When, we wonder, did Jiminy Cricket lose his head? What’s the story?

Certainly he had one at the start. He must have, because no one in his or her right mind would buy playground garden art in which a beloved childhood character turned so disturbingly from Walt Disney to Stephen King. Oh, the horror.

The children of Wolfle Elementary play tag and skip rope, oblivious to the zombie in their midst. Even more alarming, headless Jiminy sits on his buddy Pinocchio’s shoulder. Pinocchio is reading a book and seems delighted. Can he not see that he’s reading to a decapitated cricket? What book could be so absorbing? Or has Pinocchio gone to the dark side?

Does the cricket no longer act as his conscience? Is Jiminy the mere ghost of a conscience? If Pinocchio no longer knows right from wrong, as the song says, Jiminy is now powerless to give a little whistle. You can’t pucker your lips on a head you don’t have.

Surely the cricket can’t be enjoying the story, since he can neither see nor hear it. Did the book make his head explode? Perhaps Pinocchio is reading Jiminy his (the cricket’s) history. Did Jiminy have an identity crisis when Pinocchio read that rather than a cricket, he (Jiminy) is depicted as a grasshopper? How does a squeaky-clean and self-righteous sidekick live with the knowledge that his Disney name is a sugarcoated swear word? When you wish upon a star, indeed. I think we all know what Jiminy’s wishing for.

Where is the wandering noggin? How far can a cricket head get on its own? Is it mounted like a trophy in Geppetto’s workshop? On Halloween, does Jiminy rise at midnight to throw his flaming cranium at marauding raccoons?

Maybe the head simply no longer exists. In the original story, one last piece of officious advice from the magical talking bug drives a frustrated and frankly naughty Pinocchio to fling a mallet with deadly aim, splattering the nag. Was the head the casualty of a long-nosed puppet’s lack of self-control?

Whatever the reason for his missing head, Jiminy Cricket sits in the Wolfle children’s garden like a cartoon victim of the French Reign of Terror. Welcome to Edgar Allan Poe Elementary, he seems to say.

It’s a strange juxtaposition to an otherwise bright and cheerful garden. The children play beneath the trees in the native plant bed and sow seeds in the vegetable gardens. They deserve better than garden art consisting of a beheaded insect and his oblivious (or disturbed) friend. They deserve a sturdy, locally appropriate, and inspiring garden centerpiece such as a beautifully rendered chainsaw woodcarving.

Wolfle is currently seeking a generous donor to sponsor such a work of art. The school mascot, a wolf, would be appropriate. Or a bear reading a book. Either would be a lovely and most welcomed gift.

Either would be a huge improvement.

— Contact columnist Wendy Tweten at wendy@wendytweten.com.