THE LEGEND OF LUMPY

My eldest son Zach was an easy high school student.  Responsible, studious, involved in drama, mock trial, band, all respectable activities.  He had nice friends, was always home at a decent hour and I never got calls regarding his behavior or grades.   

It was my second son Jake who kept me guessing.  He was respectful (most of the time), but not quite so studious or quite so responsible.  He had nice friends who joined Jake in a garage band which I would guess drove my neighbors crazy although they were kind enough not to complain.   He was always home at a decent hour but I suspected he was not always where he said he was despite the fact that I could never prove it.  Because his teachers were not complaining and his grades were decent I had to just watch and see and hope for the best.  Aside from hooking a propane tank up to the exhaust of his car and nearly setting two of his friends on fire things seemed to be going rather smoothly until the day our entire family got involved in the kidnapping of Lumpy. 

Lumpy was the much loved classroom mascot of the history teacher at Terra Linda High School, Mr. Coleman.  He was a full size lifelike figure of a 3-4 year old.  He was posed leaning with his arm up against the wall, his back to us, his face buried in his arm looking as if he was maybe counting to ten for a hide and seek game.  He was dressed in normal everyday blue jeans, a red long sleeved T-shirt and white tennis shoes.  His brown hair peeked out of his blue baseball cap which he wore backward on his head. He was so lifelike that every time I looked at him I would get a little start in my chest and want to reach out and touch him.  

I first met Lumpy when I heard teenage boy laughter coming from Jake’s room.  When I went in to see what was so funny I was startled to see Lumpy leaning in the corner.    It seems Jake decided to crawl into Mr. Coleman’s window during lunch that day and kidnap Lumpy.  He and his friends were discussing what to do with him.  Now if I was a good mother I would have stopped all of this right then and there.  I would have reprimanded my son for breaking and entering and demand that he return Lumpy at once.  But I was intrigued by Lumpy.   He made me smile and I was interested to see how this would all play out. 

The first thing the boys did was tie and gag Lumpy.  They placed a newspaper beside him as proof of life and made their demands.  The video that they made was sent anonymously to Mr. Coleman.  There was no direct response to Jake from Mr. Coleman although he did show all of his classes the video and demand that whoever took Lumpy needed to return him immediately.

While all of this drama was going on at school, we had our own drama slowly unfolding at home.  The first day after the kidnapping I walked in the front door and nearly jumped out of my skin when I laid eyes on Lumpy leaning up against the wall of the living room.  Lumpy was extremely lifelike so finding him anywhere you did not expect him was quite unsettling. The next day I saw Sam go into the bathroom and a moment later pop right back out clutching his chest. Lumpy had been in the shower when he pulled the shower curtain back.  That evening I heard a couple of forbidden swear words come from Zach’s room. When I walked in Zach was standing over his bed breathing heavy and there lay Lumpy under the messed up covers of his bed.  When my husband Jon opened his closet door one morning I heard him gasp. Lumpy was hanging by a noose right inside his closet. We began creeping around corners and opening doors more slowly so as not to be startled by Lumpy. The tension in the house grew as did our distress. Drew nearly jumped out of his skin when he found him leaning against the side of his dresser.  Even Jake was rattled when he found him unexpectedly leaning behind the bathroom door. We were all equally creeped out by Lumpy and since no one would admit to moving Lumpy his means of transportation around the house was disconcerting.  Lumpy went from being cute to being downright sinister.    Our house had become the eerie set of a horror movie with occasional gasps and shrieks heard in the distant rooms.  We were all very anxious to get Lumpy back to his proper home.  But evidently Mr. Coleman was not agreeing to the demands and Lumpy remained our captive. 

One day about a week into this series of unfortunate events Mr. Coleman approached Zach.  “You’re Jake Alexander’s brother, aren’t you?”  Zach hesitated wondering if he should admit to being related to his troublemaking brother.  He knew he shouldn’t get involved but he wanted Lumpy out of our house as much as the rest of us.  Mr. Coleman asked Zach if there was perhaps some place that he could temporarily hide Jake’s drum set, one of Jake’s prized possessions.  Zach told him the neighbors had a large garage and he could probably put them in there.  They made a plan to have Zach get home in time to move the drum set while Mr. Coleman kept Jake occupied at school for an extra half hour.  As Jake left school that day Mr. Coleman said over his shoulder, “Have you seen your drum set lately?” 

Well, Jake raced home and sure enough his drum set was gone.  Unable to find his drums or get anyone to admit they had taken them, he finally relented and the next morning much to our family’s relief he went early enough to school to climb in the window and return Lumpy to his rightful home.   

From then on for his safety, Lumpy was locked in a closet every night which might have been traumatic for poor Lumpy but much less traumatic than being a kidnap victim and living in the Alexander household for a couple of weeks.  That would scare anyone.