It’s a llama on the lam

Diana Heimann is not the kind of person who loses a llama.

But there she was on a recent Wednesday, speeding between two towns in New York, the footwells of her Toyota scattered with

spilled llama treats, passing out bushels of flyers: “LOST LLAMA,” one read. “Try not to scare him.”

“Gizmo,” she said aloud, as if a missing llama roving the hills of Bedford Corners, a wealthy, equestrian pocket of Westchester County, could hear her. “Where are you?”

Word of the weekslong hunt for Gizmo, a 7-yearold llama who absconded on Dec. 13, had already ricocheted around the town, the state and far beyond.

Finally, she whipped up $750 worth of posters featuring the patchwork llama and his typical perturbed face. (They also include a photo of his rear: “In case people see him while he’s running away,” she said).

That night, on the 17th day of Gizmo’s absence, the posters paid off.

Less than a mile from where Gizmo escaped, Jose Blanco and four colleagues were remodeling a bathroom in a house — and not paying much attention to the llama wandering the yard of the vacant home next door.

“I never said anything because I thought the llama belonged to the other house,” said Blanco, 20. But when he saw the poster, he texted a picture to Heimann.

By 7 p.m., Gizmo was back home, thinner and wearier.

THE ROYAL MINT VIA THE NEW YORK TIMES Britain’s Royal Mint has produced a commemorative twopound coin honoring H.G. Wells, who died 75 years ago. Two images are not true to the author’s books, his fans have pointed out.