The Greens of Jericho

The Devil's Playground

Or, On the Origin of Prank 

The events of that day upon which Jericho was liberated from the ASA would stay with us for years to come. The feelings of that day, both the triumphant exhilaration and inexpressible loss, would inform how we lived our day to day lives, for better and worse.
 
The mood was a mixed one on the first anniversary of the liberation, a day we dubbed informally “Jericho Independence Day.” The whole town gathered in the square between Main Street and Spruce Lane for a moment of silence followed by a celebratory barbecue. No one knew quite how to act, how to express both our sadness at the losses we'd sustained before and after that fateful day, and our joy at being alive for another beautiful year. We looked to the leaders of our town to set the pace the first time.
 
Gray Anderson stood watching his beloved town's population turning their brave faces towards the front of town hall. He had been up late the night before, practicing his speech with Gail until it was just right. Gail had gone over the cue cards he'd written and then she'd helped him with the delivery, giving constructive feedback and demonstrating how she would express some parts herself. He was glad that she was by his side, facing the town that needed them just as much as they needed it.
 
His eyes swept across his family in the first row, Eric giving him an encouraging nod, his daughters-in-law smiling, his granddaughters dressed in the red and purple dresses Gail had made for the occasion, and Jake, who was studying the floor, evidently torn between his usual compunction to show his disdain for Gray in every way and his need to demonstrate a heroically brave composure for the rest of the townspeople through troubled times. Gray told himself, as Gail told him often, that it would only take time and that things would improve eventually, if he kept doing what he was doing with patience and a smile. He hoped that by presenting his best, most bracing and optimistic face to the town, it would be a start.
 
“My fellow citizens,” he began, hearing his voice echo across the silent crowd. “We gather here today in a spirit of -”
 
He was interrupted by the sound of a speaker squeaking loudly. Then -
 
“When the moon hits your eye, like a big pizza pie – that's amore!”
 
Gray glanced around, furiously. He saw no visual sign of a disturbance, but the song was broadcasting into the crowd, which was now twittering. He scanned the audience. Some faces were bewildered, but some were now laughing. As the second line of the song drifted through the air, a great number joined in, singing aloud “THAT'S AMORE!”
 
Gray was fuming. “Those – those darn kids!” he shouted. “I told the guys to do a sweep of the area before everyone got here, to make sure this didn't happen.”
 
Jimmy stepped out from his post beside the building, raising his shoulders in a shrug. A few of the rangers went inside the building to see if they could locate the source of the music.
 
“There, there,” Gail was whispering beside her husband.
 
“Those kids!” repeated Gray. “Where did they come from?”
 
No one answered Gray's question, as they were too busy looking around, recovering from their shock, or singing along.
 
I myself pondered the question for a moment. I let it go as I dutifully went to perform a sweep of the building, but as I arrive at this moment in my most serious task of recollecting the harrowing journey of survival undertaken by us all in Jericho, I believe it is a perfect opportunity to reflect back on the journey of two of our most devilishly playful denizens.
 
Long before they began their reign as the Devil's Duo, the pair whose names would later become synonymous with smuggling necessities and showering laundry soap down onto unsuspecting jail guards experienced their humble beginnings as small-time pranksters in the hallowed training halls of all great pranksters: their elementary school.
 
In those days, the kindergarten class of Jericho elementary was led by one Mrs. Creecey. Mrs. Creecey had the particular talent of charming parents and colleagues, with her sweet-as-taffy voice, chirping about how much fun the children would have this year, and her conveniently misty-eyed expressions when she reminisced about years past and how it was to watch children grow up after guiding them through this fragile time in their inexperienced lives. Most children, in fact, also believed the sun itself shone from Mrs. Creecey's beaming smile when they first encountered her, the first friendly face they saw after a dangerous trek across an asphalt wasteland of pavement-smashing basketballs and snack-stealing giants.
 
Young, too-tightly-fitting-sneakers-clad Dale Turner would not be the first child to be smitten with a Mrs. Creecey first impression. Many youngsters before him had fallen victim. In fact, I myself had been a wide-eyed kindergartner at Jericho Elementary, and though I proudly clutched a Scooby-Doo lunch box like a talisman across my chest as I made my first blacktop march, I did not yet possess the shrewd instinct and knack for judging character that would later lead me to success as a police officer and town protector. My young heart melted and I breathed a sigh of relief, along with the rest of my classmates, as Mrs. Creecey sang about the days of the week.
 
On his first day, Dale Turner did too. Though his mind had been on his rumbling stomach and thoughts of the baloney-sandwich-containing lunch bag stowed in his new cubby during the playing of the national anthem and the recitation of the pledge of allegiance, he found his thoughts focused on the front of the room as Mrs. Creecey promised a wonderful year ahead, asked a few students about their summers, and introduced a puppet, a bright orange clownfish named Finley.
 
His fears of being trampled to death by a herd of fifth-graders or getting lost on his way to the bathroom dissipated as Mrs. Creecey gave them a tour of the school, waiting while everyone took a drink at the water fountain. His anxiety about wearing pants with a patch on the knee faded as he shared blocks with a classmate during playtime, under Mrs. Creecey's watchful instructions that everyone be treated fairly. The pit twisting at the bottom of his stomach, even after lunchtime and the baloney sandwiches, that he knew vaguely as a wish to be home with his mother, seemed to shrink as he listened to Mrs. Creecey reading Where the Wild Things Are. As he walked home from the bus stop with his mother at the end of the day, he chattered excitedly about the kindly matron awaiting him and the other young students at school the next day.
 
Dale would continue to praise Mrs. Creecey while holding his mother's hand on the walk home the next evening, but as the week continued and then came to a close, his excitement about his school day grew more subdued, his words of praise dealt out more and more stingily, until the Friday where he walked home quietly, only speaking to ask his mother if he could watch a movie before bedtime. By the end of the week, the truth had become apparent to the young boy. The puppet-wielding, softly-smiling Mrs. Creecey was a tyrant.
 
Dale couldn't tell his mother, as she asked him what he thought of school now that he'd survived a whole week of it. He had seen, in her eyes on the first day she'd picked him up at the bus stop, the same relief he had felt then. He had worried in the beginning, about leaving her alone as he ventured out into the world of education, and was glad that she knew he was alright, forging through the asphalt jungle every day. There was no need to worry her now. He didn't tell her how Mrs. Creecey made people sit still forever, and made it last even longer if someone complained or talked out of turn. He didn't mention that when walking down the halls, the entire class would have to retrace their footsteps if one person stepped out of the neat formation. Printing had to be done on the blue lines in their notebooks and not the red lines, words were read from left to right on a page, and flowers had to be drawn on the ground, and not in the sky, which your paper would always be until you drew a line across it to turn it into a world of both ground and sky. Of course, some of these things wouldn't seem so bad, on their own. When Dale's mother read to him, it was always from left to right. But she had never told Dale he must do it this way. Mrs. Creecey was always telling everyone what they must do, keeping her voice sugary sweet, but all the while, turning her smile into something that even the silliest, chirpiest students in the class could recognize as threatening.
 
Towards the end of the week, the students saw evidence that it was not just an idle threat. Those who didn't follow the rules were subject to losing their privileges at the water play table, losing their assigned toys, and being sent to the back of the line. The worst offenders were sent to the dreaded time-out chair, a lonely plastic seat in the corner, facing away from the fish tank. The worst part of this sentence, Dale surmised, was the public humiliation of being scolded in front of everyone else. “Explain why you would do this,” Mrs. Creecey would order. No matter what the offender said, Mrs. Creecey would answer “That was not necessary.” Then, he or she would take the slow and painful march across the carpet, past the paint easels, to the cold, hard chair of ignominy. Dale resolved, after watching a boy named Sean become the first trouble maker sentenced to the walk of disgrace, that he would never be caught doing anything to earn him such a punishment.
 
This was easy enough for young Dale, as he had learned early on, with the closely proximity of many of his neighbours in the trailer park providing key lessons, that the easiest way to avoid trouble is often keeping quiet and keeping your head down. Just as he said nothing when he saw Reg and Mike Berkely beating up the new boy from Rogue River behind the park office, he said nothing as he was told to get to the back of the line. He had only stumbled out of line because two of the other boys had pushed him, but Mrs. Creecey usually did not distinguish when it was one person's word against another. He kept quiet when Mrs. Creecey told him to sit on the bench along the wall in gym class because he'd worn sandals instead of gym shoes. He felt his greatest fear about to come true one day when Mrs. Creecey discovered that it was he who put his permission form for the trip to the museum into the garbage during lunchtime. “Explain why you would do this,” she said. He felt all eyes on him but only looked at hers, staring into his, with no trace of a smile. The last time he'd brought home a permission form, that one for a trip to the horse farm, his mother had been quiet. She'd left it on the counter for a whole week, and he'd noticed her sighing and reading it over during moments where she thought he wasn't looking. He'd hoped to avoid having another form on the counter for a week this time, but there was no good way to explain this. He stayed silent. He was not sent to the time-out chair, but he had to do his best not to flinch under Mrs. Creecey's sharp stare.
 
