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Leg on The Lam

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by Gerry Chandler





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Chapter 1. Dad at his Desk

  As soon as I heard my dad shouting I knew that something was wrong. My dad had been working hard all week long on a very important project. Instead of going to the office he had been at home, working away from early morning to late at night. My mom was always going around telling us kids to be quiet. What a pain.


Chapter 2. Me in my Room

  I was goofing off in my room when I heard my Dad's shouts. He was always shouting about something, but this was different. These shouts meant there was a Problem. Problem spelled with a capital P. It got me off the bed that I was lying on and out the door so fast that I didn't even think about shutting off my stereo. My mom was always going around telling us kids to turn off whatever we weren't using. What a pain.


Chapter 3. I See Trouble

  Trouble (spelled with a capital T) is what I saw as soon as I focused on Dad. He was hopping about on one leg shouting, "Where is it?"  Now dad is always loosing things, usually his glasses, so if I did see it with my own eyes, I wouldn'thave been concerned. But I saw it: he was hopping on one leg because he had lost the other!  His leg, his left leg, which he always keeps near his right leg, was gone!  (I'm not going to say it, but I sure thought ...)


Chapter 4. The Leg is Gone

  Dad's left leg had just got up and walked off. Or more exactly, hopped off, because one leg can't walk all by itself. Dad said that his leg had been complaining more and more about his lack of exercise. Just like Dad kept putting me off when I said couldn't we please — pretty please — go out and play, Dad kept putting his leg off. Well, that darn old left leg did what I didn't have the courage to do. It just ran (hopped) away.


Chapter 5. I Give Chase.

  At first I couldn't see what the problem was: that old leg must be somewhere around the house; after all it couldn't open the door by itself and go anywhere, could it?  But then I saw that the door was open!  Dad's leg was gone. Before I even thought about it I was running out the door onto the street and down the hill looking for the wandering leg. I went downhill figuring that hopping downhill was easier. I hoped that I would find it right away, because I didn't want to have to ask anybody, "Have you seen a hopping leg?"  I'd get a pretty funny look, don't you bet?


Chapter 6. The Shoe is Found

  Pretty soon I had some good news and bad news for Dad. Or at least it would have been news if I'd gone back to tell him. I got down to the corner and I saw a shoe sitting there all by itself. It had to be Dad's shoe. That was the good news. The bad news was that Dad's leg wasn't in the shoe. It had hopped right out of that old shoe!  At least I knew that I had gone in the right direction. I kept on running down the hill though there was nothing in sight.


Chapter 7. The Sock is Found

 We live near the top of a small hill. If I had been running up hill to home, I would have been already out of breath. But when I got to the bottom I still had plenty of breath in me and was determined that I was going to find that darned old leg before anything happened that would make the guys at school rib me. About two blocks after the bottom I started to slow down because I was losing my breath. It's lucky I did, because I found Dad's sock!  I never thought that you could hop out of your socks. Shoes? sure! But socks?  Well, seeing is believing and I had seen enough to believe.


Chapter 8. I Find Dad's Leg.

  Pretty soon I had some more good news and some pretty bad news for Dad. I was going along as fast as my lungs would let me, looking down the street when I tripped over Dad's leg. It was just lying there on the ground. That was the good news. As soon as I picked myself up and got myself organized, I saw the bad news:  Dad's toes were gone!  That was really bad news. Would Dad have to buy special short socks?  Would people laugh at him on the beach?
I knew that I had to find Dad's toes.


Chapter 9. The Toes Run Away

  I had already stuffed Dad's shoe in my pocket and then stuffed his sock in my pocket. But Dad's leg was just too big to put in my pocket. Even without the toes it was too long. I didn't want just to carry it down the street because if any of the guys saw me, what a ribbing I'd get. So I stuck his leg under my shirt. The part that stuck out looked a bit like a baseball bat (Dad's not very hairy) and was pretty close to my ear. Until then I didn't know that legs could talk. But because it was so close to my ear I could hear it!  Dad's leg confirmed my guess why it ran away. And then it told me that its toes ran away from it.


Chapter 10. The Toes' Story 

  What a day of surprises. Mom is always getting on my case because she doesn't believe half of what I tell her. She was hardly going to believe me when I told her that Dad's leg said his toes ran away because their feelings were hurt. But that's what I got from the leg. (I'm tempted to say from the horse's mouth, but you'd probably say cut that horsing out.) Those old toes just didn't like being on the bottom of a lot of hopping. When they were inside the shoe, it wasn't too bad although it was hot and stuff. But what a beating they took when Dad's leg hopped out of the shoe. And they really started to get dirty when Dad's leg hopped out of the sock. After a bit of pleading but getting no sympathy from the leg, the toes just walked off.


