The footsteps get closer, but grandad and I are ready. The man opens the door as if expecting not to find anything. His head turns and he smirks, as he gets closer his smirk turns into a surprise. ‘B-b-betty boy?’ he whispers. I freeze, my head is trying to understand the situation but it is all too much. The only people who called me Betty Boy were from years ago. Finally, I get a glimpse of him. He looks different but I’m sure it’s him ‘Jake? What are YOU doing here?’ He looks at me, I can almost see the shame in his eyes, he looks down. ‘It’s a long story,’ he says.

‘These men, why are they here? They all came out of nowhere, they want to kill us, one of them …’ I start questioning as fast as I can.

‘Hold your horses’ grandad grunts.

Suddenly the whole situation sinks in and I clam up, my body freezes again. My body is frozen but my brain is on overdrive. I was supposed to have this handled, they were supposed to drop like flies. I was supposed to show my courage and strength tonight, prove that I wasn’t the baby in the family. Did I chicken out? Am I really not strong enough to go through with this? Maybe they were right all along…maybe I…

– Thump – Jack’s body falls to the floor; I look over at grandad, stunned.  I’ve known Jack since he was a kid, I even had a crush on him at one point. But I can’t say a word, my whole body is still frozen. Grandad throws the baseball bat over his shoulder as he whispers, ‘Cats got your tongue?’

‘It’s just, well…I knew him…’ my voice trails off. I try to get my voice back. ‘Good thing it’s raining cats and dogs otherwise everyone would have heard that,’ I say, trying to sound a little more confident.
Grandad stops and hugs me. ‘Look sweety, I know this is hard. You might know him but the truth is that he was here to hurt our family. Something is fishy around here, how did he know you? Why did they target our family? We need to get some answers, that way we might just be able to understand what these men want.’

My heart starts racing, I’m ready to get things done. I just don’t know what came over me when I saw Jack. The way he said ‘Betty Boy’, he sounded surprised. Like he didn’t know I was going to be here. It didn’t seem like he wanted to hurt me, but grandad was right. I could stand here and go over the whole situation again and again in my head until the cows come home or I could take the bull by the horns and get things done. We need more information and I think we should getit straight from the horse’s mouth.