Penny Coppercoin was walking along her favorite avenue with the deserted old buildings, imagining what life must have been like when the cities were still populated. She heard stories from her grandmother and saw holograms of it in her classes at school: people covered the sidewalks going every which way, in and out of buildings. She wondered how people found their way or remembered which corner was which, or how they lived in all the cement and brick buildings. She like the ancient, old, bent-metal sign on the road in that said "Nashville" from over a hundred years ago. Her grandmother told her that's what the city used to be called. Cities used to have names that they made up, usually named after the first people and what they called themselves or places. Of course around 2050 they realized how politically incorrect this was, and that's when they renamed all the areas to represent the House of the United States. The northeast where the capital still was, was the Bedroom, where everything happened behind closed doors, and the middle was the Living Room, because that's where most of the low-key suburban living happened, and the southeast corner where Penny Coppercoin lived in was the Garden.
Penny often snuck out during the day, when the rest of the world was sleeping. After the Great Skin Diseases of the 2070s happened, the United States transitioned to the Nocturnal Clock, and the rest of the world quickly followed suit. Because of this, everyone deserted the hot cement cities in search of the countryside and forests, and built their houses below the earth, to stay cool while sleeping. Penny Coppercoin would go out with her best friend and sidekick, Lincoln the Lightning Bug, and it was much easier for them to go unnoticed during the day, when his flickering flame wouldn't be seen as well.
Penny and Lincoln were playing around a huge old electric guitar when Lincoln started glowing off and on faster and faster.
"Oh no, Lincoln! You're right, it is getting dark, everyone is going to be waking up soon! We need to get home and get in bed before Mom finds out!" Penny cried. She strapped on her backpack and went running down the pavement. It always hurt her feet, but she liked the feeling of resistance. Lincoln zoomed ahead, glowing on and off and lighting the way back into the forest.
They ran fast out of the town and into the lush forest as the afternoon was ending and the humid heat was just starting to cool with a river breeze. Penny was running full force, jumping over small hills and tree roots, dodging branches and brambles, and she recognized their civilization coming in with the flags propped up on poles in the earth, signaling the rooftops of homes and nearby stairwells leading down into them. As she was rushing past one, though, she past by the warm smell of hot, fresh bread, and stopped in her tracks.
"Wait Lincoln!" she shouted ahead to the fluttering insect. "Do you smell that?"
Lincoln came rushing back and blinked in her face.
"We should visit the baker first. We can bring home some bread for Mom," she suggested. Lincoln switched on and off, buzzing loudly his disapproval, knowing it would make them late.
"Well, we'll probably be late anyway, and this way Mom will think we just left to pick up breakfast. Come on!"
With that, Penny turned right and led the way to the riverside, going down the stone steps into the cavernous muddy walls of the bakery until there was almost no light left, and candles lit the way.
Penny and Lincoln found the baker wiping his brow with a flour-covered hand and yawning awake.
"Nickel! Fancy seeing you here so early. What can I get for you?"
Penny was confused. The baker looked a little delirious, and he had called her a weird name, even though he had known her since she was born.
"I'd love two fresh loaves of bread, sir," she said politely, unsure if she should correct him or not.
"You got it, and I'll even throw in a fresh fish or two for being my first customer," he smiled and winked at her. "It'll be just a minute, the loaves were just put in the oven. Hang out with the president," he suggested, waving his hand to the corner of the room. Penny knew something was up with the baker, he didn't sell fish, and it wasn't the president in the corner of the room, it was the mayor, sitting and reading the newspaper.
"Miss Penny Coppercoin!" he declared, lowering the newspaper. "What are you doing up so early?" he asked.
"Oh you know, just getting breakfast sir. How are you?" she asked politely.
"Well I was doing fine, but suddenly my own breakfast is not sitting well with me. I had one of them French pies, you know that quiche or whatever it's called, but I'm thinking I'm going to have to stick to 'Murican food, I do feel a little queasy..." the mayor went a little pale as he talked, and Lincoln flitted in and blinked in front of him.
"Mr. Mayor you don't look very well, should we go up to the riverbank?"
"As a matter of fact, Penny, that's exactly what I'd like to do! You have to see the new house I bought, I've been dying to show someone and I haven't shown anyone yet and I've been thinking that I might die if I don't show someone soon!!" he exclaimed, throwing down the newspaper and bounding down the hall and up the stairs, following by Lincoln, lighting up and down, who seemed to be just as excited as the mayor.
Penny was the last one out, and could just make out the mayor running upriver, shouting over his shoulder "this way! this way!" she sighed and then went running after them full force, following Lincoln's blinking and coming up on a small lopsided wooden shack, with a creaky, uneven swining door that had the cutout of a crescent moon on it.
"This is the new place I just bought!" the mayor declared with pride. "Do you know how hard it is to find old real estate from the Above Ground Era in the forest? I can't go too far or no one would vote for me again ha ha!" he laughed at himself, before putting his hand over his mouth in a wave of nausea that turned his face green.
"Sir? Are you okay?" Penny asked. Lincoln fluttered his concerned.
"Oh yes, yes. Just that quiche that isn't going down. Isn't this great?" he kicked the door to show a tiny, inside with a square floor and a hole dug into the ground, and a putrid smell coming out of it. Penny put her hand over her nose and Lincoln went dark with polite disgust.
"They were called 'outhouses' in their day, they were like a home away from home, and you don't even need to leave to go to the bathroom! You just go over the hole," the mayor beamed with his nauseous green face.
Suddenly Penny remembered a lot of what she had learned in school about the Above Ground Era and old houses.
"Mr. Mayor!" Penny cried. "You can't! This is what is making everyone sick! Your outhouse is going downriver toward the baker's and that's what's poisoning his bread and quiches and making him delirious and you sick!"
The mayor reflected a moment, then turned around and retched into the hole dug in the outhouse.
"My, my, Penny Coppercoin, you are a true detective, a real go-getter, just as bright as your name and you just saved my life and many others' lives. I think you deserve to be Mayor for a Day, what do you say?"
The mayor unpinned his Mayor Medallion from his suit and put it proudly on Penny, and Lincoln the Lightning Bug flickered his approval bright.
"Now, what do you say we go back to the bakery and order up some new bread after this is all sorted out? I'll take you home personally and explain the whole ordeal to your mother, and you'll serve in my spot for the day, and you can even bring that flickering light with you."
Penny Coppercoin didn't have to think twice.
"Race you to the baker's!" she cried, and took off running before the baker or Lincoln knew what had happened.
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