Recessed During Recess

“Elementary school playgrounds are a hatchery of crime.” Calvin hissed, and kept his stomach low to the ground as he crawled across the basketball court. 

His partner — Detective Elijah — was hanging on to his every word, but it was difficult to speak in his gravelly action-movie voice with his chest pressed into the concrete, so the boy decided to continue the narration in his head. 

Elementary school playgrounds are a hatchery of crime. A seedbed for to-be crooks, disguised by unassuming play structures and brightly painted swing sets. The nefarious aura lays hidden under a layer of wood chips. Fifteen minutes outside for recess, twice a day, with a supervisor to student ratio of 4 : 70? Oh, the possibilities are boundless for a scheming delinquent.

Once the two were clear of the thumping shockwaves each basketball sent through the ground, Calvin leapt to his feet and dashed to the plastic playhouse under their favourite tree. They called it the Brookside Elementary Police Department, or BEPD, for short. It was there they had debriefings on their ongoing investigation while snacking on Dunkaroos.

Ryan Balliol, a man known to his class of fourth-graders as Mr. B, heard the playful screams and shrieks of the playground every day. As long as he kept one eye on the tetherball games — the place where the most injuries occur — and settled under a nice spot of shade with a book, he could tune out most of the loud noise. But this time, however, it wasn’t a particular scream that got him to look up, but the quiet vibrations of someone mumbling in a low voice instead. 

Children should not have to mumble. It’s the one period of their life where they’re free to express with little to no consequences. Ryan stood from his seat and approached the source of the sound warily. It was one of those miniature houses, cast in hollow yet rough and scratchy plastic. Kids who constantly played House were usually the stranger ones, the man had come to learn. If a child prefers to spend their time fabricating the household that they wish they had at home, well, Ryan would try to coax them into doing another activity to take their mind off of it.

“Hello?” He knocked on the small door despite the fact that he could easily see inside because of the large gaps. It was a safety requirement to have a lot of space between the door and the walls — to prevent pinching anyone when the hinges closed.

“It’s Mr. B!” Elijah said, tugging on Calvin’s sleeve.

“Who’s Mr. B?” the boy asked, scratching at his disheveled hair. “All I see is Sergeant Scorpion.”

Ryan didn’t know whether to laugh or groan. Calvin. He should’ve guessed it’d be him in the playhouse. “Listen, I’m just dropping by. I heard some whispering and wanted to make sure everything’s okay.”

“Okay?” Calvin crossed his arms incredulously. “There’s a pickpocket on the loose.” He grabbed the front of Elijah’s shirt with one hand and held the other up in a fist, and shook them both helter-skelter. “Detective Elijah and I have been working our butts off in the bullpen while you and the commissioner kick up your feet!”

“Whoa.” Ryan’s brain lagged for a moment. He was beginning to realize he’d missed his morning coffee. “Commissioner? Bullpen? Did you say a pickpocket on the loose?”

Elijah nodded, straightening out his shirt. “Yeah, Phoebe Kilpatrick’s toy truck was stolen yesterday, right from out of her pocket. And today, Mason Li’s stuffed animal was kidnapped, which was also last seen in his pocket.” 

It was curious that the children had consulted Calvin and Elijah about this before any of the teachers. “Well,” Ryan stood from his squatting position. He hated to admit it, but his knees were growing more frequent as of late, and he hadn’t even breached his forties yet. “I’ll go check the lost and found bin, okay? I bet they’ve turned up there.” 

The man hadn’t thought anything was out of the ordinary — he shouldn’t be taken with a grain of salt if he said he had dealt with hundreds of childrens’ petulant issues before — so he was surprised to hear a sigh of utter disappointment after he turned his back. There are two types of disappointed sighs. The kind that exists to be heard, the crestfallen exhale whose purpose is to be displayed passive-aggressively, and the other, the kind that falls through the child’s lips because the first thought they had was about the futility of the adult — so strong that it appeared before a plan to deceive could be born.

“What is it, you two?”

“Oh, no, go check the lost and found.” Elijah said owlishly. “I’m sure you’ll solve the case by digging around in there.”

Calvin shook his fist, face twisted sourly. “I bet those toys are just under a pile of lost shirts and water bottles! I can’t believe we didn’t think of that first.”

Ryan could do nothing but watch and think about how it’d be when he went home to his girlfriend and told her that he’d spent his day being patronized by a pair of fourth-graders.

“Alright, boys. What advice do you have to offer me?”

Calvin gave his detective partner an amused look and grabbed a thin, beige object that had been tucked away in a corner. “This is our case file. It contains information on three-”

“We didn’t have a file so we painted a duotang,” Elijah pointed out.

“I can see that.” Ryan squinted at its warped cover. “Wait a minute, is that your homework duotang?” The sticky remnants of a poorly peeled-off label were still visible under the thin layer of acrylic paint.

