His Dogness

“A FLOCK OF SOCKS”

One of Sparkle Girl’s favorite socks had gone missing.

It was green with coffee cups. Doobins had picked the socks out all by himself for her birthday.

She looked in her sock drawer, in the washing machine, in the dryer, behind the dryer, in the laundry basket and under Doobins’s bed because sometimes socks hid there.

But she couldn’t find it anywhere.

“Momma,” she called. “I can’t find one of the coffee cup socks that Doobins picked out for me. I need it right away because Jerome is coming over, and we’re going for a ride.”

“I can’t help you now but I’ll help you look later,” said Garnet, who was in her studio painting. “For now, you’ll just have to pick out another pair.”

“Pooh,” said Sparkle Girl. “I wanted to wear those socks.”

But she went ahead and picked out a pair of pale blue socks with little white stars. When Jerome arrived, she told him about the missing sock and all the places she had looked.

“No question about it,” Jerome said, “your sock has run away from home. There’s no time to lose. We’ll have to forget about going for a drive and see if we can find it. I’ll go get my hot-air balloon.”

A sock running away from home? Sparkle Girl had never heard of any such thing. In any case, a ride in a hot-air balloon sounded good to her. It sounded good to Doobins, too. And it sounded so good to Garnet that she put away her paints so she could go. Garnet made sure that everyone put on a jacket in case it was cool up in the sky.

By the time they got outside, Jerome was inflating the balloon.

“Should I fix some snacks?” asked Garnet.

“That would be an excellent idea,” said Jerome.

Sparkle Girl had never heard Jerome turn down snacks.

Sparkle Girl and Doobins stayed outside to watch the balloon get bigger and bigger while Garnet went back inside. By the time she came back out with a picnic hamper, the balloon was ready to go.

“Be sure and bring the other sock,” said Jerome, “and you might want to bring some binoculars.”

Sparkle Girl didn’t have to be told twice to bring the binoculars. To her way of thinking, life just didn’t afford as many opportunities as it should to use binoculars.

When she came back, they took off. As they floated higher and higher into the sky, their house looked smaller and smaller. Soon, it was so tiny that Sparkle Girl could make it disappear by sticking her thumb in front of it.

“Why do socks run away from home, Jerome?” she asked.

“Maybe because they don’t feel appreciated as individuals,” he said. “Until one of them gets a hole in it, most people think that one sock in a pair is just like the other.”

“What’s that over there?” said Doobins.

Jerome squinted in the direction Doobins was pointing.

“Good eye, Doobins,” he said. “That’s just what we’re looking for. It’s a flock of socks.”

When Sparkle Girl reached for the binoculars, she saw that Doobins was already using them.

“Hey, Momma,” he said. “I think I see that red sock with white polka dots that you lost.”

Sparkle Girl took the binoculars from Doobins and began scanning the flock of socks.

“I think I see my sock over there,” she said.

As they floated toward it, Jerome pulled out a net with a long handle. Sparkle Girl waved the other sock and called out, “I miss you and so does your sister sock. Please come home. If you come back, I promise that you can always pick what foot you will be on.”

For a moment, it didn’t look as if the sock was going to come but then it flapped their way, and Jerome scooped it up in his net. Sparkle Girl fished it out and rubbed it against her cheek.

Garnet called out to her red sock with white polka dots. It acted as if it hadn’t even heard her.

“I think it’s too late,” Jerome said, “If a sock spends much time with other runaway socks, it gets wild.”

Just then, Doobins sneezed. The noise startled the socks, and they flapped away.

Garnet leaned over the side of the basket, looked down at the ground and said, “Doobins sneeezing reminded me that I forgot to bring napkins.”

“That’s OK,” Doobins said, “I’ll just use Sparkle Girl’s sock.”

“No, you won’t,” said Sparkle Girl.