We are now a few days into term and I already find myself asking how things can simply vanish without a trace. After just 3 days at school, my 7-year-old has managed to lose his brand new school jumper and apparently it is nowhere to be found. He promises me that he was wearing it and it simply disappeared when he wasn’t looking.
I’m sure that uniform is imbued with some kind of life force of its own as it always seems to grow legs and disappear when you look away. Or maybe there are house-elves out there somewhere wearing a selection of my children’s clothing and borrowers who use discarded stationary.
We had a situation a few years ago when my eldest daughter lost her brand new school coat. We checked lost property, the classroom, the playground and everywhere else we could think of, but it had quite simply vanished into thin air. Strangely, about 3 months later it turned up under a tree. Covered in mud, it had obviously been on an adventure in the time it was away and was now completely unsalvageable. A valuable lesson was learned about not buying expensive coats for school and always try to have spares…just in case things run away.
Over the years, the list of missing school uniform and equipment has grown. Everything from single socks, pencil cases, countless contact books, cardigans and even shoes have disappeared into the abyss, never to be seen again. Not to mention the constantly vanishing hair bands that I buy in bulk at the start of every term but within a week there are none to be seen.
Maybe they take themselves off to some sort of spa for unloved items where they can relax and remind themselves of their purpose in life. Or maybe they are in some kind of ’lost clothes purgatory’ forever waiting to be found.
Wherever they go, I wish they would come back. My bank balance isn’t very happy with my regular trips to the uniform shop and I would quite like to buy books or cake instead.
