12. The Thinking Box
THE THINKING BOX
GRACE
The captain's quarters of the crime boat is a room that was designed by someone who Googled "pirate captain's cabin" and then spent a theme park budget making it real.
There's a wooden desk bolted to the floor, carved with fake nautical motifs, with a map of a fictional ocean painted directly onto its surface.
I appreciate the commitment to atmosphere.
Beck has turned it into a bedroom. Sleeping bag on the bench. Spare clothes in a pile. Three empty funnel cake plates stacked on the desk. A flashlight. A phone that's dead. A WonderSphere visor hanging on a hook.
"Welcome to the thinking box," I say, sitting in the captain's chair and immediately spinning because the chair spins and I'm incapable of sitting in a spinning chair without spinning. This is a law of my personality. It's non-negotiable.
Beck's leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed over the fish vest. The dolphin eye watches me spin. It looks entertained.
"This is where we think. Every important decision happens in this room from now on."
"Every decision?" Joel is standing near the porthole, doing his scan thing.
"Every important one. Minor decisions can happen elsewhere. Snack decisions are field decisions. But strategy? Thinking box."
I pull the where picture out of my pocket. Unfold it on the desk, on top of the fake ocean map.
I find the periwinkle crayon behind my ear. I find the seafoam green in my hoodie pocket. I locate a red one from the stash in my tote bag, and a yellow one that's broken in half but still functional, and a purple one that has bite marks on it from a child who made choices.
"Okay," I say. "The crayon plan."
"The what?" Joel says.
"The plan. Made with crayons. The crayon plan." I flip it over to the blank back side. "I'm going to draw the park," I say.
"There's a map of the park on the other side of that paper," Joel says.
"That's the corporate one. This is the one with the truth on it."
"The truth."
"The truth as it currently exists, Joel. Sit down."
Joel sits on the bench, next to Beck's sleeping bag. Beck sits on the floor, cross-legged, axe across his lap, the way cats sit on floors, by choice, with authority, as if the floor is honored.
I draw.
I'm not a good artist. My circles are suggestions. My straight lines are negotiations. What comes out is a wonky rectangle with four sections inside it, each labeled in crayon with the name I've assigned them.
Top left, in periwinkle: THE FISH PART. I draw a little shark. The shark looks like a bean with teeth. I'm proud of it.
Top right, in red: THE ADVENTURE PART. X's for the buildings we secured. A tiny crime boat that looks like a bathtub with a stick in it.
Bottom left, in seafoam green: THE GARDEN PART. A question mark because we haven't been there yet. A tiny flower that I add because maps should have decorations and I won't be taking feedback on this.
Bottom right, in yellow: THE BIG MIDDLE. I draw a churro cart. The churro cart looks like a box with smoke coming out of it. It's a portrait and it's accurate.
Beck is watching me and finding it genuinely compelling. Joel is watching me and is choosing, through what I can only assume is an act of tremendous self-control, not to intervene.
"Okay," I say. "Roles."
"Roles?" Beck says.
"Everyone gets a job. A zone of responsibility. A thing that's theirs."
"Like in a video game," Beck says.
"Sure. Like in a video game. Joel…" I point the periwinkle at him. "You're infrastructure. Water, power, structural stuff. You keep the buildings alive. You've been doing it already and you're good at it."
Joel nods. He accepts the role the way he accepts everything: silently, with competence already in progress.
"Beck." I point the red crayon at him. "You're defense. You're the one who makes the park hard to get into and easy to be dead in. You built half of the adventure part's defenses with zip ties and queue ropes. You're the wall guy."
Beck grins. "I accept. What are you?"
I look at the crayon plan, my friendship paddle leaning against the desk, my tote bag full of skull mugs and gummy sharks, and a cape that's waiting for its moment. "I'm... the strategist."
"You drew the plan in crayon," Joel says.
"Strategists can use crayons. There's no rule about medium."
"What does the strategist do?" Beck asks.
"The strategist... strategizes. I do the thinking. In the thinking box. With the crayon plan."
"So you sit in a chair and draw," Joel says.
"I sit in a chair and lead. I make the hard calls. I allocate resources. I maintain morale through the strategic deployment of funnel cakes from the dessert armory."
"So you eat funnel cakes," Beck says.
"I deploy them. Strategically."
They look at each other, communicating with their eyes in a language I don't speak.
"The Glue," Beck says.
"What?"
"That's your role. You're the Glue."
Joel's face is doing something that looks like agreement, which is notable because Joel agreeing with Beck is a thing that should be recorded and archived.
