The note Garam had put up survived, untouched, until the next morning.
The problem was that it had survived too untouched.
If you're looking for a blue umbrella, please come to Han Garam in Class 3-2.
As soon as he arrived at school, Garam checked the entrance. When he saw the note still attached exactly as he'd left it, he stood there for a moment.
The two blue umbrellas he'd left in the umbrella stand yesterday were still there, too.
Dahye approached from behind.
“No one took them.”
“Yeah.”
“Does that mean no one came looking?”
“It’s still morning.”
“Do you think they’ll come all the way to our classroom?”
Garam glanced at the note.
“If there’s someone looking.”
Dahye grinned.
“Han Garam, the school’s official umbrella manager.”
“That’s not what this is.”
“Lost-and-found manager.”
“I said it isn’t.”
“Blue umbrella specialist.”
Garam looked at Dahye.
“You’re having fun.”
“Yeah.”
She was perfectly honest.
Garam said nothing more and headed to the classroom.
But before first period began.
Someone really did come looking for him.
“Who’s Han Garam?”
The voice came from the front door of the classroom.
Garam looked up.
It was a female student he’d never seen before.
Her uniform name tag said she was in Class 3-5.
Dahye lightly poked Garam’s arm.
“They’re here.”
“What is?”
“The client.”
“Not a client.”
Garam stood up.
“That’s me.”
The girl came closer.
“You’re the one who put up the note at the entrance, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you find the blue umbrella?”
Garam thought for a moment.
“What kind of umbrella was it?”
The girl answered immediately.
“Just a blue one with a straight handle.”
Dahye muttered behind him,
“The hardest possible answer.”
Garam thought so, too.
“Any distinguishing features?”
“Distinguishing features?”
“Something attached to the handle, or a scratch, maybe.”
The girl thought for a moment.
“No.”
“Nothing at all?”
“Yeah.”
Garam found himself at a loss.
Of the two blue umbrellas, one had no markings on its handle whatsoever.
The other had a strip of white tape around the tip.
“When did you lose it?”
“The day before yesterday.”
Garam’s eyes shifted slightly.
“The day it rained?”
“Yeah.”
“Where did you leave it?”
“At the entrance.”
“Around what time were you going to get it?”
“After evening self-study.”
Dahye cut in.
“So you left pretty late?”
“Yeah. Around ten?”
Garam organized the timeline in his head.
He had left school right after classes that day.
By then, his own umbrella was already gone, and an unidentified blue umbrella had taken its place.
This student hadn’t found her umbrella when she checked around ten that night.
“Was there a blue umbrella left then?”
The girl rolled her eyes upward.
“I think there might’ve been.”
“How many?”
“I don’t know.”
Dahye looked at Garam.
Garam let out a small sigh.
Not many people remembered the total number of umbrellas in the stand.
Naturally. Before they lost one, no one paid that much attention to their umbrella.
Garam said,
“Can you come to the entrance during lunch?”
“Why?”
“So you can look at the umbrellas that are still there and check for yourself.”
The girl nodded.
“Okay.”
As she turned to leave, she asked another question.
“But are you really going to find it for me?”
“I didn’t take it, so I can’t exactly promise I’ll find it…”
Dahye answered immediately.
“He’ll find it.”
Garam looked at Dahye.
“Seo Dahye.”
The girl smiled.
“I’ll come at lunch.”
Once she was gone, Garam said to Dahye,
“Why did you answer for me?”
“You’re going to do it anyway.”
“It’s not settled.”
“So you’re not going to?”
Garam didn’t answer.
Dahye smiled in satisfaction.
“See?”
The second person came after second period.
This time, it was a male student from the sophomore class.
And his umbrella had a distinguishing feature.
“There’s a sticker on the handle.”
Garam asked,
“What kind of sticker?”
“A white puppy.”
Dahye said,
“That’s cute.”
The boy looked a little embarrassed.
“My little sister put it on.”
“When did it disappear?”
“Yesterday.”
Garam paused.
“Yesterday?”
“Yes.”
It hadn’t rained yesterday.
“Why did you bring an umbrella?”
“I used it the day before yesterday and left it at school.”
“On purpose?”
“No. I forgot it.”
