Ma was inconsolable.

“But how could it happen, Wesley? I don’t understand. How could you grab the wrong pram when she was right there with you all the time? Explain it to me! Weren’t you supposed to be looking after her?”

We were back home again. Ma couldn’t stop crying. Between her and the mafutha boy, still wailing non-stop in his fancy pram, our house had turned into a house of mourning.

“It just happened,” I said guiltily. “I wasn’t concentrating or something.”

“What are we going to do now? How are we going to get Ansie back? And what about this poor child? His parents must be frantic too.”

I had a sudden flash of the old woman chasing after me. Maybe it wasn’t to lecture me after all. She probably thought I’d snatched her kid on purpose.

“Don’t worry Ma, we’ll get her back, I promise you.”

“What if we don’t? What if whoever’s got her decides to keep her? She such a beautiful baby!” She broke down into more sobs as she said it.

“She’s not a dog, Ma. People don’t just keep babies when they find them. They’re probably trying to trace us right now. They’re probably very good people. They didn’t want to leave her there all alone so they took her to keep her safe. They’ll contact us, don’t worry.”

“How, Wesley? How are they going to contact us when they don’t know who she belongs to? How will they get in touch?”

I had a sudden brainwave.

“Because,” I said, beaming at her, “they’ve got my phone! I left it in the pram, see? All we have to do is phone my number and speak to whoever answers.”

Ma’s face lit up like a sunrise. She dived for her phone and hit the speed-dial button.

She waited, her face all creased with worry and full of hope at the same time. Then it crumpled into tears again.

“Nothing!” she said. “Just your voicemail.”

“Maybe they’re on the phone right now, trying us. Try again,” I urged her.

She did. And again, and again, and again.

“They must have switched it off,” she said despairingly. “Why would they switch it off? Oh Wesley – what if they don’t want us to get in touch with them? What if they’re planning … not to give her back to us, ever? What if they’re those people who do horrible things to kids like her?”

I put my arms around her shaking body. “I’m sure it’s nothing like that, Ma. You’re working yourself up for nothing. It’s more likely they haven’t even found the phone yet. The battery might be flat. You know my old skedonk – it runs down over nothing. I was playing music on it. That always drains it.”

Ma nodded uncertainly and blew her nose a few times. She went to pick up the yowling boy child, trying to jiggle him into peace. But he wouldn’t be pacified. Those giant lungs of his were used to getting exercise, you could tell.

“Let’s feed him,” I suggested. “Maybe that’ll keep him quiet for a bit.”

Ma didn’t look like she was capable of doing anything except fainting, so I took over the job. As soon as I shoved some of Ansie’s banana apple puree down his pie-hole, magic happened. The screeching stopped. But only so long as the spoon kept going in. It took a second bottle to finally keep him quiet and send him off to sleep.

That night was the longest of my life.

“Why aren’t they phoning?” Ma kept saying every hour. “Surely they’ve found your phone by now? They must see all my missed calls.”

“Missed calls don’t register when the phone’s dead,” I pointed out. “It’ll take them a while to work through my phone book and find someone who knows your number. They may be waiting for morning so they don’t wake people. Or maybe they don’t have the right charger to charge it up.”

It sounded reasonable enough … if you weren’t worried to death.

“Wesley … how could you … how could you forget her like that!” Ma sobbed. “If anything happens to her …”

“Don’t think like that. They’ll phone Ma, you’ll see. Let’s just wait till morning before we panic.”

But they didn’t phone. The whole of that night we stayed up, waiting.

“There’s nothing for it,” Ma said, looking haggard and desperate as the dawn light filtered through the window. “We have to go to the police.”

“No, not the police,” I said quickly. “You know what they’re like. They’ll probably charge me with kidnapping. They’ll never believe my story about mixing up the prams.”

***

Tell us what you think: Should they go to the police? Why or why not?