The Case of the Missing Auntie

by Michael Hutchinson

  “It’s not her, but it’s her adopted sister, maybe?” Chickadee’s brow furrowed.

  “Looks like.” Janice nodded. “Not her, but someone from her second adopted family.”

  “Not good,” Otter said, sadly.

  “Why, Otter?” Atim asked in confusion, shrugging his shoulders.

  “Because, it wouldn’t be proper…. Unless, Aunt Charlotte couldn’t do it herself.”

  Sam and Chickadee thought for a moment. And then their shoulders dropped.

  After saying good-bye to Janice, they started back to the mall. The Muskrats walked in silence, each alone with their own thoughts.

  After a few moments, Atim cleared his throat. “Uh…that means Auntie Charlotte is probably dead, right?”

  Sadly, the rest of the Muskrats nodded their heads.

  Atim shrunk. Samuel patted him on the shoulder in sympathy.

  “We found her, then we lost her, and now we have to tell Grandpa.”

  Chapter 27

  Heading Home

  “There it is….” Chickadee looked out a backseat window at the city nestled in the haze of the distance. They were close enough that the suburbs lay like a field before them and the few tall buildings of downtown loomed large in the distance. But they were far enough away to be traveling at highway speeds, with trees and farmhouses, occasionally, blocking the view of the urban environment.

  “We almost got to the Exhibition Fair.” Atim harrumphed from the middle of the back seat.

  From the front, Samuel turned to his brother. “On the positive side, we met a nice taxi driver who didn’t let us get taken for a ride.”

  “I saw Wovoka’s Wail in concert!” Otter said excitedly, then a little quieter, “Their guitarist, anyway.”

  “I guess, we could say we were roadies for a concert,” Atim said.

  “Paid in hot dogs,” Samuel added.

  The Muskrats all chuckled at themselves.

  “It sounds like you’ve had a great trip.” Auntie Maude took inventory as she settled into long-distance driving mode. The area around her seat was packed with snacks, liquids, and lotion wipes.

  “It wasn’t what I thought it would be. Some places are so empty, and some places are so full.” Otter stared out his window at the countryside rolling by. He had no wish to look back at the city.

  “It’s dirty too,” Chickadee said with disappointment.

  They rode in silence through a few small towns.

  “I remember once, I can’t remember where I was coming back from, but I was dressed up. I had this nice dress on, high heels. But I was broke too, you know?” Auntie Maude laughed. “Probably a job interview or something.”

  “I know what rush hour is now!” Otter bragged.

  “It’s the only time Auntie Sadie swears!” Atim announced.

  Auntie Maude laughed, then continued her story. “Well, I had no bus fare, so I was walking back, probably to my boyfriend’s or my auntie’s house. I needed to pee. I needed to pee bad. But all around me were office buildings. Eventually, I couldn’t help it anymore, I went into one of the office buildings. I picked a government one because I thought they’d have to let me. But the security guard wouldn’t allow me in. And the next one didn’t either. That lady was so mean. I just needed to pee!” Auntie Maude slapped Samuel’s arm beside her and then hid her laughter behind her hand.

  “Were your teeth floating, Mom?” Atim tapped her shoulder.

  “Oh yeah, my eyes were yellow. I got to a corner store, but they wouldn’t let me go pee unless I bought something. None of the stores would. It hurt so bad.” She shook her head. “As I walked down the street, I was thinking of all the pipes below me that ran from bathrooms. All the bathrooms around me. Even trees, that I would have no problem peeing behind if I was in the bush, but I couldn’t because I was in the city. It wasn’t like there wasn’t any place built for peeing around me. All those pipes, all those toilets in the buildings, all those trees…” Aunt Maude trailed off.

  “The whole landscape was built for urination is what you’re saying, hey, Mom?” Samuel slapped his mother’s arm.

  She burst into laughter. The little van shook. She slapped the wheel and the van swerved.

  Atim reach from the backseat and hit his brother. “Stop making Mom laugh! You’re going to kill us!”

