The Mitten Fence on Puddle Lane
Puddle Lane was a short, wet street on the way to school. At the top was Peg’s front door. At the bottom was the duck pond, and then the school gate. All along one side ran a long row of black railings, each one with a pointy top.
Peg walked down Puddle Lane every morning with Mom and her little brother, Bo. And every morning, Peg picked things up.
She picked up buttons. She picked up a toy horse, a hair bow and a pencil with teeth marks. She picked up half a biscuit.
“Somebody is missing this,” said Peg.
“Not the biscuit,” said Mom.
Peg could not walk past a lost thing. Not even a small one.
Bo did not pick things up. Bo lost things. He lost one hat a week, and every week he was surprised about it.
“Where’s my hat?” said Bo, patting the top of his head.
Mom had lost something too. She had one brown glove, and the other one had been missing all winter.
“The cat took it,” said Mom. The cat was asleep on the doormat, and did not look like a glove thief at all.
One wet morning, Peg found a mitten on the pavement. It was very small and very red, and it was lying right beside a puddle.
“Whose is this?” said Peg. She held it up high.
A man with an umbrella shook his head. A lady with a dog shook her head. The dog sniffed the mitten and sneezed.
“You can’t take it to school,” said Mom.
Peg knew that. But if she put it back down, somebody would step on it. Squelch. Flat in the puddle, all day long.
Peg looked at the railings. She looked at their pointy tops. Then she pushed the red mitten down onto the nearest one, and turned it so the thumb stuck up.
“Why like that?” said Bo.
“Thumb up, waving,” said Peg. “So it can say hello to whoever lost it.”
All day long, the red mitten waved at Puddle Lane.
At home time, the railing was empty. A pram was going slowly up the lane, with a baby in it. The baby had a small red mitten on each hand, and was waving them both.
Peg hopped all the way home.
The next day, Peg found a green glove. The day after that, a blue one. Up they went on the railings. Thumb up, waving.
Then other people began to do it too.
Soon the railings held a single roller skate.
Then a single roller skate and a bath plug.
Then a single roller skate, a bath plug and a woolly hat for a dog, with two holes for the ears.
Then a single roller skate, a bath plug, a woolly hat for a dog and a pretend moustache from the school play. Somebody had hung the moustache the right way up, so it smiled at everyone going past.
And one frosty morning, Mom stopped walking. Because right at the end, after the roller skate and the bath plug and the dog hat and the moustache, was a brown glove. Thumb up, waving.
“That’s my glove!” said Mom.
She put it on. It fitted exactly.
“So the cat didn’t take it,” said Bo.
Mom went a little bit pink. That night she said sorry to the cat. The cat stayed asleep.
The dog hat went home on a very proud dog. The moustache went back to the school play. But nobody ever came for the roller skate. When the wind blew, its wheels went round and round, which was its way of waving. Bo said “Morning, Skate” on the way to school, every day.
“Somebody must be missing it,” said Peg.
“I hope not,” said Bo. “Then it can stay.”
Somebody painted a sign that said THE MITTEN FENCE.
That winter, Bo had a new favourite hat. It was yellow, with a long floppy tail, and on the end of the tail was a bobble as big as an orange. Bo wore it to school. He wore it to the shops. He wore it to feed the ducks.
One morning, by the duck pond, Bo patted the top of his head.
“Where’s my hat?” said Bo.
This time his lip wobbled.
They looked by the water. They looked under the bench. Peg held his hand all the way to school.
At home time, Peg ran ahead to the Mitten Fence. Past the roller skate, still spinning its wheels. And right at the very end, on the very last railing, was a yellow hat, its bobble bouncing in the wind. Waving.
Pinned to it was a note in big letters. It said: BOBBLE HAT, FOUND BY THE DUCKS.
“My hat!” said Bo. He pulled it straight on. Then he turned to the pond and said, very politely, “Thank you, ducks.”
The ducks went on being ducks.
Mom held Peg’s hand in one brown glove and Bo’s hand in the other, and they walked home up Puddle Lane.
Peg looked back. All along the Mitten Fence, the lost things were waving.
That night, Bo would not take his hat off. He wore it for tea. He took it off for his bath, and put it straight back on. Mom said it could go on its hook in the morning.
By the time Peg came up to say goodnight, Bo was fast asleep with the hat still on. The long tail had flopped over, and the bobble was resting on his nose.
Peg tucked the bobble under his chin, so it would not tickle.
Outside, the lamps were lit along Puddle Lane. At the end of the Mitten Fence, the roller skate turned its wheels slowly in the breeze, waving goodnight.
And Bo slept, warm right to the tips of his ears, with his hat exactly where he could find it.
The end.
