No, the mortifying thing was when Big Deal came out and sent the kings slinking away with a single glare. Which was okay-people made fun of him for spacing out he was used to it. Now, whenever they found him, they delivered some zinger they found so hilarious they had to double over and grab their knees. Space Man they’d dubbed him, claiming they’d had to yell at him three times before he’d lifted his head.

The first time the Twin Kings had come across Ware, he’d been cheek down in the grass, watching a line of ants patiently climb up, then over, then down a rock, thinking about how much harder human life would be if people didn’t know they could just go around some obstacles.

Luck of the draw: serf or knight, you lived with it. Back then, kings could be kind and wise, kings could be cruel and crazy. Ware had studied the Middle Ages in school. They weren’t kings either, but they paraded around Sunset Palms Retirement Village like royal tyrants, making life miserable for anyone they encountered. The Twin Kings weren’t twins, just two old men who dressed alike in plaid shorts and bucket hats. He whispered the voice-over, in case anyone had their windows open, or the Twin Kings were lurking around. The boy began to prepare himself for the big event. He swirled his legs through the water, turquoise in the twilight, and at exactly 7:56, he snapped on his goggles and adjusted them snug. Tomorrow he’d bash them into chips to build the ramparts of his castle, but tonight he had another use for them. Ware patted the two bricks stacked beside him on the pool deck, scored on the morning’s ramble. Thou shalt be always the champion of the Right and Good-and vows to save the lot.īut what does a hero look like in real life? And what can two misfit kids do? Read more As different as Ware and Jolene are, though, they have one thing in common: for them, the lot is a refuge.īut when their sanctuary is threatened, Ware looks to the knights’ Code of Chivalry: Thou shalt do battle against unfairness wherever faced with it. Jolene scoffs, calling him a dreamer-he doesn’t live in the “real world” like she does. Soon he starts skipping Rec, creating a castle-like space of his own in the church lot. On his first day Ware meets Jolene, a tough, secretive girl planting a garden in the rubble of an abandoned church next to the camp.

But then his parents sign him up for dreaded Rec camp, where he must endure Meaningful Social Interaction and whatever activities so-called “normal” kids do.

Ware can’t wait to spend summer “off in his own world”-dreaming of knights in the Middle Ages and generally being left alone. From the author of the highly acclaimed, New York Times bestselling novel Pax comes a gorgeous and moving middle grade novel that is an ode to introverts, dreamers, and misfits everywhere.

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