he found it 36

I slipped back inside under the front door gap just as the morning light hit the porch. After wandering the neighborhood sidewalks for days, the quiet floorboards felt pleasantly still. Deep beneath the lower shelf of the wooden shoe rack, an old rubber pencil eraser lay resting in the dust like a tiny gray boulder. I studied it carefully. Moving with deliberate patience, I used my lower black appendages to slide it inch by inch until it wedged firmly under the wobbly rear leg of the rack. The wood gave a faint, muffled creak, leveled out, and settled into total balance. Much more stable now.