I was a 9 y/o girl, he was my 16 y/o babysitter

Let’s start with a little background. I’m an American girl, at the time of this story I was a 9 y/o girl living in Europe. My parents had good friends who also had a daughter my age. We’ll call her Britta. We would sometimes have sleepovers at their house, which was about a 20 minute drive from my house. I had 2 other siblings at the time, so when my parents wanted a night out it was easier to leave all of us at this friends house because they had an extra bedroom for us to share and we could just hang out at their house. <br><br>One night my parents dropped me and all of my stuff off at their house, but when I walked into their house Britta was sick, had a fever and was in bed and very miserable. I was disappointed, but her parents asked if I wanted to still stay, and we could hang out together. So I said yes.<br><br> Britta’s mom decided to take Britta to see a doctor the next morning, but wanted to leave early, so she wanted to go to bed to get a good nights sleep beforehand. Her dad had to work the next morning, so he also went to bed on time as well. Their mother told me she didn’t want to send me home bc it was already bedtime and they didn’t want to wake my parents, plus I kind of didn’t want to leave. I also wanted to hang out with Britta bc I was sure she would be feeling better the next day.<br><br>So I still ended up staying over, but went to bed early in the extra bedroom. <br><br>I woke up later that night to hear someone in the room I was in. It was a boy about 16. I didn’t recognize him. I realized he was just looking for something under the bed, and the family cat was hiding under the bed bc he was there. I went back to sleep thinking nothing of it, but I remember being confused as to who he was and why he would be in the extra room.<br><br>I woke up again to hear Britta’s mother asking the boy all kinds of questions about things. Some things were missing, including money, and apparently he had rummaged through some other rooms and taken some personal items. I didn’t hear what he answered, but he ended up leaving. <br><br>The next morning I woke up and asked what all the commotion was. They told me who the boy was and how he had been in all of the rooms including mine, and they were glad I didn’t wake up and freak out at seeing him. He was the son of one of their friends, they had left a spare key under a pot near the front door in case they wanted to come over and Britta’s parents weren’t home yet. This key was only to be used in an emergency. The boys parents had left town for vacation and had asked Britta’s mother to check on the house periodically and bring in the mail. But this boy was supposed to be staying at his grandparents.<br><br>What he did was get a copy of the key and would go to the house any time he wanted. They realized he had already been in the house several times before, bc things had already been missing. They never would have figured it out bc they never used the extra room so they never really went into it. But bc I was staying over, he didn’t know what to do so he went looking for a place to hang out until morning and that’s how they caught him.<br><br>I never saw the boy again, but I heard he got in a lot of trouble with his parents and school. I never forgot that night and always wondered what would have happened if I had woken up and caught him or if he would have done something weird if he realized I was awake and in the room. <br><br>So lets not meet again mysterious key copyer.