Wednesday had arrived before I realized it. It was my first day off, and Uncle Kevin and I had worked out the details the evening before. He gave me a house key and said that I had to be home for dinner, which fit my plans just fine. Cutler had called later on and said that we played from one to about three. I told Uncle Kevin that I needed to go get my film from Edward’s Photo Hut also, so after LARP I’d head down there and explore Tarrant a bit more. He was ok with everything, so it looked like tomorrow would be smooth sailing.

Wednesday right at 12:40, I was ready to go. Cutler gave me detailed instructions and I wrote them all down. The last thing he said was, “Look for the house with the garage like a barn.” Just to be safe, I had double-checked the directions with my uncle, and they had all checked out.

It took me ten minutes, so I made it there in plenty of time. Cutler was right; the garage looked like a barn with its wood-like front door and with the windows outlined in red. I could almost imagine little shutters with X’s on them folding over them like barn doors. He didn’t mention something more obvious, though — the pieces of paper attached to various places. The mailbox had one, the garage door had one, a cluster of trees in the front yard had one. That, and there were four bikes leaned up against the far side of the garage. I parked mine with the rest and knocked on the front door.

Cutler’s mom greeted me. She stood about my height, had her long black hair tied back in a ponytail, and wore an apron. She was slender and if it wasn’t for the apron, I would have thought she was in high school.

“You must be Chris,” she said, smiling. “Come on in. J and the rest are out back on the porch.”

“Thanks,” I said, and cut through the family room to the porch.

I opened the porch door and stepped into a crowd of half-dressed-up people. Cutler was wearing a fake moustache and a red velvet tri-corner hat (I remembered the name from “Pirates In Space” that I saw last year) and a black t-shirt that read in pixelated letters, “Abort, Retry, or Fail?” He was standing nearest the door, and he shouted, “Chris has arrived!” as soon as I opened the door. I felt a little embarrassed by him making such a big deal over it, but I guess it was ok because it was my first time. “We’re still waiting for Madam S,” he added. “Come on and meet everybody. Oh, I’m Prince Zarithus.”

“Jeff is the mad wizard Graeca.” Jeff wore a drooping wizard’s hat and carried an intricately carved wand. Instinctively, I made some kind of protective sign and he gave me a strained vacant look. Then he smiled. “Glad you could make it, man.”

“Sherry is Princess Aroleine,” Cutler said, unfurling his hand to a short girl wearing a ruffled white dress and a sea-green t-shirt. “Chris is Prince Alabar.” She seemed to be about our age and had golden-brown hair; she was slightly pudgy, but that didn’t make her ugly. She held out her hand and like a gentleman, I leaned down as if to kiss it, nodding instead. Her hazel eyes watched me carefully. Cutler said, “She ranks high in the royal court,” and took me over to the next person.

Lew was sitting down which is why I hadn’t noticed him when I first came in. He stood up when we approached. He wore a black coat that looked like something a captain might wear, with gold stitching, and jeans. His hat was the same kind as Cutler’s. “Lew is Prince Viroch.”

“Lew?” I asked, surprised. He reached out his hand to mine and grasped it in a firm handshake.
“You two know each other?” Cutler asked.
I said, “Well, sorta.”
“Anyway, you are cousins,” Cutler explained.
“I will confer with you later,” Lew said. I nodded, but I wasn’t sure if he meant in the game or in real life.

“Danny is Pageboy Johannas,” said Cutler, introducing me to a skinny boy with disheveled reddish-brown hair. “This is Chris, Prince Alabar.”
“Glad to meet ya, milord,” he said with a clumsy bow.
“He knows everything because he runs messages to everyone,” said Cutler.

He then led me back by the porch door. “And next-to-last, but not least is Tamara, the Viscountess Sarah Jane Mortishire,” he said, unfurling his hands to a pale girl with stringy blonde hair and distant blue eyes. “SJ, meet Chris, Prince Alabar.”

She had clipped felt stars and seashells into her hair, which had taken a greenish tint from too much time in the pool. Her sky-blue t-shirt read “Star In Training” in rhinestones and she wore new sandals, but neither of those distracted me from her royal manners and expression. I bowed to her and she looked pleased, as though I had already learned my place.

