My name is Caroline Jones. I live in Boca, Florida. I started a game of hide and seek and someone went missing. Let me tell you how it all started.  

It was a dark and stormy night. Just kidding — it was actually a hot summer day. Me and my cousins, Tommy, Timmy, and Tammy wanted to play hide and seek. We started with Tammy as the seeker and she counted to fifty slowly.

She said, “Ready or not, here I come,” like you play. There weren’t a lot of places to hide outside, but Tommy found this really cool place somewhere between a table and a few trees.

I tried to argue with him to switch places, but he said, “No way.” So, I just found this place behind a tree. It was a regular, small tree, so I thought I’d probably be found first.

But I said, “Whatever, it’s fine. It’s just a game of hide and seek. I’ll hide in Tommy’s place next time.”

It turns out, I was right. I was found first! Then Timmy. But not Tommy. We heard a scream, but didn’t know at the time who it was from. Tammy tried to look for him, but she couldn’t find him. I tried to not say where he was hiding, but I couldn’t hold it in. I told her he was in one of the shelves next to the table, so Tammy went there. But Tommy wasn’t there.

We started to think of really weird ideas. Like, maybe there was a hole in one of the shelves and he fell down to the ground.

But then I said, “No, we just got those shelves yesterday.”

Then Timmy said, “Maybe he just switched places.” Then we looked all around again. But we still couldn’t find him. Things started to get really weird. At first, we thought he could be playing a joke, but it wasn’t like him.

We started to look inside the house. We didn’t tell our parents right away because we didn’t want them to get all worried and call the police. We couldn’t find him inside the house either, so then we got worried. We decided to tell our parents, so they could call the police.

The police said, “We’ll do an overnight search, and we’ll give you a report tomorrow.” Tommy’s mom was the most  worried.

For the rest of the day, Timmy and Tammy and I decided  to play Monopoly. I was the car, Timmy was the dog, and Tammy was the horse. But we were distracted by thinking about Tommy.

“What if he never comes back?” asked Tammy.

“Our family reunions won’t be full!” said Timmy.

“We shouldn’t have played hide and seek in the first place,” I said.

It was time to go to bed, but no one could go to sleep. We were in different houses, but they were all thinking about Tommy.

The next morning, the police came. “We found nothing,” they said.

Tommy’s mother started to cry. “No, this is horrible! Why did this happen to me? Why couldn’t it have happened to my cat?”

All the moms tried to comfort her with a nice cup of tea, but it didn’t work. Everyone was depressed. No one could do anything. Not even blink their eyes. It was crazy and it was all my fault. If I told Tammy where he was sooner, we would have found him.

The day was coming to an end and me Timmy and Tammy wanted to have a sleepover. It was a good way to not think about what was going on. We decided to figure out where Tommy went.

The first thing we figured out was that it took about 10 minutes between when we started playing the game and when I told Tammy where he was. So, whatever happened  to Tommy happened quick.

We started to look out the window to see if anything happened, and guess what? We saw a man with a duffle bag. He seemed like he was just a regular man, but he could have been in disguise. We all thought that the guy took Tommy, but then we realised more people were coming and it turned out to be a bunch of teenage girls getting off the bus from camp.

“Rats, how could this happen?” I said

“Do you know how annoying this is?” Tammy said.

“I think we all know,” Timmy said.

“Let’s go to bed. It’s getting late,” Tammy said.

The next day the weather report was horrible. They said that there was going to be a hurricane. Tommy’s mother started to cry so hard that she could fill a whole tank of water.

She started to say, “This is horrible, what am I going to do? He is not going to live in that weather! Why couldn’t this just happen to my cat?” she said, weeping her eyeballs out. Again we tried to comfort her with tea but it still didn’t work.

It was my turn in the family to check the mail. I was going through the mail like I always do and something caught my eye it had to do with Tommy. I ran upstairs to show everybody.

When I got upstairs everybody was silent. I showed them the letter. It said:

Dear Family and Friends of Tommy,

Tommy is safe. The reason he is not with you is because he seemed to have a lot of arguments with you, so he ran away. Trust me, I am not lying. I have sent this letter for you to fetch him. He is in London right now on Perry Road.

