1
Earth - 2098
Darwin L. Caldwell, III was a big name for a little boy. When Darwin went to nursery school, his name was too hard for the other toddlers to pronounce. The kids picked up the nickname Dancey and since then everyone, even his mother, call him that. Dancey was twelve now and he'd lived in the same house and gone to the same school ever since he could remember.
Dancey didn't much like school. He'd rather play football or basketball instead of learn why the Pilgrims came to America and what the first Thanksgiving was like. He liked his friends and one other thing Dancey liked was peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Since his mom packed his first Spiderman lunch box when he was in nursery school, Dancey had eaten a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch every day. It was his favorite food other than pizza, but even Dancey knew you couldn't eat pizza everyday.
He'd learned that one Christmas when his cousins, Frank and Marvin, came home from Germany. Their mom and dad were both in the Army and they'd been in a foreign country for three years. When they arrived a week before the holiday, they couldn't wait to have a real pizza. Dancey didn't know what they meant. He was only seven then and pizza had always been real. Dancey's dad, Darwin L. Caldwell, II, for whom Dancey took his name, called the pizza store and ran out to get the food. Dancey was glad his cousins were there. They were bigger than he was, seventeen or twenty-eight, he didn't know which. One of them could even drive. He thought it was the bigger one. He must have been seventeen years old.
Dancey's dad came back with two large pizza's. "Wow!" Dancey said. They never got more than one and a medium one at that. Dancey's mom didn't like pizza. He thought she must be the only person in America who didn't eat pizza. She did eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and she was his mom so he forgave her and he could always eat her share of the pizza.
The next day they went Christmas shopping, just his cousins and him. Dancey felt grown up. They wanted him to come with them, not like his older sister, Andrea, who was always on the phone and always closing her door in his face. After they had spent time in the Arcade, where his mom only let him go for half an hour, they bought some Christmas presents and went to eat again.
"Why don't we have pizza," Dancey suggested.
"I think I'd like some pizza," Frank, the older one, said.
They went to the food court and ate pizza until Dancey's stomach was so full he had to hold it to get back to the car.
Frank and Dancey and Marvin, spent part of their days together each day and they always had pizza. By the day before Christmas, when the crush of people in the mall was so close they had to hold on to each other, Dancey couldn't eat another slice.
"Dancey, it's time to go." His mom was in the kitchen. She called him every morning at this time so he wouldn't miss the bus.
"I'm ready." Dancey replaced his toothbrush and ran down the stairs. He got his coat and backpack.
"Here's your lunch."
He knew what it was, but he opened the bag and peered inside to see what the snacks were. His grandmother's home-baked cookies, a yogurt and a granola bar. He smiled and kissed his mom goodbye.
"Remember to say goodbye to all your friends. We'll be gone on Monday.
Dancey's mom another job and his whole family was moving to another planet, a place call Antar. Dancey's mom and dad had shown him the pictures. The whole family had gone to visit during his summer holidays, but today was his last day at school. On Monday, he'd enter a new school with people he'd met only once, during their last tour. Today they were having a party for him. He knew it because Karen Cefelli had told him.
Karen was his best friend. They had met the first day of nursery school and been friends ever since. She was pretty cool for a girl and she hadn't got all crazy like some of the other girls in his class. They giggled all the time and whenever he looked at them they looked away and giggled some more.
Karen moved to North Carolina when they were eight. Since then he only saw her during school. They got to eat lunch together before he went to play basketball with the other boys. Karen liked peanut butter and jelly sandwiches too, but she didn't eat them everyday the way he did.
Dancey boarded the airbus that whisked him and his six grade friends skyward to the Sixth Grade Educational Facility in Fargo, North Dakota. Next year everybody would go on to the Seventh Grade Educational Facility. He would miss them. The Seventh Grade facility was in Grand Canyon, Arizona. Dancey liked Arizona. He hoped they'd have a place like that at his new school.
The party began at two o'clock, an hour before they would board the bus for the two minute trip to his New Jersey neighborhood. Dancey had been called to the office to say goodbye to the principal and the secretaries. When he got back to his room there was a large cake. His name was on it, written in chocolate letters. Around the room the kids had made a paper sign that said "Farewell Dancey, We'll Miss You." Dancey hadn't cried since he was seven and his cousins left to go to Texas, but he wanted to cry then; his last day. On his desk were brightly colored boxes with presents inside them.
Dancey left, waving goodbye to everyone and promising to keep in touch with his Linkphone. Link was a system that kept all the planets in communication with each other. The Linkphone could dial any number in a seven planet area. He was glad Antar was one of the seven.
Antar didn't look much like Earth. The ground was mostly sandy colored. The trees and shrubs looked like someone had washed the color out of them. After three months Dancey didn't notice them anymore. He liked their new house and his new air wheels. In his room was a scanner that told about the things happening on Earth and the six other planets in the complex. Dancey liked tuning in and watching his old neighborhood. He could only do it for a few minutes because the time and space differential gave him only a small window of time when everyone was awake and inside.
He couldn't talk to Karen as much as he had before but she understood.
"Dancey, it's time to go," his mom called him just as she'd done in the old house.
