Michael stood in the exact spot where he had left Annie five minutes earlier, looking around in confusion as a strange unease grew inside him with every passing second. She was nowhere to be seen…
Among the huge crowd of children, he couldn’t find a single one. His daughter.
“I don’t understand,” he muttered under his breath. “Where has she gone? I only stepped away for five minutes.” Then he spotted Miss Emma, Annie’s form teacher, who was lining up a group of grumpy first-graders by height, and he rushed over.
“Where’s my child? A girl with white bows. She’s supposed to be with you. But she’s not here.”
Michael was so agitated that he didn’t notice he had raised his voice.
The young teacher flinched and looked at him uncertainly.
“I’m sorry… Who exactly? All my children seem to be here.”
“My daughter. Annie. She was here just now, and now she’s gone! She’s in your class. Don’t you remember us?”
“I’m sorry, but I have twenty-nine children in my class, and we’ve only met a few times.”
“So?”
“I haven’t had time to memorise the faces of all the children and their parents yet.”
“And that’s supposed to be an excuse?”
“Listen, every parent brought their child to me personally. But you… You didn’t. You only came up to me now. I understand it’s chaotic and all, but… Can you tell me why you left your daughter alone? Don’t you see how many people are at school today? A seven-year-old can get lost here, and even an adult can.”
“I only ran to the shop for water for a few minutes. Annie was thirsty. When I got back, she was gone. Blimey, you’re the teacher! Shouldn’t you have been watching the children? Where am I supposed to look for her now? Where could she have gone?”
Emma took a deep breath. It was her first day at work, her first class on her own, and everything felt like a bad dream.
“Calm down, sir. What did your daughter look like?”
“I told you: she had big white bows.”
“Sorry, but I have fifteen girls in my class, and they all have white bows. Are there any other details? What was she wearing, for example?”
Michael paused for a moment. He was so flustered and stressed that he couldn’t think of anything else to say. That morning he had helped his daughter tie those very bows, straightened her collar, worried about her not staining her white tights, and now he suddenly realised he could hardly describe her.
“Well, what else… A seven-year-old girl, brown eyes, long dark hair.”
“That’s better. Can you remember anything else?”
“Well… She has a yellow backpack with ducklings on it! She loves animals, you see, so she chose that one. None of the other kids have one like it. God, where could she have vanished?” Michael muttered anxiously, still looking around nervously.
“Don’t worry, we’ll find her. She can’t have left the school grounds. So your Annie must be somewhere around here. Wait for me here; I’ll be right back.”
Miss Emma ran over to her pupils, who were shifting from foot to foot waiting for the school assembly to begin. She counted the children again, paying special attention to the girls. But among the girls with pretty white bows, Annie wasn’t there, and none of them had seen a girl with a yellow backpack with ducklings.
Asking a colleague—the form teacher of the parallel class—to keep an eye on her pupils, Miss Emma quickly returned to Michael.
“None of Annie’s classmates have seen her,” she said. “She couldn’t have gone inside the school. So your daughter must be on the grounds. I suggest we search together.”
“Maybe we should call the police?”
“I think that’s unnecessary. We’ll definitely find Annie,” said Emma, trying to keep her voice calm and confident. Though, of course, she was also worried about the girl.
So the father and the teacher set off to find Annie.
They quickly walked around the schoolyard, checked the sports field, and approached the security guard at the gate several times. But there was no result. No one had seen Annie.
“Doesn’t your daughter have a phone?” Emma asked as they headed to the backyard—the only place they hadn’t checked yet.
“Yes, she does,” Michael sighed. “But I’ve got her phone. I didn’t have time to give it to Annie…”
“Shame you didn’t…” the teacher sighed after him.
“I just hope nothing’s happened… I hope nothing’s happened to her,” Michael repeated almost in a whisper.
Miss Emma said nothing. She was thinking that she was now responsible not only for the children but also for the parents’ trust. And if something serious had really happened to the child…
Meanwhile, the girl with white bows and a yellow backpack with ducklings was standing in the school’s backyard under a tall tree, talking to a kitten that was sitting on a branch right above her head and couldn’t get down. She had tried everything to persuade it to jump, but the kitten only let out pitiful meows.
“Come on, little one, jump,” Annie said to the kitten. “I’ll catch you. I promise I will.”
The kitten seemed to try to jump, but at the last moment fear froze its movements, and it pressed closer to the branch, meowing even more sadly. So sadly that Annie almost cried.
When the girl realised she couldn’t manage on her own, she ran for help.
And when she turned the corner of the school, she unexpectedly ran into her dad and Miss Emma. They both looked strangely worried.
“Sweetheart, where did you disappear to?” Michael ran up to her. “I almost went out of my mind. What are you doing here?”
“Dad, you can scold me later, okay?” Annie replied. “But right now… I need your help.”
“What’s happened?”
“Come with me.”
She took her father’s hand and with the other hand pulled Miss Emma, leading them confidently around the school.
Baffled, the adults exchanged glances and silently followed the girl. Finally, Annie brought them to the tree and pointed upwards.
