The Missing Hair

Oliver employs a detective to find his missing hair

Once, when I was counting the hairs on my head, I noticed that one hair was missing. You see, usually, I had 2,476 hairs on my head, but when I counted them this time, there were only 2,475 hairs on my head. Someone had stolen my hair. I went to the police station for help, but they said that I was crazy. Then I went to the FBI, but they said that they had much more important cases on their hands. Personally, I don’t understand how vandalism in the White House could be more important than my missing hair, but it wasn’t my choice. Finally, I realized that the best way to handle any situation was to take care of it at home.

I went to the private detective on my street. No one ever went to him to solve their cases. I wondered why. I walked into his room, where I found him holding a magnifying glass to my face.

“Do you have poor eyesight?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “But I could never be a proper detective if I didn’t always hold a magnifying glass to people’s faces when they enter this room.”

I was impressed. This was clearly a man I could trust.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“My name is Detective DaVinci.”

“That name sounds French,” I said.

“It’s actually Spanish,” Detective DaVinci said.

“My name is Olivier Ruthe.”

“That name is also Spanish,” the detective noted. “What trouble do you bear?”

So, I told him about how I lost my hair and about how no one would take me seriously.

“This is a difficult case,” Detective DaVinci told me. “I will need $100.”

I hesitated. One hundred dollars was a lot of money. But my hair was worth a lot of money.

“Of course,” I said. “Anything for my hair.”

“You should give me the money before I solve the case. Just so I know you aren’t a crook.”

“OK,” I replied. I met his price. Then I went back to my house, feeling satisfied and tired after a long day’s work.

That night, I had a hard time sleeping. I kept hearing shuffling noises at the window. Once, I felt a sharp pain on my scalp. I kept my eyes closed the whole time, hoping I might fall asleep. Eventually, the noises stopped.

The next day, I went straight to my detective.

“I found your hair!” he exclaimed. He showed me the hair in a glass bottle. I immediately started counting my hair. It took about an hour and a half. When I was finished, I found that I was missing another hair.

“Don’t worry,” the detective said. “I’ll find it.”

That night, I had trouble sleeping again. The same thing happened as had happened the night before. I heard noises at the window, felt a pain on my head, heard more noises, then silence. First thing in the morning, I counted my hair. I was missing another hair. I told my detective. He had, however, found another hair.

“You probably counted wrong.” He started counting my hair. “There. I counted the same number of hairs you started with . . . whatever that number was.”

“Oh,” I said simply.

Again, that night, I heard a noise. I rolled over.

“Ahhhhhhhhhh!”

The voice of the scream sounded familiar. Then I went to sleep. When I arrived back at Detective DaVinci’s house to thank him, he was frantically packing. He was bruised, covered in dirt, and his hair was sticking out in different directions.

“You look like you fell out of a window,” I said.

“Something like that happened. No one will steal your hair again.” He started toward the door.

I tried to say something. “But—”

“Bye.” Then he slammed the door.

I lived quite happily after that, except for the time I stepped on a broken magnifying glass right below my bedroom window and ruined my shoe.

I wonder how it got there.