Work Text:
“Your pal brings his security blanket to the hangout the other day...”
On a typical lazy sunny afternoon in Tazmily, four friends with nothing better to do sit in the front yard of the house. Sheep meander around them, occasionally corralled by the dog when one strays too far. Flint, Thomas, and Lighter sit upright like men do. Hinawa stretches out in a lawn chair. All totally unburdened… save for a conspicuous crank siren in Thomas’s lap.
One Lighter can’t take his eyes off. “So Thomas… what’s with the siren?”
Thomas strokes it defensively. “What about the siren?”
“What’s with it?”
“...it’s my siren.”
“Why do you need a siren?” asks Flint.
Thomas darts his eyes between Flint and Lighter. “I’m the firefighter. Firefighters need a siren.”
“How does a siren help you fight fires?”
“Helps me get to the fire.”
Lighter squints. “Explain.”
Thomas does, without taking a breath: “It indicates the need for right of way. You hear a siren, you pull over and let emergency vehicles pass. How else do I get through traffic?”
“What’s pulling over?” asks Lighter.
“What are emergency vehicles?” asks Flint.
“What’s traffic?” asks Hinawa.
Thomas sets down the siren and clears his throat. “I’ll concede that needing right of way isn’t a huge concern in this town, but the siren tells everyone there’s an emergency. Can’t fight fires alone, you know.”
“But we have Leder for that,” replies Hinawa.
Lighter echoes a familiar rhyme: “Hear the dong? Something’s wrong.”
Thomas nods in concession as compulsion takes over: “Hear the ring, there’s a thing.”
Hinawa adds, “Hear the chime? It’s helping time.”
And Flint: “Hear the bell? It’s gone to hell.”
Hinawa looks up at her husband. “I hope you don’t teach the boys that one.”
“Claus came up with it.”
As she wrestles with that, Thomas remains defiant: “My siren identifies me. I would be a joke of a firefighter without it.”
“You’re a joke of a firefighter with it,” says Flint.
Hinawa nods sadly. “You did struggle with Isaac’s brush fire.”
“Don’t be gentle. That was less struggle and more abject failure.”
“I was in such a hurry to get there I forgot my siren!” argues Thomas. “Shows how intrinsic it is to my work!”
Lighter squints. “Explain.”
“Hearing the siren reminds me I’m serving as firefighter. I got to Isaac’s, I didn’t hear my siren and I’m thinking ‘I’m just a shopkeeper. How can I help?’”
“Why are you both shopkeeper and firefighter?” asks Flint.
“Most of us have one job. You have two,” adds Lighter.
“Three if you’re horning in on Leder,” adds Hinawa.
Flint nods, voice rising. “Two-point-five jobs while some folks here, I don’t know what they do.”
“Like Bob,” Lighter points out, “Maybe Bob could be firefighter.”
“No,” Flint, Hinawa, and Thomas reply in unison.
“Maybe Bob could be shopkeeper.”
After some thought, Flint and Hinawa reply, in unison, “Maybe.”
If Thomas had protested that, he was drowned out. “I’d rather keep keeping shop than be firefighter,” he says.
“Who’s keeping shop now?” asks Flint.
An awkward, telling silence follows before Thomas answers with zero certainty: “...the kids?”
Hinawa pointed to the house. “Richie and Nichol are inside with the boys.”
Thomas glances at the house, for a brief moment concerned. Then he says, “You know Bronson has two jobs.”
“Blacksmith and what?” asks Lighter.
“Sheriff.”
“Doesn’t count,” Flint insists.
Thomas raises his eyebrows. “Law enforcement doesn’t count?”
“Nobody breaks the law,” explains Flint.
“But we have thieves.”
“That’s their job. Doing your job ain’t against the law.”
“We should have Wess and Duster over again,” Hinawa says thoughtfully, “I want my coasters back.”
“It is strange our emergency services are all second jobs except for Leder,” observes Lighter.
Hinawa points at nothing. “That’s why Leder’s Leder.”
Thomas frowns. “Is he leader?”
“Yes, he’s Leder,” she answers.
“But is Leder leader?” Lighter asks.
