Where's Pepe?

Where’s Pepe?

Who is Pepe, you ask? Pepe is a four-foot long mangey mink scarf. He belonged to my mother-in-law who is sadly no longer with us. We found out later from a family member that Pepe was bought as a gift for her by my father-in-law in the eighties when wearing fur was popular. We named him Pepe because we thought it suited him.

We didn’t know of Pepe’s existence until we were clearing out my mother-in-law’s house after she died. Pepe’s discovery was announced by the loudest scream I had ever heard followed by a female shouting:

“Rat, rat, there’s a bloody rat in the box!”

I was downstairs at the time looking after my five-month-old daughter. My wife was in the attic with her brother, Connor and her sister Aoife. After Aoife screamed my wife and Connor screamed. My daughter was sleeping, so I dashed up to the attic to see what was going on, grabbing a hurling (a Gaelic sport which is like a mixture of hockey, baseball and lacrosse) stick from the hall as I ran. I was up the ladder and into the attic in seconds. The three of them were standing on a wooden trunk huddling together. Connor is a six-foot three two-hundred-and-twenty-pound rugby player, and he was screaming louder than his tiny sisters.

“Get rid of it,” Connor shouted.

I went over to the box and prodded the mound of black fur. I was thinking rats are brownish grey, it can’t be a rat and it was obvious that it wasn’t moving. I hooked the fur with the stick and lifted it up, discovering that the rat was an old mink scarf complete with head, four paws and a tail. To be honest, it creeped me out seeing his little head and paws complete with claws. I felt sad that someone had killed this animal and had stitched his body to two other decapitated and dismembered minks to make this ugly scarf. Pepe deserved better than that. I was about to tell them that it was just an old fur scarf when I had a thought. Thinking that it would be fun to give them a fright I spun around with Pepe on the end of the stick and threw him at the trio shouting, “It bit me.” Pepe hit Connor’s face and I swear his soul left his body. He screamed, lost his balance and fell off the trunk, bringing his screaming sisters with him. They all landed in an old pile of National Geographics. I couldn’t breathe for laughing. When they had composed themselves, I got an earful from all three of them and for a second I thought Connor wanted to have a scrap. I wasn’t scared because I do karate and Brazilian jiu jitsu and was holding a massive, curved hurling stick.

From that moment on it was game on with Pepe. For the next week, whilst clearing the house, someone would hide Pepe somewhere and his discovery would be announced with a scream. The rule was if you found him you had to hide him next. I didn’t take part as I was busy with the baby.  He turned up everywhere. Connor hid him inside Aoife’s wellington boot, so she hid him under Connors pillow. Connor hid him in a cereal box so my wife hid him in Connor’s gym bag.

When it was time for us to drive home after clearing the house, I knew Pepe was going to be in my car somewhere. I looked everywhere but couldn’t find him. Just as we were leaving, I thought I’d try the boot one more time and there he was wrapped around the underside of the spare wheel.  I didn’t let on and stuffed him in my pocket. I got into the driver’s seat and whispered to my wife, “I found Pepe! He was under the spare wheel.” She smiled as I handed him. “Chuck him as we leave,” I said. I started the engine. Aoife came over to the window to say goodbye to my daughter. Quick as a flash my wife threw the scarf over her neck, and we drove off laughing. Ten minutes later my wife got a text from Aoife. It was a picture of Pepe with a speech bubble coming out of his mouth saying: I’LL GET YOU.

And that is where the mystery of where Pepe was started. For the next couple of years, we had multiple family gatherings. Everyone of us expected Pepe to turn up. Aoife was convinced we had him. We were convinced Connor had him. Connor was convinced Aoife had him. We searched our houses and cars thoroughly after each family visit, but there was no sign of him. During his absence we had vacationed in a beautiful lodge in the Grampian Mountains in Scotland. I was worried that either Aoife or Connor had brought him there and had forgotten about him. I could envision the next tourists staying there and finding him in some unexpected place and wondered if they would start their own ‘Where’s Pepe’ game.

Another year went by with no Pepe. We had another family gathering, this time it was Connor’s wedding in County Meath in Ireland. I was absolutely convinced that Pepe was going to make an appearance. I was sure that Connor was somehow going to make him appear at the table I was sitting at, but the wedding came and went with no Pepe. In the morning after the wedding, we went to breakfast with Connor and wife and Aoife and her boyfriend. The conversation came around to Pepe. None of us claimed to have him. Everyone was so sincere and believable. I knew it wasn’t us because we had thrown out the car during the house clear-out years before. Neither Connor nor Aoife remembered having him. I believed them. It was just so much fun hiding him, and I believed that if one of them had him he would have been hidden to be found somewhere. We concluded that either Connor or Aoife had hidden him so well that he was lost. Poor Pepe.

Another year went by with no Pepe. By this time, I had got a job working for the local town council. The council built a new town hall, so we had a grand opening with friends and family invited along for the celebrations. The mayor was going to open the building and I had been assigned as chaperone to give her a tour of the new facilities. Connor was there with his wife and kids as he was over visiting us at the time. Aoife (never turns down a party invitation) was there with her boyfriend. Friends and family were allowed along on the tour and Connor and Aoife joined us. I was walking at the front with the mayor pointing out aspects of the facilities. The town hall has a CCTV room, and I took the mayor, and guests, in for a look. Along one wall there were massive TV screens showing feeds from various cameras spread out across the town. There was a big, curved desk in front of the screens where the three CCTV staff: Brian, Aisha and Toby sit. The three of them were standing along the back wall. My wife and her family were standing nearby. I introduced the mayor to the CCTV staff and said to her, “Would you like to have a go on the cameras?”

“Oh, yes,” she replied.

We turned around to look at the screens and she let out a massive scream. Looking at the desk I said to her, “As you can see, Ma’am these are the camera screens and sitting in this chair is Pepe, one of our operators.”

I looked over Connor. His big smiling face said it all. Mystery solved. I take my hat off to him. He bided his time well, had held onto Pepe, waiting for the perfect moment to get me back for throwing Pepe in his face all those years before.