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She was a Brownie in Maryland, holding Melissa’s hand as they walked to meetings.
She was a Brownie in a different troop in California, walking to meetings by herself because Melissa had taken a stand against wearing the beanie.
She was a Girl Scout in California too, getting up extra early to go door to door selling cookies, because she wasn’t about to let Cynthia Clark, who was in her troop and lived on the same base, get all the orders.
And now, in Virginia, she’s standing on a dark path in front of eight ten-year-olds, showing them how to crunch Wintergreen Life Savers to make sparks.There’s a chorus of shouts— “Cool!” and “My mouth is glowing!” and “How come it works that way, Susanna’s mom?” (Carly always addresses Scully and her co-leader as “Susanna’s mom” and “Miyoshi’s mom,” no matter how many times they tell her she can call them Dana and Chiyo.)“It’s called triboluminescence,” she explains.
“You can see it in the Life Savers because the wintergreen oil is fluorescent.”
The girls ooh and ah and continue to crunch the Life Savers with gusto.
Susanna beams with pride.“All right, let’s keep walking,” Chiyo says.
“Make sure you hang on to your buddy.
We’re going to head back to the tents.”
Chiyo leads the group and Scully brings up the rear, the four pairs of girls between them.
This is their first camping trip as a troop—Scully and Chiyo had to get an extra certification to take them—and they’ve been very excited about it, talking about almost nothing else for the past few meetings.
They voted unanimously to put some of the money they earned from cookie sales (which were high this year, partly thanks to Mulder, who’s a soft touch when it comes to their daughter’s salesmanship) into buying camping supplies, and now they all have matching luminous combination compass-whistles on lanyards around their necks.
They practiced using the compasses earlier today, although Scully explained that the whistles were only for if they got separated from the group and is relieved that, so far, they haven’t been put into action.
She’s proud of the girls; they’ve been excited, too, about getting their Camper badges, and she thinks that they’ll have more than earned them.They have two small tents, each for one of the leaders and four of the girls.
Scully gathers up her group—Susanna, Carly, Sarah, and Rebecca—and leads them in.
“Okay, everyone,” she says.
“Time to get into your pajamas.”There are a lot of questions and comments during the process.
“Susanna’s mom, can you help me with my sleeping bag?
The zipper’s stuck.”“Giant spider, giant spider!”“What if we have to go to the bathroom at night?
I don’t want to go back there.”“Are we going to have any more marshmallows?”
Scully helps with the offending zipper, lets Susanna catch the spider and usher it outside the tent, and tells the girls that they can walk to the latrines and that yes, however gross they may be, the latrines are the only options right now.
She checks the marshmallow supplies; there are just a few left, enough for them to have one each, and she hands them around.
They’ll be brushing their teeth soon anyway, and it saves having to secure their sweets where animals can’t get at them.They go over to the little cabin to do that, once they’re in their pajamas.
Scully chats with Chiyo by the sinks.
“Anything else we need to do now?” Chiyo asks.Scully shakes her head.
“I think we’re good.
I’m setting an alarm for seven so we can get them up.”“That part ought to be fun,” Chiyo says with a laugh.
“Take getting a kid up in the morning and multiple it by eight.
What could go wrong?”Scully laughs too.
“Maybe they’ll like getting up here more than they like getting up for school.
We can hope, anyway.”
They get the girls to finish up and apply last coatings of bug spray before going back to the tents.
Susanna falls into step beside Scully as they walk, and Scully smiles down at her.
“Having fun?” she asks.“So much fun,” Susanna says.
“It’s like an adventure.
Like all those times you and Dad told me about.”
Susanna loves their stories from their days on the X-Files; Mulder’s usually the one to start telling them, but Scully always finds herself joining in, because she figures if Susanna’s going to hear them she wants her to hear what actually happened, without exaggerations or outright flights of fancy.
Whoever’s talking, though, Susanna always hangs on every word, full of questions, full of wonder.“Well, I hope it doesn’t turn out like any of those,” Scully says.Susanna shrugs.
“If it did, you’d know what to do about it.
And we could all help.”
They’re back at the tent now, and she burrows into her sleeping bag: it’s got purple and blue stripes, and she picked it out herself.
“Good night, Mom.”“Good night, Susanna,” Scully says.
“Good night, girls.”
They say their good nights, and then there’s whispering for a while after that; she lets it go on for a bit and then shushes them, telling them they need to get their sleep.Scully’s awake for a little while longer, though.
She doesn’t relish the idea of having to defend their troop from murderous mites or mothmen, but she’s touched, all the same, that Susanna thinks she could.
She’s glad that these things are stories to Susanna, something she sees as an adventure, as easily defeated: she’s never had to face anything like that, and Scully’s more grateful than she can say.
They’ve kept her safe.
And she wouldn’t have imagined it, but here she is, at sixty-four, spending the night in the woods again, just to take her daughter on a Girl Scout camping trip.
One with nothing untoward in sight.
Except that spider, which has made its way back into the tent—or maybe it’s a different spider, there’s really no way to tell.
It certainly is giant, though.
She makes a few efforts to get it out through the tent flap, which it resists.
She hopes that Susanna’s confidence in her ability to surmount all problems isn’t misplaced.
Eventually she sleeps.