  Auntie Maude had to stop laughing and catch her breath before she could speak again.

  “Such a simple thing, a human bodily function, I was surrounded by toilets, but it was the people that were getting in the way. That’s the city for you.” Auntie Maude shrugged. “It’s a funny place, the city. People think it’s a destination. It isn’t. It’s another landscape filled with its own destinations. So many people I’ve known, who thought they were going to the city to get somewhere, never got to where they were going once they were there.”

  Chickadee was lost in thought about her auntie Charlotte and the mystery that had yet to be completed. She would head for the Muskrat clubhouse as soon as she could. She needed to e-mail a lady in Alberta.

  Chapter 28

  A Sister’s Story

  “Do I have to go in the backyard?” Grandpa sounded hurried for the first time anyone in the room could remember. He came bolting out of his bedroom armed with a mug of tea in one hand and a notepad in the other. He made a beeline for the front door.

  “We’ll watch it in your living room, Grandpa, if we’re all in the backyard, the Ferland’s will know the whole family is using their WiFi!” Otter and Atim stopped their Elder and turned him around. The boys had never seen Grandpa so excited.

  “It’s all hooked up?”

  “Samuel is standing outside, Grandpa. With Mark’s tablet. But we got a long cord. See?” Atim pointed to a thin, black cord that snaked from a window in Grandpa’s guest room, down the hallway, and into the living room. As they walked in, a collection of family and friends welcomed Grandpa. A spot had been reserved for him right in front of the TV. Chickadee was already sitting on one side. Otter sat on the other. The old man fell into his spot with a plop.

  With a loud creak, Grandpa’s door swung open and a group of the older cousins spilled in. They laughed and joked as they kicked off their shoes.

  Chickadee picked Denice out of the pack. She hopped off the couch and ran to her favorite older cousin.

  “Hey, Denice!”

  “Aww, Chickie. How you doin’? I heard you all got into some trouble in the city.”

  Everyone else in the new group continued on into the house. Chickadee and Denice stepped out of the doorway and leaned on the kitchen counter.

  “So, what happened?” Denice smiled down at Chickadee.

  “Ah, it’s a long story, but we did some dumb stuff, and the boys got into even worse trouble, but then…we found Auntie Charlotte. Or, at least, we could tell Grandpa what happened to her.”

  “The Mighty Muskrats solved the case!” Denice lightly punched her on the shoulder. “The whole family is freaked out, seriously. I know Grandpa…well, you gave him something.”

  Chickadee tried to say something, but she just giggled and turned red instead.

  Denice put one arm around her little cousin and squeezed. She then nodded toward the living room and started heading in.

  When Chickadee saw the seat beside Grandpa was still open, she sat down, swung her arms wide, and clasped him in a bear hug. As she listened to her Grandpa’s heartbeat, she remembered the e-mail that brought them all there.

  After their trip to the city, each of the Muskrats had found a new appreciation for their hometown and some of its unique people and places. There was no rush hour here.

  Chickadee remembered how she’d enjoyed the smells of the grass, soil, and pine as she watched the field and junkyard around the Muskrats’ fort. The sun shone; the wind played with the edges of her long, black hair. It was quiet.


  Soon after her arrival home, she’d walked to the old, blue Bombardier snow-van that was half-hidden in the collection of rusting cars, trucks, construction equipment, and metal that had been corralled in the small field. The vehicle had been a workhorse in the north back when Grandpa was a working man. Its large skis replaced front wheels in the winter and a half-track pushed it through the bush.

  Chickadee opened the door of the Bombardier. Once inside, she looked out through its windows to see if anyone had seen her arrive.

  The interior of the snow van was a pre-teen’s dream. Cushions and blankets softened the harsh edges of the aging wood. Posters of pop stars were plastered in strategic locations between the windows. The magazines they were pulled from were neatly stacked in easy reach.

