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It was a bright, sunny, late spring day in Elmville, perfect for a day at Goodberry Park near the center of the city. Riz Gukgak, age three-and-a-half, nimbly scrambled up the mini jungle gym and sat at the top, surveying the sandbox he had been playing in. He was king of the mountain, though he only had a couple action figure subjects to rule over. No matter; he would dig through the sandbox later in case someone had forgotten a toy that he could play with for a while before dutifully reporting it to his mom. ( Funny , Sklonda would think with a smirk, how he always finds the toys right when I call him back to go home. ) He looked over to where his mom was talking with another lady; she has tanned skin and long ears and a ponytail, but Riz doesn't recognize her. Next to Mom was his stroller. He was a big kid now and didn’t need the stroller anymore (okay, unless it’s a REALLY, REALLY long walk!), but Mom would use it to carry the shopping. Oh yeah, we went shopping and Mom bought amnal cackers to eat at the park! And we’re at the park!
King Riz dipped backwards and somersaulted off the jungle gym bar, down the second (bottom) rung, and into the sandbox. He scooped up his loyal subjects and tossed them into his Team Tyr™ backpack (current contents: two action figures [total limb count: seven], a plastic magnifying glass, a really cool stick, a half-drunk mini water bottle, and about two toddler goblin-sized handfuls of sand). Belongings secured, Riz ran towards the bench his mom and the lady were sitting at.
Sklonda could see him barrelling towards her and held out a hand to catch her excited son. Riz slowed down enough to be wrapped up in a hug and a kiss on the top of his head before Sklonda turned him around to face the lady he had seen his mom talking with.
“Riz, sweetie, this is my friend, Mrs. Faeth. We used to be in Baby Class together.”
“Missus Fay-eth.”
“Sklonda, he’s just so adorable! He really does look like a cross between you two! Gilear should be here shortly with Figeuroth. I tell you, that girl is growing like a weed!” Riz hung around for another few seconds, waiting for anything else, but Sklonda just continued to hold him lightly as she talked animatedly with the new lady. He ducked out of his mom’s arms and scampered over to the stroller where the groceries were. He opened up the top bag (where he had carefully placed his prized animal crackers so they would be close at hand), but to his shock, the brightly-colored box wasn’t sitting on top! He dug through the bag but couldn't find it at all! He pulled his head out of the beaten cloth bag and looked around the rest of the stroller. No animal crackers. They were missing! This was no time to be King Riz; missing animal crackers meant only Detective Riz could solve this case!
He quickly pulled out the magnifying glass and began to examine the crime scene. He doesn’t find any crumbs; so much for the obvious clues. He looked around and noticed that the bench his mom was sitting on is curved over itself, almost like a tunnel, so he started from there, crawling beneath the talking adults and out the other side. There, he spotted a grassy field speckled with flowers.
He saw a boy with green skin, little tusks and black hair sitting in the grass. He was watching a ladybug crawl over a daisy, his big, black eyes fixated on the tiny insect. The boy was nearly as tall as Riz was standing, and the minuscule goblin was nervous approaching him,
but a lady sitting in a wheelchair nearby nodded encouragingly at him to speak with the young boy.
“S-scuse me,” Riz said, remembering his manners “ah-awe you an ohwk?”
“I'm a half-orc.”
“Wow.” Riz watched the boy turn his attention back to the ladybug.
“I got teeth like you!” Riz said, gripping his plastic magnifying glass with an excited fist. “All pointy! See?” Riz smiled wide, flashing his fangs to showcase their pointiness. To his delight, the half-orc didn’t flinch and instead gave a warm smile.
“Yeah!” They both smile at each other for several moments before Riz dropped his grin and crouched down next to his new friend.
“Do you you like amnal cackers?”
“Yeah.”
“I lost mine.”
“Oh. I'm sorry. … I didn't take them.”
“Oh,” Riz said. He was happy that his new friend hadn’t stolen his treat, but still sad and disappointed that he's lost this lead. “Okay. Tank you.”
“You want some of mine?”
Riz shook his head. “No tank you.”
“Maybe you can wish on the ladybug.”
“What do you mean?”
“M- Mom and Dad said if you wish on a lady bug and the ladybug flies away, your wish will come true when the ladybug gets home. Here,” the half-orc boy pointed to the flower. “You can wish on it.”
