Mystery

Post Christmas:

Kevin and April stayed in Waco for a few days at Christmastime. They went back to Fort Worth, and Peter stayed with us for a few more days, before heading back home to be ready to get back into school mode.

A few days ago, Kevin called and asked if Peter’s Dog Man books were here. The author, Dan Pilkey, is a guy who understands the pulse of school-aged readers. One of his first series of books are the Captain Underpants books. I first learned about them when kindergartners at church told me about how much they liked them (and those kids are college graduates now). The books are funny and and appealing to school-aged kids. One site says that the reading level is grades 2-5, but the “appeal” level is grades 4-8. Seems like a big leap. The first book of the series was published in 1997, so they’ve been around for a while.

Mr. Pilkey’s more recent series is the Dog Man series. The web site’s description is: “When Officer Knight and his police dog Greg are caught in a freak accident caused by the evil Petey the Cat, there’s only one way to save them. Doctors carefully sew Greg the Dog’s head onto Officer Knight’s body to create an all-new superhero: Dog Man. Half-dog and half-man, he is here to sniff squirrels and save the city—and he’s all out of squirrels to sniff.”

Peter finds them compelling, and he is not alone. Peter had the first two books, and he received two more for Christmas. I thought he’d probably memorized them by now.

A couple of days ago, Kevin phoned and asked if Peter’s Dog Man books were here. I went and looked at the shelf where books are, in the room where Peter stays when he’s here. I looked at every book, and, nope. No Dog Man. books.

Kevin called back a couple of days later. Had I looked in the shed, he said. Well, no, I hadn’t looked in the shed.

Years ago, we bought a shed (a shed in a box) to store things like the lawn mower and lawn chairs. Kevin and April came to help put it together. At first, there were a few fold-up canvas chairs in there. And that’s about all. Peter and David would open up a couple of chairs and sit in the shed (with doors open) and read books have snacks and enjoy the spring-time weather.

Then, after a while, other things got stored in there, like the lawn mower, which wasn’t used any more, because lawn people came to mow each week. There was an old trunk, an old trash can which we didn’t use any more because the city now provided trash bins that the trash trucks would lift and empty.

Years earlier, David and my dad created some shelving above the garage doors, where things that belonged to the boys were stored. A while back, we needed to remove these storage spaces, and we had to move the boxes that belonged to the boys. Those boxes went into the shed.

Periodically, the city has a bulky waste day, and we were able to put out things like that lawn mower that hadn’t been used in years. I looked in the old trunk and there wasn’t much in there, but most of it was unusable. When Jeremy came, in the fall, he and Kevin hauled boxes out and went through things.

Jeremy had driven to Waco, and had space in his car to take home lots of stuff. Kevin took his stuff home, which meant that there were only a couple of boxes stored in the shed. I cleaned out more of things that I’d been storing for “Fun with Friends,” a summer activity session that I would provide for preschoolers. Since things had been shut down for the summer, and because I was retiring from my preschool teaching time at church, I recycled all the toilet paper and paper towel tubes I’d been saving for making a golf ball structure.

This is a “bean box” that I’d made from a Dyson vacuum box and a variety of round boxes like oatmeal boxes and wrapping paper tubes. I’d used it for several years at “Fun Friends” on Physics Day. I’d set it on four preschool chairs, two on each side, in one side of the large box that my treadmill had come in. Then, I’d pour several large bags of dried pinto beans into the large box, along with scoops. Kids could scoop beans into the various openings in the Dyson box and watch to see where the beans would come out. It was hilarious fun. It was a little poignant to dismantle it and shove the pieces into the blue recycle bin, which left space on shelves in the garage for the remaining boxes that belonged to Jeremy.

Now, the shed is much more spacious, and Peter found it to be a nice, quiet, undisturbed space. So, when Kevin asked me if I’d looked in the shed, and I said, “No,” he said that Peter said he’d been reading in there.

I went to look.

And that, of course, is exactly where they were, all lined up, along with the very old wheelbarrow, and the bag of compost, and those fold-up canvas chairs, all safe and secure.

And now, they’re on the shelves, ready for when Peter comes to visit again.

Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it?  When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, “Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.”

Luke 15:8-9 (New Revised Standard Version)

I guess there’s been some rejoicing at Peter’s house. Or relief.