The Family Home

They crawled silently through the hall. Making sure to remain as silent as possible. Kyle sniffled.

“Shh!” Jonathan said.

“I’m sorry.” Mouths Kyle, too scared to speak outloud.

Downstairs, they could hear things being broken. It was noisy and loud and scary. They had no idea who was downstairs or what they wanted. They just knew they needed to get out of there fast. Unfortunately, they had limited options on outlet points. The only ways out were through the front and the kitchen doors. But both doors were downstairs. And so were the intruders. They got to the entrance of their parents’ bedroom, but seeing as they were home alone, they knew there would be no one in there to help.

Suddenly, they heard someone coming up the stairs. Quickly, they got into their parents’ bedroom, locked the door behind them and ran under the bed.

“What are you doing?” A voice outside in the hallway asked.

“What does it look like?”

“You’re not supposed to be up here. Get back downstairs, now.”

Kyle and Jonathan looked at each other, surprised. They both recognized one of the voices. But they could not believe it.

“Peter?” They both mouth out the name, in realization, confusion and fear. It was impossible to iagine that Peter would do anything like this. He was like a brother to them. Their parents treated him like one of them.

“Let’s get what we came for and go. No one needs to get hurt.” Said Peter.

“I thought you said the house is empty?” Other guy.

“Does it matter? As long as we get what we came for, the rest...”

“But I bet there are valuable things in the bedrooms. That’s where people keep the best of everything.”

“Yes,” replied Peter. “But we are here for the stash I hid.”

“Hey guys, let’s go. Found it.” A third voice.

“You heard the man, Max. Let’s go.”

“But the other rooms...”

“Would you rather I call and tell him you want us to get caught because of a few dollars worth of jewels?” Asked Peter, angrily.

“Fine. Let’s go,” replied the other guy.

Kyle and Jonathan lay under the bed listening to their footsteps as they went down the stairs. They heard the front door open and close. The house was finally quiet. Maybe too quiet. They were still too scared to leave their safe haven. They lay there under thebed holding hands, too scared to breath loudly for what felt like hours. Suddenly the front door opened loudly.

“Kyle? Jonathan? Are you ok?”

Steps coming up the stairs. It was Peter. He was back and he actually sounded concerned. Peter stopped infront of their parent’s bedroom and tried the knob.

“Guys, I know you’re in there. Please open the door and let me explain. It’s not what you think.”

Kyle and Jonathan looked at each other, shocked. Jonathan shook his head, as if to tell Kyle that they could not trust Peter. What were they going to do?