Then the situation was a little different.
The boy had left his umbrella at school on the day it rained.
When he came to get it the next day, it was gone.
“Do you remember where you left it?”
“On the right side of the entrance.”
“And it was blue?”
“Yes.”
“You bought it at the stationery store in front of the school?”
The boy nodded.
“That’s right.”
Dahye muttered while looking at Garam,
“You’re really getting a lot of use out of that.”
Garam took out a notebook.
It wasn’t the notebook he usually used for the Cat Detective Agency.
It was just a small notebook for taking notes at school.
Still, he wrote down a few brief details on a blank page.
Class 3-5 girl / no markings / confirmed missing after rain, at night
Sophomore boy / white puppy sticker / confirmed missing the next day
Dahye said from beside him,
“You actually pulled out a notebook.”
“I’m going to get confused.”
“This really is the school branch.”
“Be quiet.”
At lunchtime, three people gathered at the entrance.
Garam.
Dahye.
The girl from Class 3-5.
A little later, the sophomore boy arrived, too.
Garam took out the two blue umbrellas in question.
He picked up the first one.
“This one has a clean handle. No markings.”
The girl from Class 3-5 took it.
She turned it around once.
“I think it’s mine.”
Dahye asked,
“You think?”
“It looked like this.”
“Are you sure?”
“…I don’t know.”
Garam had expected that.
When an object had no distinguishing features, this was how things ended up.
Next was the umbrella with the strip of white tape around the tip.
The sophomore boy shook his head the moment he saw it.
“That’s not mine.”
“Because it doesn’t have the puppy sticker?”
“That too.”
The boy pointed to the umbrella handle.
“The end of mine was a little cracked.”
Garam immediately wrote it in his notebook.
Minor damage to the end of the handle.
Dahye said,
“You could’ve mentioned that from the start.”
“I just remembered.”
“People’s memories are something else.”
Dahye clicked her tongue.
Garam looked at her.
“If someone asked you to describe your umbrella, could you do it right away?”
“Transparent.”
“That’s it?”
Dahye looked down at her own umbrella.
“Transparent.”
“That’s all you’ve got.”
“Huh. I guess it is.”
The girl from Class 3-5 laughed.
Garam smiled a little, too.
Then someone spoke from behind them.
“Excuse me.”
All four of them turned around at once.
This time, it was a boy from the same grade.
He was the student who had checked the umbrellas with Garam yesterday morning.
Garam asked,
“You came, too?”
“I saw the note.”
The boy looked down at the two umbrellas.
“Mine isn’t here, right?”
“You said it had a name sticker.”
“Yeah.”
“Neither of these has one.”
The boy sighed.
“Where did it actually go?”
Dahye began folding down her fingers.
“Wait a second.”
One.
“Garam’s umbrella came back.”
Two.
“His has a name sticker.”
Three.
“The sophomore’s has a puppy sticker.”
Four.
“Class 3-5’s has no markings.”
Dahye looked at the two blue umbrellas.
“And there are two unidentified ones here.”
Garam said,
“The Class 3-5 umbrella could be here.”
“Then what about the other one?”
“Someone else’s.”
The boy asked,
“But why did they all get mixed up like this?”
No one could answer him.
Before lunch ended, Garam checked one thing.
The stationery store in front of the school.
Dahye came along, too.
“We don’t have much time left for lunch.”
“I know.”
“Shouldn’t we run?”
“We can run on the way there.”
“What about on the way back?”
“We’ll think about that then.”
Dahye laughed.
“You’re kind of a disaster when it comes to planning.”
The stationery store was only a few minutes from the main gate.
Garam quickly spotted the straight-handle umbrellas displayed on one side of the store.
Dark blue.
Black handles.
They were exactly like the ones at the school entrance.
They were cheaper than he’d expected, too.
Garam asked the owner,
“Do you sell a lot of these umbrellas?”
The owner looked at the two students and said,
“Those? They’re one of our best sellers.”
“Do students from our school buy them, too?”
“Of course. When it suddenly starts raining, that’s the one the kids buy most.”
“This year, too?”
“We’ve been selling them steadily since last year.”
Dahye said in a low voice,
“So the stationery store is the culprit?”
