I knocked on the door and waited for a reply from inside the house.
"Who is it?" asked the voice of whom I thought belonged to Charlie.
"It's Aunty Kate," I replied, tugging onto my coat tighter. Charlie opened the door, a weak smile plastered onto his face.
"Hi, Aunty Kate," he greeted, looking at the floor.
"Hey, Charlie. Is your mother in?" Although I knew the answer, I wanted to know how she was doing.
"Yeah, she's just making tea." He let me in the house and into the living room. I sat down on the sofa and admired what my older sister had done to her house. She changed it up and made it how she wanted to; I always tried to fit in with the latest trends.
"So, Charlie, how's school?" I asked, trying to make the conversation as normal as possible.
"Yeah, it's good. We chose our GCSE options and I think it will be alright," he said, understanding my hint.
"Aww, what did you choose?" I put Lucas on my lap and let him play with my dyed-blonde hair.
"I chose English, Maths and Double Science, obviously. And my choices were Drama, Geography, Sociology, French, Spanish, Media Studies and Business Studies," he explained, counting the subjects off his fingers to make sure that he didn't miss out any subjects.
"That's great! What are you planning to be when you're older?" I questioned him.
"Oh, I'm more of the type to go where life leads me, to be honest." He was exactly like his mother. They didn't plan their futures, whereas I knew that I wanted to be a teacher from the moment I entered secondary school.
After a couple of minutes talking to Charlie about school, Peggy entered the living room, balancing a tray of tea and cakes in one hand.
"Hi, Kate and Lucas. I've made some tea and cakes if you want." Peggy placed the tray on the small table in front of us. Lucas went for the chocolate one immediately; chocolate was his favourite flavour of anything really. I sipped my tea and had a cake or two.
"Charlie, why don't you show Lucas your new treehouse?" Peggy tried to coax Lucas and Charlie out of the room so they wouldn't listen to our conversation.
"Yeah, Charlie! I want to see it!" Lucas leapt out of my lap and Charlie led him to the treehouse.
As soon as we heard the back door open and close, Peggy turned to me.
"I don't want them to be burned up!" she whispered loudly.
I nodded when an idea sprung to mind, "Couldn't we get pills so it would be easier to... to die?"
"They have some in our nearby pharmacy. I could get some," Peggy suggested, "We could put several amounts in our food so it will be easier to swallow."
"Yeah. You can get them and I'll look after the kids. We'll put it in our dinner," I said, checking my watch to see if it was too late for dinner. I felt like a murderer for thinking of this plan, but I had to do it. I wanted Lucas to die in the most easiest way possible. The thought of killing my own child brought a tear to my eye. I quickly wiped it before Peggy could see.
"OK, I'll go off now!" Peggy put on her jacket and exited the house.
I strolled into the garden, about to admire the hot weather, when I remembered that it was freezing. I remembered that Lucas and Charlie went in the treehouse with only a t-shirt. I was about to call them but I realised that the treehouse was quite high up, so calling them will only sound like a whisper.
I had to climb up the treehouse. I wasn't scared of anything... apart from heights. I guess, if I ever wanted to conquer my fear, today would be the day. I grabbed onto the ladder and slowly pulled myself up the ladder. Once I eventually reached the top, I had to gather up all my courage to lift one arm up and knock on the wooden door.
"Lucas! Charlie! Open the door!" I exclaimed, banging on the door. Charlie pulled open the door I luckily pulled my hand back before going in for another knock.
"Oh, sorry, Charlie!" I peeked my head up so I could look at the treehouse, "Wow, it's pretty nice!" I hoisted myself up so I was properly inside the treehouse. Charlie and Peggy had laid it out so it looked like a games room. There was a pool table and an arcade game. There was even a mini fridge!
"Guys, come on down, it's pretty cold up here and we don't want you to catch a cold!" I tried to put on my bravest voice.
"OK, Mummy," Lucas obeyed once I reached the bottom of the treehouse. Once Lucas climbed down, Charlie started to make his way. He climbed down swiftly, until he missed a step...