"He's right," Joel says. "You're the reason we're here. You're the one who said we're keeping the park. You're the one who sees the connections. You connect the zones, the people, the plan. You're the Glue."
"The Glue," I repeat. It doesn't sound official. It sounds like what you call the thing that holds other things together when the things don't know how to hold together on their own.
Oh.
"The Glue," I say again. Softer. "Fine." My eyes are doing something that I'm going to blame on the funnel cake sugar. "I'm the Glue. But I'm the kind of glue that has authority. The Glue makes the calls."
"The Glue makes the calls," Beck confirms.
"Within reason," Joel adds.
"Within my reason. Which is different from your reason. My reason has crayons."
"Noted."
I pick up the periwinkle again. Under the map, on the blank space at the bottom of the brochure, I start a list. THE PLAN, I write across the top, and then underline it twice because important documents get underlines.
I write:
Kill bad ones.
"Succinct," Joel says.
"Thank you."
Fix walls. (Joel's job. Check all gate things. Lock the locks.)
"Gate things," Joel says.
"You know what I mean."
"I always know what you mean."
Find animal doctor.
This one I write slower. Joel mentioned the wildlife rescue center in Wonder Garden.
"You think someone's alive in there?" Beck asks.
"The rescue center is reinforced," Joel says. "Climate-controlled enclosures, steel-frame construction, medical-grade sanitation systems. If someone sealed themselves in with the animals, they'd have food, water, and containment."
I write the number 3 with a little star next to it because finding a person who's alive matters more than most things on this list and stars are how I indicate priority.
Churros (if available).
"Grace," Joel says.
"It's a morale item. Morale items go on the plan. The crayon plan accounts for the whole human experience. Food, safety, emotional well-being. Churros cover at least two of those."
"Which two?"
"All three, actually. Churros are food. Churros make you feel safe. Churros are emotional well-being in fried dough form. Churros are the full package."
I keep writing.
Name the sharks.
"Lenny already has a name," Joel says.
"Who's Lenny?"
"The sea turtle."
"Lenny can't be the only named fish in the building. Lenny needs peers. Lenny needs community."
"Lenny's a turtle, not a fish."
I stare at him. I leave name sharks on the list.
Cape protocol (pending).
"What's cape protocol?" Beck asks.
"I found a cape. Joel made me take it off. Cape protocol is the formal process by which we determine when capes are tactically appropriate."
"Capes are never tactically appropriate," Joel says.
"That's your opinion and it will be heard during the cape protocol hearings."
Secure dessert armory. Expand to other desserts.
Beck teaches Joel to have fun. (Mandatory.)
"I have fun," Joel says.
"Joel, I've known you for two days and the most fun you've had was checking a pump gauge."
"The gauge was reading correctly."
"That's not fun. That's maintenance."
"For some of us, those are the same thing."
He's sitting on the bench with his wrench on his knee and his hands folded and his face doing the almost-smile and I realize he's messing with me. Joel is being fun and he meant it to be funny and it's funny.
"Did you just make a joke?"
"It was an observation."
"It was a joke. Beck, did Joel just make a joke?"
"I believe he did."
"This is historic. This goes on the plan." I write:
Document all Joel jokes. (For the record.)
"Please don't," Joel says.
"It's already in crayon. Crayon is permanent. Crayon is the constitution of the new world."
I keep writing. The list grows. It sprawls across the bottom of the brochure in multicolor crayon, part strategy, part manifesto, part grocery list of a woman who is running a theme park fortress with a wrench guy, an axe guy, and a friendship paddle.
Find phone charger. Call Mom. (URGENT.)
Inventory all food rooms in all zones.
Build something cool. (Beck's discretion. Supervised.)
"Supervised by who?" Beck asks.
"By me. The Glue supervises."
"You fell into a deep fryer today."
"I fell near a deep fryer. Near is different than into. The distinction is medically significant."
Haunted house stays closed at night. (Non-negotiable.)
Teach the others the where picture system.
Find more crayons.
I put the crayon down. Fifteen items. Some practical. Some absurd. I look at my two people. My team, which I didn't recruit so much as stumble into, the way I stumble into everything: accidentally, completely, and with both knees bleeding.
"Tomorrow we scout the garden part," I say.
"We find the animal doctor. If they're alive, we bring them in.
If they're not..." I pause. I don't finish the sentence.
The sentence finishes itself in the shared understanding that "if they're not" is a sentence that keeps ending differently every time we encounter it and never gets easier.
"Tomorrow," Beck says.
"Tonight," I say, "we take shifts. I'll take first."