Page 1 of Lost Little Boy
Chapter One
Perry Castle
Eep! Eep! Eep!
“Stupid squeak.” I pushed the bucket with the mop handle, mentally kicking myself for not taking a look at the wheels. I forgot about it once I’d cleaned the bucket and put it away, and every afternoon when I got it out to mop the floors, that squeakwas there.
I opened the door to the Arlington Children’s Center, housed on the first floor of the Liberty Building. Kids were laughing and playing, and it made me smile. I stared at the boys and girls on the floor playing with blocks and cars, wishing I could join them. They looked so carefree, and I was instantly jealous.
“Oh, Perry, thank you for coming on such short notice. Follow me, please,” Miss Daphne said.
The squeaky bucket and I followed her to the back of the center where the boys’ and girls’ restrooms were located, along with a wall of cubbies with each child’s name in rainbow colors over their designated spot. There were a couple empty holes, indicating the center wasn’t at capacity, but I knew there was a waiting list.
Miss Daphne had been interviewing applicants to fill two teachers’ aide slots for two months and hadn’t had any luck finding suitable replacements. That must have been the reason she appeared so harried and I felt bad for her. She was a nice woman.
“I’m sorry about the mess. Sebastian Cornwell got sick after lunch, and he couldn’t quite get to the bathroom fast enough. I hated to pull you away from whatever you were doing, but it needed to be cleaned up. One of my teachers called in sick today, and with being shorthanded already, it’s been a crazy day.
“I phoned Sebastian’s mother, but she’s in a meeting and can’t pick him up, so he’s going to rest on the couch in my office for a while.”
Daphne Cruz was a nice woman. She was the director of the Arlington Children’s Center, a daycare and preschool for kids, aged two to five, whose parents worked for the biggest employer in the building, Grassley Industries.
I could see Miss Daphne was truly sorry for having to call me for such a gross task. A four-year-old student had puked up everything he’d eaten since the day he was born, and it was everywhere in the back hallway—the path that had to be taken to get their belongings when it was time to go home.
It was one of those unpredictable things about being around kids. Puke happened at the least convenient times, and it was about an hour away from parent pickup.
“No worries, Miss Cruz. I’ll take care of it.” I left the center to get more supplies for cleaning up the mess, not looking forward to what I was about to do. The kid had gotten within five feet of the boys’ room when he started to spew, which meant the hallway had to be sanitized as well.
The thing that bothered me was how could a parent leave a sick child at the daycare center because they hada business meeting? The thought of it reminded me too much of what I’d left behind in Erasmus, Tennessee.
I grabbed some heavy-duty rubber gloves and a jug of antiseptic fluid for the initial cleanup. I’d go back with the strongest sanitizer after the kids went home for the day. I grabbed a small cart and put the cleaner on the tray, adding sponges and an additional mophead, before rolling it back down the hall to the center. Not only was my life a disaster, but my job was to clean up other people’s messes. The irony wasn’t lost on me.
Once I finished with the bathroom and the hallway, I pushed the squeaky mop bucket back to the supply closet, pulling the metal cart behind me. I bleached the mop, the bucket, and the gloves, the water so hot it would scald a hog—a saying I remembered from my childhood. It probably wouldn’t make sense in the big city.
I noticed the trash bag was pretty full, so I pulled it out of the can, tied it closed, and put it under the desk chair, beneath my backpack, to take out later.
I went about the rest of my day, changing lightbulbs and erasing marks from the marble floors made by expensive shoes before I fired up the buffer. It was all in a day’s work.
Once the floor was shining, I pushed the buffer back to the supply closet. I straightened up the mess that had accumulated over the workweek and sat to fill out my timesheet for my boss, Hugh Warrick, the manager of building services.
I got lost in the notes I’d made about what I’d done over the week as I filled out the attached accountability sheet that was submitted with my time sheet. After I finished, I went to make a copy for myself. They’d never tried to cheat me, but I’d learned over the years that even good people might take advantage of a person if given the opportunity.
After glancing at the clock over the door of the closet, I saw it was almost seven, which was quitting time for me. I slid off my coveralls and shoved them into my backpack to wash over the weekend before sliding the pack over my shoulders and picking up the trash bag to take to the dumpster on my way to the bus stop.
I had to walk through the daycare center to get to the loading dock where the dumpsters were located. The center was empty, as I’d expected, and when I walked through, I noticed a few toys on the floor that someone mustn’t have put away. That was unusual. Miss Daphne ran a tight ship.
I was a bit of a neat freak, having grown up in the northern part of Tennessee at the foothills of the Cumberland Mountains. Before my father’s death when I was twelve, he’d worked in the coal mines in Erasmus, and there was always a film of coal dust coating everything. I never felt asthough I could get the film off my skin or the smell out of my nose as I was growing up.
The ding of the elevator brought me from my thoughts, so I reached down to pick up a red fire truck, replacing it on the shelf where it belonged. Nobody was around, so I spun the wheels before kneeling to run the truck over the streets of the little town woven into the carpet.
“Vroom. Vroom. Honk. Honk. Wee-oh. Wee-oh.” I couldn’t help making the fire truck sounds as I moved the truck toward a building I imagined was on fire. I loved playing with cars and trucks, though I didn’t really have any of my own growing up. We were dirt poor, and with five kids, my parents told us toys were a waste of money they didn’t have.
As I looked around the daycare center at the colorful blocks, games, puzzles, books, and craft stations, I found myself a little jealous of the options the kids had. I wished I’d had something close to what I was seeing.
Sometimes, I’d come down to the daycare center after it closed in the evening and draw or color, but I always left it the way I found it and took my pages home with me. I’d have been so embarrassed if Miss Daphne knew I’d spent time there playing with the toys her kids adored.
One Friday, I took a toy car home with me, deciding nobody at the center would miss it because they alreadyhad so many. I put it on my side table next to the pullout couch and slept with it both nights over the weekend. By Sunday evening, I felt so guilty that I went to work early on Monday to return it.
A couple of times I’d thought about buying myself a few toys to play with at home, but I had roommates who would probably poke fun if they caught me. I didn’t think they liked me much anyway because I was shy and didn’t hang out with them, so I didn’t want to give them anything else to support their judgment that I was a loser—I’d overheard them saying so more than once.