Dale was careful to avoid any more moments of undivided attention from the entire room, and he developed ways of avoiding Mrs. Creecey's shrewd, trouble-maker-detecting stares. He was the first to quiet as the class gathered at the carpet, so that he could not be sternly shushed, as some of the girls in the class nearly always were. He lined up quickly when the bell signalling the end of recess rang, and usually didn't even play very far from the door that the kindergartners used, in case he was so far away he missed hearing the bell. He drew flowers on the ground, pointed from left to right when he looked at books, and as he learned to print letters, he began them on the blue lines and not the red.
 
It all changed one day during a writing work period. For a week, Dale's mother had spent the block of time between his arrival home and her departure for work in the evenings helping him practice writing his last name. He had spelled it out only in upper case letters, but still, no one in his class had managed to get this far yet. It had taken all week, and many pieces of scrap paper, to get it right – the curving loop of the 'R' being the most difficult – but by that Friday morning, Dale had mastered it and was eager to incorporate this new, important step into his writer's workshop printing. Ten minutes into the work period, he had filled the half of his notebook page designated for writing with his own name, DALE TURNER, penciled in as many times as he could fit it onto the blue lines. Picturing the smile on his mother's face last night as she'd watched him write, he was contentedly drawing a picture, sprinkled abundantly with flowers, on the blank half of the page, above his name. He had managed to pick the best crayons, the ones that were still reasonably sharp and still encased in paper wrappers, out of the shared crayon basket at the middle of his table. Usually this was a difficult feat, as one of the obnoxious girls at the table usually grabbed for them first and he usually wound up with stubs, but today, his table mates were still practicing their first names, gripping fat red pencils with looks of determination, so that he even managed to find one of every colour in the rainbow.
 
He was reaching for the red crayon, planning to add polka dots to his mother's purple dress, when a hand shot out and closed around it. “Hey!” he protested, forgetting his usual silence in his irritation.
 
“I need the red,” said the boy beside him.
 
It was out of his reach, but Dale found his hand reaching all the same. “I need it. Give it back, Sean!”
 
“You have lots of others,” said Sean, smiling now that he had realized how much Dale wanted the one he had taken. Still smiling, he began to scribble across the blank half of his notebook page. Dale glanced at his paper.
 
“You're not even done! You're 'sposed to write 'til you run out of room and you only used two lines.”
 
“So?” said Sean.
 
“How come you have all the good crayons?” Deanna whined from across the table. The boys' discussion had drawn attention from the others. “I'm finished and I want some.”
 
“Take some out of the basket,” shrugged Dale, feeling his ears growing warm. He looked down at his collection. He was not going to give them up easily. He still hadn't added his own legs in, so that right now it looked as though his mother was holding hands with a floating balloon shaped like a boy.
 
“You took the only green!” protested Deanna. “And I want to draw a whole meadow.”
 
“Well, I am drawing a – hey!” Dale had begun to protest, but was cut short as Sean reached in front of him, grabbed the green crayon, and rolled it across the table. “That was mine!”
 
He realized his mistake as the words left his mouth. Sean and Deanna were smiling now and even Emma had looked up from her painstaking printing. “They are not yours,” said Deanna in an annoyingly superior tone. Her hand shot up in the air before Dale could say anything. “Mrs. Creecey!”
 
Mrs. Creecey seemed to appear out of nowhere. “Yes?”
 
“Dale's not sharing.”
 
Three pairs of mutinous eyes joined with one firm gaze from higher up. Dale tightened his grip on the purple crayon, but did not turn and glare at Sean as he wanted to. Not with Mrs. Creecey swelling up before him, about to issue a warning. 
 
“Dale? What -”
 
“I'm sharing,” he muttered quickly. Looking down, he reached his hands to the crayons. He pushed, not moving his eyes back up to meet Sean, Deanna, or Mrs. Creecey's gazes, instead watching the perfect, wrapped, sharp-edged crayons roll across the desk.
 
He continued looking down for a few moments, after Mrs. Creecey had left and his fellow students had gone back to printing. He stared at his name, admiring the curving edges of the 'D's, tracing his finger over the boxy angles of the 'E's. He lingered over the picture of himself and his mother, standing in a field of flowers, far away from lines and quiet time and crayon thieves and eagle-eyed teachers. He glanced then over at Sean's paper. Sean had gone back to tracing his first name with a pencil. Sean had had difficulty with making his 'N's face the right way since the beginning of the year. The red crayon lay abandoned, on the table, between them.
 
He wanted his mother's dress to have red polka dots. A fancy dress. One that would make her happy. Sean's tongue was sticking out a little bit, in the corner of his mouth, as he joined the diagonal line to the straight. Dale reached out and grabbed the red crayon.
 
“Hey!” It was Sean's turn to protest. He reached, but Dale held the crayon out in the air, away from Sean's grasping fingers. “I was using that!”
 
“No you weren't,” said Dale, leaning in his chair so that he could hold the crayon as far away from Sean as possible.
 
“Then I guess you aren't using this,” said Sean, quickly reaching for Dale's notebook. He began to pull it away, but Dale reached quickly for it, emitting a wordless shout of protest.
 
Both boys' fingers closed around either side of the top page. Their eyes narrowed and they pulled back.
 
Deanna and Emma looked up at the ripping sound.
 
Dale glanced quickly from the jagged picture of a balloon boy, holding onto a lonely arm, sticking out of Sean's fist, down to his notebook, and his mother, armless and polkadot-less, alone in the flowers.
 
He sprung, flinging his full weight at Sean. Both boys toppled to the ground, as did Sean's chair. Dale growled as he held onto Sean, rolling on the floor as the other boy fought back.
 
“DALE TURNER!”
 
It did not sound as cheerful as it looked on the page. Mrs. Creecey was shouting both their names and after shaking Sean a few more times and feeling his own head hit the chair leg, Dale rolled away and stood up.
 
Sean stood too, glaring at him.
 
Dale was afraid to look at Mrs. Creecey. Her voice was calm but dangerous. “Explain why you would do this.”
 
Dale glanced down at the torn notebook on his desk, and rage filled him once more. He burst into an explanation, beginning with Sean's offence and then describing his hard work printing his first and last name, feeling tears rising in his eyes.
 
Mrs. Creecey was not sympathetic. “That is a not a reason to hit someone else.”
 
Dale glanced wildly around, noticing that everyone else sat at their tables, mouths agape, pencils long forgotten. “But he ruined it, and I worked so hard!”
 
“I don't care what he did. That was not necessary.”
 
Dale looked down at the carpet as Mrs. Creevey pronounced his sentence. He tried not to cry as he began the slow march across the carpet, past the paint easels, adorned with paintings of fall leaves, to the orange plastic chair where he would endure his time-out. Sean followed, grumbling but accepting his fate. Dale looked down at his worn shoes until he heard his classmates go back to their quiet chattering that meant they were printing again. He stared at his hands and furiously blinked back his tears as he heard the scrapings of their chairs and their quick, chaotic footsteps, signalling their moving from one activity to another.
 
As he sat with his head bowed, listening to his classmates sing along with Finley the Fish, his hot anger melted away and was replaced with a cold simmering fury. It was so unfair, the way Mrs. Creecey jumped quickly to punishing anyone who didn't follow her rules, but never stopped to wonder at their perfect lettering. The notebook was still ripped and he had been punished. He glowered over at Sean, who was sitting in his own timeout chair nearby with a bored expression. He hazarded a glance at Mrs. Creecey, who was now praising Deanna for answering a question about honey bees. It was Mrs. Creecey who really made him angry. She would have to pay.
 
Dale remained quiet for the rest of the day, refusing to answer when Mrs. Creecey asked him if he thought about anything during his time out. She had let him go, and he thought for the rest of the day of ways he could seek revenge. It would have to be done in a sneaky way, so that he didn't get called out in front of the rest of the class. He would have to think carefully before he took action.
 
His mother's cheerful mood at the coming weekend – she had mornings off on Saturday and the whole day on Sunday – wasn't contagious as he walked home, brooding. He was planning.
 
He planned in his mind throughout the weekend, as he watched cartoons on Saturday morning, played tag with Rachel in the afternoon, and as he played on the swings on Sunday. As he crossed the asphalt on Monday morning, he was a boy on a mission.
 
Throughout the morning activities, Dale was a model student. He read the days of the week along with the rest of the class, joined in the singing as Finley taught them about sharing, and quietly chose a puzzle during play time. As he fit the pieces of Clifford the big red dog together, he stole furtive glances around the room, making sure that his plan would work.
 
The plan was finally put in motion as his class went outside for recess. Dale followed, scuffing his toes along the pavement like everyone else, and waited a few minutes once they'd reached the area of pavement where the kindergarten class played. Everyone else busily reached for the jump ropes, balls, and tricycles, but Dale stood watching. When it seemed like enough time had passed, he ran over to Mrs. Nystrom, who supervised their half of the yard.
 
