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"So we'd better get cracking; there are only a couple of us left. Most of Troop 136 are dead or moved to Florida. I can probably scare up some warm bodies, though." He peered at the Princess Ackaetia. "Pleased to make your acquaintance, your highness. What can the Boy Scouts of America do for you?" "Recreate my oubliette," said the Princess Ackaetia. "Or your kaleidoscope--it depends on one's point of view, does it not? It is in all our own best interests. Though vast, infinity is a biography of finite numbers: sooner or later the displacement will arrive back where it started, and then Ka-Boom. Good-bye everything. You want me to write this out for you? For any doubters?" "You don't have hands," Simon observed. "You will write. I will dictate," said the Princess. "Some folks won't believe anything until they see it in print," said Harry. * * * “This is it,” announced Simon to Princess Ackaetia with the pride of a swashbuckler showing off his Caribbean redoubt. A solitary traffic light swung in the early evening dark directing three cars at the intersection. The Seniors Center--aside from the traffic light the only light downtown--projected a ferny terracotta ambience. A vigorous eighty-something woman with short-cropped gray hair bustled about inside, setting candles on empty café tables. The sign said Open. Simon and the princess waited, motor running, angle-parked at the curb to see who would show up. At the far end of one line of fluorescent fixtures a plastic pail hung from a leaking sprinkler valve near the ceiling. Beneath it, suffused with an orange Edward Hopper glow, Harry Pease played single-handed Scrabble. Over the next half-hour five gregarious, chatty old-timers straggled in. "Now," said Simon, going around to open the passenger's side door. "Showtime. I hope Harry prepped them to meet you." As Simon entered carrying the Princess Ackaetia and her peach basket, the reunited Scouts flashed them the three-fingered salute. On the walls hung salvaged Norman Rockwell posters celebrating the scouting life. Simon shook the peach basket. "You okay in there?" "I will be when you stop shaking this damned thing." There were now seven in all inside the Seniors Center, Princess Ackaetia's recruits: six men and a woman, a one-time den mother who departed to the kitchen to spread tuna salad on finger rolls. Simon carefully placed the Princess on one of the café tables. A bell on a spring jingled at the front door to announce a late arrival. "Sorry about that--don't trust the airlines." Fleming Ward, called Phlegm in school, had driven all the way from Florida. His eyes fell on the discarded peach basket. "Hiya, Simon. Fresh peaches? What's this?" He reached out to give the Princess Ackaetia a tentative poke. "How intimate. Quel sauvage," giggled the Princess. "That's French," observed Harry. "Reasonably perceptive, Harry Pease." The Princess Ackaetia jiggled in thoughtful reverie. "A grotto. A little French girl. She taught me. French, that is. I taught her the rest. She was so sweet." "A little French girl in a grotto." Fleming known as Phlegm crossed himself. "Saint Bernadette..." "I appeared as a mist," said the Princess. "You might want to check yourself for stigmata. Like nail holes in your palms?” Phlegm Ward checked his palms. "Nope." He blanched and gagged; the Princess had left a slime trail on his hands. "Oh, how delightful." The Princess chortled and rocked, the table teetered. "I have never, ever been to Lourdes; that was just one of my little jokes." "Yuck," said Phlegm. He wiped himself off on his shirt front. * * * Spouses and wondering adult children packed bag lunches, filled thermos bottles and car-pooled their loved ones to the kaleidoscope factory. The spouses and children were not invited in. The Princess Ackaetia held court perched atop a red leatherette barstool as the Seniors Center became a hive of activity. From as far afield as Boston and Toronto bolts of reflective Mylar film, shipping tubes and cartons of plastic lenses arrived by FedEx. "How many is that so far, Harry?" asked the Princess. "Over a thousand, your highness. Twelve hundred thirty-eight exactly." "Statistically sufficient. Pick one and take a peek." Harry lifted a kaleidoscope from the nearest folding banquet table. "Wow! I mean, holy shit." Naked and enticing, the scope virgin was back in the tube. "Precisely. Yes, I am, am I not?" said Princess Ackaetia from her barstool. "Beautiful in whichever aspect, that is." Harry handed off the kaleidoscope to Simon. Simon took a look. First into the kaleidoscope, then at the Princess. "But you're there and here." "As I was when first we met, Simon Alexander..." the naked lady in the tube gave her behind a wiggle. From the barstool the peach basket Princess continued, "...and you should find a telltale circle of charcoal around your eye. It will wash off in a day or so. Another of my little jokes. A memento for when I am gone. If you will all lend a hand, it is time to begin testing the apparatuses." Phlegm Ward came from the kitchen wiping his hands on a wad of paper towels. "OK, I'll play. A big slug says it is a princess. And you guys buy it, all of it." There was a shocked silence followed by shuffling and distancing but Phlegm stood his ground. "Jesus, Mary and Joseph, just what the hell do we get out of all this, anyway?" "That is rude," said the Princess. "Your desires are neither here nor there." Simon handed over Princess Ackaetia's dictation. "Phlegm, read this. She wrote it out for you." Phlegm approached the paper warily like a cat stalking in high, dry grass. He studied it closely from all sides, turned it over, hoping to find enlightenment or at least a coupon on the back. “Sounds like something I’d do drunk. Ka-Boom, huh? Total obliteration--and smack dab in the middle of the NBA playoffs most likely." He turned to the Princess on her red leatherette barstool. "But you still haven't answered my question. What do we get out of this?" "Simon gets pot roast and gravy. I believe his wife has been holding dinner."
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