It was quiet. Too quiet.

When CW and I left at 6pm, Matt and SG were in the shower. When we got back at 8pm, I noticed through the window that Matt was sitting at his computer. I grabbed our stuff and went up to the door (CW went to the curb to grab the recycling container). The storm door was locked (which is normal - to keep SG in the house), so I banged on the door with my foot. Nothing. Did it again - also nothing. After the third time Matt opens the door and the sits back down on the stairs to get his shoes on, because, "He got out. He's probably down at the girls' house."

Matt ran out the front door, and I went upstairs to kick at all of the blanket lumps on the floor to make sure he wasn't hiding from us, and I turned up nothing. Matt was back and on his way into the backyard when I got back downstairs. The gate hadn't been relocked that morning after recycling went out. He did notice SG at the playground while he was standing on the deck, though, so we did at least know where he'd gone at that point.

On our way out between our fence and our neighbor's fence to the playground, we stumble across a whole bunch of crap. There was a weird dustpan-shovel-type-thing, a 6 or 8 foot long 2x4, our bike pump and an old tomato cage, among other things. We stopped and stared at it all, completely perplexed.

We identified as definitively ours the bike pump and the tomato cage, but couldn't figure out how the wind had blown them off of their perches. And couldn't figure out the other stuff either, it could be ours, but was so nondescript I couldn't say yes or no. Matt shook himself out of his confusion and went out to call to SG , who thankfully responded to us and came back immediately. He'd been playing with his friends. 8)

He was confined to his room for a bit after that, and the rest of the story came out in bits and pieces (and I'm still learning as I write this):

They went to the store, came home, Matt was making dinner and SG went to play out in the backyard. He came in and out, Matt checked on him periodically, and eventually he just wasn't there when Matt checked on him. Matt walked down the street to a particular house whose occupants SG adores, and found his trike on the sidewalk in front of the house. He was inside - he claims that the mom opened the door and let him in ("Mama's place has the microwave down low!" He's still ticked at us for putting the microwave over the stove.)

SG had a fit about being dragged home, and threw himself on the couch. He didn't want dinner, so Matt was eating his dinner at his computer when it occurred to him (at about the point when CW and I pulled into the parking space) that it was quiet. Too quiet.

So, it turned out through questioning and puzzling that he' hadn't gone through the gate this time. He'd gone over the fence. He'd pushed his trusty Cozy Coupe up against the fence and climbed up on it until he managed to get to the top of the fence and the weird lean-to thing, constructed by the previous owners between the fence and the shed. Once up there, he seems to have had a ball throwing stuff that was up there down onto the ground outside of our fence - the crap we'd come across before and wondered how the wind had blown it all down. The bike pump in particular was up on the roof of the shed - far enough away from him that I'm fairly certain he had to climb up onto the roof in order to retrieve it for ejection from the yard.

At some point he got bored with chucking inanimate stuff over the fence, and chucked himself over, so he could go play on the playground. He claims that he broke bones, but there's NO evidence of ANY pain ANYWHERE on him. Not even a scratch on the knees. Wow. There was much discussion regarding him needing to tell us when he's going to leave, not going over the fence, etc.

Thursday morning the discussion continued. Sort of. He apologized and informed Matt that he wouldn't try to escape again, but that we couldn't keep him "trapped" in the back yard anymore.