Losing Nick

Emma's beloved Nick is here visiting through New Year's.  The other night about 10 p.m., she told him that she was going to give him a dose of cod liver oil.  She is always worried about his health.  Nick had already had a dose of the fishy stuff the day before and decided, conveniently, that he needed to go to the bathroom, immediately if not sooner.  Emma bided her time.  She would install the dose when he returned.  The only problem was, he didn't return!  After a half hour or so we started hunting him.  We peeped behind doors, peered into closets, poked under beds.  No Nick.

We ventured outdoors.  We looked in the trees, in the cars, under bushes.  We called his phone.  We came back inside and looked again.  Emma fretted that Nick was sleep walking.  He has a history of falling asleep unexpectedly and can keep up his end of a conversation in this semi-conscious state.  I began to seriously worry.  We decided to walk to the pond.  With our flashlight beams criss-crossing the field, we tramped and called, "Niii ick!"  Emma's cat, Cotton, came too--loping along and scaring up a mysterious large bird out of the tall grass.  Eerie.

We returned home and decided to drive down the road and look.  With the windows down, we drove slowly, calling Nick's name and looking for him in the ditches.  We bumped down the pot-holed dirt driveway of an abandoned house and cautiously searched the open garage with the headlight beams.  Emma wanted to get out and go in, but I wouldn't let her.  That place scared me!  I couldn't get the car out of there fast enough.

We continued down the road to the highway.  "I think we should call the police," Emma said anxiously.  Crossing the railroad tracks we saw the headlight of a train that was stopped a hundred feet west of the crossing.  "I'm going to get out and look," Emma said.  I knew what she was thinking: that the train was stopped because it had run over Nick!  Discovering no body, she got back in, and we re-traced our route, this time passing our house and continuing to the west.  It was getting close to midnight.  I decided we better go home and wake Herb and ask him what to do.  But first we drove through our hayfield back to Fiona's pasture looking for Nick.  No sign of him.  Sick with worry, we parked the car and went inside.  As I was entering the kitchen, Emma walked into the dining room.

"Mom!  He's here!" she called excitedly.  I rushed to join her and found Nick sleeping soundly on the floor between the end of the dining room table and the wall adjoining the kitchen.  He had his arms crossed over his chest like he was trying to conserve body heat.  "Did he just get here?" I asked her.  She didn't know.  I had looked in the dining room several times, even peered under the table but had not seen him.  That was from the foyer end of the dining room, though, not the kitchen end.  I crossed into the foyer and looked toward the far end where Nick still slept.  I couldn't see him.  Yet he was in plain sight if you entered the dining room from the kitchen.  Oh, well.  We took a few pictures of him sleeping and marveled that his phone lay right beside him with 14 missed calls showing on the screen.  We called it again.  It rang.  He slept.

Finally, we woke him up and scolded him.  He was very apologetic.  He had never gone to the bathroom, just sneaked around and hid in the dining room, waiting for Emma to come find him.  He never planned to go to sleep. . .