Sal is in full swing, running around the corridors, shaking strangers in a dazed panic
“Where’s Ernie, Where’s Ernie, WHERES ERNIEEEEE!!”
I must have spoken to about 20 people, until I finally got a reply “no English”, of course no one can understand a highly emotional, borderline psycho, plazzy scouser. I was in the depths of turkey, surrounded by a million Russians.
You think the worst when you lose a kid, every possible outcome (bar actually what happened) flashed through my eyes. I had no other choice than to create a search party. I ran back into the room, and said right 2, you stay with 6, who was still sleeping, blissfully unaware of his mums impending doom. 6 would have hindered the search anyway the chocolate teapot. He’s AuDHD, and partially deaf, so spends a lot of his time on planet fucking Ted, and then we would have had two kids missing in a foreign country in middle of nowhere.
“3 and 4 you’re with me looking, get your phones, go go go”
I sent them off around the complex to try and find the missing prick that is no.7. Panicking I thought shit, I’ll have to phone the boss and let her know. Half way through the conversation I hear a gut wrenching female scream at the end of the corridor. We were on floor 4 of the building, a massive complex. In a millisecond, I thought shit she’s found his lifeless body. He’s fell off the balcony, someone’s murdered him, he’s dead.
I instantly unfroze and ran to where the scream came from, I was just about to bang on the door and an angry Russian woman wrapped only in a towel started shouting at me
“Поймайте этого ребёнка, он смотрел на меня в душе.”
I had no idea what was going on, I kept saying English over and over. She was getting louder and louder, and just before she slammed the door in my face she pushed, the 3ft albinistic 7year old son out the door. Face as pale as a ghost, big glazed over eyes standing only in his bills (boxies).
I said
“Ernie what’s going on, where have you been”
He stared through me like I’d just sold my soul to the devil for what felt like 10 minutes. Not a word said he silently walked past me back to our room and got in bed.
I followed him, by which time the chocolate teapot was awake, and no. 2 was anxiously waiting for news. Gathering my thoughts, I thought let him sleep, I’ll phone me bird and the others to call off the search party.
The boss answered, but when it was the boys turn, the call wouldn’t connect. I’d forgot O2 didn’t have signal in Turkey and I hadn’t yet hooked them up to the WiFi. 1 kid found, 2 more lost.
Ernie sat up, “what the fuck have you been doing Ernie?”
“I donnnnnnnnntttt knowwwwwwww”
“You must know”
“I wooookkkkeee uppp, and, and, er”
“Ernie speak properly”
“I woke up and a naked woman shouted at me, in Chinese”
“Well it was Russian but ok. Where did you wake up”
“Innnn herrr bathrooom”
“How did you get there”
“I doooooonnnnttt know”
In that moment I realised something, he does it a lot at home, we find him in random places in the house in the middle of the night, sat at the dinner table in the pitch black, putting his teddies in the toilet roll holder, at the end of our bed strangling his teddies. But it dawned on me. HE WAS SLEEP WALKING.
Something I can’t fathom though, is that in the 20 seconds I went for a piss, in exactly that moment, Ernie started sleep walking, managed to get past 5 people silently, close a fire door without no one knowing, break into a Russian women’s room, and stand noncing at her whilst she’s having a shower. Sometimes I think this kid is a mastermind, and other times I want to sit him in the corner of the class with a D on his head.
Anyone that knows Ernie, knows that he speaks that slow he talks backwards, anyone who also knows him knows he has the palest skin and big blue eyes, white blonde hair, and when he’s asleep he looks like a ghost. His big eyes stare through you. I’m surprised the Russian woman didn’t vollie him. I would have kung fud his arse right back out that door, and called in the exorcist.
Anyway, we still had two kids missing so I rounded them all up out the room, I was not taking my eyes off any of them this time, I don’t give a flying fuck if ye 19, get ye reins on. And we headed off to find 3 and 4. We searched high and low, all the places I told them to look for 7. They were nowhere to be seen.
I’d give up by this point and was about to ask the hotel manager if they had a tannoy, when I spotted out the corner of my eye, two very familiar boys, having a catchup over a milkshake at the bar.
“Fred, Freddie” (yes they’re both called Fred, long story)”come here”
Their faces dropped. They’d been gripped. And in that instance I knew, whilst I’d been running around assaulting Russians, planning funerals, and cashing in on my travel insurance for a heart attack, they hadn’t even attempted to look for the sleeping ghost. The 6 milkshake glasses EACH! Was a dead giveaway.
So we spent the next 9 days, of our fun, relaxing, family holiday, building barricades on the balcony and the front door, so we could try and sleep at night. Not that it worked!!
TBC
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