Ring pulls

Yesterday I went to collect B from school. We have an arrangement where he phones me as he leaves and I drive part of the way and walk part of the way, and he walks part of the way, and we have a joyful reunion in the middle.

Yesterday, I carefully checked with B on his mobile phone that he was not dawdling with someone or going to a friend's house, and I carefully reminded him that my mobile phone is out of action (it accuses me of typing in my code wrongly 3 times I DID NOT and refuses to open without a PUK code and when, miraculously, I found one, it refused to open anyway and I've not yet mustered the courage to phone the telephone company's robotic and deeply unmusical answering service for hours of listening pleasure) so I emphasised, B really must come directly home. I repeated this message - come straight home!

'No no, it's alright Mummy' said B reassuringly, (I hate it when they are reassuring, it's always a bad sign) 'I've already left school and there's no-one with me'.

I duly arrived at the designated meeting place and B was not there. I walked the entire route to school, no sign. I buzzed the interphone of his friend D, a child answered.

'Is that D?' I asked, 'It's B's Mummy here'.

'No, its T' said the voice.

'I just wondered, is B with you by any chance?'

'Yes'

'Aaah, thank goodness, only I was supposed to meet him and I was worried, can I speak to him?'

'Yes'. T put the phone down. Nothing happened. I waited in the street, leaning on the wall.

I phoned again

'Yes?'

'I need to speak to B'

'Yes, the door is open' replied T. Sadly it was not. Eventually T gave up and hung up.

I phoned again

'Yes Madam' - French boys tend to use the word 'madam' to prevent mothers from becoming heated.

'Listen' I yelled, not knowing how much time I had before the phone was put down, 'I don't want to come in, I want to speak to B RIGHT NOW or you can tell him I'm going without him and he can WALK ALL THE WAY HOME'.

At this T's brother D came charging down, looking rather flustered, and opened the door. He had no idea why this cross mother had appeared on his doorstep. It took some time to establish that B was in fact not there at all and never had been. Apparently when T answered 'yes' to the question 'Is B there?', he thought I was asking him to open the door. Something which we have established, he was unable to do.

'Did you see B?' I asked D

'Yes, he asked if I wanted to walk home with him but I had to wait at school and then he left.'

'Was he alone?'

'Yes.'

I walked back to our meeting place, a round trip of three quarters of an hour. Deep inside I knew B was alright, but I couldn't think of any reasonable explanation and this caused me distress. I veered between planning what I would do to him when I finally got hold of him, trying to make the best of it by reassuring myself that at least I was getting some fresh air and exercise, and being truly worried.

At last I found B at our agreed meeting place. He had a youth from his class with him. With admirable self control I suggested sitting on a nearby bench, and I said to B,

'What happened?'

'I don't know' said B. (Don't you just love this 'I don't know'?)

So, patiently, I explained what had happened to me and asked him again what had happened.

'Well, we just walked here'

'I need to understand what happened. I can't have missed you, I walked the same way as you. And you are one hour late. Something must have happened'

'Er, I don't know'.

At this point I started to feel rather peculiar and had to clutch at the top of my nose with two fingers. I decided to turn to the friend.

'Hallo J, what are you doing here?'

'I don't know!' said J cheerfully.

'WELL IF YOU DON'T KNOW I CERTAINLY DON'T!'

J gave me a vacant and appealing smile, the one reserved for preventing mothers from becoming heated.

'So, J, you must have been loitering outside the school after hours?'

'Yes. I saw some girls doing something and I stayed behind because I needed to find out what they were doing.'

'Oh yes?'

'Yes, they were running after cars and barking like dogs.'

'Barking like dogs...I see...and you got to the bottom of it?

'Yes yes' replied J.

'I'm really sorry Mummy' said B, who was, 'It's all my fault'.

'I don't need you to say sorry, I just want to understand what happened and make sure it doesn't happen again!'

'Well, we might have gone down the little path...'

'But I looked down that path, you weren't there, it's not possible!. Where else did you go?'

'Nowhere. Oh well Mummy, at least you had a good walk'. The boy is a mind reader.

After 20 minutes of interrogation I established by the use of incidental evidence, background knowledge and detective cunning that the facts of the case may or may not have been as follows:

*B met J and at that moment B forgot all about coming straight home.

*B and J decided to go looking for ring pulls (the latest group hobby is collecting the upper section of discarded ring pulls from drinks cans).

*Somehow they may have wandered the streets and lost all track of time.

After some skilled negotiations with J's mother, J came the rest of the way home with us and the two of them spent the evening painting ring pulls orange, in the hope of fooling a third friend into thinking they had found something rare.