Sarah + A Hard Lesson = A Really Funny Story

Yesterday Sarah was outside with our neighbor, who is seven, playing in the front yard. James was out there, too, keeping an eye on her. However, I'm not sure his eyes were open!!! I heard an ambulance outside in the distance. Then I heard Sarah running into the house crying (very hard). She sounded fearful and I realized she was telling Japan (that's the neighbor girl's name) that they were coming to get her. I heard Japan tell her that it was just an ambulance. I ran to see what was going on, and Sarah was frantic, hardly understandable. I came to understand after a couple minutes, that she was in the yard two houses down and was picking flowers from their flower beds. She heard the ambulance and thought the police were coming to get her for stealing. I tried to calm her down, but she was so upset that I ended up laying her in her bed until she could listen and talk. I felt terrible that she was so upset, yet I was kind of glad that she realized what she was doing was wrong and that it scared her. I think this will probably cure her from picking flowers, at least flowers that aren't in our yard. We all got a good laugh out of it (well, all of us except Sarah) . . . but I also felt pretty sorry for her. I took her down later to apologize, but no one was home. We will have to try again.