“I can?”
“Yeah”
Riz pinched his eyes shut and wished really hard “I wish I could find my amnal cackers!” he whispered loudly. With his eyes still shut, Riz didn’t see the other boy quickly blow on the ladybug, but he opened them just in time to see it fly off.
“Ah! It's flying!”
“Yeah! Now when the ladybug gets home you'll find your animal crackers!”
Riz's face lit up. “Wow! Thank you! Uh…”
“Gorgug.”
“Go-gug. I'm wwrrRiz Gukgak and I'm a detekkive!” he announced, concentrating very hard to make sure the ‘R’ is pronounced. (After some older kids mocked him by calling him “whizz” he made sure to say his name correctly.) “I'm gonna keep looking!”
“Ok. Good luck.” Gorgug gave Riz a big toothy smile and Riz returned it with his own fang-filled grin.
Riz made his way to the mini pirate ship playplace, crawling back underneath the tunnel of the bench his mom sat on as she continued to talk with Sandra Lynn. This time there was a spider underneath it and he gave it a wide berth, never taking his eyes off of it. Once at the ship, he scaled the rope net that’s strung up from the ground to the ship deck. On deck, he pulled out his magnifying glass and began to look for clues. As he crawled about, peering through his little plastic lens, he caught sight of a glimmer and scrambled over to it. He spied a silver piece stuck in between the wooden slats of the flooring. It looked pretty wedged in, probably from lots of chubby, sticky toddler fingers poking it further down rather than getting any purchase on the coin. But Riz had claws, and he dug one into the gap right next to the coin and started to wriggle it. The coin loosened slightly, and encouraged by the progress, Riz worked more fervently. He stuck his thumb claw onto the other side of the coin and began to work it out. He gave it a little yank and with a clink the coin popped out of the gap and onto the flooring. The mini detective looked at it with wide eyes, staring disbelieving at his accomplishment – but only for a moment before he snagged his prize and safely tucked it away into his backpack.
After zipping up his bag, Riz turned and faced the suspension bridge in front of him. In his mind’s eye, Riz saw the bright red, four-foot-long bridge as a series of wooden planks laid out in front of him. He would have to cross from rooftop to rooftop as he narrows in on the one responsible for his missing treat. A cold, winter gust chilled him from the back of his neck to the tip of his tail, and as he glanced down, the ground wasn't visible; the plummet to the unknown lay waiting thousands, no, billions of feet below him. He took a step and squatted as the platform beneath his feet swayed. He wanted to crouch down and cross, but that would take too long and every second waiting was another second of no animal crackers. So Riz gritted his teeth and rushed across the planks, the clatter and rattle of the bridge echoing in his ears. He reached the other side and stood triumphant in his accomplishment with his arms held high.
Bridge crossed, the last thing Riz had to do was escape the ship because suddenly detective pirates were also trying to get to the animal crackers so it’s a race! Riz dashed towards the slide at the back of the ship and slipped inside, belly down and face first. He stuck his hands out in front of himself as he slid down until he reached the bottom. He giggled, having beaten the detective pirates, and stood up. He pulled out his magnifying glass again and scanned the area around him. To his right, he saw a girl about his age. She was wearing a pink shirt, pinks shorts and a pink tutu¹ and was running towards a man in shorts and a polo shirt who was kneeling down with open arms. Riz watched as the girl ran into his arms and was enveloped in a hug. The girl giggled and squealed as the man – her dad, Riz realized – kissed her on the cheek and tickled her. He watched this play out for a minute then realized that these people might know where his animal crackers are!
[¹ Fig dressed herself.]
Riz ran over to the two, shoes slapping hard on the pavement.
“Hi!” he called out when he got next to them.
“Hello there,” the man said.
“Hi,” said the girl.
Now that he was up close, Riz noticed how long their ears are. “Wow!” he gasped. “Your ears are so big. I got big ears, too!”
“Oh, um, yes. Ah, Thank you,” stammered the man.
“Hey! Your ears are big one way and mine are big a different way!” the girl said with excitement.
“Yeah! It’s cool!” Riz replied.
“So what are you doing, young man?” the father asked him.
“Oh! That’s wight!” Riz said, bringing his hands to his face in surprise. “I was gonna ask you!”
