"This Old Man" and the Case of the Missing Ten Quiz

Rain rattled against my office window the night the case arrived. An old man claimed ten things had disappeared from his life, one after another. The police weren't interested. They figured anyone who misplaced ten things deserved what he got. I took the case.

The first clue took me to a vegetable garden behind a sagging farmhouse. The old man swore Number One had vanished while he was pulling weeds. I combed through muddy rows until I found a worn gardening glove. Tucked inside was the glove's missing .

The second clue led me across town to a cornfield. A trail of footprints ended at a scarecrow grinning in the moonlight. Nailed to one leg was a battered old .

Number Three nearly made me walk away from the case. People lose wallets, watches, and umbrellas. They don't usually lose body parts. After a closer look, I discovered a patch sewn onto a trouser leg had hidden the missing all along.

The trail for Number Four ended at the annual town picnic. Everyone was eating supper from a long wooden tabletop. Fresh hinges underneath revealed that this "table" had once been a .

Number Five had witnesses by the thousands. The buzzing trail led from an empty stand in the yard to a hollow apple tree, where an entire colony had quietly relocated, taking the missing with them.

The sixth clue arrived on a curl of wood smoke drifting through the evening air. I followed it to a giant cooking fire at the fairgrounds. Someone had used a bundle of for fuel.

Number Seven was the strangest item on the list. Chasing leads about eternity and the afterlife wasn't usually part of my job description. The mystery ended when I found a fallen signpost in the weeds. Painted on it was a single word: .

The eighth disappearance took me to a creek on the edge of town. There I found a makeshift bridge. A closer inspection revealed it had once swung on hinges as a .

Number Nine sounded alarming until I learned the old man wasn't talking about anatomy. A dusty book had been shoved behind a shelf by a mischievous cat, hiding its from view.

The final clue lay in an old barn. Feathers suggested trouble, but experience told me not to jump to conclusions. Behind a barrel I found the missing , calmly sitting on a nest of eggs and wondering what all the fuss was about.

By midnight the case was closed. Nothing had truly been stolen. Some things had been hidden. Others had wandered off or found new purposes. The old man got his answers and went rolling on home with his dog. And the town got a reminder that the difference between a mystery and a misunderstanding is often just knowing where to look.