Malee was the first to left the spot. But she quickly noticed George was still standing on the same spot so she had to twist her body to ran back to the hut and pulled his hands. George felt the wind behind him as Malee took off, but he was too occupied in his own thoughts to take any actions. It was only when Malee’s hand grabbed and pulled him he realised their only option was to ran and ran as quickly as possible, till the main road at least. They were soon followed by the two thugs who had finished their job with Malee’s father and hell-bent on recovering their money by any means.

George ran fast, but not as fast as Malee. The thugs ran faster than both, and they only reached the end of the night market stalls before they caught the two children. Struggles by them followed, and they were about to lose their hopes when a voice shouted from a stall.

“Hey. What are you doing to them?,” Malee recognised it as the father of one of her friends.

They stopped struggling and looked around to find a few men holding knives and sticks. The sights of the men were enough for the two thugs to drop the children and ran into the dark.

“I know you. Malee, right? My daughter’s friend. What happened?,” asked one of the men, picking her up from the road. It so happened that they were about to close their stalls and heard the struggle and came forward to help. Many of their friends had been beaten up by the thugs and others have lost their lives. Just as Malee had told them what happened to her father, two policemen came in from the main road.

“What happened? We heard someone shouting.” said one of the policeman. The men cringed at the sight of the policeman. It was a well-known amongst them that there had been under the table money transfer from the gambling boss to them and they would dismiss the claims as rubbish. Malee started crying and one of the men started explaining to the policemen.

“So the children witnessed the beating? Well, we must bring them to the station.” said the other man with the narrow eyes and two of them dragged the children with the men cursing behind them. George still wasn’t sure what was happening and wasn’t sure if he was to be afraid or sad. Without knowing what to do, he did the next best thing as they were shoved into the seats at the back of the police car. He wrapped his hand on Malee’s shoulder, who still sobbing silently. The last desperate shout from her father still rang in her heart. The man she had always seen as no good gambling drug addict did what nobody expected.

The police car soon reached the central station, escaping the early morning traffic jam by a whisker as George could see the morning rush hour starting to build up around them. Hopefully, his father would also be stuck in the traffic jam, he thought to himself, but he knew it wouldn’t happen. He had seen traffic parted as he rode beside his father and several other men in black suites. The car pulled into the carpark as Malee had stopped sobbing. The children followed the policemen into the building and a small room where they were told to sit and wait.

“Don’t worry.,” said George calmly.

Malee wasn’t so sure though. George might have been the master of the house, but this was a police station. Who would believe their story? She recalled her father lying in a pool of blood and cried again.

“I am.. am.. so sorry to get you into trouble.” sobbed Malee. Not only her father was dead, she would definitely be fired for getting George into trouble. She couldn’t see any way out of the mess. Then the door opened with the same two men coming in.

“Ok. Lets here your story. If you tell lies, we will arrest you.”

George told the events as they unfolded, but the men refused to believe them.

“Look. I will say this one more time. You didn’t see her father getting beaten by them, right? So why are you saying they did it? Tell the story one more time. If not, I will arrest you for stealing.” smiled one of them, showing his coffee stained teeth.

“Get their finger prints. If they don’t tell the truth, we throw them behind the bar.”

The other man took George and Malee’s finger prints and walked out of the door.