Tired

The Goal Was To Make Everyone And The Dog, Tired

I had two children and a dog for the day. For me the dog was top priority. He was a nuisance in the house. So we set out to walk the loop around the peninsula. "We need to walk twenty minutes and then we can decide if we are going to turn around or continue the loop." The children wanted to turn around after fifteen minutes but I pushed on. Spring had made an entrance in the last forty-eight hours. The buds on the trees were bursting forth like fairy puff balls  out of canons.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket to check the time. We had reached twenty minutes. From past experience I knew the half way mark was not too far.

   "We should go around the whole loop because if we turn around now we'll just see the same thing as before."

   They moaned but the dog pulled us on. At the half-way mark the public beach opened to view. The children and the dog wanted to get close to the water. So we did. My knees were feeling just a bit wobbly at that point. After chasing away several geese and getting our shoes wet, we continued around along the road. It occurred to me that I hadn't walked this far in years. Six months ago I had a total knee replacement on the right but the left knee was in pretty bad shape. Would I survive? 

   

   To distract my physical twinges of pain I asked each of them what we could take home as a souvenir of our adventure. Alvin found a piece of driftwood that looked like a duck, Olea, a seashell that looked like a sunrise was painted on the outside, and I spotted a little free library along the roadside. To my utter delight the box had a hardcover book by an author I was dying to read. 
I squinted down the road to see if I could spot my car. Surely we were almost around. The dog slowed down. The children stopped more often to picked up rocks and twigs. I was feeling the throbbing of my knee.

   "How long have we been walking?"

   "Almost an hour." I said.

   "I see the car!"

    The dog started running, the children started running. I hobbled, slowly. This was what 'bone tired' meant. 

   As we buckled into our seatbelts I looked into the back. My grandchildren were quiet. The dog was quiet. I couldn't wait to get home and start reading my book.

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A piano teacher is found dead and a lost autograph manuscript of Franz Liszt is discovered. Who wanted that document enough to kill? 

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