Where was I? The Snowmachiner returned from his surveying trip and told me that he was ready to start for Togiak. I hastily called the Forklift Operator, who said he would have his employee Freddie meet the Snowmachiner there. I called the Snowmachiner back and gave him the green light, whereupon he hooked up his sled and started across the ice. I told the students, and they clustered around the window watching as he headed out. I got them settled back down, sort of, and we did a few more lessons, until I got another call from the Snowmachiner. He was in Togiak.

“My sled came loose,” he said. “It’s about halfway between Togiak and Twin Hills, so I have to go back and pick it up.”  About an hour later, he called back. “I’m here,” he said. “Didn’t you say there was one big box?”

“Yes,” I answered. “One big box.” I shushed the kids while the Snowmachiner explained to me that there were in fact two large boxes. I was puzzled but agreed that he should bring both.

I tried for the next hour or so to keep the kids away from the window and into their lessons. Eventually, though, I gave up all pretense of teaching, and the kids and I gathered around the windows, waiting and watching. And. . . here they came! I rushed outside, snapping pictures, while the Snowmachiner and a Helping Friend unloaded two huge, very flat boxes.

End of the story, right? All we have to do now is assemble the tables and tell the story, right? Well. . .

The kids and I helped get the boxes inside; I took a few more pictures, and our Custodian took over. We went back to our lessons (sort of) while the Custodian opened the boxes and prepared to assemble the tables. I was flying high until the he came to my classroom door, and said this:

“There aren’t any legs in the boxes.”

“What?” I asked.

“That’s right,” he said, “each box has one tabletop in it, but there aren’t any legs.”

Imagine, if you will, my despair. Where were the legs to my precious tables? Had they fallen out of the plane? Been stolen for some strange purpose? Stuck in a corner somewhere, never to be found?  It took me only a few minutes to rally, though, since having come this far I was damned if I was going to give in to the forces of darkness now.

I called Desert Air.

“Hi, Jamie,” I said. “Didn’t you tell me that my tables were in one large box?”

“Well,” said Jamie, “actually it was several pieces all shrink-wrapped together.” I explained my latest dilemma. Jamie sent me a snapshot of the package as it was when it had been loaded onto the plane in Anchorage, and it was indeed just one big, shrink-wrapped, package. We decided that the folks on the ground in Togiak must have cut the shrink wrap and carried the individual, significantly lighter, pieces into the hangar. I left this conversation having formed the new theory that there were two more, smaller boxes still in the hanger, each containing the legs to one of my tables.

I also knew that the only real way to test this theory was to go over there myself and find them, and that I had better do it quick before they either found a new home or disappeared forever under a bunch of other stuff.  I called the Forklift Operator and explained my current situation. He said that the hangar was unlocked, and I could go right over there and look for my boxes of legs.

Having made only a few trips across the frozen bay to Togiak, and never by myself, I enlisted my husband to travel with me. He rode our four-wheeler (Olive) and I rode the school’s (Popeye). I had at least gone across a few times, so I took the lead. The time of year was just right for this adventure, and I poured on the coal. There was a straight path across the ice, and I may be only exaggerating a little bit when I say that it took us only seventeen minutes to pull up on the bank at Togiak. My husband stopped at the store, and I zipped on down to the airport.

You’re way ahead of me, friend. The hangar was locked, and nobody was around.

I called the Forklift Operator, and thankfully he answered. He told me that he was out of town again, but that he would call Freddie, who had obviously elected to err on the side of caution by locking the door. Cheerful Freddie showed up in just a few minutes, and long-rest-of-the-story short, I found the two boxes containing the legs, about as far away from where the boxes containing the tabletops had been stored as they could possibly be without being actually outside.

So, I guess that really is the end of this story. We got back to Togiak without taking any wrong turns, assembled the beautiful tables, and the rest is history.