posters are up on the wall, offering $5 for each pound of candy to children who want to trade it in, which nobody ever does. “Candy causes cavities!” it protests. Waverly sits in Gus’s lap so she can get a better look at the form Gus is filling out. Waverly is a voracious reader and was eager to learn new, harder words that she didn’t hear in regular conversations like “medical exemptions”, “bicuspid” and “enamel”. Gus fills out the form easily in her neat handwriting- Waverly Earp, age six”
“But Aunt Gus,” Waverly protested, “I’m not six, I’m seven.” Gus looks down at the little girl in her lap in confusion.
“No, Waverly, honey, your birthday isn’t until Septem…“Gus trails off as she realizes that it is already halfway through October. “Waverly, sweetie, do you remember what kind of cake we had for your birthday?”
“We didn’t have cake.” Waverly said in a matter-of-fact tone. “Wynonna got into a fight with Timothy Baker and you had a meeting about it. She was gonna take me to the country store and buy me candy but she didn’t come home.” Waverly started swinging her legs again, a habit that came out when she was excited, uncomfortable, or bored.
“Waverly, sweetie, I’m so sorry that we missed it-“ Gus starts. Waverly shrugs.
“It’s okay. Daddy never did anything for my birthday and Willa was always gone that day. Plus, we had cake last year, so it’s okay.” The girl didn’t seem to think anything was wrong with her birthday being forgotten, and that pained Gus even more.
“Tell you what, Waverly. After your dentist appointment, we can go to the store and get any cake you want and pick out a new toy, okay?” Gus’s heart melted a bit when Waverly smiled widely at her.
“Okay, Aunt Gus! Can we get a movie, too?” Gus patted Waverly’s head, careful not to disturb her pigtails.
“Of course, kiddo.”
Gus and Waverly end up making a boxed cake mix. The yellow kitchen feels warm with joy and the heat of the oven. Together, they add the eggs, vegetable oil, and water. Gus butters the pan and puts the cake in the oven. Waverly isn’t yet supposed to use the oven, although Gus is sure Waverly’s father had left her to do her own cooking more than once. The home phone rings, disturbing the laughing between the two. It’s a call from Curtis, saying that one of the fall calves is breeching. Suddenly, the room feels cold and Gus hurries to leave. She grabs her coat, only to realize that Waverly didn’t have her movie yet.
“Waves, sweetie, what kind of movie do you want to watch tonight?” Waverly stood there, in her soft flannel pajamas and fuzzy socks, and looked like she was going to cry.
“Are you leaving?” She asked, solemnly. Gus nodded.
“I’m sorry, Waverly, honey, but Uncle Curtis and I have to be there ourselves to help out this cow giving birth. I’ll send one of the farmhands back with the movie, but they need to know what kind you like. What kind would you like to watch?” Waverly considers this. She had finished a book about the solar system earlier and their class had a pirate party for Anthony’s birthday. Waverly liked the eyepatches.
“I dunno. Maybe something about space? Or pirates.” She shrugged. Gus looked at her, nodded, and headed out the door. The slamming of the door echoes, and Waverly is left all alone, once again. She sits on the couch and buries her nose in another book.
The oven beeps, and Waverly puts on the gloves, far too big for her hands, and opens the oven, sliding her hands in and grabbing the cake. She turns off the oven with a beep and goes to grab the vanilla frosting from the fridge. Aunt Gus had snuck edible cake decoration letters into the shopping cart when Waverly wasn’t looking that spelled “HAPPY BIRTHDAY WAVERLY”. Waverly grabs the letters in her right hand and the frosting in her left. She carefully nudges the fridge door closed, Wynonna had hit it hard once and popped the door out of the hinges. Just before Waverly goes to stick a toothpick in the cake, a set of three short knocks reverberates through the quiet kitchen. Waverly grabs a stool and places it down firmly in front of the door. She steps up, careful not to slip in her fuzzy socks, and peeks her head over the glass panel at the top of the door. She saw Samson, the newest farmhand, wearing muddy pants and a dark cowboy hat. He fidgets nervously. Waverly steps down from the stool and pushes it back before reaching for the brass doorknob.
“Heya, Waverly.” He greets her with his strong Montanan accent. Waverly smiled faintly.
“Why aren’t you helping Aunt Gus and Uncle Curtis with the cow?” She asked pointedly. Samson softly kicks the ground, spitting up a couple of rocks from the gravel driveway. It seems like a sore spot for him.
“Well, I, uhm, am the newest of the lot, and uh, Miss Gus needed someone to pick up the movie for you, she told me it was your birthday celebration, so, happy birthday, by the way, and since I’m the newest, she decided I’d be the least useful, so off I went to the movie store. I’ll head back to see if I can help ‘em, I just had to get you this. Gus said get something that was either pirate themed or space themed, and well, this is both, plus it’s a Disney movie, and girls love Disney movies-“ Waverly rolled her eyes at this, Wynonna could never stand Disney movies, except for Mulan, “and so I hope you like this.” He stuck his hands out with the movie. Waverly took it gently. “Have a good night, Waverly.” Samson said, tipping his hat down. He turned away immediately and rushed to his truck. He shifted his car loudly and was gone in under thirty seconds, kicking up more gravel as he sped away.
And so, Waverly was alone again.
