In Which I Lose My Child. Again.

“Yeah,” I say to Z. “It’s too cold to walk a mile in this. Let’s catch the Metro…”

After our chilly arrival, we are beginning to, umm, warm to Sofia a little.

Or, at least, to accept that, given we only have a day here (I hate travelling fast), we should get out of our pyjamas, abandon our warm room and check out some of the city’s amazing churches, and possibly a museum or two to boot.

At the bottom of the stairs, I turn into the subterranean shopping precinct where lies the Metro. “This way,” I say to my son.

Or, more accurately, to the empty, Siberian air.

Because, as I turn to Z, I realise that he isn’t there.

My son is not beside me. He is not behind me. He is not in front of me.

He has vanished. Disappeared. Vamoosed. Done a bunk.

“Z!!!!” I yell.

Answer comes there none.

Now, when it comes to losing children, as you may recall, I have form. I awoke from a sleepover in Bali last year to find I had misplaced a child. The year before, I achieved the difficult feat of leaving poor Z on an international ferry.

The funny thing is how much calmer I am now about what is, I figure, every travelling parent’s worst nightmare, than I was a couple of years ago.

My immediate response, in fact, is not fear or panic, but a wave of irritation bordering on fury.

The shopping precinct, you see, is lined with souvenir stores, most of them, no doubt, selling axes, daggers and even swords. I therefore assume that my son is in one of these, questing, as ever, for something as lethally sharp as the machete he wielded in Indonesia.

I do a swift circuit. No sign.

I go round again, peering balefully through the glass of each and every souvenir stall.

I head back out to where I last saw Z, or think I saw him, anyway.

“Z!!!!” I yell.

No response.

B*gger, I think. What do I do now?

I consider panicking, and decide against it.

Z has navigated himself across Hong Kong, not to mention rural Laos and Bali, taken himself to the shop unescorted in most South-East Asian capitals, and negotiated mainland Chinese roads.

He is confident being left alone for long stints of time, and has a healthy sense of street smarts.

As demonstrated in a Thai bus station, aged nine, when he returned from a trip to the shop to say, “Mum. The man in the shop said something weird, and I thought I should tell you. He said, ‘I love you so much. You can have anything you want…'”

Now, even though I know damn well that stranger abduction is vanishingly rare, I still subscribe to the media terrors on the matter.

In an average year in our home country, Britain, about 5000 children will be killed on the roads; fewer than 20 will be murdered by a stranger.

I try and imagine what sort of perfect storm of circumstance, opportunism and street smarts failure could lead to Z’s abduction.

I fail.

He has clearly not been abducted. Had he in some atypical brainstorm run out into the road and been hit by a car, I would have seen and heard the ambulance.

So WHERE THE HELL IS HE?

I descend from the place where I think — I hope! — we last saw each other towards the Metro to which I think — I hope! — he knows we were headed.

I yell some more. I do another circuit of the precinct. I head back up the stairs and yell a bit more.

Nothing.

I begin to feel rather alone. As in, in need of an adult to bounce ideas off about what, precisely, I do next.

Not to mention an adult that I could leave at a fixed rendezvous point while I went off scouting further afield. (Two-parent families have it easy in this regard.)

I haven’t kept good track of time, but I figure we’ve been separated for well over half an hour, which means that Z might well be starting to panic…

Right, I decide. I’ll head to the Metro, explain the situation to the station staff, and get them to grab him if he comes past.

One small problem. I don’t speak Bulgarian.

“Do you speak English?” I ask the lady at the Metro in high school Russian.

The lady shrugs and shakes her head. It is a Slavic shrug, not a Mediterranean shrug. A sh*t-happens-and-it-happens-a-lot-round-here shrug, not a mais-madame-je-suis-désolé shrug.

“Do you speak Russian?” I ask in high school Russian.

“A little,” she says.

EXCELLENT, I think. But I cannot remember the word for ‘child’ for the life of me.

I have a stab at English.

She *really* doesn’t speak English.

The only language that bubbles up from the linguistic soup in my poor brain which might conceivably work in Bulgaria is German.

There are two main problems with this. The first is that I don’t speak German: like Spanish, I basically make it up and hope. And the second is that the woman will probably think I’m German and, given she’s in her 50s, most likely hate me for it to boot.

“Sprechen-sie Deutsch?” I ask, hopefully.

