Page 13 of What Comes After

“Those are the clear ones, aren’t they?”

She nodded. “Yes. They’re the best. What flavor would you pick?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “I’d each any of them, really. Except the green ones. I don’t like them.”

“Oh, those are the worst,” she said, agreeing with me.

The both of us burst out laughing.

“I think I hear something over here.”

The second we heard that voice in the distance, Devyn and I both stopped laughing and moved ourselves deeper into the tunnel, so we wouldn’t be seen.

For a few minutes, we kept ourselves hidden from view, and when we didn’t hear anyone moving around or talking, we moved to the edge of the tunnel and looked out.

“I think we’re safe now,” Devyn said.

“That was close,” I replied.

“Do you want to try to start heading back to home base?” she asked.

I was having fun just hanging out with her, and I thought it would be awesome for us to stay hidden as long as possible, so I answered, “Let’s stay here a bit longer.”

Devyn seemed completely fine with it, because she sat down at the opening of the tunnel. I did the same, sitting across from her.

“Have you thought about it?” she asked me.

“Thought about what?”

“What you want to be when you grow up. We’re starting school again very soon, and I know that question is going to come up at some point. I never know how to answer it.”

“I have no idea. I’ll probably do construction work like my dad. You don’t have any idea?”

Devyn shook her head. “No. I’ll probably just say I want to be a teacher or a doctor or something that they expect me to say, but I don’t want to do either of those things.”

“You still have a lot of time before you have to figure it out,” I told her.

“What if I don’t? I like doing so many different things, but none of the things I like to do are jobs. Or, well, I don’t think they are. Like Legos. We have so much fun building them, but I’m pretty sure you can’t build Legos your whole life.”

That would be a pretty cool job. Devyn always had such good ideas, and I was a little jealous I hadn’t thought up something that cool. “Somebody has to make them, though. Don’t you think?”

“What?”

“Well, I don’t know how it works, but I think somebody would have to put them together to make sure they’ve got all the right pieces for the build.”

“I didn’t think of that. You’re probably right.”

I smiled at her. “We’ll both build things when we’re older.”

“Yeah, but everyone will think I’m just a big kid, because I grew up to play with toys,” she said.

Shaking my head, I replied, “I think people who have anything to say will just be jealous that you get to do something you like to do every day.”

“Kind of like how everyone is probably jealous we’ve got the best hiding spot right now?”

I laughed. “Exactly like that.”

For a long time, Devyn and I stayed in the tunnel talking with each other, and we lost track of time. Obviously, neither one of us actually knew what time it was, but we realized it must have been a long time when we were both startled by the sound of police sirens.

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