Wilfulness

"Where has he gone?"

The rising panic in her voice was palpable. Heads turned. Idle curiosity overcame etiquette as people stared openly.

"He was just there! Where has he GONE?"

Her hands were in her hair, pulling at it; her eyes suffused with blind terror. She stood on the promenade, rooted to the spot but the conflict in her body was all too evident. Split down the middle: should she run and search, or stay where he had last seen her? Her face was agony to behold.

As the realisation dawned on those closest to her, people started whispering, pointing. One utterly insensitive man was even heard to pronounce: "Really! She's making a bit of a fuss..." To everyone else, though, the situation was hideously reminiscent of a recent, news-making disappearance. Her name was on all lips.

She had begun to grab the shoulders of passers-by, looking wildly into their faces and beseeching them to recall a sighting. She was gabbling a description: five years old, about so high, blue eyes, sandy hair, stripy shorts...

It must have been about five minutes before a rather bewildered looking small boy was dumped unceremoniously into his mother's grasping, outstretched arms. He had just wanted to get to the paddling pool; where was the harm in that?

She sank to her knees, clutching him to her beaten chest, and sobbed.

I looked around. Not a dry maternal eye in sight. There, but for the Grace of God...