Peter - The Meeting

6th April 2025

I sat in the summerhouse with both doors open, as part of the deal. Dad was keeping his part by parking himself by the garden table where he had a full view of me. I had brought with me my drink of orange juice and a plate of cakes that mum had kindly put out for us, and now I was waiting, and thinking, also a little nervous wondering how it would go.

My thoughts were soon eased when I saw Peter walking across the lawn after receiving directions from dad. He didn't look the sort of person who would be a threat. I sat and watched as everyone else came out of the house and gathered around the table with dad, even Charlotte was there, I thought she might be but I wasn't sure.

Peter's head dropped as he walked across the gravel to the doors of the summerhouse, I could feel his apprehension just by looking at him. As he walked in I immediately told him to sit on the couch. I was firm with him as I didn't want him muttering 'sorry' and then legging it back across the lawn to the others, all of whom were seated around the table now, dad a little to one side so he still had a clear view of me.

He did as he was ordered without argument so I eased off the throttle a little. I had to remember how grandfather got on my case and try to do it in an opposite manner. So I said he could put his drink on the table if he wished, also to take a cake when he wanted. He was actually a good looking boy, he and Charlotte could be twins as far as looks go as they were very similar in appearance.

“So, what do you have to tell me then?”

He looked at me, “I'm sorry; I shouldn't have done what I did.” 

“So why did you do it?” I asked in my kindest voice.

I could tell by now that he is a very shy boy, again, very much like his sister is. It seems he is desperate for a girl friend. apparently all his mates have girl friends but he doesn't. He said he wasn't bullied over it, just that he felt left out, also it makes him feel bad about himself because no girls like him.

“Believe me, there will be one girl at least that would like you, it's just that you haven't met each other yet.” I told him.

I didn't know if this were true or not as some people can go through life and never seem to meet the right person, well, not that one knows about. But I'd heard it said and thought it might help him in some way.

I then questioned him about why he did what he did. His reply was that he was just playing around with Charlotte's phone one day when he was board and when he guessed her pin number he started looking through it and eventually got to looking at her address book where he found the number of a French girl called Ysanne, who he recently asked to be his girl friend. So he then thought it was a good idea to send her some messages and as she replied he got more in to it and from what he says, they were getting along great. Of course, like me she thought she was talking to Charlotte.

Then one day at the stables he saw me when coming to pick up Charlotte and got to find out my name and so decided that as things were going so well for him with the other girl he would try the same thing on me.

However when Charlotte got her phone returned to her he had more difficulty for obvious reasons. He deleted the messages he send but he had no control over the ones that came back to Charlotte's phone so he tried to send messages when he knew he would have access to her phone for a length of time, such as during piano lessons. He realised now that he needed to move away from messaging as it was only a matter of time before his sister caught on to what was happening and so that was why he started inviting us to join him for whatever.

“So, I'm assuming that you thought we would overlook the fact that you had been lying to us then, not to mention the awful content in your messages?”

“It worked in a movie I once watched, they even ended up getting married.” Was his reply to this.

So that was basically the reasoning and how it all came about. I told him to get some cakes as I couldn't eat them all and that mum would be insulted if we returned any.

We eat cakes while I thought of my next step…