“Yes.”
“I thought Pusher was leader,” says Thomas, “His job is mayor.”
Hinawa points again. “He’s mayor, not leader.”
“Don’t we have a princess too?” Flint looks up.
One more point. “She’s princess, not leader.”
“When have you seen Leder lead?” Thomas stares at Hinawa.
Flint asks him, “When have you seen Pusher lead?”
Thomas turns to Flint. “When have you seen the princess lead?”
“Wait…” Lighter turns to everyone. “Who runs this town?”
“You’re getting off topic.” Hinawa replies.
“Valid question though! If we ain’t being ruled by our government via Pusher, and we ain’t being ruled by the monarchy via Kumatora, and we ain’t being ruled by an alarmist police state via Leder, ain’t we technically in an anarchistic society?”
Thomas faces Lighter. “Can you have society under anarchy?”
Lighter frowns. “You think we ain’t functioning in a society?”
“I don’t know... but I’m definitely hanging onto my siren now.” Thomas returns the siren to his lap.
“Bout time you answered the question.”
Suddenly, Flint jumps to his feet, hands on his hips, and announces, “All I know is nobody rules me! I do what I want. I say what I want. I respond to crises—from Leder or otherwise—because I want to. Nobody orders me around!”
Hinawa lazily raises a hand. “While you’re up, check on the kids. It’s too quiet in there.”
“Yes dear.” With a nod, Flint heads inside.
And Thomas and Lighter stare at Hinawa in awe.
“Maybe Hinawa’s leader,” said Thomas, hushed.
Lighter nods. “We gots us a regular Hinawocracy.”
After thinking on it for a moment, Hinawa returns a gentle smile. “Don’t tell the boys. It’ll go to their heads.”
“Whole place falls apart without her.”
On an otherwise peaceful night, the adults of Tazmily gather around the town square for a village meeting. Such meetings are rarities, and the villagers have to drag in chairs and benches from their homes, with some resorting to sitting on the well. All chatter amongst themselves, each with an eye on the podium front and center. Well after everyone is seated, Mayor Pusher emerges from his house, his wife Elmore at his side.
As she takes her place at the lone empty chair in the front row, she announces, “All rise for the Honorable Mayor Pusher!”
Everyone keeps chattering. Even Pusher's aggressive throat clearing does nothing. “Ahem…”
Louder, he says, “Excuse me…”
Rolling his eyes, Flint sticks two fingers in his mouth and whistles. Everyone shuts up.
“Um… thank you, Flint,” says Pusher. “As you all know I take my position as mayor of Tazmily Village very seriously. You’ve all entrusted me with an important duty.”
“We did?” blurts Matt, one of the town ranchers, “When?”
“I don’t remember having an election,” adds Jackie the innkeeper.
“We must have,” says Linda. She looks around for support. “Right? Right?”
Her husband Paul comes to her rescue: “Of course, hon. You don’t just wake up mayor.”
Thomas’s father, Mike, takes his hat off and tousles his hair. “One time I woke up grayer.”
Pusher pushes past the distractions: “The most important part of my job, of course, is not calling a town meeting without a flapping good reason. I’m sure you’re all busy.”
Dona sighs. “I haven’t been busy at night in two years.”
Pusher continues: “But I have recently discovered a crisis that tears at the very foundation of Tazmily Village!”
“Tears at the foundation?” Bronson replies. “Little brace work takes care of that. Lighter, you wanna get on it?”
Lighter turns his nose up. “Tazmily ain’t got a steel foundation? We used wood?”
“Of course. Too close to the sea. Can’t have the whole thing rusting up if it gets under the water line.”
“Sounds like we got tears either way.”
Flint turns to the mayor. “We’ll patch ‘em right up, Pusher!”
Exasperated, Elmore turned around and shouts, “He was being metaphorical!”
Bronson and Lightning look at each other in confused silence. They both turn to her and say, “So were we.”
After a brief glare, Pusher forges on: “Recently I was looking through the village charter and I made a horrifying discovery…” He turns to his butler. “Sebastian!”
