Lost and Found

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I don't know why these things always happen to us...

Last night, at about 9.30pm, we were walking to the KTV nearest to our house. It's only two blocks away and we were meeting Tarik and his friend Tom who has come to visit. It was raining and the the street was quiet, when Rachael said she could hear someone crying. There, in the middle of the crossroads was a wee boy, wandering round in a circle crying. There were no adults we could see so we went over. Without wanting to scare him, we guided him off the road and onto the pavement. We were both feeling pretty nervous, but he must have been terrified, firstly to be lost and secondly to have two foreigners come over to try to help him!

I asked him where his mum was (didn't understand the response but found out later that he'd wailed, "She'd forgotten me!) and his dad (at home). So then I asked him if he wanted to call his mum, but he didn't know the number. He looked about 4 or 5, but turned out to be seven. We phoned Amanda and Tarik who should have been on their way to the KTV and decided to wait there with him until they arrived, however he had other ideas. He suddenly announced that he thought he knew where his aunt lived so was going to go there. We were most than a little reluctant to just let him wander off, especially as he had a tendency to walk on the road rather than the pavement, but didn't want to stop him from going, so we walked with him, while Rach called the others to let them know where we were.

Benny and Seth eventually caught up with us, and super Benny calmed him down, got the story, and called the police. We bought him some candy while we were waiting for the police (he'd already broken rule number 1, don't talk to strangers, so we thought we'd compound the issue!) The police came (three of them!) and took him home - presumably.

So, it was an adventure. I was worried Tarik was going to say we shouldn't have interfered, like with the man who was abusing his wife in the street, but apparently on this occasion we did the right thing. So we went in to KTV and rewarded ourselved with chips and popcorn.

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