“Why didn't you go when you were inside?” she asked.
 
“I didn't have to go then!” said Dale.
 
“You've been out here for a whole minute,” sighed the teacher, but as she surveyed him with the experienced eye of a primary teacher, she handed him a bathroom pass.
 
Dale hurried inside and bypassed the washrooms. Glancing quickly over his shoulder, making sure no adults or other witnesses were around, he ducked into his classroom.
 
He felt a tiny thrill at the forbidden nature of his actions, and hurried forwards. He only had a short time, and now that he was actually inside, a flutter of fear was mixing with his determination to carry out his plans. He hurried across the room, heading for the fish tank.
 
He stopped suddenly in his tracks when he heard a gasp. He turned to look in the direction of the chalk board. There, perched on a chair, affixing a large construction paper Y to the blackboard, was Skylar Stevens.
 
Her eyes instantly narrowed as she looked him up and down. He stepped back to look at the whole scene. Before the Y, Skylar had attached several other letters to the blackboard, letters she seemed to have gotten from other parts of the classroom. He recognized the P from the calendar, where it had formally been the third letter in “September.” The two pumpkins, each adorned with an “E,” had been a part of the new Halloween display board, still blank in anticipation of the black cats they were going to decorate that week in art. The “R” was reminiscent of the time they'd read about the Gingerbread Man and decorated their own, though they had taken those home last week. The “C,” he realized with a sudden twang of amusement, had been decorated by their classmate Carly, when everyone had first learned how to write their first names. Carly's had been the biggest, the most elaborately decorated, and she had gloated about it for a week. Before the jumble of letters, a cut-out word had been placed, one that Dale knew already as it usually preceded their teacher's name.
 
“Mrs.?” he asked.
 
Skylar spoke, for the first time. “It says Mrs. Creepy, dummy.”
 
She stepped down from her chair, but drew herself up to her full height. She was not taller than Dale, but still an intimidating height as she stepped closer, her eyes flashing beneath her pink rosebud hairband.
 
“You – you spelled Mrs. Creepy?” Dale stammered. “Up there?”
 
She nodded, and for the first time, broke into a small smile, as though she couldn't quite contain her satisfaction with her own ingenuity. “I asked my babysitter how to spell it.” She frowned again. “If you tell anyone, you'll be sorry!”
 
Dale took a step backward. “I won't tell anyone,” he mumbled. He looked down, but looked up at Skylar again.
 
He hadn't had many dealings with the purple-patent-leather-shoe-clad schemer since their introduction on the first day of school. The class had gone around the circle saying their names and something that they had done over the summer. Skylar had bragged about a trip to Aspen, Colorado, and a birthday party with pony rides. Since that day, he had observed her from a distance, showing off her fruit rollups at lunch time, telling everyone in the playhouse centre which members of the family they would have to be during playtime, and taking control of all the skipping ropes at recess, doling them out to her classmates after they gathered around her and made offers to be her best friend and take her on trips to Candyland and the Grand Canyon.
 
He had also noticed her, once in a while, getting in trouble in class, though she had never managed to land herself a time-out humiliation. Most often, she drew attention when she rolled her eyes and spoke in a tone his own mother would call “lippy.” Mrs. Creecey would tell her to watch her tone, but usually, Skylar would notice that all eyes were on her and she would become her usual smiling self, saying “sorry” and beaming at their teacher.
 
“Aren't you going to ask why I wrote it?” Dale stared back at her. He shook his head. He turned and made his way over to his target.
 
“Why?” she asked, following. He turned, shrugged, and turned back to the fish tank, looking up towards its lid.
 
Skylar stepped over and put a hand to the side of the fish tank, squeezing in so she was between the tank and the boy. “Hey, I asked why, dummy. Why don't you say something?”
 
Dale frowned but kept his gaze locked with hers. “You're mad at Mrs. Creecey too.”
 
Skylar's fierce gaze softened a little bit. “Oh.” She stepped aside, but continued watching him. He looked to the side of the fish tank, and retrieved a net. “Are you here to do something too?” she asked. “To teach her a lesson?”
 
Dale swallowed, looking down at the fish net in his hands. He had been determined before, but his determination had wavered when he'd been surprised by his fellow saboteur. Now, he felt his resolve returning. He nodded.
 
“You're going to need a chair to reach into that tank,” she said simply. He looked at her. She stepped over to the circle area, grabbed the chair that Mrs. Creecey used for story time, and pushed it towards him. Taking a moment to glance at her, he stepped onto it. Taking a breath, he lifted the lid of the fish tank.
 
Skylar's footsteps crossed the floor. She stopped in the doorway. “Don't you dare tell anyone it was me,” she said.
 
He shook his head quickly, and after a moment said “Don't you tell anyone what I did. Dummy.”
 
He thought he saw a fleeting smile cross her face as Skylar skipped out the door. He hurried to finish his own task, so that he could get back outside before recess was over.
 
As the bell rang for recess to end, a hoard of rosy cheeked and wind-blown children pushed through the doors and into the school building. The kindergarteners laughed and chattered as they were shepherded down their hallway and into their classroom, Mrs. Creecey bringing up the rear as she returned from the staffroom. In the mass of confusion as the jackets and toys were stowed on hooks and in cubbies, it was a few moments before anyone noticed the blackboard.
 
“What does it say?” asked Emma.
 
“Are we gonna do a new craft?” asked Scott.
 
Mrs. Creecey, for a moment, wore a look of shock, but quickly she swept it from her face. She was about to tell the students to never mind and take their seats on the carpet for sharing time, but was prevented by Matthew, who had been surveying the letters, asking “Does it say your name, Mrs. Creecey?”
 
Deanna shook her head with a suddenly triumphant giggle. “It says Creepy!”
 
The giggles were nervous at first but contagious and the group was laughing out loud. Mrs. Creecey, seeming to decide that the best course of action was to act as though there was nothing to look at, managed to harangue them over to the carpet, and though she smiled her usual smile as she picked up a class list to survey, she seemed a bit more frazzled than usual. Dale stole a quick glance across the carpet at Skylar. She was watching with an innocent looking smile. He looked down at the carpet and tried not to giggle himself.
 
Mrs. Creecey, deciding apparently that she couldn't stop the waves of giggles and whispers that continued to sweep across the circle, announced that they would spend the next period at the activity centres. Looking at her list, she began sending students to the different activities around the room. Dale walked carefully over to the alphabet centre when he was called, his legs suddenly feeling heavy, not matching his heart which had suddenly started racing. They would soon discover his sabotage.
 
Sure enough, moments after Austin, Katie, and Deanna had been sent to the water table, the room was filled with shrill squeals.
 
Katie was hopping backwards, waving her hands and sprinkling everything around her with water. Austin was grabbing at something in the water table and splashing the books on the shelf nearby. Deanna stood still but her voice sounded panicked. “The fish are in the water table!” she exclaimed.
 
Mrs. Creecey dashed over, as Austin tried to catch the goldfish in his hands, Katie shrieked some more, and the rest of the class stampeded over to get a look, Deanna shouting at them to get back and not hurt the fish.
 
Many of the class were squealing now as their beloved pets continued to swim around in the container where the students usually poured water in and out of buckets. There was a second round of panicked squeals when Taylor pointed to the fish tank, which was missing it's usual fish but not altogether empty.
 
“What's Finley doing in the fish tank?” cried Veronica.
 
“Swimming!” shouted Sean, clearly amused at the sight of the orange and black puppet, water logged and entangled in weeds.
 
Dale couldn't help himself. He let out a giggle. He turned sideways. Beside him, Skylar was also giggling. She was the only one besides him who hadn't rushed forwards to investigate the fish in their new water table habitat.
 
In the midst of the shrieking children and darting fish, Mrs. Creecey glanced over at the two children, standing apart from all the others, wearing matching, knowing smirks.
 
“You two,” she managed, reaching out an arm to block Sean from reaching into the water table. “Out in the hall.”
 
It was much worse than the time-out chair. The hallway walk of shame was horrible. Dale and Skylar refused to answer questions, but after playground supervisors and the teacher in charge of the recess glee club, where Skylar was supposed to have been, were consulted, the two young pranksters were given adjoining chairs in the hallway beside the principal's office. Here, Dale discovered, not only students from your own class, but any students walking by on their way to the library or gym, or students delivering attendance books and picking up forgotten lunches, could gawk at the wrong doers in the hot seats. And a worse consequence was yet to come. Parents were called.
 
Dale glanced repeatedly at Skylar, but she didn't return his gaze as they waited for their parents. He noticed she didn't look at her father either when he arrived, sweating through his dress shirt and gray jacket. He watched them leave too, Skylar's father marching and staring straight ahead, Skylar slinking along behind him and still avoiding looking at Dale. When his own mother arrived, dressed in her uniform and looking as nervous as if she herself had been sent to the principal's office, he wished he could disappear into a hole in the floor.
 