She looked down at the plastic case in her hands. Treasure Planet, it said, and had a cast of characters, humans and what looked like aliens, on a boat, in space. Waverly smiled at this, she never thought that there would be a movie that had her two favourite interests. Waverly walked back to the living room, almost slipping (those darn fuzzy socks would be the end of her) and placed the movie on the coffee table. She hustled back to the kitchen, grabbed a big knife from the rattling drawer that Curtis promises to fix, and cuts herself a big piece of cake. She grabs a smaller knife from the drawer, almost popping it out of alignment, and spreads the vanilla frosting everywhere. Satisfied, she takes her cake and the letters into the living room. Waverly gently places the cake and letters down, takes the DVD out of its case, and places it into the DVD player they had bought after their VHS died two months ago. Wynonna loved the new electronic, at least, she had when she was still here. Waverly presses play and scoots back the soft, worn, flannel couch, sinking into it as the Disney logo appears.
“On the clearest of nights, when the winds of the Etherium were calm and peaceful, the great merchant ships with their cargoes of Arcturian sura crystals felt safe and secure. Little did they know, they were pursued by… pirates.”
Waverly gasped as they zoomed into the face of a monstrous alien-pirate, with many eyes and huge, sharp teeth. She grabbed the letter H from the bag and quietly crunched it in her teeth. She watched as the pirates attacked the ship and then- it was over. The images she was seeing was just actually a boy reading a futuristic 3-D book, who was now being scolded for being awake late by his mother. And so Waverly watched, her smile widening as the mother and child read the book together.
And suddenly, she swears she sees Wynonna. The boy has grown up into thrill-seeking teen, with Wynonna-brown hair and Wynonna-blue eyes. He surfs through the area, whooping with joy, until he hears sirens and the cops get him. Besides the fact that the main character is a boy, Jim, Waverly is sure that the animators have met Wynonna.
“Speaking of which, how’s Jim doing?”
No, not Jim, Waverly thinks, Wynonna.
“Much better, I know he had some rough spots earlier this year, but I really think he’s starting to turn a corner”.
Sarah Hawkins, Jim’s mother, reminds her of Gus, except Gus had long ago given up hope that the corners Wynonna turned would be good ones. Suddenly, the police appear with Jim in their arms. Waverly remembers the first time the police showed up dragging Wynonna after she had egged a house. Waverly thinks she was ten.
“Mrs. Hawkins?”
No, not Hawkins, Waverly screams, McCready. They called Gus “Mrs. McCready” when they brought Wynonna here, the police rapping so hard on the front door Waverly thought it was going to crack.
“Jim!”
Jim’s mother drops the dish in shock. Waverly thinks about how Gus was cleaning the kitchen when Wynonna was almost-arrested, how she slammed the kitchen cleaner onto the counter, the dull thud it made, the way she threw her gloved hands in exasperation at Wynonna.
“We apprehended your son operating a solar vehicle in a restricted area. Moving violation section fifteen, paragraph, uhm, 6.”
Waverly stares at the movie, so carefully reflecting her own life and sighs deeply. She cuts a piece of her cake, places it on a letter, E, and relishes the crunch the letter gives the soft cake.
Waverly loves the movie. She is convinced that if Wynonna is Jim, the young, intelligent rebel, she is Doctor Doppler, the sometimes awkward, but incredibly wise and intelligent astrophysicist. Waverly relishes the new word, astrophysicist. She also finds herself obsessed with the ship’s captain, a feline alien with short, red hair, an impressive vocabulary and heavy doses of sarcasm. Waverly loves the way she orders people around, the ways she does flips, her skill with a gun, and the boots that go up all the way to her thighs. When Waverly watches Jim’s father leave him, she cries. Her own father died, but the effect on Wynonna was all too similar. She relates to Jim in her own way now, Waverly sometimes felt like her father would’ve abandoned her (Willa certainly would’ve) if he could. But through the experience of working on the ship, Waverly watches Jim learn manners, how to work hard, and resilience. Silently, Waverly begs for juvenile hall to do the same for Wynonna. When Jim comes home, after fighting the pirates and saving the day, he goes to the naval academy. His mother is all too proud of him as he stands there in his uniform at the front of their inn, at the same door where he was handed to her by the police. Waverly cries again at this point, hot tears spilling down her face for the moment she hopes Wynonna and Gus would have. Doctor Doppler has children with the redhead, which strangely satisfies Waverly. She likes that ending. She likes that she, well, Doctor Doppler, (Waverly reminds herself that she is not Doctor Doppler and Wynonna is not Jim) ended up with the redhead. Waverly gingerly takes the DVD out of the player, quietly sneaks upstairs (even though there is nobody else home) and hides it in her music box, where Waverly hides her special things. The movie joins a birthday card from Wynonna from when Waverly turned six, Waverly’s first perfect test score, and a photo of her and Wynonna, Waverly smiling at the camera and Wynonna making a silly face. Waverly closes the DVD player and snuggles into the couch with the quilt that Gus made so long ago.
When Gus and Curtis come home, covered in mud, straw, hay, and blood, they find Waverly asleep, with a couple of crumbs on her tiny face. The letters now read “Hap Birth Wavly” and Waverly’s plate is empty. Gus smiles, picks up the plate and remaining letters and brings them into the kitchen. Curtis gingerly picks up Waverly, careful to not wake Waverly and careful not to get any grime on the tiny girl. But no matter how hard they looked that night, they never found that DVD.