Wooden Trains

Dewey didn’t have time to think about vending machines right now. He stood knee-deep in the logistics of the Mr. Nisano case, figuring out the plans to observe him in his non-school environment. This observation required some undercover work. Mr. Nisano and his home wouldn’t be as easily accessible to Dewey as problem parents were during a case. With parents, he always had someone on the inside to let him into the house and show him the best places to hide and observe.

Teachers like Mrs. Décorder might be dull at times, but at least their eccentricities helped distract the students. This case, it seemed, presented an entirely different kind of challenge, and solving it proved more difficult.

“Honest, Dewey. If you gave me a two-by-four, I’d smack myself in the head with it over and over just to break up the time in there,” Will had moaned during their interview.

The first step of Dewey’s plan was for Clara to fetch him after school so they could follow Mr. Nisano and gather as much intel as possible. Dewey had never been a student of Mr. Nisano, which would make spying easier. If this case had come from the elementary school, where all the teachers knew every kid by sight, Dewey didn’t know what he’d have done.

One case at a time, breathed Dewey.

As planned, Clara met Dewey at the pick-up circle. Even though Dewey had outgrown needing a babysitter, Dewey’s parents still listed Clara on school paperwork as an approved adult to pick up and care for the Fairchild children. This setup often came in helpful during his cases.

“Clara! Hi,” Dewey greeted as he climbed in the back and tossed his bag over the front seat. “We need to go park off-campus and wait for him to leave. I have no idea how long that’s going to take. I hope it’s not too long.”

Wolfie, who had been sleeping in the back, woke up and excitedly licked Dewey.

“Hey, boy!”

Clara pulled around the corner where they waited under a shady tree, eating Butterfinger cookies and talking about what they should do next.

“Well, Boss,” noted Clara, “this is new territory for us. Perhaps we just let it unfold and see where it takes us.”

That strategy made Dewey a little anxious. He liked to know what he was doing before it happened. But he really didn’t have much choice in this case.

Then, it finally happened. After about two pages of begrudgingly completed math homework, one tree pee for Wolfie, and ten cookies, Mr. Nisano exited the school carrying a thermos in one hand, a stack of papers in another, and a messenger bag slung over his shoulder. Clara and Dewey watched him as he got into his car and drove past them.

“Thar he goes.” Clara started the engine.

“Oh. Oh! Go, Clara, Go! Follow him!” exclaimed Dewey, totally unnecessarily as Clara, who already had the gas pedal to the floor, hotly pursued their subject like a hound chasing a mechanical hare on a track.

None of this haste proved necessary, and they easily caught up to Mr. Nisano, who wasn’t exactly a speedster.

He pulled into the supermarket. With his arms now free of all his teacher gear, he swung them by his sides. His pace picked up a bit while he walked toward the market. The tips of his long fingers reached past the halfway mark of his upper thighs, and each stride, though not rushed, would be about five for Pooh Bear to take to keep up, Dewey estimated.

“What is it about teachers and supermarkets?” marveled Dewey. “Okay, stay here. I’m going in.”

Dewey waited for sufficient distance to grow between him and his target before he entered the market to find Mr. Nisano shopping which, given Mr. Nisano’s long strides, didn’t take long.

Well, thought Dewey sarcastically, this is going to be an epic adventure.

Tomatoes. Bananas. Crackers. Cheddar cheese. Half and half. Dewey used his phone to take notes on the items Mr. Nisano put into his cart.

He shops. He eats.

Dewey recorded it all but slowly felt more and more confident that this information was getting him nowhere. He waited, again, while Mr. Nisano paid. He returned to Clara, and they followed the subject to the next stop, which all leading indicators suggested was the teacher’s home.

Mr. Nisano entered the house, leaving Dewey and Clara in their car contemplating what to do next. It felt risky to just go peek in his window. What if someone saw him? They decided to approach it more as a stakeout than a spy mission and hope for the best.

Parking for another hour revealed a wife and kids—a whole world that Dewey never even thought about when it came to teachers. He had this vague notion that teachers. He had this vague notion that teachers stayed in the classrooms where you last left them until you got back.

“Wow!” wondered Dewey. “Do you think he’s as boring with his kids? His wife? He can’t be . . . Why would anyone marry such a boring guy? She must see something in him.”

They sat for a while more, and Dewey’s stomach started to talk to him about pizza being a lag-free topic. They ordered a medium pepperoni and had it delivered using a nearby home address and intercepting the delivery man. Clara pulled out some kibble for Wolfie, though he sniffed hopefully at the box of pizza.

As they chomped and chewed away, Mr. Nisano eventually came out front with one of the kids they’d seen him with earlier. The little boy was surprisingly cute. He held two fistfuls of toy wooden trains pressed up against his small chest.

“Hold Conductor Tom and make him say something!” implored Mr. Nisano’s son.

“Okay,” replied Mr. Nisano.

Their play went on for a bit this way, but Mr. Nisano had a newspaper in his hands, and, when he could, he snuck a peek at it to read. The young boy, who couldn’t have been much more than three or four years old spoke loudly and clearly.

“Daddy! You’re the conductor. Okay? Okay, Daddy? Make him talk now!”

“Oh, the train should not travel that way,” narrated Mr. Nisano in the deep make-believe voice of a conductor as he bounced the small wooden man up and down with each word. “There is going to be a storm, I hear.” Then, still holding the wooden conductor upright in one hand as if paying attention, he went back to his newspaper.

The boy got distracted for a while in his own play and then looked up to again see his father’s eyes on the paper not on him. He tapped him on the shoulder and, when that failed, drove the train across his father’s balding head. Dewey and Clara both laughed, and Dewey notated all quickly into his phone.

With the conductor having made his exit from atop his bare head, Mr. Nisano turned the pages of his paper back over themselves and settled nicely into a fresh page. This time, the kid stopped his train play to stand on the lawn. A small arc of water squirting from him like a little hose.

Dewey and Clara burst out laughing. That kid was peeing on his front lawn.

The boy’s mother came running out. “What’s going on out here?” she asked Mr. Nisano. “Alexander, Sweetie. That’s enough.”

“Just playing some trains,” he muttered, still looking at the paper.

Little Alexander shot a smile over his shoulder as he finished up his pee.

“I can see that,” remarked Mrs. Nisano. “That’s enough trains, Alexander. We come inside when we have to make pee pee, okay?” she added as she rested a hand on the top of her son’s small head.

Mr. Nisano looked up from his paper, dropping open his mouth but no words came out, and Mrs. Nisano shot her husband a disapproving look. He looked sheepish and flashed her a smile in return, and they all went in the house.

The front door closed, and the stakeout came to an end.