Someone had given the boys a ball to play with, and Officer Krugle was part of the disorder, tossing it to Frances and telling him to run to the other desk. Frances handed the ball to Carlo, who dropped it, but Frances didn’t scold. He just picked it up and handed it back to Carlo.
“Boys, calm down,” Mrs. Penn said again, more briskly.
They all turned to look at us, then the two small ones ran over to hug me. “We thought you were never coming back,” Frances said.
“Yeah,” Carlo said, wiping a tear. “You were gone a long, long time.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, stooping down into a crouch position so I could give them both a big hug. “We were shopping, just like you did. Then we went to the feed store, and I got a couple of brushes for Frey. Do you know anyone who’d be willing to help me brush him?”
“Me. Me!” the boys yelled.
“My goodness, one would think you were an experienced school teacher. How did you learn so much about dealing with children?”
I smiled up at her, but I didn’t say anything.
“I bet you did a lot of babysitting, right?” Mrs. Penn continued to probe.
I nodded, not wanting to continue that conversation. Mrs. Penn and the officer had already gotten too much information out of me to make me feel safely invisible.
“Are you ready to go, boys?” I asked. “You better give the ball back to Officer Krugle, so we can . . .”
“He gave it to us,” Carlo said. “We get to keep it.”
Frances was nodding energetically. His eyes were lit up, and he was smiling a grasshopper smile, as Granny Bestle used to call it. Why that name, I had no idea. I’d never seen a smiling grasshopper.
Officer Krugel tore his eyes away from what the three of us were doing and glanced over at Mrs. Penn. “I counted the money, wrote down the amount, and placed the box in the vault for safe keeping,” he said. “We can share the total amount with the town council when we meet next.”
“Perfect. Thanks for watching the boys, Frank.”
“Anytime. You need me to escort you all back to the house?”
I kept my eyes down on the boys. No sense getting another scorch of a glare. I’m sure the man could find something to visually scold me for if offered half a chance.