Page 18 of One Adult, Please

The corridor ahead bends left toward the supply bedroom. Joel raises one hand for quiet.

I nod. My gummy sharks choose that exact moment to scream in plastic.

Joel closes his eyes.

"Sorry," I whisper. "They're under stress."

Stay close is easier said than done when my legs operate on separate government agencies.

Joel moves through the corridor like it was part of his theme park training. He holds up a hand when he wants me to stop and I stop and I only bump into him once, okay twice, the second time wasn't my fault because the floor was wet from condensation.

The gift shop materializes out of the blue-lit hallway like a retail oasis. Celestial Bay Gifts & Treasures.

"Okay," I say, surveying the aisles. I've watched enough survival shows to know that preparation is everything. "Tote bags first."

There's a whole wall of them. Canvas, nylon, varying sizes. Wondie in sunglasses. Wondie in a scuba mask. Wondie surfing. Wondie doing a yoga pose that looks structurally impossible for a sphere. I grab four of the largest ones, the kind with handles that look like they could tow a small boat, because if we're raiding Mythic Frontier I want bags that won't betray me mid-crisis and these have a lifetime guarantee, which I realize is a corporate promise from a company that may no longer exist, but I'm choosing to honor the warranty emotionally.

Joel starts loading them with water bottles from the cooler. He moves through the gift shop the way I imagine he moves through his entire life: a man on a mission, allergic to browsing, the kind of person who's never once thought 'but what if I need this later' about a clearance item.

I, on the other hand, am browsing. Because I'm a person with curiosities and you never know what's going to be useful.

"Grace, what are you doing?"

"Gathering intelligence." I'm standing in front of the brochure rack near the entrance. Show schedules, dining guides, a pamphlet about conservation efforts that has a baby sea turtle on the cover and is making me feel things I don't have time for. I grab two park pamphlets and unfold one.

It's color-coded. Each zone has little icons for bathrooms and band-aid houses and the important stuff, which is food. It's designed for tourists and I'm repurposing it for war.

"We need this," I say, holding it up.

"I work here."

"Right, but what if something happens to you? What if you get grabbed by a wrong person and I'm alone and I don't know where the band-aid house is? What if I need to find the food rooms? What if I need emergency access to fries? What if civilization collapses and I'm wandering around beside a dolphin mural with no snacks and no leadership?"

"You won't get lost. I'll be with you."

"Joel. Joel, look at me." I hold the paper against my chest like it's a baby I'm protecting. "Things happen. Things happen all the time. Things happened yesterday. I'm a person to whom things happen at an above-average rate and I need a where picture."

"A where picture."

"A picture. Of where things are. With colors."

"A map."

"That's what I said."

He does the stare. There's something behind it that lives in the space between exasperation and warmth. "Take the map," he says.

"I'm taking two. One for each of us in case things happen and then you need the where picture and if you don't have it you're just a person standing in a building with no colors and no labels and that's just a building, Joel, that's just a big empty building with halls."

He takes it. Folds it. Puts it in his back pocket. Doesn't say anything.

I move deeper into the shop. And then I find it.

It's in the Nautical Adventures section, wedged between a display of rope bracelets and a barrel of rubber ducks wearing pirate hats. A piece of atmosphere meant to make you feel like you're on a ship even though you're in a gift shop spending forty dollars on a rubber duck.

It's a decorative oar, about four feet long, made of actual wood with a painted handle in the WonderSphere blue and gold. It's got a little plaque on it that says CELESTIAL BAY MARITIME COLLECTION and a price tag of sixty-five dollars, which is robbery but also irrelevant because I'm not paying for it, I'm conscripting it.

I take it off the wall. It's heavier than I expected. The kind of weight that says, "I could change a man's dental plan," as opposed to the stabby fork, which says, "I cost twenty-eight dollars and believe in myself."