Page 104 of One Adult, Please

"That's exactly how evolution works. You're the animal expert. Back me up."

"I refuse to apply Darwinian theory to your humor."

"Darwin would have loved my humor. Darwin was a freak. All those finches? Freak behavior."

He's still laughing when we reach the crime boat.

25

THE GROUP HEART SITUATION

GRACE

The periwinkle is getting short.

This is a crisis. The periwinkle has been the backbone of every strategic decision we've made since I drew the first wonky version of this park on the back of a brochure in the thinking box, and now it's worn down to a nub the size of my thumbnail.

But the crayon plan needs updating because we keep doing things and things keep happening and the plan has to absorb all of it or the plan isn't the plan anymore, it's just a drawing with feelings.

My phone has been charged twice since Joel got the battery packs working, and has rewarded me with one bar, zero calls, and the reliability of a wet paper straw.

I smooth the brochure flat on the thinking box desk. The paper has been folded and unfolded so many times that the fold lines are furry. The bean shark in the fish part section is still my finest artistic achievement. Joel's handwriting is in the margins where he's added structural notes in pen because Joel doesn't trust crayons. Joel's wrong but I've chosen to let him be wrong about this because you can't fight every war.

Grant's sitting on the bench with Pepper asleep in his jacket. Beck's on the floor, cross-legged, sharpening something against something else. Joel's standing near the porthole doing his scan thing.

"Okay," I say. "New items."

I pick up the periwinkle. I hold it the way you hold a pencil when you're taking the SATs and everything matters. I write.

Item twenty-three: FIX THE LOUD MACHINE.

I pause. Consider. Add parenthetically: (the thing that talks to other places).

"The communications tower," Joel says, because Joel can read upside down.

Item twenty-four: CALL MOM.

Item twenty-five: FIND OUT IF BISCUIT IS OKAY.

Item twenty-six: ALSO SNACKS.

"Your mother is three hundred miles away," Joel says.

"My mother is three hundred miles away with my cat and inadequate snack provisions for an apocalypse. She has Mrs. Patterson's casserole. One casserole, Joel. One casserole isn't a survival strategy, it's a Tuesday."

"What kind of casserole?" Beck asks from the floor.

"Tuna."

"Tuna casserole is a war crime."

"Don't let my mother hear you say that. She'll defend Mrs. Patterson's tuna casserole with the ferocity of a woman who's never once enjoyed it but respects the gesture."

"So the operations center," I say, tapping the crayon plan. I drew a building near the big middle. A rectangle with a squiggle on top that looks like a rectangle having a bad hair day. "Joel, you said there's a talking system in there."

"Emergency communications system," Joel says. "Shortwave, satellite phone terminal, PA override. If it still has power and the antenna array is aligned, we might be able to reach someone."

"And if it isn't aligned?"