Dairy of Mysterious Clues and the Flash Drive

That night, Tom decided a better way to organise the letters and clues he'd got from M.S. and Silver Head, especially knowing that, because of his decision not to burn the first letter, more and more would be coming. He went up to the attic and rummaged through a couple of boxes labeled with his name and last year's date. Every year or two, Lorena Noland insisted on a full top-to-bottom cleaning of the entire house, and her number one rule was that if you hadn't used something in more than a year, it needed to be thrown away or put into storage. These boxes were as a result of last spring's mine sweep through Tom's closet.

He remembered he'd been given a diary for Thanksgiving two or three years ago by his Grandma Lola. He'd vowed to write in it everyday, chronicling the many adventures of the smart-aleck from Jackson middle school, but the night he'd sat down to complete his first official entry, he hadn't been able to think of one thing that sounded interesting. He had managed to write his name on the front cover before he'd put it aside, hoping Grandma Lola would never find out.

She'd have been devastated if she knew what had happened to her gift.

But he didn't forget how cool his name looked on the cover, and the dairy would be the perfect thing for him now. Tom's life was no longer boring or uninteresting 

He found the diary lying beneath a stack of Maze Runner books. Tom had read each of them several times before they'd made way for bigger and better novels. He pulled out the dairy and stared at the cover. It had a navy-blue hardcover, and its edges had holes which were held together with curved springs, which were wooled around them, and they were a bit rusted.

The pages inside were slightly yellowed for an aged appearance, lined from side to side, just waiting for him to record his thoughts and notes and scribbles.

It was perfection.

In the centre of the front cover was a three-inch wide rectangle of burnt orange where he'd written his name a couple of years ago. Using the permanent black marker he'd brought with him from downstairs, he added a few more words to the title. Finished, he held the diary up and took a proud look.

Tom Noland's

 Diary of Mysterious Clues

He then took out the glue from his mom's scrapbooking case and pasted the first letter from M.S. onto the first page of the diary, centering it as best he could. He left a few blank pages for notes and calculations, then glued in the first clue, along with his solution and the calendar, which he ripped out. Finally, he attached the second clue. He made sure everything was dry, then closed the book.

Satisfied with his efforts and glad to have everything he needed in one portable book, he took his dairy and went downstairs.

The next day, almost as though the mysterious M.S. knew that Tom was organised and ready to go, the third clue came in the mail.

                                          ~

It was Saturday, and what he hadn't been able to do a couple of weeks earlier, Tom spied on the mailbox, waiting for the mailman to show up. The day was clear and crisp, the sun almost blinding as it reflected off the tidal coal tars covering the ground. Tom sipped hot chocolate and watched countless drops of water drizzle from the sky in the yard as clinging droplets dripped away the last remnants of their lives. His mom and dad had gone again to check the town and routes. That morning, Lorena was upstairs making video calls with her friends, laughing on top of her voice and meowing how she missed them, and the soft melody of Celine Dion crooning "All by myself" echoed through the house.

Tom didn't know if life could be any better. The truck finally rumbled up to his house around noon, and Tom didn't bother looking to see if there were any yellow envelopes. He had his sneakers and top on and was out of the house before the mailman had even left for the next house.

By the time the truck drove off, Tom had already pulled out the stacks of letters.

Sitting right on top was a neat yellow envelope with the same handwriting, postmarked from Asia. Other than a strange lump in one corner, the rest of the envelope was flimsy and flat. Intrigued, a shiver of excitement rattling his nerves, Tom sprinted back into the house and up to his room in no time, where the diary of mysterious clues lay resting on his bed.

He ripped open the envelope and peered inside, seeing nothing at first. He billowed it out, turning it upside down and shaking it until a little flashy rectangle fell out and tumbled off the bed. Tom picked it up off the floor. It was a tiny flash drive, the kind his dad uses to plug in his laptop whenever he's working. One time, Tom asked his dad what it was.

"I copy from it because I store something in it."

Tom wondered what might've been stored in the one sent to him in the other to be copied. Nothing had been written on the flash drive label, but it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what M.S. intended the recipients of this clue to do. It took Tom five minutes to go down to the basement, which was now his dad's office. He picked up his little laptop, known as a notebook. Tom could hardly contain himself as he went back to his room, locked the door, and popped the flash drive into its slot at the bottom edge of the notebook. He waited for the system to synchronize the drive as he saw SEARCHING on the screen, and then, a notification sound came in. Tom looked closely as he peered at the screen to be sure of what he saw a few seconds earlier before drawing nearer to the screen.

"Just a voice message?"

Though many thoughts whirled up in his head, Tom didn't hesitate to tap PLAY.