Big Wheel

Miss L had a friend’s birthday party this morning at Willen Lake Aqua Parc. It’s an inflatable obstacle course in the water. As she’d extended her sleepover (gradual moving in!!!!) I went early to get her so she could get changed and then took her to the lake. I still feel a bit space cadety to talk to anyone so I just dropped her off and came home. Listening to songs that made me cry.
One did make me laugh though. Miss L listens to her YouTube songs at top volume whenever we’re in my car which I love. Ridiculously loud, singing along at the tops of our voices! When I turn the engine off it cuts off YouTube and automatically goes to whatever I was last listening to on my phone. It always takes a while to connect when I turn the engine back on. As I drove off, after about thirty seconds silence Adele’s voice boomed our at top volume “Hello from the other side”!!!!! Mum and I had been saying it would be nice to get a sign and that felt like one!! It made me laugh as subtlety was never Don’s strong point!
Mr K came back with me to get her a few hours later. We were early not knowing quite what time to arrive. We saw her at a distance with her friends eating candy floss and clearly having a good time so we went for a bit of a walk round the lake and let her have a bit longer. It’s nice that she’s staying in touch with friends from her old school. Some of them really old friends, Little Miss E was there who left years ago. Miss L was delighted to see her.
From the lake we went to Sports Direct to get some Astro trainers for Miss E and base layer PE skins for both of them.
I didn’t know if they needed shin pads and gum shields so I texted Miss E to ask. Half an hour later - it felt like longer as Miss L tried on every trainer in the place and declared she hated them all - I realised she hadn’t replied so I rang her.
No answer.
Weird as the phone is generally in her hand or pocket.
Miss L rang. No answer.
Mr K rang. No answer.
He sent the Find My Phone alarm which can be heard all over the house. Nothing.
Where was she?
Dead at the bottom of the stairs obviously. Murdered by a gang of burglars.
I called a dozen more times and texted asking her to call. Nothing to worry about, just want to make sure you’re OK.
WhatsApp showed she was last online an hour before I first texted her.
Trying to quell my rising panic - not very successfully - And trying not to let Miss L see how worried I was - again, not very successfully, we paid for a box of trainers, I suspect the first ones she tried on, and the skins and headed to the car.
No one saying a word.
Mr K drove faster than I’ve ever seen him drive apart from the night he was getting me to the hospital to have Miss L I told him to slow down at one point or we were going to get pulled over or die in a car crash ourselves.
All I could think about was what we were going to find when we got there.
No, no one could be that unlucky to have two deaths in the family in a week.
That doesn’t happen does it?
Yes. People are unlucky all the time.
Just not us.
Yet.
How would I tell my mum? How could I live without Miss E?
Part of my panicking brain wondered if she’d gone out to Marshall to get something and locked herself out without her phone and had forgotten the code for the key box. I didn’t say it out loud in case that meant it wouldn’t have been true.
And why wouldn’t she have walked to one of her friends houses and asked them to call us?
As we sped into our road and saw our house with Marshall outside I was craning my neck to see could I see any movement.
And there she was in Marshall.
The car was still moving when I jumped out, hurled Marshall’s door open, threw my arms around her and bawled my eyes out.
Bless her, she’d gone out to get the nail clippers without her phone and the front door had swung shut behind her.
She couldn’t go to anyone’s house as she was barefoot.
And she’d forgotten the code to the key box.
She’d heard the Find My Phone alarms and thought it was the smoke alarm and that she’d burnt the house down.
I told her I wouldn’t have cared. And I meant it.
Apart from Archie being in there obviously!!!!
So now there’s a house key on Marshall’s key ring, she knows the code for the box and we’re never leaving her alone again!!!!