The Missing Name
David
opened his box of valentines and spilled them onto the kitchen
table. He plopped his book bag next to the valentines.
It was the day before Valentine’s Day, and David wanted to give a card to everyone in his class.
He unzipped the book bag and looked inside.
David’s mom sat down next to him. “What are you looking for?” she asked.
“Ms. Ross gave us a list of everyone in the class,” said David, looking carefully in his bag. “I can’t find mine. If I don’t have my list I won’t know what names to put on the cards.”
Take everything out and we’ll look together,” suggested Mom.
They looked in David’s spelling folder and in his math folder. They shook out his reading book and checked all the pockets in his book bag. They found an old note about a meeting at school, but no Valentine’s Day list.
David frowned. “Now I can’t give out valentines at school,” he said.
“Don’t give up so easily,” said Mom. She took a piece of paper from his folder. “How many children are in your class?”
“Seventeen,” said David. “I’ll never remember them all.”
“Wait,” said Mom, numbering the paper one to seventeen. “Now, who do you play with at recess?”
“Brian and Todd and John.”
David’s mom wrote down their names. “And who do you eat lunch with?” she asked.
“Brian and Todd and John.”
“Hmm, that’s not much help. I already have their names. Who are the people from your class who ride on your bus?”
“Angie and Jill and Brad and Mark.”
She wrote down their names. “That makes seven, only ten more to go. Who sits in the first row in your classroom that we haven’t named yet?”
David tried to remember what his classroom looked like and who sat where.
“Sheila,
Beth, and Amy sit in the first row. Chris and Joey sit in
the second row.” This was getting easier. “Rebecca
and Travis and Mallory sit in the third row.”
David’s mom wrote as fast as she could, repeating
the names to herself. “OK,” she said. “We’re
up to fifteen names, just two more to go.”
“But Erin is the only one left in the last row that we didn’t say yet,” said David.
“Are you sure you counted right?”
“I’m afraid so,” his mother said. “Erin makes it sixteen. Who could be missing?”
David thought hard. He knew there were seventeen children in his class. Whose name had he missed?
“Why don’t you write out the valentines you have names for?” said Mom. “Maybe you’ll think of the missing name while you’re writing.”
David picked out a card. He signed it and put it in the envelope. Then, on the front, he wrote a name from the list. Finally he licked the envelope and pounded it shut with his fist.
He did this sixteen times. Then he took another card, signed his name, and put it in the envelope. Who was missing?
One more time he thought about who sat where in his classroom. Suddenly he said, “I know! I know who is missing from the list.”
“Who?” said his mother.
“Me! We forgot me!” David wrote his own name on the last envelope. “I’m going to wish me a Happy Valentine’s Day, too.” And he licked the seventeenth envelope carefully and pounded it shut with his fist.
