When I was between my ninth and tenth birthday anniversaries, my father was transferred to an island in the middle of the Pacific;* my family went with him.

I was instructed to put the things that I wanted to go to the island in one box, and things to go into storage into another. I put my teddy bear into what I thought were the box for the island.

When we got to the island, the teddy bear was not amongst the things delivered there. I was very sorry to think that I'd put it in the wrong box, and that I would not see it until we moved back to America.

Two and two-thirds years later, we left the island. I was then twelve years old, but I looked forward to getting my teddy bear back.

Only, it wasn't in storage.

I'd put it in the box to go to the island. One of my parents thought it unsuitable for a boy of my age to still want a teddy bear. So my bear had been discarded.

*Kwajalein Island, in the Kwajalein Atoll, in the Republic of the Marshall Islands, in Micronesia.