Amy.

Thanks for hanging with me guys. Here's a funny family story...

Amy-

In the late 1990's we lived in the foothills of the Sierra Madre Mountains in northern California. The population of people was dramatically outnumbered by pine trees. Not having a four-wheel drive automobile was a "no-no" on these steep roads and if you were caught in the winter without snow chains you were the joke of the town.

There were plenty of children in our neighborhood, all of whom had to walk up a very steep road to get to the bus stop. A morning treck to the bus stop is how we all met Amy.

Amy's family had just moved in. They were sort of an oddity. Amy was cute, sweet, and fun. But the longer you knew her, the more questions you had. She was awefully flighty and although her hair was red, we called her a "blonde". Her younger sister had a hairlip, which we were able to overlook because of her charming personality. But her older brother, Danny, was one strange duck. He used to jump into the thicket in our neighborhood and we wouldn't see him for hours. I guess he just really loved nature. He wasn't very good with people, and vice-versa, so I suppose that theory checks out.

My sister, Cheryl, and Amy became good friends. Cheryl would go to her house and they would listen to music, skate in the basement, and play dolls. Amy would come over to our house sometimes too. Everybody seemed okay with this. Except Cheryl's dog, Brownie.

One night Amy stayed over. The girls had a great time staying up late eating snacks and watching movies. I let them play in my room for a while, which they loved. My room was a loft that covered half of the girl's room. A short climb up the ladder and !voila!, you were there. They liked to go up and look over the edge at the room below.

In the morning Amy began packing up her things. A short search revealed that an article of her clothing was missing. So was the dog.

Cheryl and Amy left the house. Cheryl was going to walk her home and play for a while since she was already going to be up there. But when they go to the mailbox, they stopped short. There was a freshly dug hole near the post and a very dirty dog next to it. And in the hole was Amy's underwear.

We never looked at her quite the same after that.

Our family has this story filed away in the "Ohmygosh, do you remember when..." file.