Case of the Missing Money

TKA had their annual Christmas Faire and SW and his friends got together to sell Curry Fishballs and Lemonade.  He got home after practice and I asked him how was business.  He said, "Good, after paying back the parents, we each get $20."  Nice!!  Until.... I got a barrage of non-accusatory, factual texts from the parent group.

Bottom line, up front.  There's a lot of money missing.

When the closed down shop... one of the boys counted the cash and it was around $325.  A parent was there to be a second set of eyes.  They took money out of the pile and paid back the other parents that invested.  So it was now down to $210.  

One of the boys had to go to PE, so he gave the money box to SW who brought it to history class.  And then subsequently left it in his locker for another class.  During lunch, they recounted the money and about $100 went missing!! 

The point of the chat was.... how should we solve this mystery? And how can we make this a learning opportunity for the boys?

I saw the texts... and tried not to get defensive, since the other parents weren't exactly pointing fingers.  But you can't help but feel the cyber fingers pointed at SW.  During dinner... I casually asked about the event, the other booths, the quality of food, the money, the handoffs, and any chance of "extra-curricular" activities.  SW was very nonchalant... he wasn't hiding anything.  As a matter of fact... I had to "chok" him to have him tell me money went missing.  But the boys attributed it to miscounting. 

I hop back on the parent chat and started sharing some ideas like... recreating timeline.  Asking the History teacher for help, maybe looking at video footage of SW's locker.  It wasn't till Joyce came down after talking to SW that she made some logical deduction.

By the number of fishballs we made... and for the price it was sold that.. there's no way you can have $325 in money box.  Even if we take out the initial investment for change (singles, fives, and tens), it would've been $275.  Plus the boys gave out samples.  So as conservative as you can get... you might have sold $160 worth.  None of the parents (including me) questioned the initial counting of the money. Because it was done by a student... with a parent. 

The math simply doesn't add up.  We go back and forth... back and forth... and in the end... no one wanted to go beyond the fact that there are too many gaps in the story.  But I think everyone got to the mutual understanding.... no one stole it from the box... it wasn't taken by one of the boys.  Henceforth... it must be a counting error.  

And if you follow the story... that's exactly what the boys already deduced during lunch when they first discovered it.  Here we are... a bunch of adult parents worrying our kids don't know how to handle money.  Maybe we should learn to trust our kids more.