"I'm here." He walked into the kitchen. He knew she wanted the breakfast dishes clean before she left for work. She lifted a glass and put it into the cabinet.
"Here's your lunch."
Dancey took the container and opened it. His mom didn't go through her usual ritual. She just stared at him.
"What's the matter," Dancey asked.
"You know we could only bring a few things from Earth," she began.
Dancey nodded. "That's why we sold all our old furniture."
"We also have to use the foods we can get here. It's part of keeping the economy going."
Dancey didn't understand about economy, but he pretended he did.
"That means you'll have to eat the lunches at school."
"Why? They make the nastiest food in the Nourishment Center. How anybody can eat that stuff is beyond me. I hate it."
"I know you do." His mom frowned. She didn't frown often unless he and his sister were fighting. "The supplies we brought with us are almost gone and we ran out of peanut butter and jelly this morning. You have your last peanut butter and jelly sandwich."
Dancey rushed to the cleaning unit. Standing there was the sterilized jar that had contained their peanut better. Next to it was an equally clean and disinfected jar that once held grape jelly.
"Can't we get some more?"
"They don't sell it on Antar."
"Why can't we order it from Earth?"
"It has to do with the economy. In order for things to be self-sustaining, the planet must produce things here and we can only eat the foods that are grown and produced here. The government only allows a few things to be imported."
"Can't we get them to add peanut butter and jelly to the list?"
His mom smiled. "We can try, honey, but from what I've heard the list is very long and other people have made requests that have never been filled."
"We can try anyway?"
"Yes," she smiled. "We can try anyway."
Dancey hadn't taken the news too well and a month later they had not received a reply from the Supply Administrator's Office. Dancey had written a letter himself and mailed it to the electronic post office of the director, but he hadn't heard anything. Each day he'd open his lunch container to find something he didn't like as much as he liked peanut butter and jelly.
By the fourth month, Dancey knew he'd never have another peanut butter and jelly sandwich. He tried to get used to the golan or eider sandwiches, but each day he'd frown when it was time to eat lunch.
Then one day Dancey sat staring at the glass panels that showed the history of Altar's formation. It was then it came to him.
"Mom! Mom!" he shouted when he heard her come through the door.
"Dancey, are you all right? Is something wrong?"
"Wrong, no. I have an idea. Mom, I can make peanut butter and jelly."
Dancey's mom put her bag on the table and sat down. "What do you mean?"
Dancey was so excited. He'd worked everything out. All he needed was his Mom and Dad to say it was all right and he'd call Karen.
Dancey took a deep breath. He'd been waiting for her to get home all evening. "I want to call Karen and ask her to send me some peanut seed and grape seed. I'll plant them and grow them and when their ready I'll pick them and make peanut butter and jelly. Can I, Mom? Please say yes, please."
Dancey hadn't been this excited in months. Since they'd arrived on Altar, she'd been concerned about him. When the last of the peanut butter and jelly was gone, he'd seemed to lose some part of himself. Dancey's mom looked into his pleading eyes. She didn't want to tell him about rules and regulations, about the Farming Ministry and their regulation of what could and could not be grown on Altar. Dancey was excited. It was like asking for a pet, one in which you learned responsibility by caring for it and tending to it. Dancey would need to do a lot of hard work if his garden was to grow and even more if he actually brought in a crop.
"...grandma knows," he was saying when his mother's attention came back to him. "She remembers seeing her mother do it. Please, Mom, let me try."
"You can try, Dancey. Go call Karen."
He went away happy. Dancey's mom called the Farming Ministry. She had a friend who worked there and it was only through this friendship that she got permission for Dancey to receive peanut and grape seeds.
The summer of his twelfth year, he was like a new child. He spent hours reading everything he could about growing peanuts and grapes. He planted, watered, tended his garden, kept the weeds down and the pests under control. At the end of that summer, Dancey brought in the first crop of peanuts and grapes that had ever been grown on Altar.
"Smile, Dancey," the scanner man said. Dancey had been photographed and scanned for transmissions over the seven planet network. He didn't want any more pictures. He didn't want to make news. He wanted to make a sandwich. He smiled and let them get their story and finally they left.
The next morning Dancey's grandmother arrived from Earth. She brought sugar and jars and something called a hot water bath. It was only a big pot with a rack in the bottom, but by the end of the day Dancey had twenty jars of grape jelly. His mother had baked and sliced bread, something she hadn't done since they had the last of the peanut butter and jelly. Dancey made a jelly sandwich with the last of the jelly left in the pan and crooned at how good it tasted.
"Can we make the peanut butter tomorrow?" he asked between bites.
"Yes," his grandmother told him.
Before the end of the week, they had brought in the entire crop, even Dancey's sister helped to pick the peanuts. They crushed them and ground them into a paste. His grandmother told them of a machine that could do it, but Dancey wanted to do it himself. They removed the oil that collected on the top and skimmed it off. Dancey continued to churn the mixture. It got thicker and harder for him until his dad had to help him.
When his sister, in one of her rare congenial moods, finished the neatly printed labels they set them onto the jars. Dancey had enough peanut butter and jelly to last two years. He couldn't wait two years. His mom made a sandwich for everyone and that night their entire family sat down to a dinner of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Dancey had never been happier.