Garam lightly nudged her with his elbow.
The owner didn’t seem to hear.
“What? Did you lose an umbrella?”
Garam said,
“There are just too many that look alike.”
“You should mark yours.”
The owner said it casually.
“They’re all identical, so whenever it rains, one or two people always take the wrong one.”
Garam and Dahye stopped at the same time.
“Does that happen often?”
“Sure does.”
The owner laughed.
“Last year, too. Kids came back a few times saying they’d taken the wrong one.”
As they left the store, Dahye said,
“Isn’t this case over?”
“What is?”
“Everyone just took the wrong umbrella.”
Garam thought so, too.
It had been the most likely answer from the beginning.
But something was bothering him.
“Then what happened to my umbrella?”
“Someone took the wrong one and brought it back the next day.”
“That part makes sense.”
“Yeah.”
“But what about the umbrella that appeared yesterday?”
Dahye stopped.
Garam said,
“If someone returned mine and took theirs, the total number should’ve stayed the same.”
“…Right.”
“But one more appeared.”
Dahye thought for a moment.
“Someone could’ve brought an umbrella from somewhere else to the entrance.”
“Yeah.”
Garam nodded.
“That could’ve happened.”
It wasn’t that there was no answer.
There were too many possible answers.
That was what made it even more of a headache.
After afternoon classes ended.
Garam and Dahye went down to the entrance again.
The two blue umbrellas were still there.
Someone had added a small note beneath Garam’s.
I’m looking, too — Class 1-4
Dahye burst out laughing when she saw it.
“Hey.”
Garam pressed a hand to his forehead.
“Why does this keep growing?”
“I told you this really became the school branch.”
There was another message beneath that one.
The one with white tape on the tip is mine. Park Sohyeon, Class 2-7
Garam’s hand stopped.
Dahye read it, too.
Their eyes turned toward the umbrella stand at the same time.
The blue umbrella with white tape around its tip.
Garam pulled it out.
“We found the owner.”
“Looks like it.”
Dahye looked at the note again.
“So this belongs to Park Sohyeon in Class 2-7.”
Garam set the umbrella aside.
That left one unmarked blue umbrella.
And the people who still hadn’t found theirs.
Garam added the names of the students who had written beneath the note to his notebook.
Dahye said,
“At this point, shouldn’t you just make an announcement?”
“What would I say?”
“Everyone who uses a blue umbrella, report to the entrance.”
“That would make things even more confusing.”
“Then are you going to track them down one by one?”
Garam thought for a moment.
“No.”
“Then what?”
“First, we need to figure out who took which umbrella, and when.”
Dahye blinked.
“How are you going to do that?”
Garam looked around the entrance.
There was a security camera.
But he immediately shook his head.
He couldn’t ask to see the school’s security footage over a single student’s umbrella.
Besides, this wasn’t serious enough to go that far.
There was another way.
“We can piece it together with the people who remember.”
“How?”
“My umbrella was gone after school.”
Garam counted off the details on his fingers.
“The Class 3-5 girl confirmed hers was gone after evening self-study.”
“Yeah.”
“The sophomore boy came looking for his the next day and found it was gone.”
“Yeah.”
“And the kid with the name sticker also found it missing when he checked in the morning.”
Dahye began to understand.
“So in between, someone must’ve taken one thinking it was theirs.”
“Yeah.”
“And the next day, someone else took the wrong one again.”
“Probably.”
When one umbrella moved by mistake, it left an empty space.
Someone else could mistake another similar umbrella for their own and fill that space.
That person would leave another umbrella behind.
Then the next person would take that one.
It wasn’t theft.
It was one misunderstanding after another.
Dahye said,
“So it’s an umbrella chain.”
Garam snorted.
“Don’t phrase it like that.”
“But that’s what it is.”
“It’s kind of like that.”
Garam looked at the blue umbrellas that remained.
Most of the case could probably be explained that way.
But to prove it, they had to connect the umbrellas one by one.
Who had taken Garam’s umbrella.
Whose the first umbrella left in its place had been.
Where that umbrella had gone next.
And who owned the unmarked umbrella that remained now.
Dahye said beside him,
“We’re going to have to talk to a ton of people to remember all this.”