“That’s not the point.” Calvin flipped it open, revealing several sheets of paper. “We’ve narrowed it down to three suspects. Aisha Patel: third grade. She doesn’t have the best track record — caught nabbing marbles from her classroom two years ago.”

“Ryden Kulina.” Elijah carried on the report with ease that shouldn’t be present in a ten year old. “Second grade. Often seen lingering near the coat racks, where the victims’ toys could’ve been forgotten in the pockets of.”

Calvin slowly looked up from the papers he'd been reading and locked eyes with Ryan. “And the third,” he whispered gravely, “takes a form known as Addy McDowall.”

“She’s in our class,” Ryan said, and he’d meant it as just a statement but it came out in the same hushed tone as the detectiv- students. He was well aware of the ridiculousness of it all, yet he didn’t feel up to doing anything about it. 

And with that, the two boys pushed their way out of the playhouse. As Calvin handed the case file to Elijah, Ryan noticed that he was wearing suspenders, and that he hadn’t given the run-down to Addy’s cause of suspicion yet. The boy clapped his friend on the back. “Time for some field work.”

Ryan stayed with them all the way to the playground.

He didn’t need to ask which of the three suspects they were interrogating first. Anyone would be able to spot Addy’s carrot-orange hair from across the school grounds. Although the man was entertained with tagging along on their little game, he was concerned about them targeting her. The girl was often well behaved. She didn’t deserve to be roped along on their pretend police inquest.

“THIEF!” Calvin hollered. 

Ryan flinched, not only because it was so loud, but because he realized he was doing his job poorly and had let this continue too far. He had to jump in order to catch the boy as he started to run off, planting one hand firmly on his chest. “Stop! Calvin. You hear me?” He had to bring out his angry grown-up voice.

The kid didn’t reply. Neither did Elijah. Instead, they just stared straight ahead.

Ryan looked up and was taken aback. The day was full of surprises. He thought he was protecting the poor girl from an unnecessary onslaught, but in truth, the two detectives had a reason for their conjectures. Right on the highest mound of the sandpit sat Addy ‘teacher’s assistant’ McDowall, playing with a toy truck and a small stuffed penguin.

“We’d like to ask a few questions, if that’s alright with you.” Elijah said to the girl as they approached. 

Ryan didn’t even feel Calvin slip away from under his grasp. The boy was now in the pit as well, scooping up fistfuls of sand, wailing as he let the grains slide through the cracks between his fingers. “Why!? Why did you take my- I mean, Phoebe and Mason’s toys!?”

The ruckus was beginning to draw some attention. Mason Li, a boy who always showed up to school with meticulously groomed hair approached at the sound of his name. He looked at the four of them dubiously, then his gaze landed on the stuffed penguin. 

“That’s mine,” he said. 

“It is,” Elijah replied, and waded through the soft sand to retrieve it. 

As the stolen plush was returned, Ryan knelt down to Addy’s eye level. He was the only person who wasn’t glaring daggers at her. “Now, could you tell us why you took Mason and Phoebe’s toys? I’m sure that if you asked, they would’ve shared.”

“I didn’t take them,” the girl huffed. “Somebody gave them to me.”

Elijah’s eyebrow quirked. “A plant, huh? Do you know anyone who would want to frame you? Someone you might’ve wronged in the past?”

Ryan laughed, then grew quiet as the detectives scowled at him. Even Mason was still there. He seemed a lot more interested in the scene unfolding than going back to play with his newly found stuffed animal. 

“Something funny, Sarge?” Calvin asked, eyes squinted. “Don’t interrupt our investigation. You know this is the biggest lead we’ve had in two days!”

“This entire thing been going on for two days.”

“Exactly! Now be quiet as I propose my theory!” He whipped his attention back to Addy. “I don’t think you were framed. I think you have a supplier, and that supplier is the pickpocket.”

Elijah seemed miffed that his partner dismissed his idea so quickly. “Why would she have a stolen toy supplier? You just want it to be true ‘cause you think Wilson’s still alive in a secret base somewhere. You just have to accept that he’s not.”

“He’s still out there!” Calvin yelled. “And he thinks we abandoned him!”

“There’s no way he could’ve survived with that injury, Calvin!” Elijah's fists were tightly clenched by his sides. 

“Whoa. Calm down, you two.” Ryan put a hand on each of their shoulders. Kids got upset every day. Sure, they were usually more trivial and sure, the kids weren’t as disconcertingly cultivated as Calvin and Elijah, but he knew he had to settle the boys down before anything escalated. “What happened? Who’s Wilson?”

Elijah scoffed and pointed at Calvin. “Who he was supposed to play with this week.”

The man nodded. Okay, so the cause of conflict was one of the most common seen on any playground during recess. It could be solved by-

“But he went and got his stomach ripped open!” Calvin said, distressed. “And now we had to be cops in order to investigate the case!”

