Where are the books?

Ah. Yes. It’s the case of the missing library books: part two.

During this past month, my sons, Matthew, 8, and John, 6, have managed to misplace three library books.

Even though I check their backpacks every day when they get home, things still wind up disappearing.

The one book Matthew had checked out I never saw him bring home. This led to an even bigger question. Where did the book go between our house and the school?

I asked him about the missing book that I can’t seem to remember the title of now.

He said, “Oh, that book? I took it back to the library.”

I replied, “If you took it back to the library they would have scanned it and I wouldn’t have received this notification about either paying for the book or returning it. So, where is it?”

He said, “Well, I took it back to the library and put it on the shelf.”

“Before they scanned it,” I asked.

“I guess,” he said.

I told him he needed show the librarian where he put the book so she can scan it.

The next day, I asked him if he had talked to the librarian about it and he said he had forgot.

I told him that was fine, but he needed to make sure to show her tomorrow.

When he returned home from school the next day, I asked him again if he had spoke to the librarian and he said he had. Matthew said showed her where he put the book and it was still there so she scanned it in and thanked him for finding it.

One library book found and I thought that was the end of it, until Thursday John brought home a note with not one, but two books missing.

One book was called “Sharks,” and I had a pretty good idea of where that was at and found it immediately, but the other one called “The Magic School Bus in the Time of the Dinosaurs,” I had no idea where it was at or if I had even seen it.

The search for the second book took place this weekend. All of the books, which are more than 100 for sure, were searched through by my husband in both boys’ rooms. Still no book. We looked through their closets and dressers. Still no book.

We even pulled the couches out and looked under them. We did find several books under there, but not the one we were looking for.

I think it’s fair to say the book may be lost.

I remember losing one book as a child. Kind of the same situation. We looked everywhere. After an entire search of the house, we gave up and we paid the fine. Months later when we were cleaning out the closet, there was the book I had lost. I showed it to my mom and she said just said it’s yours now because we paid for it.

We’ll probably just pay for the book John misplaced. I’ll say misplaced because I’m sure months from now it will turn up somewhere. Hopefully, this will be a big enough lesson for my children so more books won’t get misplaced, but you never know.