Our 14-Year-Old Was Sneaking Out at Night during Lockdown

A few days later I got coronavirus symptoms

As I passed the youngest teenager’s room on the way to the toilet at 6 am that Sunday I glanced in as I usually do; there was something odd about the bed and I couldn’t see her head.

I stepped into the room and said her name. I went to pull the duvet back – and saw that the bed was empty except for two pillows stuffed into it to make it look like a body.

My immediate fear was that she had absconded again.

I searched the entire house and the garden. She was nowhere to be found. All three doors — two to the street and one to the garden — were locked and bolted from the inside.

I used the bathroom and then went back upstairs. I stood at the foot of our bed trying to formulate words.

Finally, I shook my husband awake: “L isn’t in her bed.”

He was immediately wide-awake. “No that can’t be right.” Throwing back the covers he jumped up and went to conduct his own search.

Two minutes later he was back: “She’s in the bathroom,” he said.

Clearly, the teenager had been sneaking out this window when we thought she was asleep in bed.

I raced downstairs. It was true; there she was in the bathroom, washing her hands. She was wearing a sweatshirt and knickers, and her hair had clearly been combed.

“Where were you when I was looking for you a few minutes ago?” I asked her.

“ I was in here,” she replied.

Well, how could that be when I was in there too…

Mysteries do unfold. Later that morning I found her jacket and jeans scrunched up and hidden behind a bench in the family room.

And DH found the window open in his study open.

It’s the only window in the house that leads out onto the street. All the others are too high off the ground for access.

It’s for that reason that he always closes and locks it at night. We have been robbed in the past, several times.

Clearly, the teenager had been sneaking out this window when we thought she was asleep in bed.

Talking to her didn’t work. She denied that she had left the house, although she couldn’t explain why she has slept in her sweatshirt and knickers.

There was nothing else to do.

I made a telephone call to the police officer who had come when she had been missing a few weeks earlier. He agreed to have a word with her on the phone.

I also got the inclusion teacher from her school to speak to her and we were able to access emergency (online) counselling through the social services, as she was now classed as a child in need.

A few days later I woke up with a raging headache and a fever of 38°C.

Was it related to our teen’s nocturnal absconding?

There is no way of knowing and anyway, I’m not interested in playing the blame game.

I’m only glad that we discovered what was going on and put an end to the nighttime outings before something untoward befell her.