He sat through the meeting between his mother, his principal, his teacher, and himself, regretting that they were all there but not regretting his prank. In fact, to his greatest dismay, Mrs. Creecey had incorrectly identified those responsible for the pranks. Mrs. Creecey cited his strides in writing, and his focus on his printing notebook, believing him to be the one that used words as revenge and stuck the letters to the blackboard. Earlier, when she had questioned them both, he had found out that Skylar had recently been heard questioning Mrs. Creecey's fish-feeding schedule, wanting to know why she didn't get a turn until next month.
 
Skylar was now in charge of cleaning the fish tank every day. Dale sidled up to her during a busy activity period the next day, as she stood skimming the green algae off the top of the water, a dark scowl on her face.
 
“This is gross,” she muttered, before he could say anything. “I don't know why I ever wanted to feed them, if all they do is make their tank gross.”
 
“I have to clean the blackboard every day,” he offered.
 
“Like you could have spelled creepy,” she said disdainfully. “What kind of a prank is that anyway? Moving gross fish?”
 
“A really good one,” glowered Dale. “Better than yours. Putting up a word we can't read.”
 
“Don't talk to me,” said Skylar. “I don't want to talk to you. Stay away from me. Dummy.”
 
“You're a dummy,” countered Dale, but he made a hasty retreat. He hazarded one more glance in her direction, and felt a rush of savage pleasure at the look of disgust on her face as she held the fish net out in front of her, dripping with green water.
 
Dale and Skylar kept their distance after the fish and letters incident, each going their own separate road over the years. Dale practiced keeping his head down, choking back his feelings of resentment, and holding onto all the secret comings and goings he observed as he watched the people of Jericho. Skylar kept her secrets too, avoiding her father's angry gazes and acting on her frustrations in subtler, hidden movements. If you had asked either of them about the other, they might have told you they considered him or her an enemy of sorts, though it was an animosity that was mostly maintained from a distance. Each had a sense, or perhaps a vague memory, that the other was a worthy opponent, and not one you would wish to seek out in an actual battle of wits.
 
Along with their penchants for secrecy and the rebelliousness they kept brimming below their respective surfaces, each was developing a different level of self sufficiency, before and after the attacks that changed our world. Each sought to survive after the bombs, with the world that was left for them, and in those early days, they each tried to deny the pull that seemed to be developing between them. After all, they were worlds apart. They had nothing in common. A chance encounter that happened shortly after the fires ripped through the town and left the trailer park in ruins changed everything.
 
Dale was seated outside the church, contemplating all that was left for him in a world where now, both his family and his home were gone. His thoughts were interrupted by the sight of Skylar, sneaking along the alleyway between the buildings across the street. The oddest thing about her appearance was the body she had draped over her shoulder. He stared for a moment, blinked, and reluctantly got up to get a closer look. He followed her quietly, taking care to use all his people watching skills, honed from spying on customers at Gracie's market.
 
As he got closer, he realized she was carrying a scarecrow. Straw poked out of the plaid sleeves and torn jeans. They both walked, making their way through the back alleys until they were at the edge of Spruce Lane. Skylar looked to her left and right, and darted out of the alley, across the street, and disappeared between Bailey's and Town Hall. Dale glanced back and forth, and followed.
 
When he caught up to Skylar, she was standing in the parking lot, the scarecrow dumped on the ground beside her. He glanced from her to the car she was now examining.
 
“What do you want, Dale?” she asked. Before he could express shock, she turned around. “I know you've been following me.”
 
“What are you doing?” he asked, deciding to refrain from any protests or pretending. He was suddenly becoming aware of a feeling that he knew her, that they knew each other, much better than they ought to, considering their inhabiting of such different social circles.
 
“That's Gray Anderson's car,” she said, pointing unnecessarily.
 
“Uh huh,” he said, wondering if she would continue.
 
“He made me give the town the rest of my gas. From my generator,” she said. “And he thinks he can tell me what to do. And he's annoying.”
 
“Yeah, so?” he asked.
 
She shrugged. “This is him.” She motioned at the scarecrow. At his look of confusion, she reached down and pulled the scarecrow into an upright position.
 
Dale noticed that, although it was like most other scarecrows in most respects, this one was distinguished by the Anderson Stevens Mining name tag he wore. Skylar had somehow altered the lettering to read “Mr. Boss.”
 
“So what are you doing with it?” he asked, pretending to be unimpressed. It was a childish characterization after all, though nothing had remotely seemed funny in the past few weeks and there was something about that scarecrow that inexplicably made him want to smile.
 
“Putting it on the roof,” she said.
 
He nodded, watching her for a moment as she proceeded to hoist it up in the air.
 
“You know,” he said casually. “It'd be funnier if it was driving his car. 'Stead of riding on it.”
 
She paused for a moment and frowned. “What's wrong with my plan?”
 
She was challenging him, her eyes taking on their full queen bee power glint, but he had known they were beyond Jericho High for weeks now. “Well, if it's driving the car, we'd know it's him. If it's riding on top, it might look like it's some kind of parade float.”
 
She considered for a moment, but then said irritably, “Well, then how do you expect me to get it into the car? It's locked. Gray's been hyper about thieves and crime and stuff since -”
 
“He's also driving a car with manual windows,” said Dale, pointing at the back seat. The rear passenger window was cracked open. Dale went around to it and reached his hand to the opening. He could just fit his hand in, but it was a tight squeeze for his arm. “He's probably not used to this kind of car, since his was probably way newer, but all those cars got wrecked by the EMP. My mom always had cars like this, though, and our windows always got stuck.” He glanced at her. “You've got smaller arms.”
 
She raised her eyebrows, and for the first time, she smiled at him, reluctantly.
 
Minutes later, Skylar crawled across the seats and unlocked the front door. They loaded the scarecrow into the driver's seat. Skylar added a finishing touch she'd found in the glove compartment: a spare tie Gray had stashed there.
 
Shutting the door and surveying their handiwork a few moments later, they made a hasty retreat down the alleyway. Having learned years ago to wait until they were safe, they didn't give in to their giggles until they were past the church again.
 
“Wish we could've seen his reaction, but it's best to not be there at the scene of the crime,” said Skylar with a laugh.
 
“I can see his reaction anyway,” said Dale with a laugh. “In my head, I can see it just fine. He'll probably want to start a posse.”
 
Skylar laughed harder at this. “Thank you,” she said, pausing for a moment to smile at him.
 
He gave her a nod, smiling but becoming slightly more serious.
 
“Well, if that's all then,” he began.
 
“Where are you staying?” she asked.
 
He raised his eyebrows.
 
“I heard about the trailer park,” she said. “What are you going to do?”
 
He shrugged, suddenly feeling a little uncomfortable under her gaze. “I'll take care of myself.”
 
“We can ask someone to help,” she protested. “We can ask the mayor, and at the church, there's a -”
 
“I don't need them,” he said. “I'll be fine.”
 
She looked at him, a thoughtful expression on her face. “Okay,” she began. She took a tentative step away, but she stopped. “I found silly string,” she said.
 
“What?” he asked.
 
“The other day, I was looking for stuff we might need, and I found a box of Halloween stuff. There was silly string in it.” She shrugged. “Not much of a practical application, but we might find somewhere to use it.” She paused. “You could help me.”
 
“You want to silly-string Gray next?” he asked.
 
She shrugged again. “Maybe. If he does something to deserve it. Or maybe someone else.”
 
He looked at his now two-time co-conspirator, who seemed farther away from her purple Mary Janes than ever. “Are you joking?”
 
She smirked slightly. “Yes. Don't you miss it?”
 
“Joking?” he asked.
 
She nodded. “And everything. Everything we used to have is gone. School, parents, movies, magazines, phones. Silly string. But we're still here. Only sometimes, I think they,” she motioned vaguely in the direction of town hall, “forget that.”
 
“So you pranked Gray to remind him we're still here?” he asked.
 
“Among other things,” she said. “So what do you think? You going to help me?”
 
He thought for a moment longer. Of all the things that had happened since the bombs, this proposition seemed the strangest. Though he'd spent the rainstorm after the bombs in her house, he still would've said that the chance of Skylar Stevens voluntarily inviting him into the house without the threat of imminent radiation-poisoning doom would be less likely than a nuclear attack. Still, something about this moment in time felt more familiar, more inexplicably like home, than any other moment since the attacks.
 
“Okay,” he said with a nod.
 
“You can sleep on my couch,” she said, taking his hand and pulling him to his feet.
 
The growing partnership between Dale and Skylar, while at first seeming to take them by surprise, was also surprisingly unsurprising. Dale settled into her home like it was always intended to be his own and they quickly settled into a routine of survival chores and prank planning. The first can of silly string went towards a triumphant attack on Sean Henthorn. They blitz attacked him from either side of a park bench just as he took a bow following a skateboarding trick he was particularly proud of, in front of a crowd of teenage onlookers. The roars of laughter as Sean sputtered and swiped at the orange threads of foamy string echoed after the duo as they ran around the corner of the Cyberjolt Cafe. They discovered that a well executed prank, besides breaking up the monotony of post apocalyptic survival, also left their adrenaline pumping and their hearts pounding in the most exhilarating way. Windows were sprayed with shaving cream, cars were egged, and Gray Anderson's house was toilet papered more than once. Not satisfied with these old school pranks, they also experimented with other pranks. They managed to fix a diaper to Ida Silver's cat, they poured bubble bath into Emily Sullivan's hot tub, and they covered a Jericho Sheriff's department squad car with a fluffy area rug, attaching two old dinner plates to the front and perching a pair of antlers, which looked a lot like the ones Mr. Stevens used to have fixed to the wall in his den, on the roof.
 