She shrugs again.

I make frantic child-height waving gestures as I embark on a bloody massacre of the language of Goethe and Schiller: “Ich nicht habe meine kinde. Ich habe meine kinde gelosst.”

The lady’s capacious, potato-fed bosoms lift in quite the most expansive shrug to date, accompanied by a distant hum that, I imagine, is Goethe spinning in his grave. She casts a weary arm around the Metro. “Nicht hier,” she says.

Well, yes, I think. Precisely. He is, indeed, not here.

I flannel for more German. The relevant vocabulary emerges from my brain in French, Chinese and, finally, Indonesian.

Not a great deal of help in this neck of the woods, really.

Though she MAY, of course, grab my child if he passes by. You never know.

Anyways, I figure, it’s one way to pass the time before my next patrol. To where I did — I did, really, didn’t I? — see Z last.

I pace back up to the top of the steps.

Right, I say to myself, purposefully, in the manner I might say it to a sentient companion with whom I was making plans.

Z is going to do one of three things. Wait for me where he last saw me (here, I hope). Go to the Metro where he knows (I hope) I am going and wait for me there. Or (oh god) try and work his way back to our hotel.

He knows, of course, the name of the place we’re staying at. I’m not sure, however, he knows the street address. Or, for that matter, the route back.

Well, I figure. I’ll give him another half hour hanging around here and the Metro. If I don’t find him here or at the Metro, I head back to the hotel. And if he’s not there…

Well, I guess, if he’s not THERE I throw myself on the tender mercies and linguistic competencies of the folk at the guesthouse and… file a police report, I guess.

Ulp.

I head back down into the Metro to pace and yell. By way of variety, I head back up to the stairs to pace and yell some more.

And then I hear it. Faint, high-pitched and in the distance: “Mum?”

Am I hallucinating? Is it a Bulgarian child?

“Z?” I yell.

He stumbles towards me, out of the snow, in the manner of a polar explorer headed for a food cache, with an expression that combines dazed bewilderment and relief but not, I am pleased to note, any sign of panic.

I’m so hugely relieved that he’s a) alright and b) not upset that I slip seamlessly into livid rage and proceed to make him so.

“Where the F*CK were you?!” I hiss.

“The sun was in my eyes,” he says. “I couldn’t see you… I was over there…”

I take a deep breath. “Were you worried?” I say.

“Not really,” he says. “In fact, the only thing that’s worried me has been you YELLING at me, just now. I just thought that you’d be up here, or in the Metro, and if I didn’t find you soon I’d go back to the hotel and wait for you there.”

“That’s very sensible,” I say.

“I left you a note in the snow,” he says. “We’d better go and rub it out in case some other mum sees it.”

He did as well. Pure genius.

38 Responses

  1. Haha I love your description of the “Slavic shrug” – I was just in Poland/Lithuania this past week and I know EXACTLY what you mean. So frustrating!

    Glad you managed to find Z, of course! And that IS a genius idea that he came up with – leaving a note in the snow. Smart boy!

  2. Laurence says:

    A note in the snow. That is beautiful 🙂 This story had me hooked, pleased it had a happy ending 😀

    • Theodora says:

      Me too, Laurence, me too. Just a shame I had to spoil it all by swearing at the poor little scrap. But that’s being a parent for you…

  3. Whitney says:

    Oh my! I would be frantic! Z sure is a smart young man. I never would have thought of leaving a note in the snow. He’s one savvy traveler!

    • Theodora says:

      I was surprised how un-frantic I was, in fact… And relieved by how much better Z coped than with the ferry incident…

  4. Dalene says:

    Oh…that note in the snow…took my breath away for a second, and Z’s thoughtfulness to get rid of it. Glad it all turned out. 🙂

  5. WEll my heart was pounding right along with yours. I would have panicked much more than you and sworn in every language I know (not enough!) till I found my little bugger. Course mine is 2.5 years old and doesn’t have the sense to have a game plan if he loses me. My luck he would just wander off with some lady that had jeans on and looks nothing like me. I’m taking hear that one day he will be able to figure out what to do when we get separated though. Thanks for letting me tag along on your journey!