  When she was sure she had arrived unseen, Chickadee slid her hand along a tin panel that had once hidden the engine area from the sitting and storage area. She smiled. The latch had already been undone, which probably meant one of the other Muskrats was inside. With a slight tug, she pulled the panel open, climbed in, and closed the panel behind her. The engine had been replaced with the end of an old culvert that led into the darkness. Boards and bits of carpet had been laid on the floor of the aluminum tunnel to make the kneeling journey a little less painful. The other end of the culvert was stuck in the rear emergency doorway of a decommissioned school bus.

  The view out of the majority of the bus windows was the stacked vehicles in the junkyard. But here and there, a glimpse of the field beyond the mounds of steel could be seen. An overturned car sat on the front of the bus, with the windshield gone, it turned the hood into a large enclosed shelf.

  “Tansi!” Otter said.

  Chickadee stood after crawling through the long culvert. “I’m good. You?” Chickadee stretched her back.

  “I was just…enjoying the quiet,” Otter told her. He was reading a Conan comic as he sprawled across one of the couches along the long wall of the school bus.

  Chickadee put on the manner of their grandfather. “Silence is the voice of Creation.”

  They both laughed.

  “I came to check my e-mails.” Chickadee was almost apologetic as she walked past him to the computer. She sat down and soon her fingers were like tap-dancing spiders across the keyboard. “Grandpa gave me permission to e-mail the woman from Alberta. I asked her if she would FaceTime with Grandpa and tell him the story of his little sister.”

  “Yeah. It still blows me away that Grandpa doesn’t know anything about someone he loved so much. Imagine being taken away from your family like that.”

  Chickadee had been excited to see a reply e-mail. She clicked on it quickly and read. “She’ll do it!” Chickadee clapped her hands.

  After a quick reply, it had taken a few weeks to arrange a time in the summer when Ms. Bauman could video chat with Grandpa. But, eventually, the date was set, and the family was invited and assigned food to bring.

  ó

  Now, a parade of children running over Chickadee’s feet ripped away the memory. As the little hoard of attention-seeking and killer-cuteness peaked and ebbed, the sitting adults and teens returned to their conversations.

  From outside, she could hear Samuel screaming, “Is everyone ready?”

  A chorus of “Aho!” from the men and “Get on with it!” from the women, went up. The family turned to the TV.

  Chickadee could feel her hand squeezed tightly in the warm, silky grasp of her grandpa. He was trembling with excitement. The whole family had been concerned about Grandpa’s health after he first learned his little sister had passed on.

  Sam’s face popped up on the TV screen. Everyone in the living room screamed and clapped.

  “Hey! I saw this one. Change the channel!” one of the cousins yelled.

  “Okay! I’ll call her up.” Samuel’s face was replaced by the logo of FaceTime.

  Eventually, a woman’s kind face filled the screen. She had a toothy smile that was welcoming and warm. Her hair was gray with wisps of auburn. Her skin, clear with the occasional freckle, was crinkled and tanned like she had spent much of her long life outdoors. Her eyes were shy, but her smile lines suggested she had spent a lifetime pushing herself past her fear of strangers.

  “Hello! You look a little young to be Charlotte’s brother!” The lady chuckled.

  “I’m her brother!” Grandpa yelled to the screen in the living room.

  “She can’t hear you!” Otter whispered to his Elder. “Our camera is on the tablet in the backyard, Grandpa.” Otter tapped his Elder on the leg.

  From the backyard, and on the little square at the corner of the TV, Samuel spoke.

  “What? Oh!” he said. “I’m Sam. I’ll be your host this evening. My grandpa is in his living room, watching you on his TV screen. His grandchildren will relay the messages back and forth. We have to do it like this because my grandpa doesn’t have Internet.”

  “Okay! Well, I hope to meet him one day,” the lady said pleasantly. “I don’t know how to start here. I…I’m Joan’s sister. I guess that sounds odd.” She shook her head and struggled on. “I’m told you knew her as Charlotte. That’s a lovely name. When Joan…Charlotte…was with our family, things were good for her. I loved her. I don’t know what you know. I don’t know what I can tell you. What do you want to know?”

  “Ask Grandpa what he wants to know!” Samuel motioned to Atim, whose athletic form went running into the house. He returned a moment later.

