The Cucumber Book

Two weeks ago, Magnus asked me to read him his "cucumber" book.  I had never heard of this book, so I started going through all the books  in his bookcase with him.  We ended up looking at each and every one.  All I got for my efforts was, "Nope!  Nope!  That not Magis cucumber book!"

Although I am the only one reading to Magnus, I asked around.  Daddy, Po-po, the housekeeper... nobody knew what the heck he was talking about.  I even skyped Gong gong on the off-chance he might know.  No luck. 

Is it a big book?  A small book?  What color is your book?  Does it have Chinese or English?  All these questions were fruitless, Magnus was as evasive as he was persistent in his desire to find his precious book.

We searched all the books upstairs in his room.  It was more "Nope!" and "No!" until suddenly..  "That Magis cucumber book!".  He held a little green hard cover book in his hands called "I Spy".  I opened it for him, and he said, "That not Magis cucumber book!"  Grrrrr...

I went over to the adult bookcase.  I pulled out my cookbook, "The Complete Encyclopedia of Vegetables and Vegetarian Cooking" and flipped to the cucumber page.  Is this your cucumber book, Magnus?  "Yeah!  That cucumber!!".  Is it your cucumber book, I repeated.  "No!  That Mommy's cucumber book!"  Siiiiiigh...

I tried another angle.  Is the cucumber book at school, Magnus?  Does Ms. Alison read you the cucumber book?  Same answer: Nope!  A few days later, when I picked him up at school, I took him to the little school library and we went through some books there; none of which were his cucumber book.  

I would have completely given up if it weren't for the fact that he would periodically ask for it... also because Po po would think it funny to ask him about it now and then. 

Today, however, I had a breakthrough.  We again could not find his cucumber book.  It's not here Magnus, I said, where is it?  "It at Popo's house!" Really, I said, is it in Popo's house in China, or in Toronto?  "Chiiiiiina".

I took from the bookshelf a small, extremely dog-eared paperback book from Shanghai.  It was a picture book of fruits and vegetables.. one of the first books I would read to Magnus.  I flipped through it and sure enough, there was a cucumber.  Is this your cucumber book, Magnus?  "Yeah!!!!!  That Magis cucumber book!"