Week 1 Storytelling: The Case of the Missing Twins

 My dear, do you know,

How a long time ago,

                                                               Two poor little children,

Whose names I don't know,

Were stolen away

On a fine summer's day,

And left in a wood,

As I've heard people say.

And when it was night

So sad was their plight,

The sun it went down,

And the moon gave no light.

They sobbed and they sighed

And they bitterly cried,

And long before morning

They lay down and died.

And when they were dead

The robins so red

Brought strawberry leaves

And over them spread;

And all the day long,

The green branches among,

They'd prettily whistle

And this was their song-

'Poor babes in the wood!

Sweet babes in the wood!

Oh the sad fate of

The babes in the wood!'

(Nursery rhyme)

“911, where is your emergency?”

“They are gone! They were just in front of me and now they are gone!”

“Ma’am please try to calm down. Where are you located?”

“I-I’m at Grizzly Park off Grand and 12^th…please hurry!”

Bob and Linda’s twins went missing Thursday at 4:48pm at Grizzly Park. Soon after the 911 call police arrived to the scene to investigate. Unfortunately, what was left was little to no evidence. Officer Mort, who was in charge of this missing case turned to the parents hoping to find a better lead.

Linda was talking with another cop when Officer Mort walked up. While choking on her tears she managed to explain the scene, “they were just swinging and running around for one second and then the next they were gone. I only looked away for a second.” Bob continued to comfort Linda when he began to describe that one of the twins was wearing a red dress with a matching bow while the other one was wearing shorts with a green t-shirt.

A search party was gathered and began at 6:00pm where they started to search further into the woodsy area that surrounded the park. Before it was dark, a whistle was blown a mile or so out of the park, which in turn means that a volunteer or officer found something that could be evidence. As Linda ran to the sound of the whistle she arrived to a volunteer holding the matching red bow to her daughter’s dress. At that point her and Bob were frantic to find their twins and only started to get careless so Officer Mort had them sent back to the station to get some rest.

It was 1:03am when Officer Mort announced to meet back at Grizzly Park at 8:00am the following morning. Supposedly, the night the twins went missing there was a severe thunderstorm that hit the area around 4:30am that morning.

The sun was shining in between the leaves letting leftover rain droplets fall below. Birds were chirping and taking turns bathing in the puddles beneath the trees. As they continued their search through the slippery mud and protruding branches they soon found recent tracks that led to a nearby river. Another whistle was blown as they came closer to the river. Volunteers were gathered around a tree trunk that had fallen where they soon found the twins. They were peacefully laying there, beside the fallen tree and a bed of red tulips. Officer Mort called the time of death-it was 10:14am.

Author's Note. The rhyme that I shared above and my story beneath have identical plots. In the rhyme two children went missing and struggled throughout their night in the woods. They soon were found dead with strawberry leaves on them left by robins. I always find mysteries and missing cases interesting so I just planned on taking the rhyme and making into a modern situation of parents losing their kids, in this case twins. Instead of robins specifically leaving strawberry leaves on the children I gave the scene more imagery by describing what it sometimes is like after the storm along with the bed of red tulips that surrounded the bodies. 

Bibliography. This story was based on the nursery rhyme, "The Babes in the Woods" in The Nursery Rhyme Book, edited by Andrew Lang. 

  Babe in the Wood