CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- A Cambridge mother is upset that a bus stop mix-up meant her 5-year-old son was dropped off a mile away from home recently, leaving the little boy to be helped by a Good Samaritan.

The Montessori school kindergartner was dropped off around Rindge Avenue in Cambridge, a mile away from his real stop, confused and disoriented.

Fortunately, the boy wandered over to an apartment building where a neighbor took him in and called his mom.

"He was completely lost," said Anna Kiefer. "Then I said, 'Are you hungry?' He said, 'I'm hungry,' so I gave him some orange juice, some crackers."

She found an emergency phone number attached to his backpack and called his mother.

She said the bus monitor was not paying attention.

"Why didn't she go after him? Where was the sense of urgency to find him?" she said.

It was the boy's first day on the bus and the Cambridge school district called the incident "unfortunate" but his mother said she's horrified at the idea of what could have happened.

"He could have been kidnapped. He could have been into the wrong hands. He could have been hit by a car," the mother, who did not wish to be identified, said.

The bus company is not commenting.

"I'm angry and I'm frustrated because I haven't received a phone call from the bus company. I have not received any information from the principal," the boy's mother said.

The boy's mother said someone needs to be held accountable. Meanwhile, that little boy has been riding the bus this week without incident.