At first she though Alec had finally stopped crying. She looked down the orange tube and saw the dirt at the bottom—no sign of Alec. She looked over the top, thinking he must have gone through; he wasn’t there.

Why would she think anything was wrong at this point? It wasn’t as if she’d taken her eyes off her child. Not exactly.

Another parent made a coughing sound from behind her, and she obediently got out of his way. She made it to the bottom of the slide at almost the same moment his little girl hit the bare patch of dirt at the bottom, shrieking in delight and running back up the steps to the top to go again.

“Alec?” the mother called, and looked around.

He didn’t have time to run, and she didn’t see him come out the lower end of the slide; and here comes another child, a silent boy who runs across the playground to a friend.

She looked around, and shouted, “Alec?” She wandered away from the slide, and back to it, afraid to stray to far from where she last saw the child.

Third one this week.