My Friend the Sexual Predator(cont.3)

I walked up to the light green house. It was two stories high and my older sister was right next to me. I was only 8 when I first moved. The mother opened the door "hey Nikki! hey Kez!" We smiled with a slight pain in our hearts. "whats wrong?" She asked, as if sensing our sorrow. My older sister looked down at the ground. "Is it ok if we can play with Christy and Anthony? We need to talk." The mother looked a bit concerned but agreed. She called them down and we began to walk back to my house just down the street. Christy was excited and began making a list of things to do. "We can go bike riding, swimming, roller blading, play boardgames-" My older sister cut her off "Yeah we can do all of that...but it has to be soon because we're moving." Christy and Anthony stopped in their tracks. "Moving?!" They said simultaniously.I was almost driven to tears. We had grown up together. They were like an extension of our family. We were so close that we could have naturaly been brothers and sisters. We both nodded our heads and looked at them. I was a very quiet little girl. I didnt say much for fear of crying. Christy and Anthony gathered up their pieces that were shattered because of the news. "Alright then," he said "We better start hanging out alot more!" I smiled at him and finally said "Race you to the house!!" We shot off in a marathon of at least 20 feet to the house. Anthony won, being the most athletic. We went inside and did christy's entire list. When we were done, they went home, and the next day we moved. We had no choice, we couldnt say good bye.

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When we reached our new home, I was in awe at its warming beauty. It was an off-white with a stone privacy wall in the front. It had black burglar bars and beautiful plants and palms surrounding it. I was happy that we moved out of a bad neighborhood into a new nice one, but I was lost without my firends. We stayed in that house going through many times. We aquired new family members, lost some, and went through christmas after christmas in the family den with the stone fireplace. With in all of that I constanly heard news about my firends Anthony and Christy. Soon enough, my father broke the news of moving again. We had been kicked out of our home due to a bad money transaction. We had given our rent to some "good friends" and they had turned on us, using every last bit for their purposes. My family and I rushed to my Nana's small little house in the bad part of Homestead. It had two rooms, one bathroom, and a living room. All of it was squished together because they owned a small farm in the back of their house. They were the kindest to us, opening their home to 9 people. I was in middle school, 6th grade, at this time. I was happy in the little house, but I knew it was only temorary so I didnt get attached. We moved again within a month to a two story house in a complex. It was nice at first. Everything was fine until we got rats. These rats weren't your run-of-the-mill rats. These were morph rats, the kind you usually get on ships! They were huge! I was in constant fear of getting bitten by these rats. Often sitting with my feet up on couches and switching from my broken bed on the floor to sharing one with my older sister. Eventualy we got tired of the pest control promising to come and never doing so, and gathered our things and left.

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We reached our new house finally, the one I still call home. Between the 2 moves I had lost all contact with my friends, but gained new ones. I had almost completely forgot about them, if it hadn't been for the mail we recived as being their false address. When we settled into this new house, I was very happy that my father said we'd never move again. I liked the tranquility of the neighborhood, the amount of free space in the backyard, and the closeness of my new found friends. In this house we've so far spent 3-4 wonderful years! I've lost family members, but gained new ones. I've lost love and found it again in a new person. I've spent family trips through out Florida with my family, and during the worst times, that house was a sanctuary to many people(about 16 to be exact). Through all this happiness, lies dark secrets though. My older sister is now 21. She called a close friend that still lived in that neighbor hood one day to say happy birthday. The conversation went like this:
Kez: "Hey Jeff! Happy birthday!"
Jeff: "Thanks kez! How've you been?"
Kez: "Oh, Im good. You? Hows your family?"
Jeff: "They're all good. Yours?"
Kez: "same. How is the ol' neighberhood?"
Jeff: "great! Everyone is fixing up the place to make it look nice! But you wont belive the strangest thing kez..."
Kez: "What?"
Jeff: "Christy and Anthony moved!"
Kez: "Really?"
Jeff: "Yeah. One day there was a moving van in front of their house, the next day they were gone! The house was compltely abamndoned..."
Kez: "that is strange..." 
Jeff: "well, I gotta go. I have some friends over."
Kez: "Ok then, bye!"
Jeff: "Bye!"
Through out that week i was wondering if they had moved out of state, and why they had moved without saying anything to anyone. It was a complete mystery.

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(continuation)

It was a few months later that we all had a normal day. My younger brother, my younger sister, and myself going to school. My older sister taking us. My father working, my mother working, and my grandmother watching t.v. in her room with her puppy Jak. We got home and it all still seemed so normal. It was a friday so everyone went straight to relaxing when they got home. While I was on the computer, actually on Testriffic, my mom comes home and places her work bags on the counter "Hi mama!" I said to her, "Hi." she said in her usual exhausted voice. "How was school?" she asked "Good" I said. She asked me how my boyfriend was and I told her the same thing "good". Then she said "Oh! Do you remember Anthony Rico? Our old neighbors?" I didnt even have to thin about it. "yeah." I had my hopes high thinking she had gotten in contact with them and we were going to see them again! I was already makeing out a list of things to do when they arrived. I was so happy, especially when she told me "Ask your grandmother what happened." I thought to myself oh wow! Im going to see them again!! I told my friends on AIM that I would be right back and went to my grandmother's room. "Abby? Que paso con Anthony?"(Translation: What happened with Anthony?) She looked at me from the TV, "anthony?" She seemed to have forgotten for a second but she popped right back up "Anthony Rico! Do you remember him?" I nodded waiting to hear the wowrd 'I saw him with -whoever- next to me, and we recognized him, got his number and invited him over.' It was close but not exactly what my grandmother had done. She explain the story to me:
"I saw him with Kezia on the television. He was being hauled away in handcuffs for being a Sexual Predator. I said to myself, I think I know him...Kez said it was our old neighbor from our first house!"
Those words struck me with utter shock and made me sit down to hear the rest of her story.
"Apperantly," she said "He had been taking girls from his local church and harassing them. He raped a few. And it wasn't only girls! It was little boys to!" With every word I felt the pain that stabbed me in the heart. When I was a child I had a slight crush on him, and he was like my brother...it was all so confusing. I almost couldnt believe it. I was in total shock for the rest of the weekend. And if you readers believe me, I am still in a slight state of shock, especially when I play those words in my head, over and over and over again...'Anthony Rico...Sexual Predator...' i tried looking on the different news sites I know to read any articles they have on him, but I couldnt find any. I was slightly happy that I couldnt, but I know it wasnt a lie. My older sister was also in shock of that news, and almost nothing gets her into that kind of emotion. Thank you for reading this, it means alot to know that people care what I have to say, and find my life stories interesting.

Yours Sincerely,
Nikki