I guess we're harmless.

I took a few kids for a walk today.  I suppose we looked like friendly enough people, enough so that a very small girl type person ran up to me.  I was bopping along, pretty quickly, with ear buds in.  She doesn't see it, doesn't care.  She introduces herself, in the middle of the road, as "Hello!  I'm _______!  I live right heah wiff my family!  See my family?  (She points at a group of, what looks like young teens, on the porch of a house close-by.)  I say, "Hello!  I'm here, with, well, one part of my family!  And, we're finishing our walk now, bye!"

I was slightly abrupt with her because my son and his friend had made it about 200 feet ahead of me by the time I slowed to acknowledge this small child.

She was very persistent, kept talking and questioning me, running by my side like a stray puppy.  I slowed right down to a stop.  "Are you five years old?"  She says, "Yes!"  (She was very small and immature for five, I immediately wondered if she was challenged, and I got worried that she wouldn't stop following me, and noone came to take her home.)  I say, "Okay, if you're five, you need to go back towards home." 

She's all, "I'm coming wiff you!" 

Then, I see a woman come out of the house and yell for the child, who doesn't listen to her.  I tell the girl, "_______, you need to go home now, stay close to home, okay?  It's not safe for you to go so far away."  Her "mom" - I assume, a very large woman - comes out on the porch and sits down - yells for the kid.  I realize that the child is probably going to run back to , and I take off walking fast, she's chasing me like that stray puppy, and I say, "Bye, see you later!"  I look back, twice, she's still chasing me.  By the time I turn the corner, I assume she's gone back to mom, because she's out of sight.

She did look like a lost little puppy.  Desperate for attention.  Sometimes you have to wonder.