Thank goodness there were no coyotes on Franklin Island, the uninhabited and somewhat bleak island where T and his kayaking expedition spent the night on Saturday. I say thank goodness as T became separated from the group and was missing for over four hours in the dark. He had also left his trusty knife in his tent. What he did have was a whistle (more about why we love that whistle later), his level head, and a deep, resonant voice.

They were playing manhunt after dinner in the woods around the campsite; T is an ace hider as the neighbourhood kids will attest. When no one had found him and darkness was falling, he decided he had better head home to camp only in the dark he went completely the wrong way. By 8:30 a head count had been done back in camp and realisation had dawned that T was missing. His classmates and the four adults with the group went to where he was last seen and keeping contact with each other spread out in a search line yelling his name. By 9:20 they hadn't found him and much against their will as they wanted to keep searching, the boys were sent back to camp with one teacher. The other teacher, the two guides, and two boys carried on searching. Meanwhile T was now walking inland, thinking he had heard voices or music. He decided he was wrong, realised that he was compounding his lostness and decided to head for the shoreline as he had been taught to do. This he did, blowing his whistle and yelling. He got no answer. Once at the shoreline, he thought about what could possibly happen. He came up with three scenarios. The first was that if he stayed put, he would be rescued by the coastguard in the morning; the second was that when it became light, he would try to make his own way back; the third and the one he followed was that if walked south along the shore, he would have to come across the beached kayaks and it was then a short walk up from the beach to the camp. As there was plenty of moonlight, he opted for the third option. It turned out to be a little trickier than he thought it would be. The shoreline has rocky inlets and whereas most are shallow and can be traversed by stepping on rocks, he came across one with no rocks that he would have to wade through. He stripped off, bundled his clothes and shoes above his head and attempted this, only to slip and end up with everything soaked anyway. Dressed again, he continued to whistle and despite a wind blowing the sound away, one of the search party, T's tentmate, heard it, yelled and shone a flashlight in the direction where he thought the whistle had come from. T, who since the age of three has possessed a fine baritone, started yelling as loud as he could when he saw the gleam of the flashlight and his deep, resonant voice was heard. He was instructed to stay where he was and they would get him, which he did. There was a minor diversion when his cry of "I'm really cold!" was heard as, "I'm in a hole!" and the teacher rushed off into the forest with rope!

It took them about 3/4 of an hour to get back to camp. T had nearly made it under his own steam as he was only about 1km. away. No one had gone to bed and there was general rejoicing, dry clothes for T, and an impromptu party with hot tea and popcorn to celebrate his return.

Meanwhile his everloving parents remained totally oblivious to the drama unfolding around their one and only child. We had taken the opportunity to have a mini-break away and were sound asleep in a very lovely country house hotel. We had filled out the contact form to alert the teachers to this giving my cell phone and the hotel's phone number. This form travelled up north, but in all the panic of looking for T, no one checked the form so that when contact with T's school was made to the outdoor education leader and the principal they called us at home at 1:00 in the morning to inform us of the incident and that T was safe. They debated about calling us at all but worried that somehow in this age of texting one of the boys might have texted home and that the news of T being missing would have