The Boy in the I'M TROUBLE T-Shirt (and the Week We Lost the Broadband)

The t-shirt said, I'M TROUBLE.

He was three years old. He'd gone missing.

And this did not help.

It was the school holidays and Amanda had taken Oliver to a farming attraction.

You know the kind of place. Sheep, goats and donkeys to pet — and absolutely thronging with other kids.

Amanda turned her back for a second while Oliver was playing in the sand pit.

And suddenly he was gone.

First she called me at work — but what was I going to do? I was a forty-minute drive away… and working!

Then she ran to the information desk, pleading for help.

'No worries,' the kind lady assured her. 'Can you describe what he was wearing?'

'Sure.' Amanda hesitated for a beat. 'A t-shirt with I'M TROUBLE on the front.'

That was then broadcast around the venue on the loudspeaker system.

Mortifying.

It turns out he'd simply wandered off to look at some more animals.

So while Amanda was having a complete meltdown, Oliver was marvelling at the chickens.

You Never Stop Worrying

I'd never write that t-shirt into a novel. It's too cheesy. Too unbelievable.

But I guess real life doesn't care too much about bad writing.

Last week, I wrote about my worries for Oliver — who's now 24 — going abroad and staying safe with his food allergies. I asked whether you ever stop worrying about your kids.

The first response was from my own mother, who said, "You never stop worrying about your kids, however old they are."

Funny, Mum.

Oliver remains unaware to this day of the worry he still causes us.

Amanda occasionally thinks about the day she almost lost him.

And my mother remains anxious about me even though I'm in my fifties.

The Fear That Never Ends

It's exactly the fear I explore in one of my most popular thrillers, The Phantom Child.

It's about a young boy who goes missing while on holiday and his mother is told by her husband that they never had any children.

Amanda found Oliver after about ten minutes.

But in The Phantom Child, the nightmare never ends.

If you've not read it, it's on a promotional price this weekend on both sides of the Atlantic.

In the US it's 99c until Monday night, and in the UK it's 99p from Sunday through to Wednesday.

You can find it on Amazon here: https://geni.us/3Ctvp

(The promotion was meant to run at the same time in both markets, but you know what? I'm only human. I messed up.)

The Thriller Couple

In other news, we lost our broadband this week.

No signal. No internet. No life.

It was an expensive fix — a new router, a new antenna. But we're back in the digital world.

Just as well when you make a living from being online.

And researching gory subjects like… ahem… how to kill someone without leaving a trace.

I'd like to think we were more productive without the internet, but it turns out we just ran around complaining the sky had fallen in.

So there you go. It turns out wifi is more important in our lives than our own son these days.

Just don't tell him I said so.

Do you have a story like Amanda's? Tell me in the comments — and if your mother still worries about you, I'd love to know about what.