It was the summer of 2013, when this happened.  I was only nine years old at this time. We were bored out of our minds. Since there was nothing to do my cousins and I decided to go the park across the street. We didn’t tell our parents because they were drinking and we didn’t want to disturb them from having fun. From the apartments the park was only a few blocks away.

To begin, we arrived at the park and started playing games and having races on the track. After sometime, we saw six boys approaching us. They looked like they were in high school, but one looked only a few years older than us. They all looked tall, scary, and pretty strong except for the youngest looking one. They looked like they could easily overpower all of us in a second. My first impression was that they were going to come up to us and steal us. Everyone was keeping an eye on each other and the boys were getting closer and closer. We sensed as should get away and started playing Numbers, a hand game. They were getting closer but we didn’t notice. Soon the boys were only a few feet away from us.

“Why don’t you back to your mommy?” said one of the boys.

“Why don’t you leave us alone? My cousin Arlene said.

One of the other boys chimed in “Yea, NO!”

Then, we started to get worried. My cousins and I got up and started to leave the track and head to the park. While walking past the boys I accidently knocked one of their juices on the ground. I said “sorry” calmly but then started to run towards the park. The boy whose drink got knocked down shouted something out but I was too far down the track to hear what he said. I opened the gates to the park and my cousins and I started to play.

Sure enough we’d forgotten about the boys. But then we saw the boys opening the gates to the park from the track we kept playing. The boy approached me and asked “Is that your boyfriend”. I replied with a simple “no??”. He said he could be my boyfriend. I started getting freaked out. I gave all my cousins a look and we all started walking. The boy who asked me the question said “You’re not going anywhere”, we ran towards the river that was behind the park our guts told us that this was the best escape. We called our parents from Arlene’s phone but they didn’t pick up.

Next, we finally arrive at the bridge, we were so tired. My legs were hurting I couldn’t run anymore. From the trees Arielis saw a head peeking out. We knew who it was, the boys from earlier. I honestly didn’t know what they wanted from us. We were only 9 and 7 years old. We saw a phone call from Arlene’s phone! We were relieved, we answered it, it was my sister. She asked where we were we all responded with “at the park”. She didn’t yell at us but she calmly told us to get back to the house. I told her that we would be there under ten minutes.

As we headed home, Arielis then realized that she left her phone back at the park. We all screamed at her because we didn’t want to meet up with those boys again. It was outside the park gates when. We heard Arielis scream “HELP!!!!!!” we were all confused to why she was screaming but we ran to her anyways. When we got there the oldest boy was grabbing her leg and trying to drag her with the boys. As a team of three we all ran and grabbed Ariels’s leg. The boy finally let go of her leg at least she was freed and safe. I shouted “We’re calling the cops” and the boys ran away. I smiled and felt relieved, in my head I thought “What did they want anyways”.

In conclusion, I honestly don’t know why I didn’t think of saying that before but now I know is to never go without permission anywhere. We walked back home and acted as if nothing happened. It was late and I found out that we didn’t have to go home. Arlene was happy because I was sleeping over. We watched some movies and fell asleep. I don’t know if they wanted to rape us or kidnap us but I’m glad they didn’t do either.