It started with meatloaf.
Mom’s version was… creative. Oatmeal, mustard, and some unspoken ingredient she called “a twist.” Caleb took one bite, made a face like he’d licked a battery, and quietly pushed his plate away.
She didn’t yell or anything. Just gave him that look—the one that said, “You will regret this in ways I won’t explain.”
The next morning, he was gone.
No note. No phone. No one had seen him leave.
His bike was still chained up. His sneakers still by the door. And weirdest of all? The fridge was wide open, like someone had been digging around… but there was only one thing missing.
The leftover meatloaf.
Three days passed. Police were involved. We searched the woods, knocked on neighbors’ doors, even climbed through an old culvert behind our house. Nothing.
And then, just as Mom was beginning to sob over a pot of burnt rice on the third night, the front door creaked open.
There stood Caleb. Covered in dirt. Scraped knees. No shoes.
And grinning. Like, ear-to-ear, mischievous little monster kind of grin.
Mom screamed, hugged him so hard I thought his ribs would snap. Then smacked him on the back of the head, the way only a relieved mother can.
“Where were you?” she asked, crying and furious.
And Caleb, with all the seriousness of a boy who just survived something huge, said, “I had to prove a point.”
We all kind of blinked at him.
Dad sat forward on the couch. “What point, son?”
“That your cooking’s a weapon,” he said solemnly, looking at Mom. “And that I’m not crazy.”
Now, listen. Caleb was always the imaginative one.
Built a cardboard time machine once and swore it worked because his cereal went stale faster than usual.
So when he said things like that, we’d usually just pat his head and send him to play.
But this time felt different.
He wasn’t smirking like he usually did. He wasn’t trying to get out of homework or avoid piano practice.
He genuinely looked like he’d seen something. Or been somewhere strange.
“Where did you go?” I asked quietly, stepping closer.
He hesitated. Then motioned us all to sit. Even the dog, Buster, sat down, which was weird because he never listened to Caleb.
Caleb took a breath. “I followed the meatloaf.”
Mom started to open her mouth, but Dad held up a hand.
“Let him talk.”
“The fridge was making a noise,” Caleb said. “Like a heartbeat. And I thought maybe something was wrong with it. So I opened it. And the meatloaf… it glowed.”
Now Mom definitely looked like she was about to faint.
