Caleb the Stowaway--Missing Children Part 2

Caleb put us through quite the ordeal last night. Our next door neighbors called to ask if we could watch their daughter while they picked up some furniture from storage to sell at a garage sale. When they came back hauling their furniture on a trailer, Ted and I saw a couch that we decided to buy. We were all busy for a little while talking and carrying the couch upstairs. After they left, we went upstairs to put Caleb and Sierra to bed and couldn't find Caleb anywhere. Ted, Sierra, and I checked the house several times, calling his name and yelling at him that he had 10 seconds to come out or else. He isn't the kind of kid to hide from us, so we felt pretty sure he wasn't in the house. I ran to our neighbors' house to see if perhaps he had gone there to play while we were busy with the couch. I rung their doorbell again and again, but no one was home. I called their home and cell phones with no response and jogged up and down our street calling Caleb's name. By now it was around 9pm and totally dark outside. Feeling like I was in the twilight zone, I called 911, and went through the process of describing what had happened, telling them that Caleb was wearing his turquoise fleece PJ's and that he had never disappeared before. They said they would send an officer over, so I went outside to wait. Just then, our neighbors pulled up the street, and I could see a very short passenger in the front seat. They said they had gone to return the trailer and had been very surprised when Caleb popped up in the third row of their Suburban. He'd climbed into their car while we were busy with the couch, and when they started driving, he'd gone along with the adventure. Our neighbors didn't have their cell phone with them, and so they had hurried home knowing how worried we must have been. Sierra burst into tears when she saw her brother, but Caleb seemed rather bewildered by all the hype. The neighbors said they'd tried to tell him that he could have been left in a parking lot by himself or ended up far away from home, but he came up with logical solutions to all their scenarios. Just then the policeman pulled up, and I took Caleb over to apologize. The officer smiled and said Caleb must have been enjoying the movie playing in their car. It all hit Caleb after we came into the house--he cried and cried knowing how naughty he had been. We're sure glad to have quirky little Caleb home safe and sound.