They used the pranks to entertain themselves, but also fell back on them during times of distress. After Gracie's murder was discovered, the pranks stopped for a day. The next day, Sean Henthorn discovered his bicycle had been spray painted pink, with little plastic flower decals glued to the handlebars. The only meal Jonah Prowse received while in custody tasted strongly of cayenne pepper. While the newly arrived refugees sat shivering under blankets at Bailey's, they were suddenly treated to an extra loud rendition of “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” piping from the jukebox. Mary swore, through her giggles, that she had not seen that record in the jukebox before that day.
 
You might ask, where were the Jericho police force through this? Were we aware of these lawless antics, and why didn't we do anything about them? We were, of course, aware of our budding young prankster duo. Jimmy and I were indeed two of their first official victims, as we once arrived at the office to discover our chairs were covered in wet paint. Rather, we discovered the paint after Jimmy stood up for a bathroom break. The reason we didn't stop them? Frankly, there were more important things to worry about. I may have played dumb, when Gray fumed about their pranks and demanded we investigate more thoroughly, but I was always aware of their movements. I was also always aware of the sort of threat they posed, that is to say, not a big one. They were kids, making the most of the times they were living in. I'd step in if things got out of hand, and I was often there to step in with some advice or words of wisdom when they took things a little far, like when they set up that store and started extracting silly public performances from their customers rather than goods or when they used up valuable materials, like soap, just to cover windows in rude words. I didn't see malice in their actions as much as I saw two kids who were misunderstood, just trying to make their way in the world. I wasn't going to interfere with that, while we had people starving and freezing, and threatening to collapse law and order as we knew it. Some people, of course, thought that Dale and Skylar were out to do just that, collapse law and order, but many just saw them as a nuisance. Others saw them as entertainment.
 
In the early days, most folks didn't even acknowledge them until they found themselves in the midst of a prank. One particularly crisp fall day, the townspeople discovered that the screens of the now useless computers lining the Cyberjolt cafe had been pasted over with caricatures of several prominent persons in town.
 
Robert Hawkins had seen it as a deeply suspicious conspiracy. “Why am I holding a huge automatic weapon?” he asked.
 
“Actually, I think it's a water gun,” I'd said as we'd investigated.
 
“What do they know?” he asked.
 
“Well, it's not actually a secret -” I'd begun, but I'd been distracted by Gray's fuming. “What is this supposed to mean? Why don't I even have a body?”
 
Jimmy had looked over his shoulder. “I think you're Humpty-Dumpty, man,” he'd said.
 
Gray had given him a look of fury, as though it was Jimmy himself who had suggested the characterization. “Why is Jake a cowboy?”
 
“He's riding an ostrich,” pointed out Jimmy with a giggle.
 
Eric had seemed somewhat dismayed at the picture of him, collapsing under the weight of two wedding rings, but April and Mary had removed the drawings of themselves, claiming they were going to put them up on their fridge. They also saved the picture of Heather, floating on a pond with a trail of ducklings following her. Emily had giggled at hers and agreed that the shading was actually quite good, but she had had a change of mind when Jake had chuckled and said she looked badass riding the motorcycle in her beauty-queen tiara.
 
After the Green wives had taken their own caricatures and some of their friends for good measure, we scraped the rest away, and once again, Dale and Skylar's work was gone, but not forgotten. I laughed at the joke, and Gray fumed some more.
 
We were still yet to discover that Skylar and Dale were not just dabbling in child's play. Though they expressed themselves with joyfully childish tricks and schemes, they were observing things we weren't. In the beginning, it suited them just fine to go out and prank and then go home to their secluded nest of safety. There, they discussed the changing world, the movements of the adults who sighed at their jokes, and the events they could sense coming. Eventually, as all children must, they grew to realize their place in the community beyond their role as jokers. We would need them, in more ways than one.
 
The first time they decided to take action about something really serious, someone else took credit.
 
It was the day that the marines had marched into town and we had all celebrated, though Skylar and Dale had taken no notice. They had been, unbeknownst to most of us worrying about refugees and murderous survivalists, venturing outwards, exploring the countryside for opportunities to trade the goods they had obtained from all their business deals via nursery rhyme extortion. They had just come back from one of these trips when they heard the news of the marines' arrival, which they greeted with well-contained enthusiasm when I told them, continuing on their way out of town to a storage unit where they were keeping their combination of practical goods and practical joke materials.
 
The entrance to their hiding place we concealed, hidden behind some dilapidated-looking farm buildings, so it was that they were also well hidden as they sat, eating a picnic supper, on a blanket outside. This is how they came to observe the peculiar scene taking place across the field, where a trio of uniformed men were picking their way through the grasses. One slipped and fell, the others laughing, and Skylar let out a chuckle herself. “You'd think they'd never spent time in the outdoors, let alone gone through bootcamp,” she said. She raised her binoculars.
 
“Hey, look at that,” she whispered quickly to Dale, passing them over to him. Dale had been paying more attention to his chicken sandwich until this moment, but he raised the binoculars to see what Skylar had seen. “Why are they staking out that old shed? There's nothing in there, unless you want to stock up on dead flies.”
 
“Weird. You'd think Gray would be keeping them too busy listening to juke box tunes and drinking Commune's finest for them to sneak away.” Skylar watched as the men passed an object between them. “Do you think they did sneak away? And is that a radio?”
 
“Looks like it,” said Dale. “But why they'd be playing around with it out here, when they could probably salvage stuff in town...” He trailed off, suddenly wary of the fact that their own storage space, filled with several choice electronic scraps, was so nearby.
 
Skylar grabbed the binoculars and raised them again. “They don't even look like they're trying to get a signal!”
 
Dale nodded, narrowing his eyes. “More like hiding something.”
 
Dale and Skylar watched silently as the man who had tripped earlier carefully slipped inside the old shed, clutching the radio. The other two turned, glancing furtively around before making their way across the field again.
 
The duo glanced at each other. With a quick nod, they began to follow, using the skills they had honed in their weeks of sneaking up and down the back alleys of town in pursuit of pranking, to spy on the marines without being detected.
 
By the time they had reached the turnoff at the edge of Herbert's property, they had discovered something huge. After listening to the men joke about the jobs they had been doing last year, teaching high school Spanish and marketing household wares respectively, Skylar and Dale had turned to each other. “They're not who they say they are,” Skylar had whispered. Dale had given a quick, certain nod.
 
“What are we going to do?” Skylar breathed. “We should warn them, shouldn't we? The town?”
 
Dale had nodded, looking thoughtful. “I think we're going to have to use our haul from Bracebridge.”
 
They shared a sigh. “For the greater good,” said Skylar with a nod.
 
In town hall, a cheerful assembly of (unbeknownst to us optimistic town authorities) imposters was sharing a hearty meal with several prominent townspeople. Gray Anderson was standing, preparing to make a toast to follow Johnston Green's heartfelt words, when a noise interrupted from outside. Most people in the room jumped, as the exploding sounds resembled gunfire.
 
“Look out the window!” someone shouted. Bright sparks of red and yellow were showering down in formations and shapes.
 
The crowd was soon on its feet, spilling out onto the street to look up at the sky. Gray hurried to get outside, pushing past a few people to stare, bug-eyed, at the sky exploding with fiery blooms.
 
“What is this?” he exclaimed in a tense whisper as Jimmy struggled through the crowd to join him.
 
“Uh, fireworks?” said Jimmy, watching as some in the crowd began to cheer. Others were still looking unsure.
 
“Those kids again!” Gray seethed. “I'm never going to get a moment of peace again, am I? They'll always be there to steal the -”
 
“I think everyone thinks it's a part of the dinner” shrugged Jimmy, motioning around.
 
Marines and townspeople alike seemed to be relaxing. At least, more were standing still to look up at the sky rather than looking around to find a source of suspicion. Gray noticed quickly, and after taking a breath, pasted a smile on his face.
 
“Little something to remember us by,” he beamed, stepping forwards and spreading his arms in a gesture of hospitality.
 
Dale and Skylar were pressed up again the brick wall of Bailey's tavern. “Why are they cheering?” Skylar whispered frantically.
 
Dale was watching the scene, leaning as far as he could around the corner. He groaned. “Gray's saying he did it. As a gift.”
 
“Is he an idiot? He's going to get us all killed!” Skylar kicked at a pebble on the ground and swore. “Our whole stash too!”
 
Dale put a hand to her shoulder. They stood for a moment, listening to the sounds of the crowd's “oo”s and “ah”s.
 
