The third story happened to me, when my family lived in the US. Being foreigners moving around a lot, not familiar with US custom, and with trouble learning the language, we didn't mingle with our neighbors, and after a year, the neighborhood didn't try to get in contact with us anymore either. We kept to ourselves, and so seemed everyone else. Until one day, a letter arrived.

It was a warning. It went something like this: 'Be alert. A registered sex offender is moving into your community. Stay watchful.' Nothing else. Not who send it, or why we got it, or what we were supposed to do with that information. All it did, was instill fear in us. The only house where somebody was moving, was right across the street form us. But unsure if this was the person the warning was referring to, my family didn't know how to react. So my parents decided that we should just keep to ourselves like before.

After all, this was the US. A prudish country, where kids sometimes got expelled from school for kissing a friend on the cheek. We had heard stories about people who had ended up on such lists, without ever having done anything evil. Like some teens caught making out, when one family was so strict that they'd already sue over something like that. And since the letter didn't specify, what offense this was about, there was no telling if it was just some youngster who'd been caught in a bad situation, or some monster actively hunting down children to abduct them.

However, I was very scared. The concept of abuse was still abstract to me, but it frightened me none the less. And a teenager was already an intimidating figure to me, so it didn't matter if the letter was talking about the neighbor, or his sons. Because that was the thing, it wasn't some lonely, creepy old man that moved into the house. It was a family. A mother, a father, and two teenage boys. And a lot more family would visit there often, like grandparents, or a young woman with a baby. I knew this, because my room was actually right opposite to their house, and my desk was placed under the window. I often wondered, who the evil person was supposed to be. All I ever observed were people, greeting what I assumed to be family members with a smile, and hugging them whenever they left. And the boys used to make music in the garage, one playing drums, the other guitar. The one drumming would practice more often, always repeating the same beats over and over. But I didn't even find it annoying.

Then one day, I was outside, walking my cat. When we had moved in, seeing how there was hardly any traffic but a lot of nature, we had granted our cats the freedom to go outside. Until our Main Coon mix came home with a limp, that turned out to be from a bullet wound. Our landlord assumed it was a neighbor's kid known for shooting at squirrels. So we didn't let our cats roam free anymore, but we would walk them around our big back yard, and sometimes around the house to the front yard too. On that day my cat had wanted to explore more of the front yard, so I walked him there.

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The neighbors were practicing their music in the garage again. It sounded nice, and so I stood there, facing that way to listen. In between, the music stopped. As it often did. I waited for them to continue. They did start up again, but stopped soon after, and I saw a white shape in one of the garage windows. I paid no attention, as I also had to look out for my cat to not tie his leash into a knot around a bush. The music continued, so I faced front to listen further. But then it stopped once more, and the white shape popped up again. And then I realized it was a face, looking at me. Then a hand was raised, and the person waved to me.

I got scared. I didn't wave back. I instead turned to my cat, and started pulling him towards me, talking to him, as if we had something important to do, that I nearly forgot about. Once I held him in my arms, I turned around and slowly walked back towards the back yard. I was breathing faster, and held my cat clutched to my chest, making him worried too. As soon as I got to the corner of my house, where the back yard began, I ran. I stormed up to our porch, closed it up, went inside the house through our back door, and locked that too. Then I sat down against the door, holding my cat and tried to calm down. I kept eyeing the windows, in case someone approached the backyard. I was so frightened.

In my anxious mind, I was thinking that I had made a mistake, letting the neighbors see me alone like that. Staring over to them, as if I wanted to meet them. And feeling guilty, because a small part of me did. But what if one of the boys was the offender? What if he now took an interest in me? I was only 12 at the time, but often got mistaken for older, some adults even guessing up to 16. But I was still just a child. And I was home alone that day. I didn't want them to know I was scared, as not to seem an easy target, which is why I only started running once I was out of sight. But I felt so stupid for even standing there and listening to the music in the first place. Which I then realized had started up again. So I could at last relax, but I still stayed with the cats in the kitchen and didn't go to my room, because I didn't want to be seen through the window.

Later when my parents came home, I told them about the incident. My father actually laughed at it, saying I was being silly, and that I should have just walked over and said hello when they waved. I argued that I couldn't have done that, because of the cat. He said I could have taken him with me, but I argued: 'And if things had turned ugly, then what? If I have to fight or run away, how will I protect my cat?' That really was my line of thought, once I felt safe among my family again. I was pretty tall even at that age, and quiet strong for a girl. But not very confident. And I guess I needed to defend my reaction before myself too.

Because part of me really would have liked to meet the people who made such nice music, and I could have used a friend, as I didn't have any and got bullied in school. But instead I refrained from taking my time in the front yard, and never made it obvious I was listening to them practicing again. We never spoke to the family, and never found out anything else either. We moved away just two years afterwards. Now as I look back at it, I understand my childish reaction. But I also pity the family that was shunned by us and the neighborhood, without ever being able to tell their side.

Moral of the story: Don't send out warnings if you're not gonna tell people exactly who and what they should be aware of, because all that does is spread fear and animosity!