The Lost Key

Ethan came home from school at four o’clock. He was hungry, and his bag was heavy. He put his hand in his pocket to take out his key. The pocket was empty. He looked in his other pocket. Empty again. “Oh no,” he said. “Where is my key?”

He sat down on the step in front of the house and opened his school bag. He took out his books, his lunch box, and his pencil case. He looked under the books and inside the small pockets. There was no key. His mother was at work, and his father was in Chicago. The house was quiet and dark.

Ethan was worried. He walked back to the park near his school. In the morning, he played soccer there with his friends. He looked on the grass and under the bench. He asked a man with a dog, “Excuse me, did you see a small silver key?” The man shook his head. “Sorry, no,” he said.

Then Ethan saw Grandma Rose. She lived next door, and she was walking home with a bag of apples. “Ethan, why are you sad?” she asked. “I lost my key, Grandma,” he said. “I can’t get into my house.” Grandma Rose smiled. “Don’t worry. Let’s think. Where did you put the key this morning?”

Ethan closed his eyes and thought. In the morning, it was cold. He wore his blue jacket. At school, the sun came out, and he put the jacket in his bag. “My jacket!” he cried. He opened his bag and took out the blue jacket. He put his hand in the jacket pocket — and there it was. The small silver key.

Ethan laughed, and Grandma Rose laughed too. “The key was with you all the time,” she said. Ethan opened the door of his house, and Grandma Rose gave him two red apples. “Next time,” she said, “look slowly, and think first.” Ethan nodded. “And maybe put the key in one pocket only!”

That evening, Ethan put a small red string on his key. Now the key always lives in the front pocket of his bag. And every day after school, he checks it one time — slowly.