“I guess we should do something else,” said Skylar after a moment.
 
“Yeah,” said Dale, thought both of them continued to watch their firework collection exploding overhead. “We'll have to warn them some other way.”
 
They looked at each other, and Skylar took Dale's hand as they straightened up. Before they could step out of the alleyway, two figures stepped into view. Jake and Stanley seemed to be involved in an intense conversation, and neither noticed the teenagers in the shadows.
 
“There's something not right. Just get everyone you can find to go search the area. Look for anyone with a radio,” Jake was saying.
 
Stanley nodded. “Okay. Let me go find Mimi and -”
 
“No, not Mimi,” groaned Jake. “Get the rangers. We need the people who are trained to do this stuff.”
 
Skylar wasn't sure she didn't see a funny look pass over Stanley's features, but he nodded quickly and Skylar blinked. The funny look was gone.
 
“Leave it to Gray to invite a bunch of scoundrels to dinner,” muttered Jake as he stalked off. Stanley watched him go, and then turned in the other direction, muttering something about heat-sensing binoculars.
 
Skylar and Dale waited for their footsteps to fade, not saying anything until the only sound was the firework show and its admirers. “Well, I guess we don't have to worry now,” shrugged Dale, with a dark look on his face. “People will listen to them.”
 
Skylar nodded, but a small smile crossed her features. “It's going to be okay,” she whispered to Dale. “We did our part.”
 
She reached for his hand and pulled him away from the wall. They still stood in the shadows, but they stepped onto the sidewalk. “No one noticed,” said Dale. “They just seemed to think the fireworks were beautiful.”
 
“They are beautiful,” said Skylar. She stopped and stood, facing him, still holding his hand in both of hers. “And at least we get to stay out of the way. Keep doing what we do.”
 
He nodded, and finally, a small smile crossed Dale's features too. “We're okay, right?”
 
She smiled too. She dropped his hand and they leaned towards each other.
 
Silhouetted against a backdrop of shimmering lights and unnoticed by the cheering townspeople and imposters, the young survivors shared a perfect kiss.
 
The duo continued to share private moments like the fiery kiss on Spruce Lane, moments that they stole in secret like the pranks they played and the goods they smuggled. No one else saw, but they each felt the cataclysmic changes rumbling under the surface of their lives.
 
What we continued to see was their handiwork, which continued to interrupt our daily lives as their partnership took shape. Though we had not seen their first conscious act of civic responsibility, we began to see their presence, more than we had before, in the things we learned they were capable of. Soon, we could see their name on these actions too.
 
Their name was a crucial contribution to the solidifying of their reputations as formidable pranksters. They were christened at the most public of events – the erecting of the first wind turbine.
 
The New Bern crew had arrived, bringing with them the first prototype designed by Heather and he who shall not be named. To most of us, this had signified new hope and we had gone about preparing for the first bursts of wind power in a variety of ways.
 
Hawkins had amassed all the battery chargers he could find, excitedly showing everyone the stack of police flashlights he had collected and talking about how nice it would be to have the traffic lights working again. “Just because it's the worst winter in decades doesn't mean we should get away with running a red, now does it?”
 
April and Mary had, with Gail's help, dusted off an old ultrasound machine and were eagerly anticipating their first glimpse of baby Ruby. Eric was promising to make hot chocolate with an old kettle they'd found.
 
Kenchy had borrowed the Bailey's juke box for the occasion, hoping to serenade his clients with a few inspiring tunes from the Beatles and Electric Light Orchestra.
 
Mimi had been seen skulking about Town Hall, claiming she was hoping to use the radio equipment to communicate with whatever was left of the IRS, in case they were ready for her to send in her paperwork.
 
Reverend Young prepared a short prayer of thanks that he volunteered to lead as the street lights were powered up for the first time. Gray, remembering how much everyone had enjoyed the last light show on Main Street, agreed enthusiastically. Outside the med center, as the wind turbine was raised and hooked up, Reverend Young turned his eyes to the heavens and offered thanks on behalf of the gathered crowd (even Oliver, who was sulking off to the side, unhappy that his request to make a speech to the aliens, on behalf of one of the town's other denominations, had been denied). As Reverend Young dramatically reminded the crowd that on the first day, God said “let there be light,” Russell flipped a switch. The lights strung overhead went on, but the audience was distracted by the near-deafening sound of music suddenly blaring ACDC through the crowd. Then, much brighter than the Christmas lights overhead, a projector was suddenly shining images onto the concrete wall of the med center.
 
Some people in the crowd were bopping along to “Highway to Hell,” but most were laughing at the old footage of the disastrous Jericho Fourth of July parade of 1992.
 
“Haha, Jericho's finest!” someone shouted, as the sheriff's department of the day (which was before my time) marched by in hobo clown costumes.
 
“I forgot about that,” mused Eric as an island-themed float, plastered with a huge banner reading “Stevens Mining Co,” appeared on the makeshift screen. “That's the year the float caught on – right.”
 
“Told them it was a bad idea to have a real campfire,” sighed Johnston with a chuckle. Though some of the refugees seemed worried as the flames light the cardboard trees in the scene from the past, the laughs from the seasoned townspeople who remembered the Jericho firefighters, dressed in ridiculous beauty queen wigs and tiaras, rushing to the scene and sprayed the float, and most of the gathered spectators, with foam, continued to laugh. As the events of the past played out on the screen in the present, all the people, young and old, roared with laughter.
 
Reverend Young, who had been trying in vain to return his audience's attention to their heavenly saviour, ducked as suddenly, buckets of foam flung at the real life crowd from different directions. Several people were exclaiming that it was indeed cappuccino foam, as Kenchy dashed down the street, a horrified look on his face, shouting that they'd promised they were only making two cups.
 
“Those kids!” exclaimed a horrified Gray, who had taken shelter under a binder.
 
Reverend Young spluttered and shouted over the music. “Those two are the devil's, they are! The devil's own. The Devil's duo!”
 
From the second floor staff lounge, Dale and Skylar sipped their cappuccinos and watched out the window. They turned to look at each other with raised eyebrows. Then they laughed.
 
Reverend Young probably didn't anticipate what he had started. None of us did. From then on, the two mysterious initials, DD, began appearing all over town. The pranksters we could no longer ignore began to leave their signature, in as many creative ways as they could.
 
It appeared in chalk on the sidewalk beside a silly-stringed house. In yellow on the wall when the refugee shelter's soap dispensers were all switched with bottles of mustard. It even grew up in a pattern of wildflowers, on Gray's lawn when the snow melted, after which he discovered that someone had posed a line of garden gnomes on his lawn, all standing at attention, apparently, for one strangely bald gnome.
 
It was a name that we all started to know, though we knew it to mean different things. For those of us in town hall, it meant an extra task. New Bern demanded a steeper price for the windmills than we had expected, and ten of our men went to stay in their town. Resources were stretched to a breaking point, and Gray would often fall asleep at the office, his head on the desk, papers strewn around and the whiteboard with the list of dwindling supplies right across from him. He was often heard to be grumbling that he could see the numbers in his sleep. One morning, he woke with a startle, to find himself staring at a whiteboard, emblazoned not with the list of food, fuel and miscellaneous supplies but a rather different list, beginning with items one and two, raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens. Gray frantically turned the whiteboard around, hoping they had only written on the back and preserved his list on the front. On the other side, though, all he saw were the two letters, DD. We were put on a lookout for the DD, amidst all the break-ins and fights, starving senior citizens and sickly children.
 
For some, it apparently became something more sinister. We were visited in the sheriff's department one day by Jeremy Simmons and his nephew Hank. Jeremy was ranting about how the letters “DD” had shown up in a crop-circle-like marking in his frost bitten field. Shortly after this discovery, he'd realized that someone had harnessed all of the livestock and tied them together, in an intricate series of knots. The horses had stomped around and caused considerable damage while it took them so long to untie the knots that the cows were late for milking time. I assured Simmons that we were aware of the pranking situation in town and that we did take it seriously, though we had quite a few pressing matters at the time and further, I suggested he try not to take it personally. He seemed to think it was part of a plot to extort supplies from him. I got a few other conspiratorial complaints from other farmers and deal-makers, saying the DD was using practical joking to force people to comply with their deals, though usually those people retracted their statements later. I had a bit of a hunch that it was true, but truth be told, I didn't see it as an entirely bad thing that the kids learn how to look out for themselves. We certainly didn't have time to see that this farmer was giving that shopkeeper the cut of produce he'd promised last month. If the DD needed to use their signature to remind people of what they were capable of every now and then, so be it.
 
