What Comes After

pebbles, and a couple of rust and tan colored ones along with his aforementioned yellow stone.

"What is this?" he said and held up my rust-colored stone. "It just looks like any other stone."

"Well I could say the same about your orange stones."

"Fine," he replied. "Also, why do you only have nine pebbles out?"

I reached into my pocket and pulled out the turquoise piece of glass. His eyes widened just for a second before his eyebrows furrowed. "That's not a stone," he replied. "It's glass. Isn't it?"

"Who cares?"

"That's cheating," he said. "I think I win by default."

"It's not like your yellow stone is any better," I replied, picking it up. "It's literally painted. I can see the paint flaking off of it."

He sighed with a small smile. "I guess we're both eliminated for cheating."

"Double elimination," I said, softly kicking a piece of gravel as it rolled down towards the creek.

Charles lifted up his fingers to his mouth and blew on them. "Your hands cold?" I asked.

"Yeah," he replied, his cheeks rosy as he rubbed his hands together. "Put them in the water too long trying to wash the pebbles off. Probably a bad move in hindsight since both of us lost."

I reached into my backpack and pulled out the multicolored hand towels buried inside it. "Just wrap it around your hand. It'll probably be like a glove."

"Thanks," he said and shivered a bit while he wrapped the towel around his probably numb fingers. "But the real question is why do you have towels in your backpack?"

"It's a long story."

"We've got a lot of time."

"It's not that important," I replied as the bare branches of the oak tree rattled with the soft whistle of the wind.

Charles turned towards me. "Can I see the turquoise glass again?"

"Sure," I said and pulled it out of my pocket. "It's pretty, isn't it?"

"If only we could just spray the sky with this shade of blue."

"That would be amazing," I replied. "And maybe the monarchs and the birds will come back too. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm missing all those seagulls—"

"Screw seagulls," he said, cutting me off. "I hope they never return."

"Are you still salty about that time that the one seagull pooped on your head?" I replied. "Wasn't that in, like, fourth grade?"

"Fifth," he replied. "God, that was embarrassing."

"It was hilarious. Especially when you had to go up to the PE teacher, I forgot her name, and tell her that you had to go to the bathroom because a bird pooped on your head," I replied, chuckling a bit at the memory. "I think the whole class was—"

"Let's put the stones in," he said, quickly changing the subject, his face probably red from the mixture of embarrassment and the creeping cold.

"Changing the subject, I see," I replied. "It was pretty funny though."

There was an awkward silence. There was a splash in the river and both of our eyes darted forwards to gaze at the river. "Do you think that was a fish?" he asked.

"Maybe," I replied. "Or it could just be a pebble."

"Speaking of pebbles, how do you want to arrange the pebbles in the jar? I was thinking of making layers."

"That's cool," I replied. "Kinda like the Grand Canyon."

"That would make such a cool ad," he said, putting his arms in front of him. "Buy your own Grand Canyon in a jar."

He continued, "It would certainly be a very jarring ad for many people. See what I did there."

I sighed while chuckling softly. "You really need to work on your pun game."

"If you laughed, I'm considering it a success."

'Whatever," I said and grabbed the small jar. "Maybe we can arrange it in a rainbow or something."

"What about the black stones?" he asked.

"Put them on the bottom," I replied. "And then go with the reddish-pinkish stones, then the orange-rust stones, then the tan colored stones and so on."

"How much time do you have left, you know, because of your parents?"

I had completely forgotten about that. "We probably have twenty minutes or so. I wouldn't worry."

We started putting the stones into the jar. Black and spotted ones on the bottom, followed by a couple of reddish pink pebbles on top. We had a ton of tan-orange stones (like eight or so in total), so that layer was really thick. After that, came the yellow-ish colored stone and his bright yellow painted pebble and then the malachite and dark blue stones.

"You should keep the turquoise glass," he replied. "Just think of it as an early birthday gift."

"January is, like, five months away from now," I replied.

"Who knows what's going to happen between now and January," he said. "Maybe there's going to be an alien invasion. Who knows? It's the apocalypse."

I knew that he was playing that off as a joke, but there was an undercurrent of seriousness there, and I knew what he meant when it was an early birthday gift just in case he or I don't, you know, make it till January.

"You should keep it," I replied. "Just think of it as an early birthday present for April."

"Regifting your birthday present already," he said with a small smile. "Wow. That hurt. But actually, just keep it for yourself."

"You sure?"

"Yeah," he replied. "Anyways, we have to leave soon."

"We should probably get going," I replied. "Mom might kill me today. I'll gift you the stone in my will."

"Sounds like a deal."

He picked up the jar and placed it in his bag before we began walking toward his house. As we were walking under the sycamore trees, the wind gusted through the streets, and for a second, I thought that an ash storm had begun. But the flakes of ash, drifting like snow in front of me, were just from the ash-caked trees above me, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

A couple of minutes before we reached his neighborhood, he asked, "How many days do you think we have until our first snow?"

"A month, maybe," I replied. "Probably two though since we never get rain in September. Why?"

"It would just be so weird seeing our neighborhood covered in snow."

"Yeah," I replied. "But I mean we'd finally have a White Christmas with actual snow instead of muddy puddles on the ground. That'd be pretty cool."

"Cool," Charles said. "I see your pun."

"That was not intentional."

He ignored me. "You have learned well, young padawan."

I sighed and shook my head with a small smile on your face. "Is your family, you know, ready for winter?"

"Yeah, yeah," Charles said, but it didn't sound convincing. "I've been helping with wood gathering and stuff like that."

