Bell
BY Michael Boyce
Illustration by Duncan Walker
Bell is a boy. That is his name, Bell. It gets him into trouble.
The queen will never let him date her daughter.
He thinks maybe he should change his name to w. He thinks that would be cool. He imagines how he’d tell people:
— What’s your name?
— w.
— Double U? How do you spell that?
— w.
— Oh.
With a name like that, everyone would think he was a star. And he could date the daughter of the queen, no problem.
Her name is 23. That might seem a stranger name than Bell. But from where they’re from it’s not, especially if you’re royalty. She is the daughter of the queen, and she can call her anything.
Names like w and x and y and r—names that are just letters—are kind of cool, and perhaps mysterious, and are the kinds of names that stars would choose. And everybody likes a star, so of course they like their names.
Because stars are glamorous, they think they ought to have names like that, that show how different they are from everybody else. You can’t admire them if you think they’re just ordinary people. And if you have a name like that, and you aren’t a star, then people will just laugh at you and think you’re a nut.
Bell is not a star. But is he on his way to being one?
Well, in his head he is. But there are no outside signs.
But he does live in the court. Things are better for people living in the court, even for an outsider like Bell.
But relatively speaking, things are not that great for Bell. Bell is not the name anyone would choose, except the naming chief who named him Bell.
You’re not supposed to choose or change your name unless you’re royalty, or if you are a star.
Sometimes villains change their names, and they are kind of stars—in their own way, they are stars.
Everyone’s ashamed to say they think some villains are like stars, and they like their villain names. Names like Glass, and Pain, and Dr. Ne’er-do-well are certainly great names. You have to be a special kind of villain to have a name like that.
And it’s hard to admit that they are kind of like stars, but they really are. It’s a sad state of affairs, because they are nefarious.
Bell likes to walk, and walk, and walk. Most people in the court don’t bother walking much. They get driven everywhere. You’d think their legs would turn to mush with all the sitting they do.
But they also like to go and run inside the courthall hamster wheel. Some of them go run there every day for like an hour, maybe two. So they’re actually quite fit.
But Bell does not go there. He is just not into that. It’s too conspicuous, the way he feels, with everybody checking everybody out. He can’t stand the way it makes him feel.
And anyway, he likes to walk. Walking helps him think. All of his ideas come to him when he is walking to somewhere. Or even more so when he’s only walking for the sake of it. Like he is today, which is when he had the thought that he should change his name to w.
