The Missing Teacher Mystery

Class went GREAT today! Or . . . at least that’s what I hear! You see, I was absent most of the time.

Students entered the classroom to find a magnifying glass at each seat and a mysterious message on the board reading: “Where is Mrs. B?” (My son told me afterward that seeing the message gave him the chills. Lol! Although, thankfully, he suspected I was hiding.)

It quickly became apparent that their teacher was missing. Having prearranged things with my assistant, she presumably did not panic. Hee-hee! She took attendance, had a bit of discussion (during which one student suggested I had shrunk, thereby necessitating a magnifying glass), and the students spread out in search of clues. One went left while the rest went right. Guess what! “Lefty” found the clue first!

Important Lesson of the Day: Dare to be different. Oh yes, I planned it that way. ;-)

Clue #1, predictably, was a map of the building with a prominent red “X” at the exact location of a small table just outside the hall. Clue #2 was sandwiched between the table and the glass on top. This one said, “Mr. Green, in the kitchen, by the coffee pots.” A bit of humor there that was probably lost on all the kiddies. Anyway, I had left a tiny plastic frog next to the coffee dispensers in the kitchen. Inside Mr. Green was a nifty bit of original poetry:

To the girl’s bathroom
You must go.
In the white cupboard
You’ll meet Joe.

Of course, they all wondered who Joe was, and the girls were delighted to have the boys excluded. Joe was a stick drawing with a friendly message about the cubby holes in the nursery: second row, fifth column to be exact. There they found a stash of lollipops, the kind with very long, plastic handles.

Next it was upstairs to my husband’s computer class. He had given one of his students a sealed envelop with TOP SECRET printed in bold letters on top and told him to hand it to anyone who asks, “Do you know where Mrs. B is?” After the inquiry was made and a good deal of memory-jogging-chair-nudging on Hubby's part, the clue was served: “Go see the soccer player downstairs.”

Yes, they found the paper attached to an actual soccer player . . . on a foosball table. This led them to an empty classroom with two clues to be found. One was a superhero canister with a padlock, the other a key and message: “The Superheroes can help!” I’ll bet you can guess where this is going. They had to use the key on the lock! Inside was a compass for each child and the next clue. It had step by step instructions . . . go to the exit, find chalk arrows on the sidewalk, go north 20 paces, that sort of thing until they came full circle with the last clue in the bushes: another map with the classic X. They found me inside an empty classroom with 15 minutes to spare! I told them The Invisible Man had kidnapped me.

The kids could not stop talking about how much fun they had! Praise the Lord! I only wish I could have seen them along the way. Instead, I was wringing my hands, saying silent prayers that all would be well. I had no idea how long it would take or if a clue would get accidentally moved. At some point, I got that feeling of reassurance from the Lord, and it proved true. It was well worth all the planning and running around we did in preparation.

Here I should take a moment to thank my assistant who will likely never read this. She is the sweetest lady and agreed to do this, knowing she might end up going it alone . . . keeping track of ten excited kids, running all over the building, up and down stairs with her newborn baby and young toddler in tow. Thank the Lord, after two rounds of e-mails sent earlier in the week with no replies, one gal stepped forward at the last minute and went with her. God is SO good!! He just worked everything out!