The community centre’s jigsaw club reached the final piece of a thousand-piece harbour scene on a rainy Tuesday.
Unfortunately, the final piece was missing.
It belonged to the sky, between a gull and a church spire.
The organiser, Elsie, asked everyone to check beneath their chairs.
They found a button, two pennies, and a biscuit hard enough to be mistaken for part of the harbour wall.
Norman checked the box.
Maureen checked the lid.
Dennis suggested that the manufacturer had never included the piece.
Elsie said blaming strangers should wait until they had checked their own sleeves.
The piece did not appear.
Norman proposed counting the pieces already fitted.
Dennis asked whether he intended to take the whole puzzle apart.
“Accuracy requires effort.”
Elsie handed Norman the tea list instead.
He counted seven people who wanted milk and immediately became useful.
They photographed the gap and left the puzzle on the table.
At the next meeting, Maureen brought a piece from another puzzle. It was blue and almost fitted.
Norman rejected it.
“That is tropical sky. Ours is municipal.”
Dennis proposed painting a piece of cardboard.
Elsie said a replacement would reduce the satisfaction.
They drank tea while discussing what satisfaction was now worth.
The following week, Norman brought a magnifying glass to examine the edges.
Maureen brought three blue pieces.
Dennis brought a model gull to stand over the hole.
For twenty minutes, everyone agreed the gull was an ingenious solution.
Then Norman pointed out that it concealed a missing piece without supplying one.
Dennis called that management.
News of the puzzle reached other centre users.
A walking group came to inspect it. A pottery class offered to make a ceramic cloud. The librarian brought a novel whose cover contained almost exactly the right shade of blue.
Elsie refused to cut up a library book.
“That would create a second investigation.”
Attendance doubled.
People arrived early to hear the latest theory. They stayed for tea, then another cup because somebody remembered a possible location.
The club had never been so lively.
Norman began to suspect the piece might be in Elsie’s bag.
She always arrived before everyone else and put her bag beneath the table.
He asked politely whether it had been checked.
Elsie emptied it.
A purse, tissues, keys, mints, and a little envelope emerged.
Norman pointed.
“What is in that?”
“The final piece.”
Everyone stared.
Elsie explained that she had found it in the box flap after the first meeting.
“Then why haven’t you put it in?”
She took out the club diary.
In the previous six months, they had finished nine puzzles. Each completion had been followed by three weeks of members failing to attend.
People said they would come back when there was something interesting to do.
The missing piece had brought them back every week.
“And we have learned more about one another than we did assembling the other nine hundred and ninety-nine.”
Norman said it was manipulation.
Maureen said it was excellent tea.
Dennis asked whether the gull could remain.
Elsie put the final piece into place.
The harbour was complete.
Everyone applauded, then began putting on coats.
Elsie opened a new box.
It contained a mountain scene and a sealed envelope labelled SPARE PIECE.
Norman picked up the envelope.
“Not again.”
He placed it in his jacket pocket for safekeeping.
The following Tuesday, he was away visiting his daughter.
The club sat around the mountain scene.
Maureen asked whether they should start without him.
Elsie poured tea.
“We appear to be missing Norman.”
Dennis nodded.
“He fits the gap.”