  “He said, ‘How did she pass?’” Atim looked serious.

  Sam relayed the question gently.

  “Oh. Well, she died of cancer. Last summer. It was very fast. She was never…robust, you know. She was so thin when I first met her. I remember…I guess, that is the beginning, I should start there, I suppose.” Christina Bauman looked off-screen as she remembered.

  “I was at Sunday school—I was only a little girl—when I heard two ladies from my church talking. One of them was a recent widow, Mrs. Stewart. She was having difficulty keeping her property and doing all the stuff it took to keep a home in those days. The other lady said, ‘Why don’t you get a boy?’” Christina paused again, remembering. “So strange to realize now, that…I guess they just knew there was this…collection of children that they could go look at. And then…just take one.”

  Samuel shifted uncomfortably. Atim’s eyebrows got higher and higher as he listened to the lady’s story.

  After a moment’s pause, Christina began again.

  “It was a few months later that Joan first arrived. I had no idea Mrs. Stewart renamed her. I felt for Joan. She worked so hard for Mrs. Stewart. And the old lady treated her like she was a servant, not a child.” Christina shook her head.

  “It only got worse when Mrs. Stewart died. I guess, she was inherited by Mrs. Stewart’s daughter. I don’t remember her married name, but we always called her Tabby.”

  Christina sighed heavily. “Tabby had two boys. Joan couldn’t even escape that family at school. She was expected to serve those boys everywhere. I don’t know everything that happened in that house but I watched Joan get quieter and quieter, more and more shy.”

  Christina sobbed, suddenly. She reached off-screen for some tissue and dabbed her eyes and cheeks. “I’m sorry. I miss her. She didn’t deserve…”

  Samuel motioned to Atim and hissed, “Go see how Grandpa is doing.”

  Atim ran into the house. His eyes had to adjust from sunlight to the darker house. The family was deathly quiet. Some of the aunties wiped tears from their faces. Atim looked at Grandpa and his heart fell.

  The old man was sitting on the edge of the couch, tears openly trailed down his cracked, brown cheeks. He desperately clasped Otter’s hand on one side and Chickadee’s on the other.

  Atim knew that Grandpa’s arms might be thin with age, but they held a sinewy strength that was now squeezing his cousins�
� hands tightly. They both looked at Atim with a gaze filled with the weight of their Elder’s sorrow.

  On the TV, Christina sobbed, wiping tears from her face. Atim ran back outside.

  “Joan…Charlotte…was such a beautiful soul. Her life had been so hard, you know. I guess you don’t know. But her life had been hard, yet…she carried herself with strength.”

  Christina tried to rein in her emotions. She blew her nose into a tissue. “I loved her so much. She was my sister…. I hope that doesn’t offend. I just…when Jo—Charlotte—began to run away from Tabby’s, I heard my mother talking about it. I was a teenager by this time. I begged my mom to see if we could take her in. And then…we did. Charlotte was so gentle, so kind. It took us a long time to convince her that we loved her. That we didn’t just want her there as a servant. It was wonderful to finally have a sister.”

  The lady from Alberta sobbed again, and tears dropped from her cheeks.

  “We’re sorry to make you go through this, Ms. Bauman,” Samuel said.

  Christina smiled a sad smile that took over her whole face. She shook her head.

  Atim took the pause as a chance to run into the house. The scene was as before. Weeping aunties, Grandpa on the edge of his seat, Ms. Bauman’s face on the television.

  “It’s okay. This is good. Kind of healing, you know,” Christina said. “She…wanted to find her family but, I don’t know, she was frightened of what she’d find, or maybe she was scared she’d be rejected.”

  Before Samuel could say anything, Christina began to speak again. “I tried so hard to convince her that she wasn’t lost!”

  She looked earnestly into the camera, shaking slightly. “But I couldn’t. She began to run away again. When she left home, she was so hungry for love. She always had a boyfriend, if he was a good man, her life was good. But several were not good men. Her heart was sick…sick with sadness, I guess.”