"I'm not sure, where do you want to go?" I've never been very good at committing to a restaurants for meals, I'd just as soon go with what anyone else wanted.
"How about Subway?" Kim was a very healthy person, she tried to always eat something a little healthy, and I've only ever seen her eat a burger once. So with all the important details out of the way we made our way to Subway. Kim got a turkey breast and black forest ham 6 inch, and I got a turkey BLT. While we ate we talked about lots of things, I asked here how her family was doing, she asked me about work, but mostly we just hung out and enjoyed each others company, it was nice, one of those precious moments between two people you never want to forget.
Then after lunch it was time to go to the park. Kim and I have visited lots of different parks around the area, we always enjoy just being out there with nature, and we usually try to go places we haven't been before. Sondermann Park was a smallish park, mostly surrounded by houses or roads, but it was supposed to be surprisingly secluded in some of the longer trails, where you wouldn't even be able to hear the traffic. There was even a small playground for kids out front and as we drove up one of the swings was still going, some kid must have just left. I remembered what John had said about that Tommy kid, but it looked like the police had cleared the area, save for one lone cop car across the street. "I guess it's good they're keeping an eye on the area," I mentioned to Kim as we started down one of the longer trails, "makes it seem a little safer I guess."
"I'm sure the kid just got fed up with things and tried to run away or something, there isn't much crime in this area, and we all tried to run away when we were kids."
"I never did, I mean I guess I thought about it whenever I had to do chores or got grounded or something, but I never actually did anything."
"I did!" Kim said adamantly. I raised my eyes questioningly. "One day I just got feed up with brushing my teeth, I walked right out the front door and went to live in the grocery store instead."
I laughed "And how did that work out for you?" I didn't doubt her sincerity in the least, I'd already heard several stories about her childhood, and this she had definitely been the kind of kid who would run away from home for a day or two.
"Well I made it about two hours before one of the more observant employees there noticed that every time I came to get a food sample it was without a parent, he kept an eye on me and after it became clear I was just wandering around alone he took me to the manager's office and they made me call my mother. After she brought me home she said how scared she had been, how I shouldn't do things like that ever again." Kim smiled, "then after she got through worrying over me and hugging me and crying she sent me right into the bathroom to brush my teeth."
I grinned at that, "So did you ever try to run away again after that?"
"No, I figured that running away was boring, and you got way less food than you normally would for lunch, it really wasn't worth not having to brush your teeth anymore."
By now we had made it a fair way into the woods and stopped to rest on a bench. It was in a nice secluded area and a chilly was blowing. I was about to ask Kim another question when I noticed a black notebook on the ground, partially covered by leaves. I went over and picked it up the cover said "Thomas Allard" and below that it said "5th grade math". Kim came and looked over my shoulder as I flipped through the first few pages. At first there was nothing of note, just a few geometry or algrebra problems worked out, frequently incorrectly. Every now and then there would be a string of numbers somewhere on the page that I couldn't figure out what they were referancing, I assumed the were just solutions that he hadn't worked out on the page, answers to problems in the textbook. Then I started flipping through it a little more rapidly, tired of just seeing more of the same, till I came to a page with a drawing on it. In the middle of the page was a tall, elaborate tree taking up the whole page, it looked almost scribbled, but you could still see all of the the branches as they split off and intelocked with each other, it was actually quite difficult to take my eyes off of it. When I turned the page again, there was just more math problems, I quickly flipped past them and several pages later I found another drawing. This time it was a picture of a bussnisseman, but he had appearently run out of room for the head, as the body took up the whole of the page. The trend continued for several more pages, there would be some pages of schoolwork, fewwer each time, and then there would be an image taking up the entire page. He drew woods or trees several times, once he drew the playground, once he drew a large group of children staring at a man who took up the center frame, all you could see was his shoulders and the back of his head, though. Sometimes the images looked like they were drawn carefully and slowly, while others looked rushed and frantic. Some of them were actually pretty creepy. I turned to Kim, "I think this is that missing kid's notebook."
She looked a little concerned "What are you going to do?"
"I'm not sure, I should give it to the police, but I don't know how that'll help them, maybe I'll just get rid of it."
"Maybe you should just hold onto it for now," Kim looked concerned "If you get rid of it and it could be used as evidence..." She left the statment hanging, somewhat omoniously.
"I'll just sleep on it for now," was my noncommital answer, "I'll decide what to do about this in a couple of days, but right now we should be getting back." I moitioned at the sky, we had spent quite a while staring at the notebook and it's pictures, and it was starting to get dark. We walked out briskly, not taking nearly as long to get out as we had to get in, the woods seemed much more onminious now. We agreed not to go back to that park again on the drive back. I dropped Kim off at her door, making sure she was inside before I headed home.
I don't know what I'm going to do about that notebook.