    • Theodora says:

      Z got lost in London when he was that sort of age — 3, in fact. Thought I’d left a shop without him, so started walking home, crying, and wearing a spiderman suit, and not one person stopped him. I caught up with him as he was crossing his second road…

      What I drummed into him when he was very little was that you ask a policeman, a lady in a shop, or a lady with children with her, if you get lost. In most non-Anglo countries, though, people will stop and help when they see a small child lost and distressed…

  6. oh my GOSH. i am still a little freaked out. whew! z is awesome. that note rocks.

  7. Caroline says:

    I’ve experienced the lost child thing, with no snow to help, and I recommend we get Z a phone asap!

    • Theodora says:

      That’s a good point, Caro. One would then have to get him to carry it with him at all times and not lose it. He did actually have his own phone and number when we first set out, so it might not be a bad thing to add to our preparations for the next leg.

  8. hpretty says:

    The snow message is genius!
    this is in fact my daily life with my two boys, except this is in the confines of a (albeit very busy) playground, and not a foreign city speaking a different language I do not share. Good on you for keeping your cool, just.

    M2Mx

    • Theodora says:

      It’s amazing quite how hard it can be to spot your own child in a playground, isn’t it? Depending what bit of London you’re in, it can be a bit Midwych Cuckoos.

      One odd thing I experienced after China, where I’d got so used to the myriad permutations of Chinese faces, and going to Norfolk which is possibly the whitest county in the UK, was the realisation that a group of white children of the same age all look the same in the same way one would think a group of Chinese children of the same age all look the same.

      We didn’t stand a cat’s chance in hell getting separated in China, because I’d look anxious in the supermarket, and someone would immediately point me to Z, because we would be the only two laowai there, and so stick out like sore thumbs…

  9. Gappy says:

    That is one kid that has some serious presence of mind. I’m impressed.

    I would have panicked, I know I would. Well done you for not.

  10. Great story! I’ve lost my kids a few times and panic every time even though I KNOW they’ll be fine. It’s crazy!

  11. Z is definitely one smart and cool headed young man. We love to see parents traveling long-term with their children. It’s something we’d love to do with our future kids.

    Consider me highly impressed. I still get upset if Chris and I get separated!

  12. OHMIGOSH! That was so funny!! I read this in my RSS feeder so didn’t see the pic of the message! So glad I clicked through to leave a comment! That child is a genius!!!

  13. Ayngelina says:

    I am always amazed at how clever kids are when getting lost, they don`t panic and seem to know where to go.

    • Theodora says:

      I think children have a lot more sense than we generally give them credit for. I mean, in evolutionary terms, you’d be on your own at 11 or 12…

  14. Tracy says:

    Love the photo of the message in the snow. I’m glad it all worked out so well but I can just imagine how freaked you were after half an hour and no child appearing.

    I have to stay I’ll take the slavic half shrug any day over the Asian blank ‘yes yes’ reply where they really mean no/maybe/yes: you just can’t tell which until the thing you asked for shows up … or not as the case may be.

    • Theodora says:

      I think that is true. I’ll be interested to see what the Middle East default is. It’s been so long since I’ve been in that part of the world (almost a decade), that I honestly can’t remember.

  15. Oh my god … I LOVE the note!

    • Theodora says:

      I was pretty moved by it, actually. Wasn’t in the most OBVIOUS of places, but it’s kind of cool. He insisted on rubbing it out after I’d found him “in case someone else loses their kid here and gets confused”…

  16. jalakeli says:

    Coming from a single parent, bucket loads of children family we’ve got more than our fair share of lost child stories. Like when my then 4 year old brother climbed out on a beam over the water outside Sydney’s Luna Park and refused to come back. Mum decided to put the rest of us in the car so she didn’t lose more of us while retrieving him, he decided she’d abandoned him and walked himself from Luna Park to our place in Kings Cross(!).
    Can’t imagine how frantic she must have been. Can’t believe how determined and aware even the littlest of kids can be.

    (Also, can you tell I’m reading your blog from the beginning? And enjoying it muchly!)

    • Theodora says:

      “Bucket loads” — love it.

      And, yes, little kids have a great homing instinct. I “lost” Zac in a shop when he was three — he thought I’d left — and I found him walking down the street, howling, in a Spiderman costume, headed resolutely for home.

      I still remember when my brother and I got “lost” on a lake. A bunch of us, aged 7 or 8 ish, had taken a boat out on the lake. Returned to absolutely frantic, terrified adults combing the woodland and the shallows and honestly couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about.