Sincerely,

Police Chief Charlie Kunkle

Everyone screamed with excitement, especially Tommy’s mom. We all bought tickets for London. Everyone was so excited to see Tommy, even the cat. The next day everyone started to pack. My mom sent me to go get my mail and I went through it (like I always do) and something caught my eye. It was another letter about Tommy:

Dear Friends and Family of Tommy ,

We have found out that the Tommy we found isn’t the Tommy we thought he was.I am so very sorry.

Sincerely,

Police Chief Charlie Kunkle

I showed this to everybody. Tommy’s mom started to cry again and everyone was silent. They stopped what they were doing. It was a mess. Timmy and Tammy were blank. No one knew what to do. They had to cancel their tickets to London, or sell them, and that was hard because the plane flight was supposed to be today. They had been planning this since yesterday. Also, they were leaving because the hurricane was supposed to come the next day. So, they unpacked their clothes and took out all their batteries and flashlights and radios. They turned on the news to see what was happening. It turned out that Tommy was famous! But not for a good reason.

The bottom of the screen said, “Child Missing: Hurricane Coming Tomorrow. What is He Going to Do?” Everyone started to panic, even if they didn’t know Tommy. They were still worried about him because he was a living child. Neighbors came up to them like somebody died and that they were sitting shiva and gave them food.

One person who was a yoga teacher came over and gave them an idea to do yoga to get their minds off of Tommy. But it didn’t work. One person tried scented steam meditation. But that didn’t work. Another person said just to sleep. So they tried to go to bed. But they couldn’t sleep. Then someone said the hurricanes aren’t that bad because you’re in the city and not next to an ocean.

Most of the neighbors suggested things, but none of them worked, so they just decided to sit there and wait for the hurricane and see if Tommy came with it. Then, I suggested trying to call him, because Tommy would probably bring his phone. So we tried to call him, Facetime him, and text him. But none of them worked.

Tommy’s mother said in a deep low voice, “We’re never going to see Tommy again, and we shouldn’t worry about him. I’m sad but I can’t be sad forever.”

My mom said to her, “You can’t say that. We have to keep trying.” So we called the police and said, “You need to help us. The hurricane is almost coming. We need to find Tommy.”

The police replied, “But — but — we can’t go it, it’s a hurricane! We’re going to get killed. A tree is going to fall on us!”

And we say, “If you’re not going to help us, we’re going to do it ourselves.”

“No, you can’t do that, it’s too dangerous! It’d be my responsibility if I let you go out.”

“So?”

“I can’t let you do this, ma’am.”

And then we hung up the phone. Tommy’s mother got up on the chair and made an inspirational speech. “We need to do this! We are all the friends and family of Tommy George Finkleheim. We need to do this! Power is us.”

So we got on our raincoats and hats and boots and flashlights and walkie-talkies (because they’re really cool) and went out. There was wind and a light drizzle, but we still went out. And we knew it was going to turn out to be a big storm with lightning and thunder, but we were prepared. We asked a scientist to get us lightning-proof clothes before we knew this was going to happen. We just thought it was useful in case something like this might happen. We thought that it wouldn’t happen, but it did. So we went to go find Tommy. We split up into groups. Me, Tammy, my mom, and Tammy’s mom were one group. Timmy, Timmy’s mom, and Tommy’s mom was another group. And the pets were the last group.

So we started the search. One went East, one went West, and one went North. We knew that he couldn’t go South, because the gate between us and our rich neighbor was locked. Unless, he climbed over, which probably didn’t happen because there was high tech security. I went North because I know the whole part of the North side of the neighborhood. We started the search to find Tommy.We asked our neighbors if they seen anything about Tommy but they all said no. It was hard we were out there for almost three hours and we couldn’t find anything.

We all decided that we would go back home at 1:30 because the person who took Tommy might come out late at night. It was 1:29 and still couldn’t find anything. So we went inside and went to bed.

The next morning, it was pouring outside. Trees were falling down on the road, cars were stopping. The hurricane started. My mom said to Tommy’s mom, “We can’t go out like this! We’re all gonna die!”
“Well, Tommy’s gonna die if we don’t find him.”

“Maybe we should do it later today, because maybe it’ll get quieter,” said Tammy’s mom.

“Okay. Let’s stay in and listen to the radio and see what the weather is like.” So they turned on the radio and Tommy was on the radio again.

We all came close and the broadcaster said, “There’s been one sighting of the missing boy. Police are going out to find him. Don’t be worried, we’ll get him home safe.” Tommy’s mom screamed with excitement. She started dancing with the cat. His mom was so happy that they made a pie. And that’s very rare to make a pie in our family. The pie was very good; it was apple pie with vanilla ice cream on top. We saved a piece for Tommy for when he got home — that is, we hoped he would get home. A minute later, the lights went out.