“Ask us what?”
“My amnal cackers are gone! Did you see them?”
“Ah, your animal crackers?”
Yeah. My name is wrrRRiz!” Riz managed. “And I’m a detekkive!”
“Oh, a detective, are you?”
“What’s a detective, daddy?”
Riz cut in, too excited to let anyone else steal his spotlight. “It means I solve misewies.”
“Miseries?” the girl asked, curiosity sparkling in her eyes.
“I think Mr. Riz meant ‘mysteries.’”
“Yeah, mystewies.”
“Oh.” the girl said, as if that explained everything. “If I ever have a misery will you solve it for me?”
“Yes! I will!”
“Well, Detective Riz,” (Riz’s eyes dilated and he held his head high at the sound of someone calling him ‘detective.’) “I’m so sorry to report” (He was getting reported to, just like his mom the detective gets – he really was a detective!) “that we haven’t seen your animal crackers.”
Oh . Riz slouched down again. “Okay. Tank you.” He slowly turned to walk away.
“Would you like me to help look?”
“No, I’m okay,” Riz said, and he walked away from the two.
Maybe he should return to the scene of the crime for more clues. As he headed back, some trash in a nearby can fluttered in the breeze, catching his eye. It was red and yellow, just like his beloved animal cracker box. Without a second thought, Riz was climbing up the trash can to check it. He grabbed at it and it tore in his hand, the box soggy and…empty. Riz sniffed the box, and yep, this was the box that he picked out, all by himself, at the store. It was the box that he held onto all throughout the store and reverently handed to the cashier. It was the box that he lovingly packed into the top of the stroller and watched the entire walk from the store to the park. He knew his box and this one was his . And it was empty.
Before he could process anything else, big, blubbery tears began to well up in his eyes, and as hard as he tried to choke back the sobs, he was just a wee little goblin child in a giant world of empty animal cracker boxes. He sobbed and shrieked, heartbroken at the loss of his precious snack.
“What- Sklonda! Is that Riz over there!?” Sandra Lynn pointed over to the crying goblin.
“Oh, ancestors, what is he- Riz! Riz, what are you doing in the garbage?” Sklonda shouted out as she hopped off the bench and hurried towards her crying child. “Riz! What’s wrong, are you hurt? Let’s get out of the garbage, sweetie!” Sklonda plucked him out of the trash and set him down before she squatted down to his level. She pulled a wet wipe out of seemingly nowhere and began to wipe down Riz as she shushed and soothed him.
“It’s okay, baby, it’s okay.” She lifted up his hand to wipe it off and saw the torn animal crackers box in his hand. “Oh… …Riz, sweetie? Are you crying because of your animal crackers?”
Riz nodded vigorously and wiped his nose before speaking with big, shuddering breaths.
“Ye- yes… My- My amnal c-cackers… awe all- all gone! Buh-huh-huh-huh,” he broke down crying yet again.
“Shhh, shhh, it’ll be ok, sweetie. It’ll be okay, I promise.” Sklonda finished wiping him down and held out tissue so Riz could blow his nose.
“It- it will?”
“Yeah,” said Sklonda. “Come here.” Riz quietly watched as she tossed the box back into the trash and then took his hand and walked him back to the bench. She picked him up with a soft grunt and placed him in her lap. Sandra Lynn gave Sklonda a knowing, empathetic look as Sklonda wiped Riz’s nose again.
“Riz, sweetie, Mom’s so sorry! I spilled juice on your box of cookies and had to toss it out. But I saved the cookies! It was just the box, okay?”
Riz stared as Sklonda opened up his diaper bag, rummaged among the pull-ups and produced a clear baggie of animal crackers.
“See? All good!” Sklonda sang cheerily, and Riz picked up the smile in her voice and smiled back.
“My amnal cackers!” Riz squealed in delight, reaching for them. “Pease? Mom?”
“Yes, you may have them,” Sklonda said with a smile, and she opened the bag and handed it to Riz.
And so the warm, spring day continued on, as Detective Gugkak, successful in his search for the missing animal crackers, munched happily on his snack and drank some juice. And afterward, to the pure delight of the diminutive detective, his mom pushed him on the swings. The girl in pink and her dad joined soon after, but Riz’s mom was the best ever because she was able to push him the highest.