From the mayor’s estate, Sebastian pushes a wheelbarrow holding an absurdly large, intricately decorated book. With some struggle, he finally lifts it up, dropping the tome upright in front of Pusher’s podium.
The mayor watches the whole laborious process without lifting a finger. “These are the laws concerning the governance and operation of Tazmily Village. It’s the founding document that keeps us safe and secure, knowing we have order and peace in our fair town.”
Jill exclaims, “Fascinating! To think we had such a wonderful book this whole time!”
Lisa nods along. “Now that explains why we’re so peaceful!”
Pusher nods with her. “You would think that, but look!”
Sebastian opens the book and reveals that the pages contain… absolutely nothing. Nothing after nothing come bursting out to the gasps of the townsfolk.
“Empty! The charter governing our village is blank!” announces the mayor.
“This is terrible!” Jonel shouts, “You mean this completely peaceful, crime-free, bucolic town where everyone chips in and respects each other has been wild and lawless this whole time?
“Precisely!”
“Oh dear! Where are the children?” cries Brenda.
Caroline tries calming everyone down: “Now now, we’ve survived this long without laws, we can survive at least a couple more hours before everything descends into chaos.”
“Perhaps, but I insist on instilling some proper ordinances in the charter tonight,” says Pusher.
“Oh of course, don’t want to wait any longer. And Brenda’s right, who is watching the kids? I left Angie with Nan, but…”
Caroline looks across the square and finds Nan sitting on the well, smiling and waving back. “I couldn’t miss a meeting like this!” she says.
Her husband Ed smiles as well. “But relax, we’ve got it covered!”
At Ed and Nan’s home, the elderly Scamp lies in his bed, as he tends to do. Hovering over him, Fuel and Angie watch his every move. Or rather the lack of them.
“Do you think he’s dead?” Fuel asks, contemplating asking Lucas for a stick to poke him with.
Behind them, Alle is over it. “He’s not dead. He’s just always asleep.”
To prove her point, sort of, Scamp springs up with a burst of violent coughing, then crashes back to his pillow. Angie screams and ran away. Fuel grins. “Best babysitter ever.”
Claus takes Angie’s place bedside, getting way too close to Scamp’s eyes. “Can anyone die? I’ve never seen anyone die before.”
Richie scoffs at the suggestion. “Dying isn’t real. It’s just something the grown-ups say to scare us.”
“How do you know?” asks Lucas, more out of curiosity than skepticism.
Nichol pushes up his glasses. “Statistically speaking, it’s more likely than not Grandpa Mike would have done something to do himself in by now.”
“It’s true,” Angie affirms, “My mom says his cookies should come with a warning label.”
“Well… that’s good to know.” Lucas scratches his shoulder. “But he’s supposed to be our babysitter and… well, he’s more laying than sitting.”
“Well, we’re more kids than babies,” says Claus.
“He’s our kidlayer,” says Richie.
“Oh, like a chicken but instead of eggs he hatches kids?” says Angie.
“And that’s where Alle came from!” Fuel cheers. Alle grins at the thought.
Claus laughs along. “Either way, if the old man’s asleep we don’t have a sitter! You know what this means?
“We’re wild and lawless!” shouts Alle.
“No!” Everyone turns to the source of defiance. It’s Nana, standing in the corner, a little older than the other kids.
As she opens her mouth, Claus mumbles, “Uh oh, here it comes...”
And boy does it: “Yes, it’s true that our designated babysitter Scamp is currently unable to do his job because he’s cripplingly old and likely the only reason Nippolyte’s been digging practice graves for the last year, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be orderly. In the event that our assigned supervision is unable to supervise, I think the responsibility should pass onto the eldest among us to take up the mantle and be the de facto babysitter until either Scamp wakes up or your parents return. But I understand that taking power for myself sets a scary precedent so I’m only going to govern if it’s okay with the governed. With that in mind I’m asking for your blessing to be in charge.”
At first everybody is too dazed by such a long paragraph to properly respond. But Nichol finds his bearings first: “Motion fails due to lack of a second. The floor is open for another suggestion.”
“Aw,” says Nana.