Of course, the DD reminded people of something else too. One morning, during the time while we were waiting for the windmills and our men to come back, April and Mary were seen to be exiting Bailey's looking out of sorts. They were having a hushed conversation. April's brow was furrowed and Mary's eyes were red. They were intent upon their discussion, but paused when they saw a child's doll, perched on the railing in front of town hall. April, never able to resist rescuing anything, reached to pick it up and the pair was met with a shower of fluffy feathers floating down from the sky. Glancing up, April spotted the overturned bucket perched on the overhang. Mary was shaking her hair, sending feathers cascading to the ground. The sister-wives glanced at each other and burst into laughter. They continued to laugh as they batted at the feathers, shaking out their jackets. “Look at this.” April passed the baby doll to Mary, who glanced down at the letters emblazoned on the doll's sleeper. “DD,” she breathed. April smiled, her forehead smooth and her expression calm. “You know we're going to be okay,” she said. “Whatever comes along...whoever comes along.”
 
“Yeah, I know,” said Mary, smiling through her teary eyes this time.
 
The Green women walked on, carrying the baby doll, which would stay in their possession for a few years, until they would eventually return it to the pranksters.
 
The DD was not always greeted with the same amusement that the commune Greens would continue to show them, but over time, the town grew to depend on them, and the unique help they were able to bring to a difficult situation.
 
When the men came home and we realized we had to fight New Bern, we turned to the force the DD had been amassing for themselves. Following their own philosophy of greeting the dark times ahead with laughter, Dale and Skylar's co-operative farm had actually begun as an underground comedy club. Refugees, and a few other longtime residents, showed up at the DD's headquarters by invite only. If they could provide a funny story, or would consent to do something else to entertain the group, they were allowed to join the audience, sipping Razz-apple surprise and laughing. Dale and Skylar recounted some of their famous exploits and also perfected a standup routine about what it was like to be a young adult living the post-apocalyptic lifestyle in contemporary Kansas. (“Don't get me started on the cockroaches. The way they look at you, like they know they've got two-to-one chances of beating you to the end.”)
 
The DD wasn't sure they wanted to join the fight at first. They'd built their empire of pranks and supplies on their own, amidst adult authority figures who didn't understand their humour. At the eleventh hour, Johnston Green arrived at the headquarters to parlay with them. Most in town were certain, it came out in the gossip sessions that followed, that he had appealed to the hidden serious side of their natures, but sources close to the former mayor have suggested he spoke in their language, relating to them with a story about rubber mice and the town hall annual spring garden party E.G. Green used to throw. Skylar and Dale were better than their word, not only bringing people to the defense of the town, but standing at the front of the line themselves. Though to this day, their reputation as fearless pranksters far overshadows their conduct in our town's historical battles, my record would be incomplete if I didn't bring their fearless wartime actions during the New Bern battle and the occupation to light.
 
Indeed, not only did the DD prove themselves to understand the very serious threat of New Bern's invading armies, they continued to see the darker truths of the world around them as the rest of us more optimistic townspeople were breathing sighs of relief that the army was here to save us and we would be eating Oreos and sipping Redbull like nothing had happened. They continued their smuggling activities along with their pranks right under the noses of the ASA authorities. Perhaps it was their mischievous reputation, and the strategic pranks they pulled in those first weeks of Beck's regime, that led the army to believe them to be youthful vagrants rather than a serious threat. Not that even their more innocent acts of rebellion weren't ten times more daring than anything the rest of us were attempting at first.
 
The first batch of shampoo the J&R reps handed out in packages, in hopes to provide townspeople with some comfort, dyed everyone's hair blue. The government contractors were confused, but most of us knew who was responsible. The Greens had just begun making their natural shampoos at this point and soon had to deal with an inundation of customers.
 
The day of the president's visit on his whistle-stop tour, the soldiers assigned to town hall, in amidst of their frantic search for the missing walkie-talkie, were dismayed to discover that the name plate that had been affixed to the door of the sheriff's department office, formerly reading “Major Edward Beck” had been altered to now read “Major Edweird Buck-tooth.” We had to explain for quite some time that it was a misunderstanding, that our town was home to some spirited youth, not a conspiracy of anti-government rebels. They were grudgingly refusing to accept the point of view that it was refreshing to see youths who had held onto their sense of humour rather than become rabid survivalists who'd shoot you as soon as look at you, but at least when they found the walkie-talkie, they had to admit they didn't have much evidence to qualify the young people for an arrest warrant.
 
It was when they strung a pair of Goetz's boxer-briefs on the flagpole outside town hall that I was forced to go give them a warning, in an effort to placate Goetz, who was practically apoplectic with rage. I got a tip-off that they were at their storage facility at Herbert farm. I was shocked when I surprised them unloading the boxes of the Hudson River Virus vaccine. I was even more shocked to hear their plan for distributing it, though I really shouldn't have been.
 
That night, strange events occurred all over town. A goat that had somehow gotten into town hall rampaged through the offices, scattering files everywhere and chewing on the ear of one of Beck's men, who were all chasing it and swearing each time it jumped through their outstretched arms. Over at the temporary base where the troops were set up in tents, someone had gotten to the laundry and tied dozens of sets of fatigues together by the arms, wrapping them around and around the main administrative tent so that several men were given the task of untangling their uniforms with the most care and dignity that the A.S.A. Army uniform could receive under the circumstances. A team of soldiers was sent to stop a fire in one of the sheds at the abandoned Surrey farm, only to report with dismay later that they had found not a raging inferno but an old fog machine running off a portable generator.
 
Meanwhile, what didn't go reported was the lineup of townspeople quietly waiting for a dose of the Hudson River Virus Vaccine, gathered in the dark by Ayers road. Or the five others at other hidden locations around town. I think we knew then, that things were not as they seemed with this new government and that we were in for another fight. Just how much of one, we had yet to find out.
 
Dale and Skylar must have realized it too, because they dialled back their pranks. The practical jokes didn't stop, but they became more subtle. They stopped putting their initials onto every scene of their crimes, instead conducting a quieter campaign of mischief. Unfortunately, they had caught Goetz's attention.
 
Knowing what I now know about John Goetz, I can only surmise a few things about the sequence of events. A powerful enemy like Goetz probably didn't see the DD as a threat at first, but as their pranks began to distract him in his dogged determination to draw Agent Clark out of hiding, they probably began to annoy him. He would still likely have viewed them more like a buzzing mosquito than a hissing rattlesnake, but that changed with the boxer-brief flag. That he saw as a personal humiliation, and there was nothing Goetz hated more than being humiliated by someone of lesser status than himself. He became determined to silence the young pranksters, and in doing so, make an example for the rest of the town. He had to of course maintain a semblance of responsible leadership so as to not ruin his plans for Mimi Clark, so he sought the end of Skylar and Dale's pranking through a legal avenue: he ambushed their supply truck on its way back into town.
 
Dale was driving and Goetz arrested him on the spot. He got him on smuggling, rather than the more questionable charges Goetz considered linking to the theft of his personal intimates and any suggestions of personal libel he could claim in their public display. Dale was carted off to jail and nearly transported to the dreaded Loomer Ridge prison, thus beginning a chain of events that is perhaps the most well known chapter in our town's humble history – the Richmond-led revolt, the lockdown, and the official renunciation of our ties to the ASA.
 
Unfortunately, this is where the DD often disappear in many popular accounts of this important time period. Important as they were in the moments leading up to this changing of winds, their youthful rebellion and creative use of common practical jokes are details that are forgotten amidst the widespread panic of the townspeople, the unjust imprisonments, and the sweaty silhouette of Stanley Richmond's biceps as he defied Beck's regime and dug a grave. It would seem that by most of our accounts, the DD's voices were lost in time. I hope that my account provides a few details that may help to rectify this.
 
At the time, Skylar found her voice was lost in the roar of the panicked crowd. She had not been travelling with the smuggling convoy that day, as she had been scouting out the mine (recently commandeered by the ASA), gathering intel for future pranks. When she'd heard the news that her partner had been captured, she had run to anyone she could think of for help. For once, she would need the help of the adults whose authority she had so often contested. At first, she was overjoyed to learn that Jake and the rangers had stopped Dale's trip to Loomer Ridge, mid-voyage. His continued incarceration in the town hall jail cell, however, seemed to be forgotten by the adults who had scrambled to save him earlier.
 
“It's the best we can do,” Jake Green had growled at her, just as I rushed into the station to pass on the news that little Bonnie Richmond was dead.
 
“I don't know what I can do about that right now,” said a distracted Heather Lisinski as Skylar followed her to her car later that night.
 
“Can't you, I don't know, ask Beck? You have connections with him, right?” pleaded Skylar.
 
“No I don't!” Heather had said quickly, rounding on Skylar. “And you stay away from him too, got it?”
 
She had hurried away then, muttering something that sounded like “...way too young, but that's besides the point now...”
 
The poor kid was near tears when she cornered Jimmy and I as we left the med center the next morning. Usually I tried to keep a gentle but appropriately distant tone when talking with her, after that Green wedding where she'd been asking me to dance all night, but today I couldn't afford time to sugarcoat. “Sorry, Skylar, we've gotta get out and catch Goetz,” I said.
 
She started to protest again. I looked at her young, tear-stained face and remembered that moment only hours ago when I'd held Bonnie and seen the life leave her eyes. “I suggest you get yourself somewhere safe,” I said. “It wouldn't be good for you to get in Beck's way, or Goetz's.”
 
