"You're back quicker than I expected," Dad says when we enter his office in the city hall. "Did you find it?"
Like Dad said, the message wasn't hard to find. We found the marked tree within an hour of searching and found a white envelope in a knot hole in the tree.
"Right where you told us it would be," Daniel nods, handing over the envelope.
Dad smile in a approval, looking it over for a moment. "Okay, you two wait here."
"I'm gonna go to the restroom," Daniel tells me and I nod, sinking down into the chair by the window.
I tap my fingers against the arm of the chair and bounce my leg up and down while I wait. I'm anxious to find out what's going to happen.
Something outside the window catches my eye, and I furrow my eyebrows, seeing a few boys that look to be around my age standing in an alley a couple of streets away. Two of them look like they're arguing while the others form a circle around them.
One of the arguing boys punches the second one in the face and he falls to the ground. The first boy kicks the second boy in the stomach and I frown. Why must boys be so uncivil?
The first one turns around, laughing to his friends, and I squint my eyes to see him. They're so far away that it's hard to tell who- the chair I was sitting in makes a rough scraping sound on the floor and I am out the door of Dad's office in probably less than a second. It's Andrew and Ben.
I run to the alley as fast as I can. Andrew turns and punches Ben a few more times while his friends cheer him on.
"Hey!" I shout, pushing my way through the circle to get to Ben. The boys let me through, their faces looking like they've been caught by their mother or something.
"Stop it!" I cry, shoving Andrew away from Ben and stepping in front of his body. I glance at him and suck in a breath at all of the blood on his face. "What the hell are you doing? You're the one who's been bullying him this whole time?"
"Oh come on, it's just a little harmless fun," Andrew sneers and I narrow my eyes at him.
"Harmless fun?" I repeat his words. "You're sick, Andrew."
The other boys make an ooh sound and Andrew steps towards me.
"It's not like it's anything that he doesn't deserve."
I raise my eyebrows at him and he chuckles.
"So he never told you? Some best friend you are," he laughs. "He a fag, Lottie!"
"What?" I say, too dumbfounded to say anything else.
"He's gay," he laughs and the rest of his friends join in with him. "I caught him kissing his boyfriend a few weeks ago."
I sneak another glance at Ben on the ground before looking back at Andrew.
"So what? That doesn't give you the right to do this!" I hiss.
"Someone has to," Andrew shrugs. "He's not normal."
"Shut up Andrew," I snap. The boys all fall silent and Andrew steps forward, grabbing my arm and pulling me close to him so we are face to face.
