Geff and Jerald

Mail

The dirt was moist from yesterday's rain. I opened the mailbox. What did I expect more? A bunch of cheesy magazines and bills. Lots of adult stuff. I shuffled through the papers until I passed by a bright yellow flyer. It had a bunch of balloons on it. Very decorative, I thought. I went back and Jerald was in the kitchen, making mac n' cheese. Yummy smells filled the whole area. "Since when were you Mr. Professional Chef?" He turned around and greeted me. "Well, it's courtesy of the farm. Mom's a good teacher. You should use some of the recipes that I've written down instead of playing Tetris in our room." I laughed a little. Then, instead of showing Jerald the flyer, I folded it and slid it into my back pocket. I would tell him later. "It's pretty boring without Mom around." Jerald nodded agreeingly. We both ate and afterwards we went outside to get some air. I brought our red ball and Max too. We hadn't forgot about the little guy. Speaking of, we made a doghouse for him a few days ago. He really liked it, and I did too. Too bad I couldn't fit inside. But it was still great.  

Throwing the ball around was fun, but some days things get boring over time, and this was one of those days. So I finally kicked it and sent it flying towards the forest. "You're getting it." Jerald grunted and spat in the dirt. "I always get it. You get it!" We settled it with a game of rock-paper-scissors. He won out, and I ended up getting the ball. 

Max ran up to me, tail wagging. This was no surprise, since he was always chock-full of energy. I moved around the bushes and searched for a while. The ball was nowhere in sight, and Max was getting reckless. I threw a stick far away so he could leave me alone. Before I went back I began to worry that he wouldn't come back. I called his name, but no answer (or bark) came back. It didn't take me long to find him, since he was a white blob in between a forest full of green. His little head turned towards me and shot an unfamiliar bark at me. "What is it, boy?" He was right next to the ball, but he was interested in something else. He stood up on his hind legs and started scratching a tree. But it didn't make the regular tree sound. It sounded.... hollow. I knocked on it. "Is something inside? Is it.....a fake tree? I felt around for an opening. 

"Hey Geff! You comin', man?" Jerald called. 

I patted the side. "I'm coming!" The side felt more of an echo than the other side. As predicted, I pressed it and it sank in and came loose. "It's a secret compartment?" I look inside and found nothing. Darn. I felt around. There was a small bulge there, but I thought I would save that for another day. I ran back and we went inside. Mom still wasn't home. Jerald tilled the dirt quickly and we took a board game out of the closet. I roll first and we continue to move across the board. I get a card that was pretty strong. We finish off the game and I get up. As I do so, the flyer slips out of my pocket and Jerald picks it up. "What's this? Some sort of kidult party?" he flipped it. "Why did you keep this?"

"Uhh, I was gonna show you after we ate, but you weren't in a good mood. So I decided to show you later." 

"What, you found this in the mail, right?"

"Ye- wait. How did you know?"

"I know  a lot about mail experiences. Besides, I saw through the window that you were particularly interested in a  piece of mail, which you haven't done in a while. So there you have it." I nodded and he read the rest. "So it's a mile or two down the road, right? We could ask if we could go, Mom might say yes, since she's been wanting us to go outside recently."

BOOM!!!!!

A big crack of thunder just struck outside. "Aw, c'mon! Another storm?" More thunder came. "It's more frequent than last time. It's getting closer." Jerald continued to look outside while I investigated a strange sound coming from the other side of the room. It was the phone. My phone. How-- I answered it anyway. "What is it? Did someone call?"

"Uh-huh."

It wasn't a call. It was a voicemail from Mom. I played it, but it wasn't very good quality because of the storm outside. 

"Work.........time.......extra.......*STATIC*.......home.......later......check.....okay--" And that was it. "I think she's trying to say that she's coming home, late?" Jerald said. Oh, no. How were we gonna handle the leaks with her gone? This was not good. "She's probably worried sick about us! We have to somehow tell her we're okay." 

"But how? We wouldn't survive five seconds out there! The only thing that can traverse through that thing is a car. Too bad we have one..." I thought for a while until something came up. "But the mail guy does!" We looked around for a piece of paper. "No! Don't we have some sort of recorded message?" Jerald said, disappointed. "Don't worry. We still have that double-sided tape that Gabe gave us!" I ran upstairs and took it back downstairs. "We can record a new message..." I flip it, but there's something already on it. "What--" I show Jerald. 

"log_1.mp4," he read. "What does that mean?"

"I have no clue." He brought the cassette player. The side which read the unusual title was scraped and dirty, as if someone dropped that side in the mud. But how did Gabe get this? Did he even notice? Who knows, I thought. But right there and then Jerald brought the cassette player and put the tape in. Slowly and slightly distorted, the sounds of the tape started playing.