The Package Addressed to Under the Porch

Mags Recognizes Unit 2-U

Mags Delacroix-Burke read the thread the way other people read a verdict, and answered inside a minute.

Mags: MEMO 212. The box shall be held at No. 3 pending proper receipt. Details to follow.

The details followed. Memo 212 granted the space beneath the porch at No. 2 the full standing of an address, Unit 2-U, tenant Brenda, a domesticated bear of long residence, whose mail could be received only through her landlord, Mr. Ferreira, who would be required to sign.

Gus: I own the porch. I didn't order a thing. I don't buy tools. I collect them.

The streetlight at the end of the lane flickered, which on Maple Lane is a kind of reply.

Gus: There's a difference.

Mags, wishing to settle which side of the box faced up before anyone lifted it, consulted ORACLE. ORACLE answered with Report 9, a formal document in thirty-one sections on the orientation of the box, which established that its top faced Portugal, devoted Section 14 to the tape, called Tamsin Mr. Oyelaran-Pike throughout, and concluded, in the language of a treaty, that the arrow on the side probably meant up. It took nine minutes to scroll. Tamsin had already turned the box over.

It is the only thing on Maple Lane that has ever come home without being asked.

Tamsin Reads the Manual

Gus walked to No. 3 and signed as landlord, with the expression of a man signing for his own porch. The twins stood behind a chalk line Tamsin had drawn on the driveway, which they treated as a border with customs. Inside the box was a carrying case, and inside the case, folded flat, a matte black Holy Stone HS175D.

It weighs 7.58 ounces. Gus held the case and looked at the drone, and then at his hands, as if one of them had been misreported.

Ada: our guess is bird

Tamsin: It's a drone. The age range is 14, so you two watch from the chalk. I fly.

Felix: what does it do

Tamsin: One-key takeoff. It climbs and holds its own height, so I'm not fighting it. The camera shoots 4K through a 110° lens, and it tilts through ninety degrees, so I can look down the lane or straight down at Gus's gutters.

Gus: My gutters are fine.

Tamsin: Then it'll be a short flight.

She added that two batteries are good for up to 46 minutes depending on conditions, which is longer than any memo Mags has ever read aloud, and the one with the most exits.

The Caucus Makes Its Rounds

The drone went up quietly. Its live view came through on the 5GHz link without a stutter, and the first thing it showed was a procession.

The Caucus, whose members hold that living with a cat is the highest form of human existence, was conducting outreach to every household without one. Mags led, wearing the sash. Behind her came three members with pamphlets and a wagon, in which Admiral Biscuit slept through the entire campaign.

Tamsin: I can get all of them in one frame. The wide lens helps.

The pamphlet was titled Have You Considered Being Finished? Doris asked for its sources and was shown the pamphlet. At No. 2 a member read from a card, explaining that Gus had not yet achieved his full potential. Gus said thanks, he had a table saw. At No. 9 Tamsin said she had a drawer of labeled cables and was fine. At the lemonade stand the delegation was handed two cups and nobody argued. The Caucus logged the day as a triumph. The people visited waved, finished their lemonade and went back to their evenings, which had not been in doubt.

Gus had Tamsin tilt the camera straight down over his roof. The gutters held one tennis ball. He said he'd have found it himself.

Home Without Being Asked

Near the end Tamsin sent the drone down the lane toward the streetlight, to see if it would flicker at anything it saw. It went behind Mags's hedge at No. 11, and the signal dropped.

Tamsin: Lost it.

Doris: Shall I note a loss?

Tamsin: Wait.

The manual says the GPS return flies the drone home when the signal is lost, it strays out of range, or the battery runs low. The drone rose over the hedge, turned, and came back up the lane, settling on the chalk X in the driveway. It is the only thing on Maple Lane that has ever come home without being asked.

Mags issued Memo 213 the same night. Unit 2-U would receive a numbered mail slot, effective on installation, and the landlord would print his numerals in block capitals.

Gus printed a 2 so square and so firm that Felix studied it for some time.

Felix: now it's a 5 in a costume

Gus: I could build a better 2.