A couple of weeks ago, my son and I went to the library and checked out some books.

I read ahead of our chapter-a-night bedtime storytime and finished The Reptile Room and The Wide Window quickly; and I savored The Salmon of Doubt. I then began to read Mother Night, which I bought used from the library for 25 cents -- that one, I've been leaving at work to read on my breaks.

Since finishing The Salmon of Doubt, I've been haunted by the feeling that I had checked out another book from the library that I was forgetting about. I just couldn't think of what else I might have checked out, nor where I might have so cleverly put it that I hadn't seen it about. So today, I logged in to my library account. "4 books checked out," it told me. So I clicked to see what I was missing.

Happiness is finding Eric in the back of your backpack.