“I hate snow, I hate New Year!” Jonathan tells his father Alfred Bates, the famous detective, while looking outside through a window.

“On the contrary, I like snow and New Year,” Bates replies to his son while reading the newspaper.

“Why?” the son asks the father.

“Because tracks and footprints in the snow tell you a lot about what’s going on around you,” the detective says as he moves into a better position, facing the window.

“I don’t see anything in this snowfall,” Jon replies, struggling to see more outside the window.

“That’s because you don’t want to see what’s in front of you,” Bates continues while gazing outside. “What do the tracks tell you, outside your friend Andy’s house?”

“That he was out there cleaning the path?”

“Exactly,” Bates concurs with his son’s observations. “Would you have been able to tell that had there been no snow?”

“Err … no!”

“Try to make use of everything that’s in front of you,” Bates says as he points his finger to another house in the vicinity. “What story does Mrs. Jennings house tell you?”

“That Mrs Jennings doesn’t want to come out on New Year’s Eve?” Jon says as there is a snow piled up on her driveway.

“Or you could have said that Mrs. Jennings isn’t home!”

“Why would I have said that?”

“Because her car is not in the driveway, the newspapers have been lying on her swing outside and the milk bottles outside her door are yet to be opened.”

“You are loving it Dad, aren’t you?”

“Oh, yes I am,” the detective says as he continues to look around for clues.

“‘Tell me, what do the tracks around our house suggest? Now that shouldn’t be a tricky one considering I know a kid who forgets his bicycle outside in winters….”

“Oh no … I must have forgotten my bike outside!”

“Well you did but then, look at the footprints that originate from the garage, lead to the driveway and then back to the garage.”

“Thanks Dad, you are the best,” Jonathan says as he hugs his father. “I promise I will not forget the bike next year when it snows.”

“That’s what you said the last time it happened too,” Alfred Bates says as he sits back to read the newspaper.

“I will be there next year to save your bike, like this year.”

Published in Dawn, Young World, January 7th, 2017