An 11-year-old girl caused her parents great worry when she failed to return home from school yesterday.

When Mohd Noor Ermy Mohd Khairi realised that his daughter, Nurul Syuhada Ermy failed to return home after her sports activities at 1.30pm, he began to panic.

“I thought she was waiting for her younger sister (at school) but when her younger sister came home later about 6pm without her, we began to search everywhere,” the 33-year-old dispatch told Astro AWANI.

Mohd Noor Ermy said he roped in some 200 of his friends and neighbours to look all over Saujana Utama in Sungai Buloh where they lived, but to no avail.

“At midnight, I started to really worry. I couldn’t sleep. I lodge a police report even though they said we need to wait 24 hours. All I could do was pray,” he said.

However, around 6pm today, just as he was about to organise another search, he saw Nurul Syuhada walking back, her black backpack over her shoulders, her hands covering her face.

It was learnt that Nurul Syuhada had slept over her best friend’s house last night because she was afraid to return home.

Mohd Noor Ermy said, yesterday, he gave Nurul Syuhada RM2 to pass to her younger sister in school, SK Sri Pristana in Sungai Buloh, but the 11-year-old did not do so.

She used up all the money for herself instead.

“She said she became afraid of being reprimanded and didn’t want to come home.

“When she returned earlier, she walked up to me and hugged me. I hugged her back. I asked her why she did this and that Papa was worried,” Mohd Noor Ermy said.

He said he did not blame her for what she did and would not berate her either.

“Of course, when our children do wrong we would scold, but for her, it was such a big thing when she realised that she didn’t know how to get back the RM2 after using it up.”

Ermy, however, expressed disappointment with Nurul Syuhada’s best friend, whom he said had lied to him when he asked her if she knew of Nurul’s whereabouts.

“But that’s over now. From today onwards, I will pay more attention to my kids, know exactly who their friends are and where they live,” he said.