Garam looked down at his notebook.
The list of names had gotten fairly long.
“Yeah.”
“Should we call the cats?”
“To school?”
“I’m kidding.”
Garam looked at Dahye.
She was smiling.
“Looks like we’re on our own this time.”
Garam listened for a moment, then nodded.
“Yeah.”
That evening.
Garam Bookstore.
Garam sat at the counter with his notebook spread open.
People’s names and time frames were written in long lines beside the blue umbrellas.
Chichi tried to put a paw on the page.
Garam immediately lifted the notebook out of reach.
“No.”
“Why?”
“I’m organizing it.”
“Organizing what?”
“The umbrellas.”
Chichi looked as though she couldn’t understand.
“Why did you write down so many umbrellas?”
“They all look alike.”
From the window, Kkami said,
“People can’t even recognize their own things?”
Garam answered,
“If they look alike, that can happen.”
Goro said from beneath the bookshelf,
“You could tell them apart by smell.”
“People don’t do that.”
“Inconvenient.”
“Yeah.”
Dahye didn’t come to the bookstore that day.
It was a day she had cram school.
Garam looked over the notebook again.
Boss climbed onto the counter beside him.
“Didn’t find it?”
“I found mine.”
“Then isn’t it over?”
Garam pointed to the names with the tip of his pencil.
“The others haven’t found theirs.”
Boss couldn’t read the notebook, so he merely looked down at the paper.
“It’s not your case.”
“Yeah.”
“But you’re looking for them?”
“Yeah.”
Boss looked at Garam for a moment.
“Why?”
Garam thought about it.
“Because I started?”
Gramps spoke from the armchair.
“That kid’s always like this.”
Garam immediately looked up.
“What now?”
“Once he sees something, he has to see it through before he can sleep.”
“That’s not true.”
“Then close the notebook and go to sleep.”
Garam looked at the notebook.
Then he picked up his pencil again.
Gramps snorted.
“See?”
Garam pretended not to hear him.
Then Chichi lightly nudged the eraser beside the notebook.
The eraser rolled away.
Once.
Twice.
It stopped in front of Goro.
Goro looked down at the eraser and said,
“It moved again.”
Garam’s pencil stopped.
“What?”
Goro looked at the eraser.
“That.”
“The eraser?”
“Yeah.”
Garam stared at the eraser that had rolled away.
One thing moved.
Then there was an empty space where it had been.
Someone filled that space with something else.
Then another thing moved.
And the next one.
Garam slowly lowered his gaze to the notebook.
“Wait.”
Chichi tilted her head.
“What?”
Garam began writing down the dates the umbrellas had changed hands again.
The day it rained.
After school.
Evening self-study.
The next morning.
Then the next afternoon.
In chronological order.
Garam’s eyes narrowed little by little.
“We just have to look at the order.”
Boss asked,
“Look at what?”
“At who took whose.”
Garam wrote his own name on the first line.
Han Garam → already gone after school.
Beneath that:
Class 3-5 → gone after evening self-study.
And then:
Name sticker → gone the next morning.
Garam tapped the first blank spot with the tip of his pencil.
After his umbrella disappeared.
Someone had left another blue umbrella behind.
If the next person mistook that umbrella for their own,
then another umbrella would be left behind.
They could be connected one by one.
There was only one thing.
“If we can find the person who took the first one by mistake.”
Garam murmured.
Kkami said,
“Then you’ll know everything?”
“Probably.”
“How are you going to find them?”
Garam thought for a moment.
Then he picked up his phone.
He texted Dahye.
[Let’s ask the seniors first tomorrow morning. See if anyone took the wrong blue umbrella on the rainy day and brought it back later.]
Her reply came almost immediately.
[Are we finally hunting for the culprit?]
Garam typed back at once.
[It’s not a culprit.]
A moment later:
[The umbrella serial offender.]
Garam turned his phone facedown.
“Seriously.”
Gramps asked,
“What?”
“Dahye says weird things.”
“She’s your friend, isn’t she?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Gramps didn’t answer.
Garam looked at the notebook again.
He thought he could explain most of it now.
The problem was the beginning.
The first mistake, when three blue umbrellas had started getting mixed together.
That one person was still nowhere to be found.