John Adams - The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2017

That first day, Jack’s mother set up an account for him at the camp store. She said he could buy whatever he wanted, within reason. It’d make his father happy if he got some camp clothes: a hat, sweatshirt, maybe even some of those rubber sandals to wear in the river with the Morehead wheel sewn in white thread on the ankle.

By spring of his fourth year Jack had run up a tab of $1,847. He didn’t only buy clothes: the store also sold stamps, toiletries, and a stale-tasting candy bar some camper’s father invented that no one ever ate. Even the ducks wouldn’t touch it. Around Christmas the store sold ornaments, wrapping paper, and better-tasting chocolate. Jack liked the store best in February. They had an entire display case of No. 2 pencils stacked in a giant No. 2 pencil pyramid. You had to ask for help to take one. Jack bought several throughout the day, every day, just hoping it would crumble when the cashier reached over to get him one. It never did.

When the knight knocks on the door the second time, the king answers.

“I’ve come to marry the princess.”

“The princess?”

“Yes, the princess.”

“All right, I’ll go ask her.”

Nancy was the only one who remembered Jack from year to year. “I’ve got a really good memory,” she said. “I’m constantly correcting people when they tell a story wrong. Details are important, unless they’re made up.”

Nancy told Jack he should try the administrator’s office and ask for his paperwork. “You would have to be registered for each session, each camp, otherwise they wouldn’t let you stay,” she explained. “Bills, medical records, test scores, all of them have to be recorded in the system. Ask for it, any of it, and it’ll collapse.”

Sometimes Nancy suggested that he just walk out the gate and down the highway. He could steal a horse from the barn, or one of the boats. Jack didn’t think those were very feasible, and he didn’t have a very good sense of direction.

Why not the bus? she asked. It dropped campers off at the Episcopal church right downtown. Didn’t he say he lived on the river? He could walk from there. If he didn’t try, then it was his fault.

“When I was seven years old,” Jack said, “I went to a school that put younger students at tables with older students. Lunch was delivered to the head of the table, and it was the job of the older student to pass them out. That year I was at a long table. There were two head students and twelve of us. They passed out eleven plates. I guess each one of them thought the other one had taken care of me. I was reading a book, so I didn’t notice until I could hear the scrape of everyone’s knives. I waited until someone noticed. No one did. I thought about raising my hand, but I didn’t know which one of them to ask. By then it had been so long that I thought I had to think of a reason why I’d waited. They were going to have to ask the kitchen for another plate. One of them would get in trouble. So I kept waiting. I pretended to keep reading, and then I’d have an excuse. Then lunch was over, and I was still hungry, but no one had to be embarrassed about it.”

“That’s stupid,” she said.

“It happened again the next day, and I kept reading. I learned to stuff an apple in my pocket in the morning. I ate bigger breakfasts. Finally, by the third week, I spoke up. ‘Excuse me?’ I said to the older one, a girl. She seemed nice. ‘I don’t have a plate.’”

“Did she give you one?”

“It turned out I was at the wrong table. By the time she’d straightened it out, my friend William had eaten his lunch and mine, like he’d been doing every day prior. He was mad at me after that and wouldn’t talk to me.”

“There are these boys in my school,” Nancy said. “They’re on the swim team. They’re always hungry. After lunch they walk around the cafeteria and go up to any girl who still has fries on her plate, or pizza. ‘You really want to eat that?’ they say. ‘You don’t want a paunch, do you?’ They always said ‘paunch.’ We learned it in English class. We all liked the way our lips quivered when we said it. Paunch. ‘Come on,’ they said. ‘We’re helping you out.’ Some girls, they just hold up their trays when they see those boys coming.”

“Why didn’t the school do something?”

“No one complained. The girls didn’t mind. Some girls, they got extra fries just so they could give them away. Of course, some girls spat on theirs, or brought in extra hot peppers or other things to dice up and put on their pizza, just to see what would happen. One boy got sick; he threw up all during fifth period.”

“Did they stop?”

“No. They were stubborn and stupid, like you.”

Last summer, Jack did try the bus. It took him all the way into town, where the campers’ parents were waiting at the Episcopal church parking lot. Jack could see the top of his house over the trees. The driver wouldn’t let him off until a guardian signed for him. They waited all day. Jack asked the driver if he could go inside the church and call his house from the office.

“How do I know you’ll call your mother? You could be calling a stranger.”

“You could call.”

“Camp told me to sit on the bus and wait till all the campers’ mothers came and signed for them. Can’t leave the bus.”

They waited all night, and the next morning the bus driver took him back to camp. A counselor checked his name off on a clipboard.

“You’re going to love it here, Jack. What instrument do you play? Did you forget it at home? Don’t worry, we have spares.”

In June, when he saw Nancy, she sighed. “When I never see you again, I’ll know that something good happened.”

There’s always a reason a boy finds a dragon egg. Jack didn’t have a reason. His grandmother gave it to him even though he’d asked for a soccer ball. All the boys at camp would know how to play soccer and he wanted to practice before he went.

“It’s an egg,” he said.

“A dragon egg,” his grandmother said.

“Does that make a difference?”

“You’ll be the only one at camp with one, I’m sure,” she said.

“Don’t dragons eat people?”

“That’s just a rumor. Make friends with it.”

He thought about telling people it was a soccer ball. A special one. That was heavy. And didn’t roll very well. And clinked when you shook it (“Don’t do that,” his grandmother said, “it’ll get mad at you”).

The only thing Jack liked about the egg was the thought of having his very own dragon. One that could fly, and speak telepathically, and breathe fire. But after the first summer, and the next, and the next after, he thought maybe his dragon was defective. What kind of dragon would come from a Walmart parking lot?

Jack imagined flying over fields and forests in a dragon-sized silver shopping cart, the balls of his feet balancing on the metal bar as the cart’s front end rose and rose, right into the clouds.

“Rawr,” he said. “Behold the conquering hero.”

When the dragon finally hatched, it was blue. Blue eyes, blue scales, even blue-tinted nails at the end of its delicate blue feet. Its wings were membranous wisps that flapped weakly against the dragon’s sides.

“Don’t worry,” he told the dragon. “You’ll grow into them. Then you can take us home.”

Jack thought long and hard about a name. Names had power. An evil wizard could ensnare his dragon by guessing its true name.

“Pencil,” Jack said. “No one would guess that.”

He thought about naming it Nancy, but if anyone in his life were to suddenly turn into an evil wizard, it would be her. Then the name wouldn’t be hard to guess at all.

The king asks the queen, who asks the princess, who still says No, no, no, a thousand times no. The knight kills the king and then asks the queen, kills her, and finally knocks on the princess’s door.