The Scapegoat - Part One.

The Scapegoat - Part One

So our son came home and said he and his friends had been in a cave! He told us that he didn’t want to go in again for it was very hard to get out! I asked him how many times had he been in the cave and he said, “Three times,” but this last time he was frightened for it took them ages to get out, as the entrance was SO steep. I said to him, “Please promise me you will never go in the cave again, for next time you may not be able to get out, and you may not have any signal down there if you can’t get out, plus we don’t know where the cave is.” He thought about it for a while and agreed he wouldn’t go in the cave again.

Three weeks later at 10.30pm Paul and I realized that Daniel was not yet home. Yes, it was a Friday night and yes he sometimes came home later on a Friday, but he was now thirty minutes late. I was annoyed! I rang him but his mobile was off (again) what’s the point of a mobile if we can’t contact him. We have often told him it’s not good for a child to be out late, it is safer in the house. He doesn’t realize he is a child, and it’s a cruel world out there.

The time quickly went to 11pm I tried his phone again, where could he be? If his phone ran out of power at least he could ask one of his friends if he could use their phone to let us know where he is! I was very annoyed now! Eleven thirty came and went.  The butterflies were very strong in my tummy. I’d wanted an early night tonight for I’d had a stressful day at work, but how could I go to bed knowing my baby is out so late? And now it was too late to call any of his friends parents, for no decant person would be accepting phone calls at this time of night. Paul removed Daniel’s laptop from his bedroom and said, “He wouldn’t be getting it back for a month, for what he has put us through tonight.”

Now at it turned midnight, we thought what could have happened to him, for usually if he decides he is having a sleepover he would have rang us say by 10.15pm the latest to let us know and it would always be OK by us, for this he didn’t do very often, for usually sleepovers were planned and we would have known before he went out if he was going for a sleepover, but this evening had started out like any other evening.... but how would it end?

Our fears we spoke to each other, “Did he go in the cave?” “Have they been unable to get out of it?” “Are they trying to phone us from the cave, but can’t get a signal?” I was no longer annoyed but afraid!

Twelve thirty came and went, we still couldn’t get him on his phone, we both said we thought he was either injured badly or he’d been killed! He’s such a strong and healthy lad, it was hard to imagine him been hurt or even dead!

At 12.30am Paul said, “We need to call the police soon!”  To say I had a lump in my throat was an understatement! I replied “Let’s call them now!” He said, “At one o’clock we will.”

At one a.m. I rang 999 I was asked what emergency I wanted I said, “The police,” I told the police woman that our 15 year old son had not returned home and usually is back by 10.30pm, I said, “He’s never done anything like this before, he has either come home, if we were not able to get him on his phone by 10.30pm or he’d phone us to let us know he is sleeping over, and now it was one in the morning, and we were worried sick!”                               

She took some details, and said we would get a phone call back. Sleep had totally left me! I had to prepare myself for the worst! At 1.25a.m. the phone rang, it was the police!