Geff and Jerald

Free Time

I push my legs into the surprisingly sweaty pant holes. "Ugh, it smells like rotten eggs, and no amount of soap can kill the smell."

"Think again. Mine smells like a week-old ham sandwich. Or wet dog. I'm still not sure."

"Can you guys quit complaining? I still have you the overalls. Now hurry up, because I'm going out later to go to my job."

"What job?"

"The bakery to the right of the town square. I like it because they give me free eclairs. Sweet, huh?"
We adjusted the straps, and we were good to go. Jerald turns around and scratches his back. I couldn't help but laugh when I saw a big 'INMATE 935' plastered onto his back. "What else? Should we get a mug shot, too?" Jerald looks behind him. "Uh, huh."

"Mom?"

"Yes, dear?"

"The party's gonna start in a few minutes. Can we go now, please?"

"Why, of course." I head to leave, but I heard an *ahem* behind me. I go back and give her a hug. She gives me a kiss goodbye and I go towards the door. "What is that smell?"

"Uh, I had a tuna salad for lunch. It was a pretty fishy, and you know what I mean." She laughs. "Have fun!" And with that, I left and meet the guys outside. "We all ready? Did you forget anything? Because we ain't comin' back."

"Yeah, I got everything." T.J reached into his backpack. "Here. We need as much orange as we can." He handed me and Jerald an orange cap. "Try not to.... you know....get close to people. We don't want to get kicked out for 'hygiene issues'."

MOMENTS LATER...

There were two adults at the double doors. They asked for our names, and they let us inside. When we were in, I heard some voices outside.

*sniff sniff* "Did you fart, Bill?"

"Says the one who ate the three cans of black beans earlier."

"What? That passed a while ago. That couldn't have been me."

"Well it wasn't me. Who was it then?"

"Not me. You—"

"IT WASN'T ME!" I heard some strange sounds. I got away from the door. "Where's the stuff being held at?" I ask. Gabe points over to a blue table in the corner of the room. There was a ball of guys with some papers next to them. "Hey, this is where you sign up for the games, right?"

The guy looks up. "Huh? Oh, yeah. You gotta take this darned thing and choose the activities you wanna participate in. Once you do, I'll give you the tickets and you should be on your way."

We picked out the ones that we had the most chances in us winning.

Egg Race: No.
Eating Contest: Yes.
Parkour: Yes.
Three-Legged-Race: NO
Shootout: Yes

Once the votes were counted, we had to pick who would do what. One of us wasn't going to be able to participate. Gabe said he should be the person that sits out. "I'm just too good," he says. "I might blow you away." T.J rolls his eyes and checks the time. "We gotta hurry up and come to an agreement. It's gonna start in a couple of minutes."

"I'll do the eating contest," T.J offered.

"I think I should do the Parkour," Jerald replies. "I ran an obstacle course run a few weeks back."

"And I'll do the shootout!" I finally say. Gabe whispers a quiet (but not so quiet) 'yes'.

"You got away this time, Gabe. If someone gets hurt, you're filling in for them."

"Wha—okay." He walks back and gives us a thumbs-up. I then hear him scream. This only means one thing. He was gonna go raid the snack table. Some girls scream back, but not in a good way. Anyway. I go through a few people until I reached the small striped booth. The guns were lined up, and there was a guy next to the wall playing a game on his Game Boy. He had a giant roll of tickets in his right hand. I took a deep breath and marched through more people. I run to it and I bump into somebody and hit my nose. Rubbing it, I take a look around. "Piece of.... Hey!" I took a second to realize it was Jane who was there. I couldn't recognize much, since she was wearing an orange dress instead of her normal blue overalls. I helped her up. "What are you doing here?"

"I was gonna ask you the same thing. Say, what going on here? Why did you come? I normally don't see you around here."

I would explain the hat situation to her, but I was too busy to whip up a whole conversation. "I'll see you later, bye." She was still confused, but right now I couldn't help her. I shuffled away to a sad-looking red couch. I had to sit on the side, because there was a sticky, wet spot on the right. I told Jerald to not sit there. He sat down next to it. "We're gonna put all the tickets on this coffee table," I say. He looks around. "What coffee table?" I drag one in from a former book nook. "This coffee table. Now where are your tickets?"

"I got them, right here in my pockets."

"You have multiple pockets?"

"At least Inmate 935 does." He dumps it onto the table. T.J comes some time later. He had a fist over his mouth. "How was it?" I asked him. He said nothing, and instead responded with a long burp. "I will never look at a turkey sandwich the same way ever again." He fishes some tickets out of his pocket and dumps them on the halfway full table. "Bam. I probably should've done the 'sitting out' job. Eating isn't exactly my firstborn talent." We wait for Gabe to come with us. "Why, though?"

"If we somehow forget about him, he won't be able to come home. Then Jane and his family will get worried and all that jazz." Right then a guy stumbled across a table and tripped. "Hey guys, I'm here! And I brought some tickets with me. It's just a few, so we shouldn't spend them too fast." That 'little bit' he said was a gigantic amount. "What?!!? Where'd all these come from?"

Gabe scratched underneath his cap. "These girls paid me to stop bothering them."

"Yeah, that's cool. Wait, they paid you to stop bothering them?"

"They had no idea what to do with their tickets. And hey, maybe I was looking under the table, and they thought I was looking there, but I wasn't, I swear! I dropped one of the snacks!"

We pile it all up. "Goodness gracious wackadoodle's corn farm and biscuits! This is a lot of tickets!"

"Man, that's a long sentence. Let's go over and see what we can actually buy with this thing!" Jerald grabs some of it and the others grab the remaining pieces. "Now, where's the ticket store?"

"Ticket store?" Gabe asks. "But we already have tickets! Why would we want more?"

"No, ticket store means the place where you use your tickets, not buy them! If they were that easy, then there wouldn't be games."

"Ohhhh." There was a red, scratchy counter in the distant corner. The lights were dimmed, and all I could see was a tiny red dot. It took me a minute to realize it was a man smoking. He pressed his cigarette onto a halfway full ashtray. He scratched his beard and finally spoke. "What can I do for you guys? I got a bunch of stuff in stock, feel free to look around." I scavenge the whole wall for my hat. I see a tag. It read, 'spare farmr hat'. What an accurately named thing. Not too creatively named, though. "Hey, can you..."

"Huh? Hm, oh yeah." He moves aside and I can finally see the full picture. I gasp.

The hat is gone.