50
Sunday twisted his face until he had the boys laughing, and most of the girls, except for a few who were crinkling their noses and whispering, “Eeeuuw, like a real pig farm?”
Perfect, he thought, glancing at the one he’d come to see, sitting forward, watching, waiting.
“We lived in central Appalachia, up a holler in West Virginia,” the writer went on, laying on a little southern charm. “I tell you, children, we were as poor as poor can be. Raising pigs was the only way my mama and daddy knew to make money, so it’s what they did.”
Sunday paused, seeing he still had most of them but determined to have all of them. “My house stank,” he said, doing his best to look revolted. “My yard smelled worse, especially in the summer when it was hot. Them pigs would poop everywhere and lay in it and just grunt and grunt. All happy and such.”
The children started to giggle and clap their hands over their mouths. He’d known they would, and glanced over at Ms. Dawson, who was frowning.
“I had to feed the pigs,” the writer went on. “Sometimes I had to wash them and shovel out their sty.”
That simultaneously grossed out the children and glued their attention on him. “I hated it,” Sunday continued. “Just hated it.”
He paused dramatically before adding, “I used that hate to drive myself at school so I wouldn’t have to live on that pig farm anymore.”
Sunday went on in this vein, now telling a largely fabricated story about studying until late at night so he could win a scholarship to college, where he majored in computer engineering and learned to write code.
He told them how he’d worked for a computer game company for a while before he’d come up with the idea of a website for elementary school kids.
“When I was growing up, I didn’t have friends,” Sunday said. “There wasn’t a girl that would give me the time of day. I mean, would you be friends with a kid who smelled like pig poop?”
He waited until their laughter died, continued, “So I came up with this website idea so kids like you could have friends far away from home. Like all around the world. Doesn’t that sound cool?”
Kids clapped. Others shouted, “Yes!”
Sunday pointed at his head, said, “I’ll tell you more about the site in a second, but it’s important that you know that I did all this by being positive. As a kid, I used to hate that pig farm, but now I kind of like the fact that I grew up there. Makes my story even more interesting, don’t you think?”
Sunday saw that the one he was interested in was nodding, and he smiled right at the child, said, “I used to hate my parents, but now I actually like the fact that they were pig farmers.”
The writer snatched the microphone from its stand and walked across the stage, saying, “Do you get it? You can use the things you don’t like about your life to change it.”
He climbed down the stairs, knowing that he was beginning to lose some of them. “I’ll prove it,” he said, and walked straight toward the kid on the far right end of the third row.
“What’s your name?” Sunday asked, and tilted the mike at him.
The boy looked embarrassed. “Me?” he said.
“Why not?”
“Ali Cross,” the boy said, sniffing and curling his nose.
“Ali Cross,” Sunday said as if the name were a marvelous thing. “How old did you say you are?”
“Seven.”
“Second grade?”
Ali nodded, sniffed and curled his nose again.
“What do your parents do?”
“My father’s a police detective,” Ali said proudly. “He used to be with the FBI. He catches killers and, like, bad guys. So does my stepmom.”
The writer found the answer irritating but managed to look very impressed. “Well,” he said. “No pig farm and pig poop for you, then.”
The other children laughed, but Ali looked serious as he shook his head.