Missing-In-Action

Abigail and Ariana have had so much fun playing together since Ariana's family moved here last week. On Monday, I was watching Ariana and Abigail play outside. They each had a bucket and were picking leaves off the bush by our driveway. The phone rang, so I answered it and probably spoke to the other person on the line for three minutes tops. When I hung up the phone I looked outside and didn't see the girls. So, I walked outside to locate them thinking that they were probably in Abigail's playhouse. No Abi and Ari. I went back to the house and called inside the house for them. No answer. I walked up to Ariana's house and knocked on the door and asked Kim (Ariana's mom & Darin's sister) if she had seen the girls. She said, "No I thought they were playing outside at your house." I then told her that I couldn't find them, so she walked around calling for them and I walked around calling for them. No Response. By this time 10 minutes had gone by and Kim said she would go get Jeff (her husband) and Del (grandpa) to help us look. I went back in the house and called our three neighbors to see if the girls had gone over to their houses. No one had seen Abigail and Ariana. By this time I was beginning to panic. 15 minutes had gone by with no sight of Abigail or Ariana and I was starting to let my imagination get to me as to what happened to them. No one has been kidnapped in Rockland before, but there is a first time for everything. More likely, was that the girls were trapped in some old building, old car, old appliance, or had fallen in an old well. There are a lot of dangerous things like that around a farm, which is why I had set boundaries for Abigail as soon as I moved here. I called Darin and asked him to come home from work and help us look. Two of my three neighbors were looking out in their properties for the girls. We were starting to form quite the little search party. After looking for about 25 minutes, with everyone screaming their names at the top of their lungs, I decided to go in the house and call the sheriff. Right at that time, Abigail and Ariana came down stairs and said, "Why is everyone calling our names?" I burst into tears. That was probably one of the scariest 20-25 minutes of my life. The girls had been upstairs in my craft room, where they knew they were not supposed to be and were hiding because they were afraid to come down. They heard everyone calling for them, but figured they were in trouble and better wait out the storm. Needless, to say they are safe, I aged about 10 years from that whole experience and both girls got quite the lecture from their parents after the whole ordeal.