اولین تماس

FIRST CONTACT

TWO DAYS PASS and I’ve stopped moping. I’m getting better at ignoring the neighbors when I hear a ping coming from outside. I’m on my couch, still mired in Lord of the Flies. Mercifully, I’m close to finishing. Ralph is on the beach awaiting a violent death. I’m so eager for the book to end so that I can read something else, something happier, that I ignore the sound. A few minutes later and there’s another ping, louder this time. I put the book down and listen. Pings three, four, and five come in rapid succession. Something’s hitting my window. Hail? I’m up and at my window before I can think better of it. I push the curtains aside.

Olly’s window is wide open, the blinds are up, and the lights are off in his room. The indestructible Bundt is sitting on his windowsill wearing googly eyes that are staring right at me. The cake trembles and then tilts forward, as if contemplating the distance to the ground. It retreats and trembles some more. I’m trying to see Olly in his darkened room when the Bundt leaps from the sill and plunges to the ground.

I gasp. Did the cake just commit suicide? I crane my neck to see what’s become of it, but it’s too dark to see.

Just then a spotlight illuminates the cake. Unbelievably, it’s still intact. What is that thing made of? It’s probably best that we didn’t try to eat it.

The light goes out and I look up just in time to catch Olly’s black-clad hand and flashlight retreat into the window. I stay for a few minutes, watching and waiting for him to come back, but he doesn’t.