By Shay Manning
It all started when Missus Penny’s new lingerie—some scandalous little red things she’d purchased for a romantic interlude with Mister Penny—went missing off the clothesline in her backyard. Unfortunately for the neighbors of Serenity Park, a very respectable retirement community, the existence of a panties-thief would go unnoticed for some time.
For upon discovery, Missus Penny, who was never one for a fuss, simply went out, purchased another set, and after washing, let them dry inside the house this time. (And she told herself she hadn’t really liked the red anyway and opted for a more respectable shade of pink.)
Mister Aldrin, who frequently ordered his groceries for delivery using “the Inter-Web Service,” as he called it, was more annoyed than concerned when the breakfast sausages he’d specifically requested were nowhere to be found, despite the email saying the order had been dropped off on his porch without issue.
He spent an hour on the phone with the delivery service company, demanding that the sticky-fingered driver who’d filled the order be reprimanded. The delivery photos showed the sausages sitting on top of the bag at Mister Aldrin’s front door, just a few minutes before he went out to get them.
“Either someone snuck up to my house and stole those sausages out of the bag, or your driver took them after taking the photo!”
Eventually, he received a refund for the sausages, switched to a different delivery service, and promptly forgot about it.
Missus Han, who made it a nightly ritual to straighten and plump the many little cushions on her outdoor settee, felt a shiver of unease one morning when she woke to find that not only was there a divot in the center seat cushion, one of the smaller pillows had been absconded with completely. “I just don’t understand why someone would come and sit on our porch and then steal a pillow!” she said angrily to Mister Kim as he brought her a cup of coffee and sat down on the center cushion.
“Good morning, Mister Buttons!” Mister Kim called to the neighborhood feral cat, a fat old orange tomcat who was waddling down the sidewalk in front of their house.
Mister Buttons didn’t so much as look Mister Kim’s way.
“Are you sure it’s missing?” he asked gently, setting her cup down on one of the hand-embroidered coasters on the side table. He patted the seat beside him, but Missus Han was in a state.
“Yeobo!” she cried, using the Korean word for dearest. “Why aren’t you taking this seriously? It was the pillow I made for our tenth anniversary. Don’t you remember?”
(Mister Kim did not.)
Things came to a head when Mister Singh, opening the front door to find the flowerpot with his prized moth orchid shattered and the orchid missing, was in such a state that he tramped straight through the potting soil and into the street, shouting for help.
“We have a thief in Serenity Park!” he cried as doors started to open.
First to arrive was Mister Aldrin. He had a morning habit of sweeping his front porch and heard the commotion before anyone else. He leaned heavily on the broom and said, “What’s all this, Rav?”
Mister Singh gesticulated wildly to the wreckage of the pot, the open front door behind framing the crime scene perfectly. “Someone stole my orchid!”
“Someone took one of my handmade pillows!” said Missus Han as she arrived at the scene. “Last week!”
“Well—” Mister Kim was silenced by a look from his wife. He went quiet, though he watched everything with a bemused air.
As the street became more crowded, it became apparent that Serenity Park did in fact, have a burglar in their midst.
The Wooledges’ garden flag, the one with Easter Bunnies on it, had vanished from their backyard. No thief had been spotted and a recent storm was blamed.
When Mister and Mister Zimmerman went inside to open another bottle of wine one evening, they returned to their porch to find the Iberico ham slices completely gone. That the soppressata remained untouched ignited a playfully fierce discussion regarding the merits of Portuguese versus Italian cured meats. Over the course of that second bottle, they forgot completely about the thievery and in the morning, were more concerned with their headaches than the ill-fated Iberico.
And when the thief took one of Missus Barclay’s slippers—she’d left them on the porch accidentally—her home health aide had rather rudely suggested that she was developing dementia and had simply lost it.
Missus and Mister Penny were the last to arrive, wearing only their housecoats, their hair mussed in a way no one deemed it polite to mention. Fortunately, it seemed there was enough evidence for Missus Penny to avoid having to give testimony about her own unfortunate run-in with the thief.
“Excuse me,” came a small voice from the back. Everyone turned to look at Miz Jenkins, the youngest of the bunch (positively adolescent at age fifty-five). She was pointing down the street where a small figure could be seen waddling toward the park.
“Isn’t that Mister Buttons?” Mister Zimmerman asked his husband.
The other Mister Zimmerman pointed excitedly. “And look! He’s carrying something!”
“I can’t see that far,” said Mister Aldrin. Mister Singh apparently couldn’t either.
“Well, let’s go!” Miz Jenkins hurried after the little figure.
The neighbors all rushed—in various states of striding, strolling, and shuffling—after Miz Jenkins and the fat little cat, who it seemed was carrying a very expensive orchid between his teeth.
They followed Mister Buttons all the way to the old oak tree in the middle of the park. This particular oak tree was the center of the lush little patch of land. Ironwork benches languished under the verdant green, allowing those needing a rest to sit and gaze upon its beauty.
As Mister Buttons wriggled into a hole at the base of the trunk, Misters Aldrin and Wolledge, and Missus Penny—who had bad knees—all sat down on the benches. Miz Jenkins knelt down to get a look inside the tree.
She whistled. “Well, wet my feet and call me Ducky. We’ve found the bandit!”
There was a general commotion as each neighbor bent down to get a look, each of them shaking their heads and chuckling when they saw the scene.
Mister Buttons was curled up in the cozy apartment he’d managed to furnish for himself–complete with a bed made of an Easter Bunny flag, a hand-embroidered cushion, a house slipper, and oddly, some red lingerie no one came forward to claim. (Keen observers noticed Missus Penny’s cheeks turn pink, but no one tattled on her.)
An empty package of breakfast sausages in the corner showed several teeth marks. The Iberico ham was long gone, though Mister Buttons was undoubtedly the villain behind that incident, too. Finally, nestled neatly beside the little bed: one moth orchid, a little crumpled, but brightening the space and making it homey.
“Well,” said Mister Singh as one of the Zimmermans pulled him to his feet, “I guess there’s no use taking it back now.”
“Poor fellow must have been hungry,” Mister Aldrin observed.
Each of the neighbors looked at one another, feeling sheepish. For, they had all seen Mister Buttons in the neighborhood, but not one of them had ever fed him, checked on him, or even knew where he lived.
“He must have been cold the other night,” Missus Wooledge said, sounding a little choked up.
“And lonely,” added Missus Han.
There were nods of agreement.
After some discussion, the neighborhood agreed to change his name from Mister Buttons to Mister Bandit and resolved to make him the beloved mascot of Serenity Park.
And you might think that the neighbors started to keep their cushions, and their washing, and their shoes inside, but well, they knew exactly where to look when anything important went missing. And the general feeling was that even fat old tomcats deserved a breakfast sausage or a slice of Iberico ham from time to time.
Author Bio
Shay Manning is in her first semester at Emerson College. She works full-time as a Korean-language translator and curriculum developer. When she’s not working on her MFA in Popular Fiction Writing and Publishing, she enjoys reading and translating Korean novels and learning new crafts (sewing Regency ballgowns, zentangling, and making press-on nail sets are among her current favorites). She currently lives in Alabama with her husband, daughter, and six (yes, six) cats and plans to move to the northeast in summer of 2025.
