My dad sent me this email this morning. Danny is my little 10 year old brother. He's in 5th grade. Adam, Joey, Marty, and their dad live down the street from us, and were sort-of friends with Danny.

*****

We had an interesting evening tonight. Adam, his dad, Joey and
Marty greeted me in the driveway today and demanded that we return the Harry
Potter cards that Joey gave Danny back in the spring - which Danny already
returned (cause they ain't around here). I told their dad I was a little
busy at the moment and really didn't have a lot of time for it (a test to
study for and all), and would look into it tomorrow, if he looked into the
whereabouts of Danny's Nintendo game. They claim to have returned it (Danny
is claiming amnesia - so he may have lost it on his own - I don't know).
Then they claimed that Danny had 300 Harry Potter cards and they wanted them
back or $100. I told him the only HP cards Danny had were about 120 that I
bought him, because he already returned theirs.

Their dad said he didn't want to hear it, cards or money by tomorrow. I
acknowledged that it was too bad the kids didn't keep track of what they
were doing, but I would offer to reconcile it by giving them Danny's cards
if we got the game back. More than reasonable I thought.

Their dad said, "That's b*******, your going to get trouble now!" and
stomped off and promptly called the police. So I got to talk to them too.
Pretty nice, huh?! The police said its the typical he said - she said with
kids. He told us they actually asked him to search our house! Obviously
because we're blatant liars!

To keep this from escalating any further (like to the Magistrate), I'm
debating on paying them off for their extortion scheme to close the issue,
telling their boys to stay away from Danny and our house and yard. I'll
tell their Dad that Marty needs to stop harassing Danny or they're going to
have a really BIG problem with me. (I'll mention that Marty already hit
Danny in the back with his skateboard this past summer, admitted it to me,
and promised not to touch him again.) All I'm really worrying about is the
fallout between Danny and Marty.

*****

Obviously, I left in my dad's...erm...editorializing. I'm just curious to see what advice any of you may have to offer.

The Other "Truth be told: I always knew Danny shouldn't've been hanging around them, anyways" Matthew