The Case of the Flying Coats, page 2

 

     

     "My, aren't you a pretty one," he'd say in a kind-sounding voice. "And did you have a nice time flying around up in the sky today?" You couldn't hear the coat or sweatshirt answer, but the old man sure acted like he could.      
      "Yes, you had plenty of time to dawdle around up there," he went on, "And I don't blame you! You had hours before I was due today, and it was a beautiful day! Must have been lovely flying over Deer Mountain. The hills are so green this time of year!" Sometimes he would chuckle, as though one of the coats or hats had told him a joke!     
      At last, you would see, the old man would have loaded all the clothing onto his cart, wheeled the cart back out the entrance-way, and disappeared into the night. You would hear him humming a cheerful tune, and you would hear the metal wheel of his cart, quite awhile after you could no longer see him.
     Well, none of the students or teachers or parents knew about the old man, precisely because none of them had been standing behind that tree. But the parents were getting pretty upset about the missing clothing. Some of them had been buying new coats, sweaters, jackets, sweatshirts and hats for their boy or girl every week!     At last Mrs. Sharkle, the President of the Parent-Teacher's Organization, had received so many complaints about the missing garments that she called a meeting.       

     The meeting took place on a Thursday night. The school, with all its lights on, shone like a jewel. Parents gathered in the auditorium after hanging their coats in the cloakroom that adjoined it. First Mrs. Sharkle brought up the matter of the school orchestra, but no one had yet thought of a better way to raise the needed funds. So she went on to the main topic for the evening. Mothers and fathers raised hands and expressed their frustration, one after another. For two hours they vented their feelings.     
       "I'm going to super-glue my son Chad's coat onto him!" vowed Mrs. Clare Beauvoir, whose boy was wearing his fourth coat of the year.     
      "He'll burn up if the afternoon gets warm and he can't get it off!" counseled Dr. Olin Spector, a father who was also a pediatrician.     
      "If my Lisa can't hold onto her coat, she can go to school without one!" Mrs. Betty Nelson shouted.     
      "Do you want her to catch pneumonia?" asked her own husband, Lou, who was sitting beside her. "Why, even if we were just thinking of the money—which of course we're not—it costs more to cure a case of pneumonia than it does to keep buying new coats!"
      In the end, the only thing decided was to have another meeting in a week. But when the parents went to the cloakroom to retrieve their coats—they were gone!!!     

     Now the situation was really serious! The next day, no one at school talked of anything else! A detective from the Police Department even came to the cloakroom. He dusted the whole room with powder, looking for fingerprints Everyone near the room sneezed and sneezed! But when he was finished, the detective said he hadn't found a single suspicious print.

continued on Page 3

back            Stories page 

Home       e-mail