The rain had stopped for the moment, and Charlie kept lunging at all the windows and pointing and grunting, so we decided to go for a walk. Summer pedaled her second-hand Huffy trike. We went a few yards down the quiet side street but Charlie kept turning around and booking for the busy street so he could wave at cars. (Charlie's third word: car. Sounds a lot like cat, which evolved from puh-CAH.)
We crossed the busy street and then hooked around to visit Henry and Emily, Charlie's friend from Early Intervention and his big sister, who's a little older than Summer. We parked the trike on a patch of dirt at the edge of Henry and Emily's lawn. We went inside, said hi, and then, because they had guests over for dinner, went back outside to leave. The trike was gone. "That's what happens when you live in an urban environment," said Jeff, who, having had his own chickens growing up, apparently believes that our little village center is the South Central Los Angeles of New England.
At first Summer cried and stomped her feet. Then, as we hunted around the neighborhood, she got absorbed in the mystery. We didn't see the trike anywhere, so we went home and called the police and filed a report. "It had blue pedals!" Summer shouted as I described the bike to the woman at the police station. I hung up and told Summer that the woman would tell all the police officers in town to look for the trike, and they'd call me if they found it. I'm sure we'll never see it again. But we'll make the police blotter in the paper.
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