Chapter 11. I Get REAL Worried

  Of course you know that toes can't walk and I didn't mean it exactly that Dad's toes just walked off. But they were off!  Now the problem was to find them. I didn't have much of a clue because the street was pretty flat now, and, even if it wasn't, I didn't even know if toes could roll down hill. What I did know was that those toes were too small to take care of themselves. If didn't find them soon they might be somebody's dinner. And then what?  Was I supposed to say to Dad, "Sorry, I got there just as the robin was swallowing your little toe?" 


Chapter 12. A Ribbing Comes my Way

  Real worried, I rushed off. Keeping my eyes to the ground (using my ears would have been pretty useless) I ran to the corner. Seeing the curb, I thought that the toes were unlikely to have risked injury by jumping off, so I headed left down the next block. If I was on the right track I'd be up to them soon, since my size gave me a big advantage in covering distance. Near the end of the block I met some guys fromschool playing marbles on the sidewalk. When they saw Dad's leg sticking out of my shirt, they told me it was a pretty funny place to carry a baseball bat, and anyway, I must be pretty dumb to not know that baseball season was over.


Chapter 13. Playing with Dad's Toes

  I saw the guys before I got to them, but I owed it to Dad to keep up the chase; I couldn't let fear of being kidded put me off the trail. But I didn't see before I stopped that they were playing marbles. And when I did stop and looked down I saw something besides the marbles:  could those be Dad's toes? Yes they were!  I was sure of it, even if I hadn't been exactly in the habit of looking under the table every morning at breakfast to see what Dad's toes looked like. I thought of just grabbing Dad's toes and running but I knew that I wasn't fast enough to make a clean get away. And I didn't need a licking just now. Nosiree.


Chapter 14. My Plan to Get Dad's Toes

  Now here's the situation:  The guys were obviously playing marbles with Dad's toes. Maybe the guys thought the toes were worms. I had to get the toes back for Dad or poor old Dad was going to be out looking for short socks. And here's what my strategy was:  I'd join the game and win the toes. That way, if I kept my cool, the guys would never know how important the toes were; they probably wouldn't even know they were toes. I was sure that I could win because I hadn't losta game of marbles since my last birthday. In fact, sometimes the guys wouldn't let me play because I was so good.


Chapter 15. Winner Takes All (the Toes)

 I won't bore you with the details, but I did manage to get into the game. At first there was a lot of whining and little kid stuff like that. But I whined even louder and said that I'd tell on them to their parents if they wouldn't let me play, so I was soon in the game. I won't bore you either with all the details of all my neat shots, but if you have ever been around you know that I can make a lot of neat shots. (Mom says not to brag so much. What a pain. I'm glad she wasn't around.)  Pretty soon my neat shots had won all the marbles and all the toes. I told the guys that I was late and picked up everything and stuffed it in my pockets and was off. Whew!


Chapter 16. Homeward Bound

  I knew that I'd better make tracks for home quick. Who knew what Dad might being doing in desperation about his toes. And who knew what Mom might be doing about me. After all, I'd just run out the door without saying a word. I kept my cool just until I was at the corner; when I turned it I started to run just as if I turned on a jet engine inside me. It was a bit hard keeping my balance with Dad's leg sticking out of my shirt and bumping my head. (I ignored the leg's complaints.)  And when I started to run up the hill I soon knew that if I was a jet engine, I was running on low octane fuel. But I made it up thehill and to the front door with a bit of breath to spare. And then I saw Mom and Dad.


Chapter 17. A Happy Reunion

  I knew what mom was going to say before she said it. And I knew it would be a pain. And I knew that Dad was still hopping mad about the loss of his leg. You just had to look at him. Before Mom or Dad could say anything I pulled Dad's leg out and just sort of shoved it toward him. That sure changed his look. As soon as he had the leg in his hands he put it back on. Almost faster than I can tell it, I saw him become happy, then realize that his toes were gone, and become unhappy again. But that didn't last long because I fished into my right pocked and pulled out his toes and put them in Dad's hand. By the time he'd put the toes on, I had his shoe and sock out and handed them to him. By the time he'd put those on, I knew that Mom wasn't going to say what she had been going to say. Hurray.
 



last updated November 9, 2001