Leo had a notebook the size of his palm, a stubby pencil, and the smallest magnifying glass anyone had ever seen. He was a detective. The neighborhood knew it.
Tonight's case was Mrs. Pello's missing button. It was small and brass and shaped like a sunflower. She had cried a little when she told him.
"I'll find it," Leo had said, because that's what detectives say.
He started at the front steps. Footprints? Some — but mostly old ones. He moved slowly, the way good detectives do. He looked under the porch swing. Nothing. He looked along the cracks in the pavement. Nothing. He looked in the flowerbed. Just dirt and three sleepy worms.
A cat watched him from the wall. The cat said nothing. Cats almost never help.
Leo sat on the curb. He thought. He stretched. He thought some more. The streetlight came on with a little tick. The evening had become deep blue.
Leo remembered something his grandfather had told him: "When you can't find a thing, sit very still and look at one place for a long time. The thing usually comes to you."
So Leo sat. He chose a small patch of grass beside the steps. He looked at it. He waited.
Crickets started up. The cat closed her eyes.
And then — there, tucked into a fold of clover — a glint of brass. The sunflower button. Just sitting there as if it had been hiding all along.
Leo picked it up gently. It was warm from a whole afternoon of sun. He polished it on his shirt.
He took it back to Mrs. Pello. She gasped. She thanked him three times. She gave him a soft, fresh peach.
Leo walked home in the dim, gentle dark, eating the peach in small bites. His pocket was empty now. His notebook was full of nothing. But inside him was a slow, warm feeling, the kind that comes when you wait long enough and a quiet thing finally shows itself.
When he got into bed, he set the magnifying glass on the table beside him. The crickets were singing. His eyelids were soft. He yawned a long, sleepy yawn.
Tomorrow there might be another case. But tonight, the worlds of brass and dust and patient grass were all settling into their rightful corners — and Leo was settling, too.