April 28, 2005 -- A Queens 3-year-old triggered a massive boyhunt yesterday after he wandered out of his house, walked to a busy thoroughfare, paid for a ride on a city bus that took him 31/2 miles to a multiplex. and sneaked into a screening of the hit flick "Robots."
"He's pretty smart," said his stepbrother, Kareem Williams, 16.
The nearly 4-year-old boy, Clarence Ricky Davis, Jr., dressed himself and left his home on Pineville Lane in Springfield Gardens at around noon.
He walked one block to Merrick Boulevard, where he caught the Q5 bus and paid the fare with his own money, his mother said to the Jamaica Multiplex.
He slipped out of the house when his father fell asleep and the step-brother was at Home Depot ironically buying a new lock because Clarence had discovered how to let himself out. "He's really an amazing kid," said the mother, Sherrie Williams. "He is a brave little sucker to take the bus by himself. Kids are much brighter today. I couldn't go anywhere by myself until I was 7."
Kareem told The Post that the boy's absence was noticed quickly.
"Usually, he just sits in the house and watches a movie, like 'SpongeBob.' " said Kareem. "When I came back, my stepdad asked me, 'Did you take Ricky with you?' and I told him no. That's when we called police."
Cops began a search, but it didn't last long Clarence, or Ricky, as the family calls him, had been spotted by a cinema security guard.
"He walked in with a woman, but she told me, 'That's not my kid,' " said the guard, who gave only his last name, Bachelor.
By then, Clarence had walked past the flexible barrier where tickets are taken. Bachelor kept an eye on the tot as he let himself into "Robots."
The guard followed Clarence, and the child told him how he'd gotten to the theater.
"For a lost kid, he sure was calm," Bachelor said.
He told the boy to enjoy the film, while he went outside and called cops.
Police picked up Clarence and brought in his father to the precinct for questioning. He was later charged with endangering the welfare of a child, police said.
"I can't thank the police enough for finding my boy, even though they arrested my husband," Sherrie Williams said.
Additional reporting by Philip Messing
