John Adams - The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2017

In another, Nancy and Jack developed an elaborate backstory for the knight and the princess. They wrote it out on cue cards to hold up to the audience to read before the skit so they would know the context.

The knight and princess went on a quest together. They fell in love and the knight has finally returned to marry her as he promised, only the princess is really mad it took him so long to get here.

“What if he had a good reason?” Jack asked. “Maybe he went on another quest.”

“Then he should have brought her with him,” Nancy said. “That’s what you’re supposed to do in these situations.”

In another, Nancy played all the parts. Jack stayed behind the curtain. Tech crew. This was Jack’s favorite version. The only time he appeared onstage was to drag Nancy’s body off when she died for the last time. If he wore all black, no one would be able to see him at all.

“Just imagine the entire audience in their underwear,” Nancy said. “And remember that no one will remember you anyway.”

“They will if I throw up all over the first row.”

In another, Nancy answered the door as a dragon, who ate Jack and then the princess.

“Maybe it’s a nice dragon,” Jack said.

“Don’t be stupid. Dragons eat people. It’s what they do.”

In the end, they decided the original version was best.

“But we can keep practicing until you get over your stage fright,” Nancy said. “If you want. I don’t mind.”

Each evening Jack decides to go to Nancy’s cabin first thing in the morning and explain everything. He always chickens out. She’ll want to see Pencil. She’ll want to know why he didn’t tell her about Pencil before. She’ll tell his cousin. His cousin will tell the government. The government will take Pencil and perform experiments in Nevada.

Finally Jack writes a letter to his mother. “If it’s not too much trouble,” he says, “please pick me up early this year. Please come get me on Sunday morning, before everyone else leaves. Before 10 a.m. if possible. I don’t like being the last one.” He knows when his mother picks him up, she’ll ask him why he didn’t say anything before. “I didn’t feel that way before,” he’ll say.

After Jack mails the letter, he feels good. Good enough to walk by Nancy’s cabin to ask for her address so they can keep in touch. He’ll write her a letter when he gets home. “I didn’t need you after all.” When Pencil is grown, he’ll go visit. They can go on quests. They’ll be friends again. Pencil won’t eat anyone. He won’t be that kind of dragon.

His cousin tells him she’s not there. “How’d you like your first year at camp, Jonathan? Did you love it? Everyone loves it. This is my twelfth summer, you know. If I had a choice, I’d never leave.”

“People with choices always say that.” Jack looks for Nancy on the pier. He looks for her at the soccer fields, baseball, the archery and riflery ranges. No one has seen her. She’s still mad at him.

“Girls,” the boys say. “They get mad and stay mad. It’s what they do.”

Jack looks for her everywhere and at lunch he waits by the flagpole as all the cabins stream past him so he can catch her walking in. She never shows.

Jack runs to the theater hut even though he knows everything will be fine. The door is closed and everything is quiet.

Nancy believes (C) that dragons exist. When she meets the dragon, it (C) doesn’t eat her. Nancy (C) teaches the dragon tricks. They become (C) good friends. Nancy (C) forgives Jack. (C) Jack’s mother picks him up at the end of the summer. (C) Everyone lives happily ever after.

The afternoon before the talent show, Jack and Nancy decided to do the original version of the skit: I’ve come to marry the princess. I’ll go ask her. No, no, no, a thousand times no.

“You’ll be there, right? You won’t chicken out? I’m counting on you. I’ll never forgive you if you leave me up there all by myself.”

Jack knocks. “I’ve come to marry the princess,” he says.

He knocks again. “I’ve come to rescue the princess.”

He knocks a third time. “I’m going on a quest, and I would like the princess to come with me if she would be so inclined.”

Jack knows that Nancy will open the door and forgive him. He believes it with the certainty of choice; there are no other options.

“He’s such a sweet dragon,” she’ll say. “Why didn’t you say anything before?”

The water here is never going to make good bread. If I’d known, I would have requested sturdier flour—we’ll be waiting six years for the next transport pod. Agosti told me today my bread’s good for massaging the gums, like he was trying to focus on the positives. Woods threatened to arrest him anyway, which was nice of him.

But that’s really the only thing that makes me sad. Otherwise, I promise, I’m getting along here very well. I miss you too. Every time I’m up late with the dough I imagine you’re at the table working, and when I look up it takes me a second to remember. But everyone here is pitching in. Marquez and Perlman and I are figuring out how to cheat an apple tree into producing fruit sooner, and Agosti’s building equipment out of our old life-support systems. If it works out, we’ll have our own cider in two years. (“We can dip the bread in it,” Perlman said, and Woods threatened to arrest her too. Gives him something to do. Imagine being in charge of five people. Good thing he has a knack for building.)

The sun’s different than back home—they told us about particles and turbulence on the way over and I was too stupid to understand it and too afraid to tell them, so just pretend I explained and you were really impressed. The planet’s locked, so there’s really only water on the equator—nothing makes it toward the sun and it’s ice by the time you go ten miles further darkside. You’re never 100 percent sure what time it even is, except that it’s a little more purple in the daylight for the hour we get it, and at sunset it looks like the whole place was attacked by vampires. It’s sunset most of the time. That’s not too bad if you can just avoid the river; that river never looks right with the dark coming in.

Agosti and Perlman were up until 3:30 shouting about which route will get us over the mountains, which would be more understandable if there were any mountains. But the movie bank’s still broken, so it’s just as well. I’m betting on Perlman. If anyone could lead us over imaginary mountains, it’s her.

My other entertainment is staying up late, trying to fight the water and make bread that will actually rise, and the bird that sings all night. Samara—Perlman—says we’re not supposed to assign characteristics from home to the things we find here until they’ve been observed and documented and whatever else, but—thrush family.

It’s most active during our night hours, and we’re working on why (trying to make sure it’s not drawn to the lights we brought with us, which would be bad news), but in the meantime it seems happy to sit in the trees outside the kitchen and sing. Three little bursts, then a longer one that’s so many notes it sounds like showing off, then a little pause to see if anyone’s listening, so it’s definitely showing off. If I whistle anything, it tries to repeat it, and it’s a fairly good mimic, but nothing I do really takes. It knows what it likes.

It has the same woodwind sound as the one back home, the house I lived in when I was young. Hermit thrush? Wood thrush? Something I used to hear all the time and never thought about, of course. Good news is that now it’s just me and this one bird and I’ll get to start over again with every new animal. This time I’m going to pay better attention.