Amita made sure to pack all of Suruli's preferred fruits and snacks and told him about the change in routine the night before.
"We're going to a fun place tomorrow! So, you won't be going to the nanny's."
Then, she read to the child.
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"He looks so much like you, when you were three." Tapti beamed as Amita put Suruli in his booster seat. He played with a toy car.
After about an hour or so of driving, they arrived in Disneyland and parked in a large, concrete structure.
Their first stop was section of Disneyland called Fantasy Land. Suruil sat in his stroller as Amita pushed him.
"Let's go on the merry-go-round ," Tapti suggested.
Amita got the boy out of his stroller, and the four went to the merry-go-round. Amita then put the child on a horse. After the merry-go-round started, Suruli started to cry, due to the up and down movement of the horse. He was quickly taken off the horse by Amita, who comforted him. After what seemed like a long time to mother and son, they all got off the merry-go-round, but Suruli still cried for a long while.
"Is this his first time at Disneyland?" Sanjay asked.
"Yes," Amita told him.
"Does he cry a lot when you take him out?" Tapti asked.
"It depends on the environment. He gets overwhelmed sometimes."
They went on other rides, the few that three year olds could go on. Suruli enjoyed some of them, others made him start crying for one reason or another. Amita then insisted they stop going on rides and just walk around. Tapti bought Suruli a hat that was in the shape of two ears, even having it embroidered with his name. Amita bought a Disneyland keychain for Hugh.
It was then, that Amita decided that she needed to go to the bathroom.
When, she returned, her parents were talking and Suruli was nowhere to be seen.
"Where's Suruli?" she demanded.
"He's right here...," Tapti started to say, but turned around and saw that he wasn't there.
Frantically, they started searching for him, even going into the various stores nearby.
"Have you seen a little boy, about three?" Amita asked a cashier. "He looks like me, but is a little lighter skinned."
"No I haven't. We have an area for lost kids on Main Street," he told her.
"He's only three," Amita said, and went on with her search. She called for him and grew more frantic by the minute. Then, she called Don's cell phone.
"Eppes?"
"Don! Suruli's gone missing! I need you to send someone!"
"How long?" Don asked.
"Almost an hour."
"He might have just wandered off," Don tried to assure her.
Amita told Don, "What if he's been abducted?"
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Don said. "Have you talked to security?"
"No."
"Do that."
"I will."
"Have you gone to where the lost kids are supposed to go?"
"No, but he's only three."
"Someone could have taken him there," Don said. "Look, talk to security and work with them. Keep me up to date."
"Fine," Amita agreed reluctantly and hung up. Then,after the trio went to the area in Main Street for lost kids, talked a cashier of a store into calling security.
A uniformed woman named Brenda came to see Amita and her worried parents at one of Disneyland's many stores.
"Where did you last see your son?" Brenda asked Amita.
Amita, Sanjay and Tapti led her to where the boy was last seen, and then Brenda asked for a recent picture of the child. Amita gave her one, and a description of what he was wearing. Brenda, with a walkie talkie, described the boy and asked fellow security officers to keep an eye out.
Suddenly, someone answered Brenda via the walkie talkie. "He's been spotted."
"Where?"
The voice on the walkie talkie told her and Brenda, along with Amita and her parents, ran to Suruli's location. There he was, sitting on a bench, moving his toy car back and forth, while eating a Mickey Mouse shaped ice cream bar. His face was full of ice cream.
"Sweetie!" Amita hugged her son and kissed him. "We were worried sick! Where did you get the ice cream?"
"We didn't give him any money," Tapti assured Amita.
"I bought him the ice cream," a woman, looking to be in her sixties said. She, with her salt and pepper hair was next to a stroller with a baby in it, waiting for her family to come back from a ride she nor the baby could get on.
Amita thanked the woman, Brenda and the other Disneyland security guard, who had helped find Suruli.
Then, she got some napkins and wiped the boy's mouth when he finished the ice cream.
"Don't leave like that!" Amita told him. "Especially not without telling me."
"You had us worried," Tapti said.
Just then, Charlie, from the Groen Havian capital, Katoenenstad, called "Hey! How's Disneyland?"
"Suruli got lost."
"Have you called Security? Don?" Charlie worried.
"Yes. We just found him," Amita said.
"How is he enjoying Disneyland otherwise?"
"Well, he did like some of the rides," Amita said. Not wanting to dwell on the negative parts of this trip in front of her parents. "And some nice woman bought him an ice cream."
"How did he get lost?"
"He wondered off."
"That's not the first time he does that," Charlie noticed. "Maybe he needs a bracelet that has our cell numbers or something."
"Maybe," Amita agreed.
"Look I gotta get back to work. Give Suruli my love and tell your parents I said hi."
"I will." With that, Amita hung up.
"Was that Charlie?" Tapti asked. "How is he doing?"
"Fine," Amita said.
"What kind of work is he doing for Interpol?"
"He didn't give a lot of detail. Some of his work is like that," Amita said.
"But you help him a lot in his consulting work," Sanjay pointed out.
"I don't have the clearance he has," Amita explained.
Eventually, the four left the park, and went home.
TBC