Chapter 3

“What?” Mom was a little shocked. She tried to say something else, but the caller had hung up.

“Charlie!” Mom’s face turned crimson with rage. She screamed through the house. “Get out here right now!”

“What happened?” Dad asked with confusion. “He’s still playing outside. He isn’t around.”

“That boy put razor blades in Maggie’s competitor’s skates! The organizers just called. They want us to cooperate with the investigation!”

“That stupid boy! Does he have any idea how important this competition was for Maggie? He could have ruined everything!”

“But that doesn’t make sense,” Dad said in puzzlement. “We told him to stay home this morning and do Maggie’s homework for her. He never left the house.”

Then, as realization dawned on them, Mom and Dad exchanged a look before turning toward Maggie, who was shivering.

“Maggie, it was you…”

Before Mom could finish speaking, Maggie burst into tears, but it was not because of guilt.

“What am I supposed to do now? This is the first championship I’ve ever won! What if they take my medal away? I don’t want to give it back!”

Seeing Maggie’s reaction, Mom understood everything. She looked shocked, but more frustrated than horrified.

“How could you do something like this? If you were going to do it, you should’ve let your brother handle it for you. Why would you do it yourself?”

Dad, however, barely seemed concerned. He pulled Maggie into his arms and comforted her gently. “It’s fine. We’ll just tell them Charlie did it. Come on now, is something this small really worth our princess crying over?”

“But Charlie is a boy,” Maggie sniffled and voiced out with concern.

Dad waved the concern away without hesitation. He said with confidence, “That’s easy. We’ll put him in a wig and a dress. Nobody will notice. He dressed like a girl and solved problems for you plenty of times before.”

Dad was talking about the times Maggie had bullied other kids at school.

Ever since kindergarten, she had always picked on weaker classmates. Teachers disliked her, parents filed complaints, and eventually Mom and Dad had no choice but to move us to a different neighborhood.

When Maggie started elementary school, Mom wanted to make sure she could keep tormenting her classmates without facing any consequences. She put me in a wig and a dress and made me take the blame for everything Maggie did.

“Charlie, you’re a boy. It’s your job to protect your sister. If anyone says Maggie hurt them, you’ll step forward and tell them you did it. Let them come after you instead.”

With my mother’s permission, Maggie’s behavior at school grew worse and worse.

What started as merely tripping kids in the hallway and kicking chairs turned into cruel insults, social exclusion, and even dumping paint over classmates.

Every single time, I was shoved forward to take the fall for her.

At school, people started calling me “the little devil.” My friends gradually stopped talking to me. Even older students began cornering me in alleys after school just to beat me up.

I told Mom everything that was happening to me. I thought maybe she would protect me.

Instead, she just waved me off impatiently.

“You’re a boy. You’re tougher than you think. A few punches aren’t going to kill you.”

One day, during another beating after school, somebody ripped my wig off. That was how they found out that I was a boy dressed like a girl.

After that, the entire school knew.

Everywhere I went, people called me names. Freak. Drag. Pervert.

Even though the teachers eventually stepped in and punished the students involved, the damage had already been done. The nightmares started after that.

Every night, I dreamed of my classmates laughing at me. In the dreams, they all carried scissors. They would surround me and stab me over and over and over again until I died.

As those memories washed over me, I could not stop myself from shivering.

“Where could that brat have run off to? Look at the time. We need to drag him to the organizers tomorrow to explain everything.”

“Unbelievable. To think that we have to go out at this hour to look for him.”

With that, my mother and father pulled on their coats and shoes. They reluctantly walked toward the front door.

Just as they reached the front door, someone rang the doorbell.

Thinking it was me, Mom yanked the door open and started yelling, “You darn brat! So you finally decided to come…”

Before she could finish her sentence, the sight before her struck her silent.

Two police officers were standing outside the door with grim expressions.

The lead officer held up his badge and said in a stern voice, “Good evening. We’re investigating a homicide. Preliminary evidence suggests the case involves a member of your household. Please come with us.”

My parents looked stunned. Then they forced out a smile and said, “Officer, there must be some mistake. Everyone in our family is perfectly fine.”

The lead officer’s expression remained stern as he added, “A boy’s body was discovered about an hour ago in a dark alley behind the shopping district. The victim had severe burns on his forehead.”

At those words, both of my parents stiffened. Only then did they realize that I had been missing for ten hours.