“We need to get our flashlights and turn them on so we have light.” We played hide and seek in the dark, and some other fun games.

“I have to admit it,” said Tammy. “This is kind of fun.”

“It sure is, except it’s pouring outside,” said Timmy.

“I wonder what it would be like if this was everyday,” I said.

“We could make this everyday if we turned off the lights and closed the shades. The only difference is that it wouldn’t be pouring outside,” said Timmy.

We went back to playing our games. And then, boom! The lights went back on. We started to sigh. We liked it when it was dark, and when all of the lights in the whole city were dark. Then the radio turned on.

“We’ve seen a second sighting of Tommy! We hope we will give you a report about seeing him a third time, or a fourth time tomorrow, or maybe later today.” Again, Tommy’s mother started to scream with excitement. She baked another pie. This time, it was blueberry pie with coffee ice cream on top. We saved another piece for Tommy. And then, the power went out again.

Me, Tammy, and Timmy started to scream with excitement, and started to say to Tommy’s mom, “You should bake another pie because we love it when the lights go out.”

“Maybe you do but I don’t. That’s not a reason for someone to bake a pie.”

“Fine, I’ll starve for pie. And I’ll die, and it’s all because you never made a pie! So sad, so sad.”

My mom said to me, “That’s not gonna happen.”

“How do you know it won’t? I once heard a story about a girl who wanted a pony, and she kept asking her parents and her parents kept saying no, and then she died.”

“That was just a tale, it’s not gonna happen.”

“Okay, but it’s not my fault when you see me dead in my room one time when you wake up.”

And then, boom, the lights went back on! It was another sad time. We really wanted them to go back off, except for the mothers of course. Then, the phone rang. It was our fathers. They’d been on a men’s day out because they all had a business trip on the same day. Tommy’s dad just heard the news. He started to cry. But they couldn’t do anything about it; they couldn’t get on a plane and come back because the hurricane was happening. They had to wait until it was over.

And then the radio turned on. “Good news!” Tommy’s mom was shrieking, crossing her fingers and holding her heart to see if it was Tommy that they found. But, no. They just said that the hurricane was going to be over. Then they said, “Another good news! We have found the person who took Tommy! Now we just need to find Tommy and he’ll be alright!”

Now, Tommy’s mother made another pie. It was the most delicious pie ever! It was strawberry and apple with blueberries and vanilla ice cream on top. This time, we saved two pieces for Tommy. So now we basically had a full pie but with different flavors. It was towards the end of the day and everyone got tired. Everyone decided to go to sleep.

The next morning there was no more pouring rain, and there were no more trees falling down. The hurricane was over. We all turned on the news, and guess what the news anchor said?

“The police have found Tommy.”

Tommy’s mother cried tears of joy. She called her husband and told him the good news. She was met with a lot of questions. “Is he home yet? Did he get hurt? I’m going to be home soon, I’m getting tickets right now.”

“I don’t know anything! He didn’t come home yet. But I’ll tell you when he does.”

Before she could say another word or make another pie, the doorbell rang.

Tommy came in. His mother ran up to him and hugged him so tight that he almost suffocated. “Tommy! Sweetheart! What happened? Where were you?”

“Well, you know how I went to the store to buy milk two days before we played hide and seek? I stole the milk because I didn’t have enough money. So the store owner got really upset. He said ‘This is one more warning you better not do this again but there might be something coming your way.’ He didn’t really do anything to me, I was just working in the back of the store. I tried to leave one time, but there were no windows in the basement.”

“Oh my god, how could he do this to you? Was he arrested? I need to make sure he was arrested.”

“Mom, what do you think the police are just gonna let him go?”

“No, just go back to the story.”

“Okay. So I tried to go through the door of the basement, but if I got caught he would turn me in for stealing so I couldn’t. I just waited for someone to figure out I was missing and take me out of this mess. And it worked!’’

“Oh Tommy I missed you so much! Let’s call your daddy.”

Tommy’s dad was already on the bus when he got the call. “That’s so amazing! Tell me the story when I get home. I am so happy he came home!”

When his dad came home Tommy told the story. After that, he ate his pie and went to sleep. And it was happily ever after.

THE END! I hope you liked the story of Tommy.