Then it hit me. “Wait,” I said, “If you and Jeff run this, how are you playing?”
Jeff stretched out and said, “Cutler and I set it up and create the cards and all that stuff.”

“We write it, too,” bragged Cutler, obviously exaggerating his contribution.

“You mean that we Help write it,” said Jeff.

“Yes, exactly!”

Jeff gave him an over-the-top look of madness. “Anyways,” he continued, “it’s more of an outline than a hard-and-fast kind of thing. Madame S is the GM.”

“Is that her real name?” I asked.

Just then a boisterous voice announced, “She’s here!” The porch door opened and a tall, tanned woman with a black straw hat with a bell, and a long linen off-white dress entered. She carried a sheaf of papers loosely attached to a clipboard in her hands.

Everyone but me shouted out “Madame S!” She made a ridiculously-deep curtsy and asked, “How are the inhabitants of Frammel this afternoon?” Everyone yelled back different responses. She then turned to Jeff and Cutler to work out the details of the game.

After a few moments, she said, “Ok, places. If you don’t remember where you were last week, speak up now.” I watched as everyone scattered and then I said, “I don’t remember.” She squinted at me and fixed me with a stare like a teacher’s. “You must be Chris, or Prince Alabar.”

“Yes,” and seeing her mock frown I added humorously, “Yes, milady.”

“Jeff and John have filled you in, I surmise?”

“Yes.”

She reached down into a nearby box and threw me a cloak. “But they didn’t give you any outfitting tips, or tell you where to start, of course.” She held her hand to her forehead, as if the occurrence would make her faint. She looked at her sheaf of notes and said, “Prince Alabar, the Endless Woods. There’s a sign by the front. You’re on your way to the castle, hearing only rumors of discontent. Your part will be coming in a few minutes.”

I nodded and went to my position.

Up until today, I had never played a LARP, but I knew enough about it to not be lost. It wasn’t too difficult to pretend to be someone else, although I did feel silly from time to time. Wearing a purple cloak that doesn’t quite fit will do that to you, I thought.

I had made my way to the castle fairly quickly where I met Princess Aroleine and the Viscountess. They were discussing something I didn’t catch before the pageboy ushered me into court. They spoke guardedly about the affairs at the castle, and said only that Prince Viroch was due to return from a great quest today.

The prince had known I was coming, and after the formalities that the court required, drew me aside to urge me to dine with him that evening. Because he was my cousin, and a cousin with whom I was on good terms, I saw no reason to refuse. I asked him about a lack of royal greeting and he too spoke in guarded tones, saying only that the rumors I had heard were only the beginning. The Princess had arranged for my living quarters, I had told him. He seemed genuinely afraid then, but a message he received from the pageboy required him to be elsewhere immediately.

By the end of an hour and half, I was thoroughly immersed in the game and my character had met most of the other characters. It felt like it was ending too early, but Madame S told us that if we were looking forward to what happens next, it meant that the game was a good one.

“So what do you think? Awesome huh?” asked Cutler. He was out-of-breath, having participated in a duel with Prince Viroch (which is something that I saw, but my character didn’t).

“It really felt like I was somewhere else,” I said. “Why is it only once a week?”

He laughed. “Madame S!” He rolled his eyes. “Seriously, it’s the only day that she can do it. She has papers and stuff to grade. She’s the creative writing teacher at school.”

I was right — she was a teacher. Jeff called out, “Come on, Dr. Who starts in ten minutes!” Cutler said, “Oh yeah, we hang out afterwards and play video games and stuff.”

“Cool,” I said. I followed him into the house and found most of the others in the family room, before a large TV. The box of costumes was there and I tossed in the cape. Tamara was just leaving and Lew was folding up his jacket. He looked over at me with a serious expression, so I said, “Hold on, I gotta see something.”

I went to the door and he joined me. He didn’t say much, but he faked a smile. “Watch out for the popular girl,” he said. I asked him if he meant Tamara or Sherry, but he gave me a look that said I should have figured it out already. Then he left.

I went back to the family room a little uneasy. Thinking about it a few seconds more, I knew that he meant Tamara. Her character was snooty, but I had thought that was just her character, and not her. But even if she was that way in real life, I was only here for the summer. It wasn’t like she was in my school. What could she do?

