The picnic wasn’t going well. They made the children, all twenty nine of them; stand in a single file, their arms crossed across their chests. This was because, in the absence of this instruction, the kids would use their hands to pull hair and yank arms, none of which was acceptable. Now, even though they kept chattering, at least they weren’t causing each other any bodily harm.

The thirtieth kid was missing. They last saw him walking around by himself near the pond, possibly looking at ducks. The teachers assumed the worst. That he had stolen everyone’s cupcakes and was sitting somewhere behind a rock consuming it. He could also have drowned, but when it came to dealing with a class of five year olds that could wail as loudly as church gongs with their daily dose of sugar gone, it was shamefully confusing as to which was tougher to deal with.

The teachers jogged in different directions calling out his name, while one young teacher, who was interning with the school, stood with the kids asking them to remain silent. They didn’t listen to her and instead starting emitting a variety of animal sounds, calling out to their lost animal friend who could have been anything from a hyena to an injured dog.

They didn’t find him near the ducks and the pond seemed tranquil, leading them to believe that there was no instance of a floating child. They didn’t see him near the animal cages and the monkeys looked too pleased to have been recently poked at by a child. They finally went over to the play area but the swings looked untouched and the see-saw had one end wedged into the mud. They walked back, patting their forehead sweat with polka-dotted handkerchiefs, wondering whether they should alert the parents or the park authorities.

The screaming of the children suddenly went up several notches and the teachers jogged over to see the lost kid appear from behind the trees, looking rather peaceful. The intern teacher ran over in anger and dragged him, holding his shoulder in a steel grip. The kid, ignoring the act of rage, walked over to the kids and stood at the end of the file, as he would have had he not been lost. The teachers shook him and tried to ask him where he was but he froze and refused to answer.

They found him many years later, sitting alone at home, his head hidden behind a laptop and his house unvisited by friends and family. He looked at ease, just as he had the day at the picnic when he snuck away from his classmates so that he could go to a place where he wasn’t constantly spoken to.