Ten Interesting Facts about Mission City

1. People from Mission City are called Missionaries, just like the ones who go to Africa and everything. Only mostly they stay home instead.

2. It was founded in 1895, as a logging town. So that's why there aren't any trees anymore, except behind the hill at my house.

3. There was going to be an electric railroad connecting Mission City to the Twin Cities, but then the company ran out of money, so there wasn't.

4. The government was having a competition for what town they should put a new prison in. Mission City wanted it the most and said we could give them the land for the cheapest, so we got it.

5. Mission City's other industry was bootlegging alcohol down from Canada, during Prohibition. My Aunt Betty Parker was the only girl bootlegger, but she was the best one.

6. Also she made her own hooch in a still in the basement. And she still does whenever there's a party in town.

7. The third mayor of Mission City was Stace MacGyver. He was a Scottish immigrant and used to build ships in Glasgow, but he didn't like the sea so he moved as far away from it as he could.

8. The Stuart family were town blacksmiths for years and years. They used to tell people they were related to the Scottish kings, but it probably isn't true.

9. The Chrysanthemum Cafe was started in 1930, the year they started building the prison, so that there would be hot coffee for all the construction workers.

10. The prison closed in 1973. Everybody is still mad about this.

"Teacher said I couldn't put my list on the wall like everybody else's," Penny reports tearfully. "Even though I made sure to spell everything right, and it's all true. Some of the other kids just made stuff up."

Aunt Betty laughs, in that loud way that means somebody's in trouble. She doesn't think it's her, though. "We'll see about that!"

They go down to the school, and talk to Principal. Aunty Betty talks about making a donation to the school, to cover the choir's annual outing. That makes him very happy.

"Oh yes, there's one more thing. I hear that there's going to be a school celebration night in honour of the town's founding. I'd like one of the teachers to read my niece's essay out loud, I feel it's a very perceptive piece."

"Of course!" Principal says heartily. "I'm sure I have every confidence in young Miss Parker."

But it causes an awful ruckus that night when Miss Saperson, blushing rosily, reads off the list in a very faltering voice.

Penny can't understand why.

After all, everything in it is perfectly true- and isn't that what matters?

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"I hate this stupid coffee shop. I hate it!"

Wonderingly, Penny goes round the back of the place, down the gently rolling slope to the garden and chicken coops. (She's walking home from school, on account of having forgotten today is Saturday). Little Becky Grahme is sitting on the stone wall, throwing grain at the ducks and scowling.

"I think it's the nicest coffee shop in the whole world," Penny says loyally.

"Unca Mac doesn't," Becky says, full of five-year old injustice. "He hates it too. And we came all this way, and I wanted a story from him, and he can't tell me one because he's busy waiting on customers. If he didn't have a coffee shop he could tell me a story."

Ooh. A solo performance! Her very first!

"I'll tell you a story. Any kind of story, what would you like?"

"It's our story," Becky says, still scowling. "With the smartest princess ever, and she makes all kinds of things in her kingdom, like an ice cream machine and a rocket horse and stuff. Unca Mac's the only one who tells it right. You can't."

Audiences are hard. But good performers don't let that distract them.

"I could tell a different kind of story about her. Like if she went visiting another kingdom, maybe?"

Becky's mouth opens into a little O of surprise. Penny presses her advantage. "I bet she'd just love to talk to another princess. And they can tell each other about things they've discovered, and build something together."

"...maybe."

She doesn't really know how much Mac has taught Becky (Mac can talk about science with anybody), so sticks to stuff that she knows off by heart. How the princesses make a lightning tower, but they're perfectly safe from it as long as they're careful to stay in a special cage...

"Can it be a glass cage? So it'll be pretty?"

"No, they have to make it out of conductive materials. Glass isn't conductive. But I guess they could make it out of gold, so it'd be shiny."

Becky nods vigorously. "Okay. You're smart. Mom tried to tell me a story like this once, but she got all the science wrong, and I had to go get the encyclopedia and show her. Then she got mad."

(It's the first time in Penny Parker's life that anyone has ever called her smart. Twenty years later, when she's a successful Hollywood actress with write-ups in magazines and fans galore, it's still one of her most satisfying performance memories.)

"You know what else would work? You could try silver. That's even more conductive than gold, and reflective enough that you can make mirrors out of it."

It's Mac, still brushing cookie crumbs off his jeans. "I'm sorry I've missed this. Ellen finally got herself out of bed- anyway, I'm on parole now. Nice to hear someone else in Mission City talking science."

Becky brightens up, runs over to hug him. "Hiya! Penny was telling me a story, and I thought it'd be awful. But it wasn't."

He grins. "D'you mind a co-star?"

"Glad to!"

The two of them finish the story together, bouncing ideas back and forth, while Becky listens enraptured.