I sat down and joined everyone in talking about the game. When they asked me about it, I said that it was great and I was looking forward to next week. For some reason Danny was giving whoever said “but” a high-five, so he was jumping all over the place. Then Dr. Who came on and Danny went with Jeff to play video games. The rest of us soaked up our weekly allowance of cheesy SF, and loved every minute of it.

During one of the commercials, Sherry said that Tamara couldn’t stop talking about the big party that her sister Brianne was going to throw over the summer. Her parents let her do it because their plans for a car had fallen through. “She said it’s going to be big even though officially it’s only for her sister’s friends. They even named it — the Anti-Boredom Crash.” Sherry twirled her finger, unexcitedly.

Cutler stretched out on the couch. “I’m going.”

“You would, J,” said Sherry.

“That’s right I would. Someone has to bring the geek.”

From the other room Jeff started chanting, “Bring the geek! Bring the geek!” Then Jeff and Sherry got Danny and lifted him above their heads like he was some kind of king and brought him to the center of the family room. Everyone joined in the chanting and either fanned him, fluffed his pillows, or fed him Cheetohs until the show started again.

I hadn’t forgotten about my pictures, so I told Cutler that I needed to get going. His mom overheard me; she said that she’d call her husband to pick them up on the way home. “Oh that’s ok,” I began, but she assured me that it was no problem. I didn’t want to put them through any trouble because I had just met them.

“Maybe he’s hiding something, like pictures of his girlfriend,” Madame S said, teasing me.

I laughed, suddenly realizing that I didn’t have any pictures of the people I’d met, not Uncle Kevin, not J, and not Kirandra. Maybe it showed on my face, because then Madame S said, “Ah hah!”

“Uhm, actually, I don’t have a girlfriend,” I said.

“Oh, a lot can change in a summer,” she said, mysteriously. Cutler’s mom agreed as if they shared a secret and then they promised to stop teasing me. I was grateful for that.

I played some video games and got killed a lot until Cutler’s dad showed up with my pictures, wrapped in discreet brown envelopes. I thanked him and said goodbye to everyone, getting on my bike, and making it home just in time for dinner.

Uncle Kevin tapped his watch. I knew from his smile that he was only faking being annoyed at me. “I’ve already ordered dinner,” he said. He pointed to a Donetello’s pizza magnet, a new addition to the fridge. “I thought I’d try the other pizza place for a change. We have one of their Everything in Italy specials on the way.”

I was so hungry that if he had ordered cookie dough I would have eaten it. I set the table and a few minutes later, the doorbell rang. “I’ve got it!” I called out, opening the door.

Standing in a dark red apron/overall combination was Danielle, with a pizza in one hand, and a bottle of Coke in the other. Her uniform was lightly dusted with dough, as if she had just stepped out of the kitchen.

“Hi,” she said, “Brain food for all the brains in residence.”

I smiled, a bit sarcastically. “It tastes great and it makes you smarter? Sounds like the perfect food,” I said.

“It is,” she said. “It’s amazing that some people don’t like it.”

Uncle Kevin walked over, showed his card, and paid for the food. “Danielle,” he said, eyeing her uniform in surprise, “they’ve got you doing deliveries now?”

“Not if I can help it,” she said, sighing slightly. “But they needed an extra driver and it was on my way home.” I felt suddenly envious that she could drive wherever she wanted to go.

“We certainly appreciate it,” he said, adding a generous tip.

“Don’t mention it,” she said, handing him the bottle of Coke. “Now this is on the house. The pizza looked so lonely.”

Uncle Kevin smiled. “Thanks! You can’t really have pizza without pop.”

“That’s right. Just don’t shake it up. Au revoire`!” she said as he shut the door.

As he put the plastic bottle on the table, Uncle Kevin thought out loud. “Do you think she already shook it up?”

“No way,” I said. Somehow, I couldn’t picture Danielle doing something like that. It would be like a TV comedy.

“Hmm,” he said, feeling the bottle and raising an eyebrow at me.

I squeezed the bottle, or tried to.

“You first,” he said, pulling his chair back.

I grimaced at him and turned the cap on the bottle slowly, listening to the gas escape.