Crowning a New King

"Now that you have your character picked out, we both go to the starting position.  Who goes first depends on the strength of your character.  Characters with lower total hit points go first.  The first one rolls one dice, and then goes that number of spaces, minus or plus an adjustment based on the speed factor of the individual character."

Dona Cooper looked across at David Roper, a little confused, but still entranced by this older boy, who spoke of his game with such passion.  "My character is a girl, Serincia Gold.  I just love that name, David.  You're so creative at coming up with these names, and all that stuff.  But should I choose a girl character?  Aren't they weaker than the boys?  Won't that mean I'll have less of a chance to win?"

They both sat across from each other on the small, built-in table at the front of the trailer.  David had spread out the game that he had been designing for the last several months, the game he called To Crown A King.  It was a game combining trading card games, role playing games and board games.  It had become an obsession with him ever since his mother's separation from his father, and they had moved into a small trailer, one where there was no television, video games or electronics. 

Dona, whose family was in a nearby trailer in the same park, the Wildwoods Trailer Park, was about the only one who had taken even the slightest interest in the game.  David was a part of a group called the Ghost Squad, who did paranormal investigations, and he had mentioned it to some of them, but none seemed to take any real interest.  Franny Goodkind was very polite and asked questions back, but he felt uncomfortable with her because she was really old, maybe even like twenty.  Dona was two grades younger than him, seventh grade, but she was very friendly to him, and had been over playing scrabble with him a couple of times before.  He was very surprised when she wanted to see the game after he had mentioned it to her. 

Dona was plump but not fat, with a pretty face marred by frequent acne flare ups.  A teenager from a more well-off family might undergo more treatments for it, but all Dona could do was keep her face washed, use Strident when she could, and well, pop them sometimes.  She was sweet and friendly, and did not seem to notice that David, who wore thick glasses and was chunky himself, was a social outcast.  He was heavily picked on by the other kids in the trailer park, and school wasn't much better.  They had only been in the area since September, with him plopping into a new high school being the strange, shy new fat kid.

David answered her question about the ability of female characters to win.  "Oh, no!  Everyone should have a good chance to become the new King."  He thought about that for a moment.  "Or Queen, I guess.  Anyways, having you play the game with a female character is an important test for my game design.  If you have any special problems I didn't anticipate, I should be able to analyze and correct them."

Dona giggled.  "Well, okay.  But it could be I'll just suck."

They both laughed a little.  "I doubt that!  If you're ready, go ahead and roll, and let's see what happens.  There may be bumps in the road.  You're the first person to actually play it, besides me."

She blushed, her red cheeks almost matching the color of her red hair.  "I'm honored, really."  Dona smiled shyly, and she hoped he couldn't tell how fast her thirteen-year-old hear was beating.

"Roll the die, Dona, and let's see what happens!"

What happened, just as she rolled a two, was that there was a gentle knock on the trailer door.  David tried to ignore it.

"Is there someone there, David?" Dona asked.  The rap came a second time, this time a tiny bit louder.

David reluctantly got up and moved to the door.  "Who's there?" he called out, even though he was reasonably sure who it was.

"It's Gariton Hollander.  I work with your mother," a voice answered.

David's heart sank.  He knew this guy was coming, but he had tried to push it from the back of his mind.  "She's not here right now."

"Oh.  Well, I hope she told you.  She invited me for supper.  I'm looking forward to meeting you.  Your mother has said a lot of good things about you."

Yes, her mother had told him.  He even knew who this guy was.  He worked at the accounting firm that had recently hired his Mom.  She was now making enough money that they might soon be able to move from the trailer park to a real apartment or duplex.  He should be grateful, and happy to meet him, but David wasn't.  "Yeah, she's out now.  She had to go out of town because....."  He got lost trying to come up with an excuse.  She was just at the store, gathering stuff for the dinner tonight.  He wasn't a good liar, so he was struggling.  ".....she had to sign some papers with a lawyer about the divorce."

"Oh, I didn't know that," answered Gariton, still through the closed door.  "She hadn't called me to tell me of any change of plans."

"Yeah. It came up all of a sudden like," David lied.

"Oh.  Okay.  Well, have her call me when she gets back in." Gariton said.

"Sure," said David.  "Bye."

"If it's okay, I have a couple of things to drop off to her.  Could I give them to you?"

David hesitated.  Dona knew it wasn't her place, but she couldn't help but say, "He's like her boss or something.  Shouldn't it be okay just to take what he has?"

David looked at her, and sighed.  He reluctantly opened the door, and there was Gariton, a little guy with a thin frame, completely different from his Daddy, who was a tall man with an imposing physical presence.  Gariton was holding an arrangement of flowers and a pan filled with peach cobbler.  The cobbler was fresh, Gariton holding it with a thick kitchen towel, still hot and steamy, it's delicious smell of peaches and warm biscuit breading wafting into the trailer.  It was breaking down David's resistance.

He took the flowers, and then carefully took the pan of peach cobbler.  He took them and put them on a small counter next to the sink. Then he turned to the door, said "Thanks", and then quickly shut the door.

Dona was puzzled.  "I thought your Mom was just gone to the store.  Why did you tell him she was out of town? I mean, not that it's any of my business."  In Dona's middle school mind, though, lying didn't fit with her image of David.  She really admired him, and it didn't fit.  He must have a really good reason, she rationalized.

But did he?  David wasn't sure.  How can he tell her anything when it was all so cloudy and jumbled in his own mind?  Ultimately, he just wasn't ready.  What his Mom had gone through with his Dad, he just wasn't ready for all that again.  He didn't want to deny Mom happiness.  He really didn't.  But if he could put it off just one more day, he would.

"It's a long story," David said.  "I promise.  I'll tell it to you later, if you really want to know.  But for now, if it's all right, could we just play the game?"

Dona could see the hurt and pain in his eyes.  She wanted to know, but she respected that he wasn't ready.  She would be a good friend, and maybe someday, sometime, when they were holding hands and looking into each other's eyes....

He sat down and tried to focus on the game.  He just wasn't ready.  He closed his eyes, and pictured the many bruises his Mom had sported.  He just wasn't ready for even the remote possibility of going through that again. 

He just wasn't ready for Mom to crown a new King of the household.