As it often did in Tazmily, the town meeting had descended into chaos as everyone speaks at once about possible laws to enact. Perhaps it’s the excitement of contributing to local governance. Or the concern about the lack of local governance. Or the dread of having to obey new rules. Nobody brings up any specific ideas.
Pusher is exasperated at the lack of order. “Everyone, please…” he pleas. “Everyone?” Finally, he sighs and turns to his prior savior. “Flint?” But even Flint has joined the din, wondering with Hinawa if a new law could compel Claus and Lucas to do their chores.
In a last ditch effort, Pusher raises a finger at his wife.
“EVERYONE SHUT UP!” shouts Elmore.
The town does… begrudgingly. Voices quiet one at a time until only one carries over the crowd. Which is Jill saying, “...hate her so much.”
“It sounds like the town has many ideas about laws,” Pusher says, semi-accurately, “Perhaps we should discuss as a group. And keeping it specific. And one at a time.”
Carolyn raises her hand. “Well I must say I don’t like how the cattle herd gets driven across town all the time. When all that’s going on, nobody can smell my freshly baked nut bread. So maybe a law against that?”
One of the ranchers, Biff, objects: “We need to drive the cattle from one end t’other or else we don’t got no steaks. Y’all love your steaks, right?”
In a hushed yet oddly defensive voice, Hinawa says, “Steak? I thought we were more of an omelet town…”
Flint calms her: “Gotta have the steak and eggs. Life isn’t worth living without the whole plate.”
Carolyn turns to Biff. “Can you march them when I’m not baking?”
“No ma’am,” answers Biff, “We gotta go whenever they’re ready to become steaks.”
“Well, when’s that?”
“When the steaks are high.”
“I have a thought!” Dona blurts before completely changing the subject, “We should enforce quiet hours at the inn! Jackie, how late do your guests stay up? Talking and drinking and just having a wild time while the rest of us are trying to sleep.
“Barnburner every night,” says Tessie.
“Hold on…” Betsy narrows an eye. “Dona, you don’t live anywhere near Yado! You can’t possibly be hearing us!”
Dona folds her arms. “It’s not whether I can hear them. I just can’t stand the thought of people having a good time after I go to bed.”
Pusher coughs. “Is anybody bothered by the noise from the inn after hours?”
After some reluctance, only one hand goes up: Jackie himself. “I could use a good night’s sleep for once.”
“Well, figure that out on your own. Don’t waste the town’s time,” admonishes Pusher.
“You know you’re thinking about this all wrong,” Flint says, standing up. “You’re not wrangling any goats telling them what they can’t do. You wanna make some laws, let’s start by saying what the government can’t do.”
Pusher thinks it over. “A guarantee of civil liberties… something like a bill of rights?”
“Bill can be right all day, but I don’t want him bossing me around.”
“All right, any suggestions on that end? Any protections from civil ordinance?”
“You mean stuff you guys can’t put in?” Bronson asks. “Like a bunch of things that start with ‘the Mayor shall make no law’ or something like that?
“Oh, I like the sound of that!” Thomas exclaims.
Lisa nods alongside her husband. “‘The Mayor shall make no law…’ Yeah!”
Amid the nods and hums of approval, Pusher smiles for the first time all night, possibly ever. “Fantastic! I think we have a consensus that the first law should begin with ‘The Mayor shall make no law.’ Is everyone in agreement?”
“Yeah!” says everyone.
“Approved. We’ve begun our first entry into the charter.”
He proudly presses ink to parchment, flowing cursive finally added to the book. Sebastian sheds a tear of pride. Once the momentous task is complete, Pusher continues, “Now what should the mayor make no law about?”
Crickets. The mayor hears nothing but crickets chirping in the distance. Probably picking a fight somewhere.
Finally, Lightning speaks: “Anyone else gettin’ tired?
Ed nods. “This has been going on for a bit. Could we pick this up another time?”
“Well, we should at least finish this law,” Pusher replies.
Flint squints. “‘The Mayor shall make no law.’ Do we need to go on?”
“Honestly, that sounds really good as is,” Hinawa says.
Pusher tries to get a word in, but Brenda adds, “I feel better already knowing our town charter has such important protections.”
“I motion to adjourn!” Thomas calls out.
