The Great Doughnut Caper

One of our service projects this summer was a Breakfast and Bingo Senior Social for elderly residents in our neighborhood.  We had some leftover food from the event, including two boxes of glazed doughnuts.  We served one to the boys that day, and stored the other in the church refrigerator.  The next day, when we pulled the leftover box of doughnuts out, my co-leader Richard noticed that a piece was missing from one.  He noted that it wasn't like that when we arrived that morning, so it must have happened while we were there.  He said we wouldn’t serve them until we figured out who had eaten from it.  Richard and I assumed it was one of the kids; the kids assumed it was me.  I assured them that if it was me, I would’ve eaten the whole thing.  I couldn’t help but laugh as accusations were hurled back and forth.  Finally, the youngest boy in the group, aged 10, offered a theory:

During our reading time, the man who provided our lunch that day, an employee of the church, had gone into the kitchen.  He opened up the refrigerator, and when he closed it, he was chewing on something.

This was a tantalizing story, one which made perfect sense as the boy recounted it.  Perhaps the perpetrator wasn’t in the room after all!  One of the leaders and the boy went to the man’s office to interrogate him.  Unfortunately, he was out to lunch.  The 10-year-old earnestly asked me that if he was right, could he have a prize.  I said yes.  An hour went by, and it was time for us to take the boys home.  But first, a leader and I went back to the suspect’s office.  When confronted with the evidence, he confessed.  He didn’t think they were ours, and didn’t think anyone would miss them.  We accepted his apology, and I took the good news back to the group: the doughnut caper had been solved!  Each boy received half a doughnut, and our amateur sleuth received a full one. We could all rest easy knowing a thief was not in our midst.