“That was a hell of a skit you did last year, Jack,” they’d say. “I almost believed you both died up there. I was afraid I’d never see you again.”
The dragon grew a little every hour. By dinner it was the size of a large dog. By breakfast the next morning it was the size of a pony. Jack moved the dragon into the theater hut. It was always empty the last week of camp, and Jack didn’t want Pencil getting lost in the woods. Jack still didn’t know what it ate. He brought it scraps from the mess—spaghetti, meatloaf, scrambled eggs—but Pencil wasn’t interested. Maybe dragons didn’t need to eat.
Nancy and Jack tried revising I’ve Come to Marry the Princess to make it their own. They spent every afternoon in the theater hut. Nancy said it was her favorite place at camp. Jack agreed because it was the only building with air conditioning.
In one of Jack and Nancy’s made-up versions, the princess said yes. The knight said “Great!” and they proceeded to spend forty-five minutes making wedding preparations, passing messages through the guard, king, and queen. The climax of the story was when the guard misheard “lilies” for “daffodils” and it turned out the knight was allergic and he died from anaphylactic shock. The princess died from grief. Nancy said it was very important that they both die in the skit, otherwise people wouldn’t know it was supposed to be funny. If only one of them kicked the bucket, then it’d be a different kind of story entirely.
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?”
GENEVIEVE VALENTINE
Everyone from Themis Sends Letters Home
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.