Captain Cheesekin worked energetically. At first he sent the boy’s photo to all the police checkpoints in the city, asking them to check carefully all little passengers and pedestrians. Then he returned to Vovka’s courtyard and started to make the round of all the neighbours, apartment by apartment. He was asking them who had seen the boy and when they saw him, what Vovka was doing at that time, whether he was happy or not and who was with him. The whole situation was rather strange: everybody had seen Vovka entering the doorway, coming back from the store. But nobody had seen him coming out afterwards. The captain knew that the young mothers, who were playing with their children in a sandbox, might have been mistaken, because they were watching their children more than anybody else. Those, who were walking the dogs, might have been mistaken, too, as well as the drivers. But grandma Klava from the second floor could never make a mistake. She would sit near her window and watch everything that was going on in the yard during the whole day. And if grandma Klava hadn’t seen anything, then you could make only one conclusion – either the child had disappeared in a very queer way or he hadn’t disappeared at all. The boy went to the store, came home, made tea and then disappeared. What if he hadn’t disappeared at all? Captain Cheesekin was an experienced policeman and his flair for searching always helped him to find the solution to a problem. But today both the captain and his flair were in a blind alley. The night was coming, but the captain was far from the end of his investigation, because there was no evidence of any crime. Nothing had happened, still the child had disappeared. The captain raised his head and saw the light in the window of Vovka’s apartment. It seemed like everyone was still there, sitting in the kitchen. The captain sighed and went to Vovka’s doorway.
They were glad to see him. He was right, everybody was still there, but they were not having tea. They didn’t want to leave this place, where there was soft and cozy light, coming from a red fringed lampshade. The captain understood them well. It was easier to be nervous in the kitchen than in the living-room or in the child’s room. At first everybody thought that the officer had some news and started to question him all together, but then stopped short. When the captain saw their drooping shoulders and sad eyes, he decided to share his information. Everyone was listening to him with interest, but when he offered to search the apartment, they were evidently disappointed. But they couldn’t refuse a representative of the authority and went together with him. It was strangely clean in Vovka’s room, no toys were scattered around and because of that the room was even lonelier. There was no trace of Vovka in Mama’s bedroom, either. Then they checked the storage room, all the wardrobes, cabinets and the loggia. Nobody was there. The captain was ready for that, but still felt rather silly. Until the last minute he was hoping that the child might be at home. He might have played hide-and-seek, hid in the wardrobe and fell asleep.