“Yeah!” says everyone.
At once, the town stands up and files out, most beaming with pride at the good work they achieved. Pusher stares back, dumbfounded at the suddenly empty square.
The kids have had less luck with their foray into governing. Sitting around Ed and Nan’s house, the boredom and frustration sets in.
Nichol bangs an imaginary gavel on his knee. “By a vote of 1 to 7, a system where the dogs are in charge is defeated.”
Richie sneers at Lucas. “Really… dogs?”
“You guys aren’t coming up with anything better,” Lucas mumbles in defense.
“I would have voted for it if it was just Boney,” says Claus, “But I don’t trust Butch’s dog on the issues.”
Angie shakes her head. “I just can’t picture a dogocracy.”
“Maybe if it was one strong dog leader we follow blindly,” says Fuel, “Like an alpha dog.”
“A demadogue?” suggests Lucas.
“A dog king!” proclaims Claus.
“Why don’t we try this?” Angie takes her time to phrase it right: “Why don’t we just pair up and make sure our partner doesn’t get themselves killed?”
Alle immediately blurts, “Yes, let’s just move on and do something fun. We’ve been at this all night.”
“All in favor of the buddy system?” Nichol calls out. Everyone raises their hands… except for Nana, who just sighs. “Approved!”
“Great, but how are we pairing up?” asks Lucas.
“Oh… right…” Claus frowns. “Sorry Lucas, but I don’t trust you not to let me get myself killed.”
Lucas nods in understanding. “I acknowledge my shortcomings.”
Richie raises a hand. “Let’s keep it simple then: girls, pair up with who we agreed you were going to marry.”
With no other words exchanged, Richie dutifully stands next to Lucas, Alle gleefully bounces over to Claus. With a pout, Angie trudges over to Fuel.
Nana wrinkles her nose, glaring at Richie. “Did you leave me out of another girls meeting?”
“Uh… oops?” Richie dodges any eye contact. “Wanna marry Nichol?”
“I don’t get a say in this?”
Angie frowns. “Sorry Nana, we had a lot to cover at that meeting and a hard stop. I’m not thrilled either.”
“We can switch if you’d rather marry Lucas,” says Richie.
Nana folds her arms. “First off, it’s not chapter four yet. Secondly, you’d be stuck with…” She gestures at Nichol.
Richie rolls her eyes. “Whatever, he’s not that bad.” She stands next to her extremely confused brother as Nana sighs and takes her place beside Lucas.
Lucas, for his part, smiles at Richie. “We appreciate you girls dealing with all this for us.”
Nichol looks down and coughs loudly. “I don’t think you’ve quite thought this through… sis.”
“If you’re gonna be so critical I wanna switch back,” moans Richie.
Alle rubs her hands together. “Well, now that we’ve settled who’s in charge, and we’ve all split up into pairs of boys and girls…” She looks deep into Claus’s eyes. “...now what should we do?”
Claus returned the stare and grew a big smile. “Alle… I’ve always wanted to ask this…”
Alle took Claus’s hands. “Yes, Claus?”
“Can I teach your bird to swear?”
“I thought you’d never ask!”
Later that night, with the meeting over, everyone picked up their children. As Flint and Hinawa leave, Claus waves a happy goodbye to Alle.
“Did you all behave yourselves tonight?” Nan asks her daughter.
“We did!” Alle lies, waving back.
“We did not!” exclaims Nana, still waiting to be picked up. Not that anyone will. “We gave up on figuring out whether Scamp was alive or dead and just ignored him the whole night, we spent an hour arguing over who was in charge, thanks to Claus your bird has a worse potty mouth than the princess, and I think I’m engaged to Lucas now. Normally I won’t mind that but you need to understand it’s pre-time skip and-”
Ed interrupts her: “Nana?”
“Yes Mr. Ed?”
“Go home. It goes like this every time Scamp babysits.”
Nana sighs. “I was just thinking maybe we shouldn’t let this happen every-”
“Good night, dear!” Nan says, gently shooing her out the door.
Nana steps out into the muggy night and grumbles, “We need a Nanacracy, that’s what we need.”