Page 37 of One Adult, Please

"A secret where picture?"

"A schematic."

"A backstage where picture."

"It shows service tunnels, emergency access points, utility shutoffs, storage rooms, drainage, electrical panels."

"So yes. A secret where picture."

Joel puts it in the tote bag. The secret where picture is ours now.

Beck finds a nail gun. He lifts it with both hands like he's discovered a holy relic.

"No," Joel says immediately. "No nail gun."

"What if the nail gun is emotionally ready?"

I look at the nail gun. "I think we should take it," I say.

Joel turns to me with betrayal in his eyes, which is rude because I'm being practical. "Why?"

"Because someday we may need to attach one thing to another thing with violence."

Beck points at me. "Leadership."

We redistribute the supplies and fill every inch of space the four tote bags have left. Joel closes the door behind us. I draw another X on the where picture in periwinkle.

Two down. Two to go.

The Viking pavilion is a large open-air structure with a thatched roof and wooden pillars, designed to look like a Norse great hall. Inside, there are themed dining tables, a stage for live performances, and a gift shop section with rubber swords, plastic horned helmets, and drinking mugs shaped like skulls that I'm taking because morale matters and skull mugs are morale.

It's also completely empty.

"No wrong people," Beck announces, having done a lap of the interior in approximately fifteen seconds. He moves through spaces the way a dog moves through a park: fast, curious, covering every corner with kinetic enthusiasm.

"No wrong people," Joel confirms, having done his own slower, more systematic check of the structural elements, the exits, the support beams, the roof integrity, because Joel doesn't just clear a room of threats, he evaluates whether the room itself is a threat, which is a level of thoroughness that I find both admirable and exhausting.

"No wrong people!" I agree, having done nothing useful except stand in the entrance holding the friendship paddle and trying to look like I was contributing.

I grab skull mugs. Four of them. They're twelve dollars each, which is highway robbery for a novelty mug, but things that make you feel like a Viking while drinking water are worth their weight in civilization.

I also grab a fur-lined cape from the costume rack near the stage. It's fake fur, obviously, but it's warm and it's dramatic and I put it on over my Wondie hoodie. This is an upgrade from my previous aesthetic, which was post-apocalyptic gift shop warrior.

"Grace, take off the cape."

"No."

"We need to move quietly."

"The cape is quiet."

"The cape is dragging on the floor."

I look behind me. The cape is, in fact, dragging on the floor. It's also collecting debris: a candy wrapper and a small plastic Viking that fell off a display. I'm a Norse warrior with a supply chain.

"I'll hold it up."

"Grace."