I was going to press more, but when I turned the corner and entered his neighborhood, I noticed shattered glass windows on the closest house.

"Geez. What happened there?" I asked and pointed towards the house.

"Where?"

"There, at the house," I replied. "The window is completely smashed."

"Oh, wow," Charles said. "I never even noticed."

"Are there, like, looters in your neighborhood? Is your family safe?"

"We're fine," he said. "I think it might've been from a few weeks back. I remember that there was one of those food riots that swept through our neighborhood and destroyed some houses, but right now, we're fine."

"Okay," I said, but there was something wrong happening. I just don't know what.

"Anyways, you should probably get going," he replied. "I can head back down."

"Are you sure?"

"My house is a dozen houses down the street. I'm not going to get abducted or anything. Also, before I forget," he replied and put down his bag, taking out a garlic head. "I think you asked me to get this last week."

"Yeah, I'd completely forgotten about that. Thanks," I said and waved. "Bye."

"Bye," he replied and walked to his house while I walked away towards the Hunters' house to finish executing May's plan.

When I reached their house, my hands were shaking, and my heart was pounding. The key trembled in my hand, and I nearly dropped it because I was just so nervous about everything, but I managed to unlock the door and make it to the basement and find the axe, which we placed near the doorway.

I was just about to leave the basement area when I decided to go grab the solar panel that May placed close to the garage door for Mom and Dad. They could probably do something with the solar panels for the garage greenhouse even though the solar panels barely work. But when I headed up into the light, I realized that there was a big problem:

The axe's handle had a carved in name to it, reading "Hunters." If Dad or Mom saw that the axe handle had this on it, May and I's lie would crumble, and they'd figure out everything almost immediately, so I had to do something about this.

I opened all the cabinets, though most of them were empty, trying to find something to cover up the name on the axe handle. But luckily, I caught a break. There was one cabinet that May, and I didn't check when we first came here, the one hugging the ceiling above the microwave, and when I flung the cabinet doors open, I found some old kitchen appliances and art supplies. And in the art supplies bin, there conveniently was a roll of duct tape.

So I wrapped the duct tape around the handle at least ten times, covering the name up under layers and layers of tape so that May and I's secret would stay that way, and there would be no chance that Mom and Dad found out. After I finished, I put the tape back, grabbed the axe and solar panel, and left the house, basically speed walking home. I probably went way over the hour time limit.

When I opened the door, I saw Mom staring at me. "You were gone for more than an hour."

"No I wasn't," I denied. "I was probably on the longer end of an hour but not over it."

"Where'd you get the axe?" Mom asked as Dad came to talk to her before seeing my axe.

"What are you doing with the axe?" he asked.

"I brought it back," I replied. "For you guys."

"But where did it come from?" Mom asked. "Did Charles give it to you or..."

"I got it from the garden where Charles and I worked for that summer job," I replied with my prepared lie (even saying it now sounds weird).

"What were you guys doing with axes?" Dad asked. "Seems pretty dangerous."

"Dad, using an axe is basically like using a knife," I responded. "Anyways, Charles and I never used the axes anyways. We were always on the dandelion and grass weeding duty, but the axes were used for cutting down shrubs when we were expanding the garden since, you know, you can't really pull out shrubs."

"But how'd you exactly get it?" Mom asked.

I never really thought that much ahead in my lie, so I quickly made something up.

"Charles had the key to the shed and there were two axes left in there, so we just split them up, one for me and one for him, you know," I said. "Why are you guys asking so much anyways? I got lucky today, so just take it."

"And the solar panels?"

"From the garden too," I replied, getting them back onto my story of lies, hoping that they stopped asking follow-ups.

"What would you be doing with solar panels in the garden?" Dad asked.

What would solar panels be used for in gardens? At that moment, I didn't know, and my heart was about to explode from the adrenaline in my blood and pulsing in my head, so I tried my best to stall. "What's with all these questions?"

"This is the last one," Dad said, "We just want to make sure that you got these supplies, you know, in a safe and legal manner."

"So you guys thought I stole it?"

"No," Mom said. "It's just that with everything that's happening, sometimes people bend the rules a bit."

By then, I had scrambled together a lie. "Well, to make you guys feel better, the solar panel was used for the garden's watering system, to power it. Most of them were taken when the volcanoes started to erupt, but Charles and I found some in the shed."

"A watering system?" Dad said. "You mind taking me to the garden to see how it works. That seems very interesting."

"It's dead," I replied. "The earthquakes damaged it, and the volcano ash basically destroyed it. It's basically not there anymore."

I continued, "I'm just going to leave these two things here for guys here to do what you want because I need to shower."

I walked away from the door and to the bathroom, my body covered in nervous sweat.

"Don't waste too much water," Mom shouted at me.

As I got my clothes out for showering, I felt a tap on my shoulder. "Did the plan work?"

"Yeah," I said to May. "I think they believed it."

"Good," she replied. "Hopefully, Dad ditches the small axe, so we can get more wood for less lung cancer."

"Yeah, hopefully," I said and turned and headed into the shower.

Nothing much interesting happened after my shower. Dinner was the same-old canned food as Mom and Dad figured out what to do with the solar panel and the extra axe, but both were talking about it with a spark of hope, like everything won't keep getting worse. And oddly enough, I started feeling like that, feeling strangely optimistic about today and the day after and many days after. It's weird what a hunk of metal on a stick and a board of wires and semiconductors makes you feel. Hope certainly comes in a variety of forms.