Mason was normally quiet, but he shouted at them to get their attention. He then gestured at Addy — who was watching the argument with wide eyes — as if to tell them not to get carried away and focus. Did he know about Wilson, too? Whether it be a direct connection or not, Addy’s knowledge could help them get closer to the truth.

Christ. Ryan rubbed a hand across his face. He didn’t need to get so invested. It was just exciting how what he believed to be a simple game evolved into a dead-or-not mystery.

Calvin shot Elijah one last look of discontent before talking to Addy again. “What did the pickpocket look like? Any distinguishable traits?”

The girl thought for a moment. “It happened first thing today. He gave me the truck and penguin while I was waiting outside for the doors to open. He had brown hair, and I think… I think he was wearing a neon pinnie.”

The kids gasped at that. There was only one group of kids that were required to wear pinnies when they were outside on school grounds — a recent development put in place by an overprotective school board — because they were too small to play with the big kids and had to be easily identifiable.

Calvin was the first to speak. “So you’re telling us that the pickpocket is a…”

“Don’t say it,” Elijah breathed.

“A kindergartener,” Ryan said.

Mason sniffed and brushed sand off of his sleeve. “Man, they just get younger and younger, don’t they?”

They were all quiet for a moment, each person’s head swimming with a different thought. Calvin was wondering how a snot-nosed five year old managed to nab Wilson from him in that short time frame between finding his body and going to get the help of a supervisor. Elijah was beginning to make theories on the pickpocket’s motives, and Ryan was pondering if this even deserved any punishment. Do kindergarteners even get punished? He’d have to at least chat with the kid’s teacher though.

“Oh! There he is!” Addy exclaimed, pointing at a corner of the courtyard.

Calvin’s head snapped up. All he saw in the distance was a congregation of bright yellow, like a swarm of bees dipped in glow stick juice. A herd of kindergarteners. The only thing that stood out was a small dot of russet brown synthetic fur, and that was the only thing he needed to see for his legs to automatically pedal his body over there.

The boy had always been called short but compared to a group of kids half his age, he was a giant. He could peer over each and every cowlicked head of hair and that was when he saw him up close for the first time in three agonizing days. Wilson. His fluffy, circular ears gripped tight by grubby fingers. His beady eyes almost completely enveloped by his fur. His belly? Not agape and torn like when he saw him last. It was stitched shut.

Calvin didn’t realize how long he had just been sitting there staring when he felt a hand perch itself on his shoulder. Sergeant Scorpion looked at him with a kind smile. No, it was Mr. B. The case was solved now.

“It looks like Wilson has a new friend,” Mr. B said to him. “How about you let them play together from now on?”

Calvin stilled, and looked back at the kindergarteners. The boy who was holding Wilson — the pickpocket — looked quite content with kneading through the teddy bear’s fur absentmindedly as he listened to the teacher explain how to play four square to the class. Were the hundreds of days they spent together over? A gentle breeze carried the voices of children on the playground all around his ears.

“Screw that.” Calvin declared.

-

The bell had rung, and Calvin, Elijah, and Mr. B were all headed to their classroom. The teddy bear laid snuggled comfortably in Calvin’s arms. The boy traced over the stitches it adorned; now a constant reminder of how that jungle ranger adventure had ended, and how it had sparked their most recent one: the detective case.

That one was never really supposed to happen. After he and Wilson trekked through the rugged jungles British Columbian suburbia had to offer, the two of them were to be zoo workers. He hadn’t quite worked out the details on having a bear be an employee rather than an exhibit, but before he could do that, he discovered Wilson’s torn body by a pair of craft scissors and from there he fell into the hands of a kindergarten thief.

“I mean, seriously.” Calvin said. “What kind of message would we be giving that kid if we let him keep everything he stole?”

“He did return the truck and penguin after a couple of days.” Elijah pointed out. “So I guess it wasn’t a frameup, and he wasn’t a supplier either. He was too dumb to know any of that. Addy was probably the closest person next to him.”

Calvin sighed. Elijah was smart. He had been incredibly helpful when they were gathering information on their suspects. He was the one who offered up his homework duotang to be the case file. “I’m sorry I said the zoo game was going to be just me and Wilson. You’re more than welcome to join us to shovel poop in the giraffe pens tomorrow.”

“Hm. I’ll think about it,” Elijah replied, but there was a tiny smile in his voice.

“I just hope that no kindergarteners mess it up,” Calvin muttered, shooting a glance at the line of walking highlighters filing into their classroom down the hall.

Speaking of children returning to class, Ryan looked at all of the fourth grade students approaching and knew that he had to start his lessons soon. There was only one more thing he needed to tell the boy. 

“You see, Calvin,” he said with a wink. “They’re just kids, and perhaps they’ll grow out of the things they do for fun. But sometimes it’s good to let them play and go about their own adventures. You’d be surprised at all the fun you’d have.”