“Don't worry kiddo,” said Emily, giving Skylar an affectionate pat on the head as she walked by, stringing her gun over her shoulder. “It'll all be okay in the end. Cross my heart.”
 
Skylar looked from us to Eric and Jimmy, also racing by with their guns. “How bad is it out there?” she asked.
 
Emily glared at her as she got into the backseat of the car. “Ask someone who cares!”
 
Skylar was silent as she watched us drive towards our destiny, and for the next two days, she waited, visiting Dale in his cell, pretending she didn't know where we'd gone, and biding her time. She tried one last set of adults on the third day.
 
“I'm sorry sweetheart, but I think you'll just have to keep waiting for now,” said Gail.
 
“They're in hiding. They're not exactly in any position to make demands about prisoners,” said Mary.
 
“But there must be something you can do!” protested Skylar.
 
“They're not likely to listen to us either,” said April. “I don't know that there's much we can do, short of breaking him out ourselves. And well, with present conditions being as they are...” She shifted a sleeping Ruby from one arm to another. “I'm not exactly ready for a stealth operation.” She put her free hand on Skylar's shoulder. “Look, as soon as this blows over, we'll make sure Dale's set free. But right now, he's safe, and we need to go set up a safe house.”
 
“And I have to deliver a message,” said Mary, stepping to Skylar's other side. “But I promise, we'll make sure you're both okay as soon as we can.”
 
Skylar frowned, but nodded at this. She didn't put a lot of stock in promises, but at least they were claiming they cared. “Promise you'll take care of yourself til we get back?” asked April, raising her eyebrows.
 
Skylar frowned again, but the solicitous looks from the trio of Green women were enough to make the toughest orphan girl cave. “Yeah, fine.”
 
“Be careful,” said Gail, pressing a kiss to Skylar's forehead.
 
“Stay safe,” added Mary, pulling Skylar into a one-armed hug. “Oh, and feel free to use any of our stuff,” she said, motioning around the kitchen. “Food, supplies, anything you need.”
 
Skylar nodded her thanks and as the Green women left the ranch for a more secret location, she felt a sense of defeat. The feeling, she realized as she wandered around the Green ranch, idly searching for something to eat, was not unlike how she'd felt when the bombs first hit in September.
 
As she chewed on a piece of homemade fudge she'd found in a tin in the kitchen and sat in the ranch's living room, leafing through an old photo album Gail Green had kept of town events, she remembered the night, after the bombs, when she'd sat in her living room crying alone. How hopeless everything had seemed back then. How much had happened since then. There had been bad days but there had been laughter. There had been responsibility. And there had been one thing, more important than everything else.
 
With a dawning understand, she jumped up and brushed the crumbs off of her hands. She quickly searched the Greens' house for materials, planning as she went. She left the ranch fifteen minutes later. The photo album was still open to a page documenting the Jericho Elementary Founders day pageant of 1996. The picture most covered in fudge crumbs depicted a line of kindergartners dressed as farmers.
 
Dale had lost track of how long he had been waiting in the dark cell by the time Skylar was standing on the other side of the bars, her eyes glowing triumphantly, proclaiming that everything would be alright. If anyone else had shown up at the jail and told him so, he would have been doubtful, but it was her and he knew he would shortly taste freedom again. They ran quietly through the halls of the sheriff's department after she unlocked the door, making their way up the hidden staircase where we usually stored cleaning supplies, to the top level of the building.
 
“Here,” said Skylar, holding out the baby blue ASA golf shirt. “We only have a few minutes.” Her eyebrows were raised in a question mark. He understood the question. Did they dare put their name out there again, at this moment in time? Was there any point left?
 
He ran towards the far wall of the room. “I'll open the window.”
 
Their exit out of the building was as swift as her jailbreak, and they were several streets away as the soldier entrusted with guard duty stumbled out the front door and shouted at Mary and Eric Green, the only spectators present, about firecrackers and laundry soap.
 
They didn't speak again until they had made it several more blocks, and were standing in the alley near the church.
 
“Are you okay?” asked Skylar.
 
Dale nodded quickly. “You?”
 
She nodded breathlessly. He looked around. “What's happening with everyone else?”
 
“They're all – some of them are hiding – some of them are...burying people I think,” she spoke quickly. “Listen. The past few days have been scary.”
 
He nodded, giving her a sympathetic smile. “Yeah, lots of scary stuff going on, people getting arrested and killed and stuff.”
 
“Yeah,” she said, though that didn't seem to be what was on her mind. “The scariest thing was thinking you were gone.”
 
He stared back at her, waiting.
 
“I don't need anything else,” she said. “Don't need a salt mine, a store, our own personal army. I'm happy with you.”
 
“I'm happy with you too,” he said after a moment, a small smile forming on his lips.
 
“So whatever happens next...together, right?” she said.
 
He nodded. “I love you.”
 
“I know.” She gave him one teasing tilt of her head. “Love you too.”
 
And though the Devil's Duo's conversation, the long kiss that followed, and their walk home, hand in hand, happened quietly amidst the chaos of a town regaining its independence, their words that day would beat steadily through their lives, an undercurrent that they listened to in the days, weeks, and months that followed.
 
The DD were nowhere to be found in the crowd that sang along to the amorous serenade that interrupted our moment of silence on the first anniversary of the liberation, but their influence had never been clearer. Heather was smiling as her children's laughter rang out, and they reached their little hands for the bubbles that had begun to emanate from around the corner, floating over the heads of the audience members and glittering in the summer sun. Hawkins was muttering something under his breath, but Darcy was positively aglow, holding his arm in hers and singing along in his ear. The Greens had all dissolved into laughter, April, Mary and Trish swaying to the music with Violet, Scarlett, and Ruby on their hips, Jake not trying to disguise his amusement at Gray's discomfort, Eric chuckling and stepping up the stairs to stand on Gray's other side. “Want me to go find them?” he asked.
 
“No, what's the point? They'll be long gone,” sighed Gray. He turned back to the crowd. “May as well start the barbecue,” he shouted over the song. “Go on, everyone find your seats, enjoy.”
 
They didn't need to hear it a second time. Everyone was in a lighter mood now that they had shared a moment of surprise that didn't end in horror, as so many of our earlier shared surprises had. They began taking seats at the tables set up in the middle of the street, clustering in front of Bailey's where the barbecuing had begun, and dissolving into a hundred discussions of their own.
 
“Don't feel bad, honey,” Gail was saying as she and Gray descended from the porch, making their way over to the table that April and Trish had already staked out. “Look at our people. They're happy. That's what really counts, right?”
 
“I guess,” harrumphed Gray, a grudging look of acceptance finding its way onto his face.
 
“You can still give the toast, once everyone's sitting down,” said Gail. She pulled a set of cue cards from her purse. “I got this ready in case.”
 
Gray smiled. He really had the best wife in the world. “What would I do without you?” he asked.
 
“Here, I think Scarlett wants Grandpa to sing to her again,” said Eric, who had taken Scarlett from Mary moments ago. He passed the blond baby in the bright red dress to Gray, who nodded, an earnest look on his face as he prepared for one of his important grandfather tasks. “Sure I'll sing to you, Princess,” he cooed, sitting down between his other granddaughters and bouncing Scarlett on his knee. “Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more...”
 
Jake had been sitting at the table beside April, but as Gray's familiar chorus of “Hey Nonny Nonny” continued, he scowled, stood, and stalked off.
 
“Can't believe that he thinks that's a good song to sing to them. Does he want them to be jaded before they're even old enough to walk?” he muttered as he dodged between hungry townspeople.
 
“Jake! Lovely day, isn't it?” asked Emily, sidling up beside him. Jake's stormy demeanour didn't shift despite Emily's sunny expression. “You're not moping about Grandpa Gray again, are you?” she asked with a smile. “That's just silly.”
 
“You know what's silly?” he said, rounding on her. “He called her 'Princess'. Too bad he doesn't realize she's a Scarlett Green, not a Gray!”
 
“Well, excuse me for trying to have a normal conversation with you!” retorted Emily, her face clouding over furiously. “Excuse me for thinking maybe you'd want to have some company for once, instead of brooding endlessly on your own!”
 
“Some people are better off alone,” said Jake darkly. He turned and clomped past Stanley and Mimi, who had appeared out of nowhere and were balancing plates of burgers with perfect coordination.
 
Emily looked over at them. “What are you looking at?” she asked.
 
They said nothing, just shrugged and continued on their way. Emily stayed rooted to the spot, on the edge of the crowd. She couldn't help but worry that Jake was right, but she was annoyed that he had brought it up today. He seemed to have the knack of always saying the right thing to turn her day from a good one to a bad one.
 
Of course, Jake Green, it turns out, was not the only one with this power. Emily herself didn't realize it, and neither did almost anyone else. But maybe Jake should have. The day I realized it myself, I couldn't help thinking back to all the times we all should've seen it, and I started with the day Jake and Emily's relationship took a turn for the worse, right after the battle of New Bern...