38. Lost again

It was the weekend and everyone was outside. Kids playing around on their bicycles and in the gardens. We were all so pleased to be outside with the good weather. It was mid-afternoon and soon we would be going for a swim in the pool then for drinks and probably dinner. 

Suddenly someone said: 'Where's Hannah?'

No one was worried as we were used to kids being out of earshot and this was a gated community with only families living here. Kids often got lost as the roads and parks tended to look very similar to each other. A palm tree is so much like an other plan tree, especially if they are constantly trimmed and groomed. 

'Where's Hannah?'

Maybe she was playing hide-and-seek, she could stay still and quiet so long for someone not yet 4. 

'Hannah!' I called, thinking now was the time to really check on her.

Still no reply so we started looking for her properly and all the kids started shouting:

'Hannah, we're having ice-cream!' probably thinking they would definitely get ice-cream when she came out of hiding. But that made no difference.

Then everyone started shouting her name. A small crowd of bigger kids and parents started to gather outside our house and we started looking for her everywhere. Soon the whole street was full of people shouting and we all made such a racket that the gardeners looked around slowly to see what the weird Westerners were up to. 

Still no reply. So all of a sudden it all turned into a big proper search party. The bigger kids went off on their bicycles, a few of the dads jumped into their huge 4x4 and said they were going to drive in different directions. (Seems to be male thing to want to criss-cross the area.)

Soon the place was abuzz with kids screaming, moms walking, dads driving in search of Hannah. They drove all the way to the gate to ask the staff if they had seen a 3-year-old walk out the place. They hadn't seen any small child but they would help so the security guards joined in, some on foot, others on bicycles and their boss in the air conditioned car. 

I kept thinking that she could not have gone that far, she was tiny, she had been there with everyone else playing quietly (for once). I was quite taken aback by the fact that suddenly the whole place had risen to the challenge: the 'find Hannah from number 29' challenge. We had not been living here for that long so I was still a bit of an observer.

Yet she was still nowhere to be found. Car and bikes were driving up to the house reporting very poor results.

I thought I had to do something. I could not just stand there and wait. (I'd leave that for an other time!) I called her three siblings, sat them down on the step and said:

'Think hard, as hard as you can, and tell me where you last saw your sister and what she was doing.'

They closed their eyes, scrunched up their faces then got up and looked around as if searching for clues. I sighed, thinking this was hopeless. 

Then they came back and said:

'She was not with us. She had a fight with Jenson and went off inside in a huff!'

They all rushed indoors and rushed back out almost instantly.

'Yes! I know. She went to play with the little green supermarket trolley. So if we find the trolley. we find the baby!'

Elementary! The four of us hurried inside looking for the green toy trolley. We found it upstairs in her room, abandoned. My heart sank. This was hopeless! Yet, strangely I was not in a panic, I could not get into the really worried mode which would have sent me out with the others on the wild search. I could not understand why.

Meanwhile the three carried on shouting 'We've got ice-cream!' at the top of their lungs, rolling under the bed and emptying toy boxes for good measure.

I was about to go back downstairs and join the others when I saw from the corner of my eye a tiny bit of the soft toy she was taking everywhere with her poking from in between the sliding doors of the cupboard. I tried to open the cupboard but the doors were jammed with the toy caught in the bottom rail. With a hard push I managed to slid the door open. There, under a huge pile of cushions and blankets and under a mountain of soft toys was ... a three-year-old girl in deep sleep, a tiny baby animal in her warm fluffy nest.

After all it was nap time. 
I went downstairs to call the search party off. Everyone laughed in relief and thought this would be a great story to tell over a beer or two.