It might have something to do with the way I grew up. When we were 10, my best friend and I went on one of our "hikes". We just walked, and went whichever way the light was green. Eventually we realized that we were in downtown Minneapolis and had no idea how to get home; we didn't even know the general direction because we couldn't remember which lights had been green and which were red. We'd been gone for a couple of hours, and were afraid to ask any LE how to get home because we had imagined our mothers calling them and saying we had run away. We finally decided we'd just walk down one street for 1/2 hour, and if we didn't see anything familiar, we'd try going another way. Going down one street, we finally saw a place she recognized, and got home. When we went and told our mothers we were finally home, they hadn't even known we'd been gone. We had started out at about 9am and got home about 7:30pm.
I think in my mind, he missed the boss and somehow got mixed up on the way home but would eventually figure it out. He never did, but the person who brought him home did know the area. We did have a nice long talk that night - about not goofing around with friends and missing the bus, about going back into the school to call if he ever did miss it again, and to never take a ride from someone I don't know, no matter how tired you are and how well you think you know them.
