Toy

The quaint town of Tennison was only on the Texas map because of one man, Theodore A. Tennison, founder of the national chain of Tennison Toy Stores, and America's biggest model maker. For eighty-six years and three generations of family, the company had sold more car, plane, and boat models than anyone. Tennison himself amassed a fortune, with four factories and many stores in many states. The much grown corporation went to Tennison's sons and daughters.

Then, strangely and abruptly, a day before turning eighty-five, old man Tennison vanished. From town, home, business, off the face of the earth. Last seen in a barber shop, then vaporized, no trace, no clue.

His family went crazy. The police suspected kidnap, foul play, but nothing every gelled, and every lead disappeared into more vapor. That was fourteen years ago, still an open missing person case, and complete mystery to the present. Except for the young, the whole town remembered because Tennison's disappearance brought unwanted national media attention to their peaceful world.

So that, there was no reason to be concerned, or even take notice when Betty Nolan's four your old started chattering about hearing "the man way down" talking to him, referring to an ancient capped well on their semi-rural ranch property, just outside of town.

His mom and others who heard the lively lad's cartoony claim chuckled at his whimsical nature and creative imagination. That is, until one fateful September morning when the child burst thru the back kitchen door, and straight into his mom's baking party with the neighbors, blurting out excitedly, "Mom, the man way under said he'll give me a race car, an airplane, and a pirate ship!" That's when the adults in the room froze.