by Matt Stewart-Cohn

 

            “WHO ATE MY COOKIE!?”

Little Timmy is furious. Timmy had one Oreo left, and let it stray from his sight so he could refill his glass full of milk. He would never have thought that somebody could stoop as low as petty thievery of an Oreo. He will not let the culprit get away. For a nine year-old little boy, there is no substitute for a double stuffed Oreo. Determined to find some clues about where the missing cookie could have traveled, Timmy storms off towards the crime scene. He looks upon the empty plate sitting on the dining room table with nothing but little black crumbs on it where a delicious morsel was supposed to lay at peace. The sight almost brings tears to his eyes. Timmy is not a stupid boy. He sees that it is 1:38pm, so he estimates that the crime must have transpired between 1:35 and 1:37.  He knows the thief is still in the house. Nobody grabs an Oreo and runs for their life. The criminal has to be one of his family members.

            Timmy runs around his two story house, rounding up every living soul there is to be found, including Rufus, the family wiener dog. The end product is a kitchen table surrounded by family members, which include Timmy’s dad, mom, baby sister and his three year older big brother, all with confused looks across their faces.

            “Now that we are all here on this terrible day of misfortune, I would like to discuss something with you all and ask some necessary questions. Let me be straight forward. Which one of you evil doers ate my cookie?” asks Timmy, while holding out the plate full of crumbs. “Was it you, Rufus?”

            “Arf!”

            “Didn’t think so. So, anybody gonna take responsibility for there actions, or am I gonna have to force the confessions out of you?” says Timmy, while eyeing them suspiciously. His family didn’t seem too worried. Studying their faces, Timmy didn’t notice any obvious signs of guiltiness on any of his family members. No crumbs around the mouth, or any leftover Oreo in their teeth. This was going to be harder than he thought.

            “You’re all dismissed. But don’t think I’m gonna let this rest,” states Timmy. He watches each of their moves carefully. Everyone seems at ease, except his mom, whose stride seems a little quick and long for a kitchen. Maybe she has a guilty conscience and doesn’t want to be in the same room with the boy she has scorned so spitefully. Timmy decides to check it out. He follows her to the laundry room, with faithful Rufus at his heels.

            “Ehum…” ehums Timmy, directed towards his mom, who at the time was emptying the contents of the dryer. “May we have a chat?”

            “I didn’t eat your damn cookie, Timmy, go play with some damn legos or something,” she says.

            “Who said anything about a cookie? Is that all your mind is thinking of? Do you dream about cookie fields in cookie land? Sounds like a cookie culprit to me!” exclaims Timmy, feeling triumphant and gleeful.

            “I couldn’t have eaten your damn cookie, Timmy. I was busy doing your damn laundry,” she replies. “Plus I’m on a diet, damnit.”

            “Oh. Ok. Carry on,” says Timmy, feeling defeated and melancholy. “Come on Rufus.”

            If it’s not his mom, who could it be? As far as Timmy knows, nobody in his family has a sweet tooth for Oreos. But Timmy knows that anything is possible in this world full of heinous crimes and cookie felons. A distant cry coming from a far away room shatters Timmy’s deep train of thought. Of course! His little sister is the thief. She just finished teething and is bound to develop new eating habits, such as robbing a young boys’ happiness away from him and then chewing. Sprinting as fast as his little legs can carry him, Timmy rushes towards the sound of his sisters wailing. He kicks the door open with a bang, confident that his mystery will finally be solved, with the blame riding on the tiny shoulders of the little girl crying in her cradle. She falls silent as soon as Timmy enters the door.

            “YOU THERE! FREEZE!” exclaims Timmy, pointing at his little sister, who immediately puts her hands up. “I have a couple questions that I would like answered with your full cooperation. First, did you eat my cookie?”

            “Googoo?” responds his little sister.

            “What kind of answer is that? I could get a better answer out of Rufus!”

            “Arf!”

            “Yeah! You tell her Rufus! Now, back to the questions. Did you or did you not eat my would be wonderfully scrumptious double stuffed Oreo?” asks Timmy, while giving his sister his most menacing look of all.

            “Waaaaashabooboo!” she responds, matching Timmy’s menacing look with her own.

            “That’s quite a menacing look you got there, little sis. But how do I know if I can trust your word or not?”

            Instead of responding, Timmy’s little sister looks him dead in the eye, giving him the watery eyed, hungry, scared puppy face. Timmy knows he will not get the answers he so truthfully desires here, so he moves on, with Rufus trailing behind him. Who else could it be, if not his mom or his sister? His dad? Brother? Timmy decides to interrogate the latter of the two next. His usual method of asking questions, suspecting the results he wants doesn’t seem to be doing the trick. Timmy needs to be more crafty and cautious during this round of investigations.

            Once he reaches the destination of his brother, his brother’s room, Timmy knocks on the door, covered in skateboard and surfer stickers, as polite as he possibly could.

            “May I enter your domain, brother?” asks Timmy.

            “Ya. Come in little bro. Wuzzup?” says his older brother while Timmy makes his way inside the room.

            “Nothing is up, brother of mine. I’m just slightly hungry,” responds Timmy, eyeing his brother sideways trying to look calm and casual.

            “Why’s that, little bro?” asks Timmy’s brother, with genuine curiosity.

            “Oh, nothing really. Just someone took my very last Oreo without having any idea that I was planning to eat it. An honest mistake that anybody could make. You wouldn’t know anything about this, would you?” inquires Timmy, now visibly studying his brother’s every move, looking for any signs of guilt.

            “Sorry to hear that, little bro. I would have stopped and asked the dude if that Oreo was his, but I was busy getting ready for a long day of ridin’ wicked waves with some of my bras’and competitive GameCube. Sorry little bro.”

            “No problem, brother. Have a spectacular day today,” responds Timmy, and leaves his brothers chambers in dismay and doubt that he will ever find the monster that ate his cookie. “Well, come on Rufus. I guess that there’s only one more possibility left.”

            Walking at a slow, steady pace, Timmy moves glumly towards the garage, where he knows his dad to be located. He enters the open garage door from the outside, looking at his feet.

            What’s wrong son?” asks Timmy’s dad, who notices that something’s amiss with his son.

            “Somebody ate my last Oreo and I’ve asked every suspect but you if they did and they all said no. But I don’t think you would eat my cookie,” says Timmy sadly.

            “Well son, I’m honored that you don’t think it’s me. But if it makes you feel better, I did eat your cookie.”

            What was that? A confession? It must go on paper! Timmy just notices how nice a day it actually is. Blue sky, warm breeze, with the birds chirping.

            “Did you actually eat it!?” Timmy asks his dad, noticeably happy and excited.

            “No son, not really. But it did make you feel better, didn’t it? Now why don’t you go play outside or something.

            Timmy looks at his dad with dismay. Why would he go play outside? There seems to be clouds on the way, a brisk wind and too many birds outside. Furious, Timmy storms off to the site of the original crime scene.

Timmy’s stumped. There’s nobody else it could be. He interrogated every suspect thoroughly. Santa usually doesn’t show up on June 22^nd for milk and cookies. It couldn’t have been the mailman because it’s a Sunday. Timmy can think of no other possibilities. Unless. Unless the culprit was with him the whole time, egging him on towards false suspects, leading the investigation astray while covering up his trails.

“Rufus…”