� Sep. 24, 2008
Attempted Breakthrough

To have looked out your own window and seen someone try to break into a neighbor’s house, right before you eyes, is a rare site. At 12:30 in the afternoon it is even a rarer site. You can imagine my utter surprise when I did encounter both scenarios.   

As was before stated it was around 12:30 in the afternoon. I had just walked from out of the dining room into my own bedroom, after having eaten my lunch. My thoughts were engaged upon other things, and I didn’t really notice Anna (mrs.gamgee) sitting at her desk and peering out of the window with a strange look upon her face. The desk just mentioned, was situated in front of a window facing our backyard. Our backyard in turn rests besides the backyard of the house behind ours.

I came up to behind her to show her a song on my ipod, but she didn’t seem intrigued. Nay, on the contrary she turned to me and said, “Molly, there’s a guy who’s freaking me out!”

I in turn looked out the window to see what she was looking so strangely at, and seeing nothing abnormal, she then further explained by pointing to a guy in a white shirt standing by the side of the house behind ours. She then told me that he had before knocked on all the doors and windows of the house, after which, he stood there for a very long time. All of this said, not to mention there was also no car in their driveway, and the person who lived there was a single mother and two teenage daughters. The girls were at school and the mom was probably at work. So it was very odd that some teenage guy was knocking on all the doors and windows when obviously no one was at home, plus by doing it in the backyard, not the front.

Anna then told me that she had seen him rip a screen upon a lower window, and then bang upon the window itself. By that time I too was also a little out of sorts and when I saw him throw something at the side of the house or a window, I couldn’t rightly tell, I got up and quickly informed my mom.

I came into the kitchen where mom was busily cooking away, and told her what we had just seen. Once I had pointed out the guy to my mom, she picked up the phone and called the police. Not five minutes later, they parked their cars in front of our house and came to the back of our yard. Meanwhile all three of us were standing back in my room to try to get a better view of the guy. When the police walked into our back yard, mom and us went out to the backdoor to talk to them.

By this time the guy was already out of sight, we weren’t sure if he had gotten into the house, or if he had given up. The police officers asked us the guy’s description and they thought that they knew where he might be. They then departed to go find him, and informed us that they would probably be coming back later.

The time was now 1:00, and I couldn’t focus enough to do school, so I basically sat at my desk thinking about what I had seen, and ended up thinking of the bad guys in my story.

A little while later a police officer drove up to our house again, and wanted me and my sister to ride with him in the back of his car and go with him to identify the man they had caught. He also asked my mom, and she said she’d just drive behind him and follow him. I then, being shy and not really wanting to sit in the back of the police car, decided along with my sister to go with my mom. Only now, I wish I had gone with the police officer, I would have had more to tell of. Oh well.

We rode just a half a block down our street and stopped in front of a house. I instantly recognized the guy, and suddenly a sickening feeling crept over me, realizing that the teenager lived there. It was true I had seen a few teenage boys before playing basketball in that driveway.

The police car stopped and we pulled to the side of the road. As I looked out the car window, I could see the boys family all standing in the yard, looking annoyed. One or two older teenage boys looking at the scene, also. The suspect was actually not facing us, he was made to look the other way so he couldn’t see who we were, but I knew all his brothers could. A bunch of police officers with guns strapped at their sides stood around me as I was asked to get out of the car by myself, and then asked a bunch of questions: My name, my date of birth, if I had seen the suspect before, if I recognized him to be the same one who I had seen in the back of my neighbor’s yard, etc. After a few minutes, I went back into our car, and my sister was asked to get out and it was then her turn to answer the questions as they wrote them down. It was then my mom’s turn, but she didn’t know a whole lot, she hadn’t seen the boy for very long before the police had arrived.

We then drove home.

It was not until later that evening when I was standing in my back yard talking on the phone with Katie, when the woman who lived in the house behind us, saw me and walked up to me. She asked if we were the ones who had seen and called the police, I told her yes. She then thanked me profusely and told me that the guy had indeed broken a window, and if it weren’t for the police would have most likely gotten into the house and maybe stolen something. I smiled and told her it was no problem; that we were glad to have helped.

Now mom has told us that whenever she leaves the house, Anna and me are to make sure both the back and the front doors are locked. It is kind of scary knowing that the boy lives just a few houses down from us. The whole incident gave me a new perspective on things, so I intend to make sure the doors are locked when I’m home alone.

I hope you all enjoyed my exiting day yesterday!

I fare ye well!
~Molly