“There’s a little kitten up there. See? Dad, please get him down.”
“Annie, don’t you want to tell your dad how you ended up here? Where did I tell you to wait for me?”
“When I was standing by the fence waiting for you, I saw a dog chasing this kitten, and I ran after them. The kitten was scared and climbed the tree, and the dog was barking at it. I chased the dog away… but I couldn’t reach the kitten.”
“You chased a big dog away by yourself?” Miss Emma asked in surprise.
“Uh-huh,” Annie nodded. “I told her that my dad was coming and if she didn’t leave on her own, my dad would help her. And she left. But the poor kitten is still sitting there. Daddy, will you get him down? How long are you going to stand there doing nothing?” She stamped her foot in annoyance. “He’s scared…”
Michael looked sceptically at the thin branches and realised that with his ninety-plus kilos, there was no way. But the teacher was slim and slender. She could probably do it.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Miss Emma asked in surprise. “I’m not climbing. I can’t even reach the branch.”
“I’ll lift you up,” Michael smiled.
“No way!”
“Please,” Annie took the teacher’s hand. “Look how scared he is. What if he falls?”
Miss Emma looked up.
The kitten meowed again pitifully, as if it really understood they were talking about him.
“Alright,” she finally said. “But only if you,” she looked at Michael, “hold me really tight and don’t drop me.”
“I promise everything will be fine,” Michael smiled.
Miss Emma sat on Michael’s broad shoulders. He lifted her up easily, and then she stood up on his shoulders, holding one hand on a branch. With the other hand, amid the cheers of the girl and her father, she tried with all her might to reach the kitten.
“A bit more…” Michael encouraged. “Almost there.”
The kitten backed away in fear at first, then, gaining courage, it cautiously stepped towards her and…
“We did it! We did it!” Annie clapped her hands joyfully. “Well done, Miss Emma! Dad, hold her tight. Don’t drop her.”
When Miss Emma finally got back on the ground, Annie immediately reached out for the kitten and hugged it.
It started purring softly.
“Well,” Michael smiled. “Thank God, everyone’s safe and sound. But you really scared me, sweetheart, with your mysterious disappearance.”
“Sorry, Dad. I didn’t mean to scare you. I just couldn’t leave him alone. He wouldn’t have been able to get down by himself.”
Michael looked at Annie and just shook his head.
It was for that kind heart that he loved his daughter more than anything in the world.
“Can we take him home?” Annie asked, glancing at the kitten.
“I think after an introduction like that, it’ll be hard to say no,” Michael chuckled.
“Then look after him while I get the textbooks. And mind you don’t get lost anywhere. So Miss Emma and I don’t have to look for you later.”
The teacher couldn’t help laughing.
“Well… I can only imagine how surprised your mum will be when you come home with this little one.”
“I don’t have a mum…” the girl sighed. “But I really wish I did.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know…” the teacher blinked in alarm.
“It’s okay, everything’s fine,” Michael smiled. “She left us five years ago. Went abroad. And I haven’t heard from her since. Actually, Annie and I haven’t heard anything.”
For a few seconds, silence fell over the school’s backyard. Emma silently looked at them—at the big, slightly awkward man with kind eyes and the little girl holding a grey kitten—and something stabbed sharply in her chest.
“But now we’ll have Whiskers,” Annie said decisively, stroking the kitten.
“You’ve already chosen a name?” Michael grinned.
“Of course. Can you live without a name?”
*****
Michael always came to pick up Annie himself. Sometimes he and Miss Emma exchanged just a few words; sometimes the conversation stretched until the schoolyard was completely empty. They talked about Annie’s progress, funny stories from class, books, films, pets, and gradually they stopped noticing that they had long been talking about more than just school.
One day, Michael stood in the hallway, waited until all the children had left, then stepped decisively into the classroom.
Miss Emma first gave him a wide smile, then, noticing a beautiful bouquet in his hands, looked surprised.
“These are for you,” Michael said hoarsely, holding out the flowers. “And also… I’d like to invite you to dinner tonight. Actually, Annie and I really want you to have dinner with us. The three of us. What do you say, Miss Emma?”
The teacher blushed, felt her ears burning treacherously, but… she took the flowers.
They smelled of autumn, of home, and somehow of hope.
“Alright,” she simply replied. “I’d love to.”
Miss Emma answered the same way a year later when Michael proposed to her.
At the registry office, Annie held Miss Emma’s hand tightly and… couldn’t stop smiling. At that moment, she felt like the happiest girl in the world.
“Can I… Can I call you Mum now?”
Tears welled up in the young woman’s eyes.
“If that’s what you want, then of course you can. For me, that would be the dearest word.”
Annie hugged her tightly.
Michael stood nearby, looking at them with a smile on his face.
Who would have thought that in one moment his and Annie’s lives would change so dramatically?
But miracles do happen.
And that miracle—a sweet, furry miracle—is now lying on the windowsill in the flat, eagerly waiting for its family to finally come home.
