MIKEY'S GONE!

Ronald and Davis had both heard, "Stay away from the Kansas River bridge," so often that the it was the first thing they thought of when Missie Rogers asked if they'd seen her brother Mikey.

"He's been gone all day," Missie wailed when she found them at City Park half-heartedly practicing Tae Kwon Do moves and mostly feeling bored.

"Gone?" Ronald asked Missie. "You sure your dad didn't take him to work or something? You know, a see-what-your-parent-does day."

She shook her head and rubbed her eyes free of tears. "Dad went out to the Law Enforcement Center when Mikey didn't come home for lunch. Mother called him. She's not teaching at the college this summer, you know."

Missie was a giant pain about the fact that her parents were professors with a half-hundred diplomas on their walls. Ronald's dad was a mechanic and Davis's dad was a civilian worker at Fort Riley for the Army. But when Missie said, "Mikey's only four," and started crying for real, he forgot about her being a snob.

"The river," he said. "All boys go out and explore-especially under the bridge."

Davis nodded. "We checked it out when we were six. Come on, Missie. We'll get bikes and ride down there. You'll feel better if you're doing something."

"Well, I guess," she said. "I'm not supposed to go there." She brightened. "When we go for my bike, we'll learn if the police have found him. Maybe we won't have to go at all."

Even if he wanted Mikey to be safe, Ronald rather hoped he hadn't been found so quickly. Looking for him was something to do, an exciting something to do. "Wouldn't it be great if we were the ones to find him?" he asked Davis when Missie ran inside her house.

Davis nodded, but had no time to say anything before Missie came back out. She looked more scared than ever. "Mother's finding some of Mikey's clothes for the police. They might have to use dogs."

A half hour later, Ronald wished they had a dog themselves. The underbelly of the river bridge was still a tangled snarl of weeds. Drunken bums-the reason parents wanted kids to avoid the area-still sheltered just above the waterline.

One of the bums called them names. The other kept smacking his lips at Missie and saying, "Gimme some sugar, pretty doll?" It took only moments to see that Mikey wasn't there and push along past the bridge and down to the river itself.

None of the tall grass along the riverbed looked trampled. They trampled it some, looking

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