Today after school we went to the park, just as we have done for the last few days. We are making the most of the sunshine while it lasts and IJ seems to have bags of energy that she needs to run off. Taking her outdoors means that she does not use the sofa cushions as an indoor trampoline, and the sun seems to give us both a boost.
Yet I write this with a heavy heart.
At the park we were joined for a while by two nine-year-old girls. They were clearly good friends and were enjoying themselves on the slide although they did look a little weary, as if they had been playing outdoors all day.
It turned out that they had. They had left their homes at half past eight that morning, dressed in identical jeans and black hooded sweatshirts, and they had not been home since. A friend politely asked them why they had not been to school.
They said they were ill, apparently. One had a sore throat and the other a headache, at least that is the story they had decided to give the grandparents who would have brought them to school that morning. When asked if their parents knew that they had been playing outside all day, they claimed that they did but that it didn't bother them.
They were very taken with our friend's young daughter and fussed over her. They seemed to be craving attention so we let them hover round us for a while. Once they had worked out that we could be trusted, one girl mentioned that she was worried about her SATS exams. The other said that she struggled at school and didn't think she was good enough.
They were talking to us as if we were their parents, yet we weren't and I wonder where those parents actually were.
Then they spotted someone, I don't know who but it panicked them and they fled. They didn't leave the park by the normal entrance; they jumped very confidently over a five foot fence as if they had done this many times before.
It left me wondering what would become of them. Their sweatshirts both had the word 'Happy' on them, yet I didn't think they were.
Photo credit: Flickr - Burning Image
