LOST IN THE STORE

A mildly entertaining but plotless adventure, given some snap by Chess' fully-furnished cartoons, in which Bruno learns that being lost in a store need not be a disaster. He's feeling pretty desolate when a little girl named Molly comes along, also lost but delighting in the condition. She leads him off to the sporting goods department to borrow some demonstration skates. (No disrespect for property rights intrudes in this very lawful spree.) On skates, then--and never mind that Bruno maneuvers this first time with seemingly practiced ease--the children play with animals in the pet department; try on hats and jewelry; pose as mannequins (then ""jumped into the air, causing a family of seven to faint""); watch an orange doctor hit a blue knee on demonstration TV; have a pretend meal at a table-setting display and (after returning the skates) a real one of free samples from the basement food department; and finally curl up for a nap in the bed department. There, Molly hears her name on the store's loudspeaker--""That's why I get lost every time I come to the store""--and Bruno returns to his starting place, where his parents are waiting. Kids dragged off to stores will recognize the stations, and though the story is as aimless as the spree, it beats trailing along behind shopping parents.