The Missing Backpack

Yesterday when A arrived home on the bus she was wearing her "indoor" shoes, dragging her jacket, and missing her backpack.

"Where's your backpack?" I asked.

The kids on the bus answered for her, "Someone took it," chirped a number of voices.

The bus driver said, "She didn't have it getting on."

I was a bit perturbed. I hunted all over Scarborough on a Sunday morning looking for a logo-less backpack to replace her taboo Dora backpack.

"Who took your backpack?" I asked A.

"I can't tell you, Mommy," she said, then changed the subject.

Is she my daughter? I can't believe she wouldn't tell me. Was this some form of bullying?

"Of course you can tell me," I said. "You can tell your mommy anything."

"Can we just go home?" She said and rushed ahead of me.

Oh, dear.

So, I called the school when we got in, and in halting French explained to the answering machine what had happened. Of course they didn't answer in person, they never do, neither do they return phonecalls.

"Let's drive to the school to look for it." I suggested.

"I want cheerios," replied A.

"Okay, cheerios, then school."

A nodded.

By the time we got to the school no one was there. Neither was her backpack. The mystery wasn't solved until this morning when I tailed the bus to the school and told her teacher what had happened. Her teacher doesn't speak English. I have a hard time believing anyone living and working in Ottawa can't speak English. Anyway, she told me that a child from another class had taken the backpack. She didn't tell me how or why. She shrugged and said it would likely be returned. Well. Not really a good enough answer, but I wasn't going to argue, particularly not in my halting French.

After playing in the school yard a few minutes with A, I saw a mother walk past carrying A's backpack . One of the little girls from A's bus came over and said, "The backpack came back."

I nodded. "Yes, I saw it go by."

When A's teacher handed it over to her, A burst into tears. "I don't want that backpack," she wailed.

Oh, dear. This is just the beginning. Am I up for dealing with the vagaries of grade school?