One: Bullies and Witches
I should of known when the mirror cracked.
Ok, so maybe I'm over playing it, the crack was just a minor effect (thank the lord) from Josh's wonderful idea to play baseball inside the house. I stomped over to him, with a rant I had planned thoroughly in my head. Instead found the boy with a quivering lip, crying about he just couldn't play outside. My heart hurt for the little boy in front of me. He was always one kept to himself, avoiding the many kids that were littered around our small town of Cathaway, Massachusetts .
When I mentioned small, I meant it. Our town containing exactly a grand total of 524 residents. Our town build before... a jail for the many who were accused of witchcraft during the Salem Witch Trials in the late 1600's.
"Josh, you know mum's going to be furious. " I scolded softly.
"I know Nandhi, bu—but Clyde's out s-side a-and he was making f—fun of me again" His eyes glossy with tears.
I let out a small sigh as I stood up grabbing Josh's hand. This has been the fourth time Clyde and his goons targeted Josh. I glanced back at my younger brother with his light blonde hair and his pale blue eyes surrounded with dark rimmed glasses. At the age of 10, he was an extremely intelligent boy who showed great promise for the future. If only he could stand up for himself too, then people wouldn't pick on him so easily.
Oh, shut up Nanditha you know he gets picked on because of you.
I grimaced at the truth in my conscience. I pulled Josh out the door, glancing at dad who was in the living room, head lolling to the side.
"I'm going out with Josh for a little bit." I stated, shutting the door. It wasn't like I was going to get a response from him anyway.
" Ok, so tell me where Clyde is." I asked to a sniffling Josh.
"They were at the park." He answered, steadying his voice.
There was only one park and that was the elementary which was at this time suppose to be closed.
I frowned, "Why didn't you just play in the backyard?"
Josh's face quickly turns to a scowl, "Mrs. Milford always has her evening tea parties outside, and I can hear her talking about you".
I gave a small pained smile, gripping his hand. This boy couldn't even step outside in his own backyard without being reminded about his witch of a sister.
"Don't be sad Nandhi, I never like the backyard anyway. Mrs. Milford always has stupid gnomes out, and I pretty sure she'll have a heart attack if I break one more". His grin was infectious, before I even knew it I was giggling with this precious boy.
When we finally reached the playground I could definitely say these boys were up to no good. I heard the cheers even before we made it there. There were six of them in total, two in the middle with the other four in each corner of an imaginary square.
I automatically recognized the big burly boy in the middle as Clyde. He was unusually tall for his age, but by the look of it didn't think twice to fill his size up with some extra cake. I watched as he snickered while twisting a much smaller boy's arm; the boy was gritting his teeth while free tears fell from his wide eyes. To top the cake of this disgusting scene, the 4 other boys were laughing like hyenas at the boy's pain.
I glanced back at Josh who seemed to have turned paler than usual. I gave him a quick nudge in question.
"That's Thomas", Josh whispered.
Josh had spoke about him before, he was after all the only friend Josh seemed to have liked and got along with.
"Ok boys, parties over!" I stated sternly as I stepped from the shadows. Clyde quickly left the boy, before turning to me a scowl on his face.
