Sneak Thief

by Faith Harkey

  * * *

  —

  One day, though, it was just me at Crispy Acres. I had plans to hang a horseshoe over Bitsy’s stall. For good luck with her calving, you know? The horseshoe, of course, came from Desiree. The hammer I borrowed—as in they loaned it, not I stole it—from the Orrs. As I hammered, the heifer watched me, chewing her cud all the while.

  I told her all about how Mabel was so brave having her own baby, and I was sure Bit would do just fine, too.

  “And I won’t ever take your baby from you. That’s a promise.”

  Nearby, someone cleared their throat. I looked up to see a man in overalls, bald in front, but with a long ponytail in the back. His face looked a lot like Crispy’s, though, so I figured he was the son who had inherited the Acres.

  “Hello,” I said.

  He jutted his chin at the stall. “You’ve made her a real nice home here, Miss Cantrell.”

  “Thanks,” I answered. “You can call me Hush. Most people do.”

  “Glad to meet you, Hush. I’m Jack.”

  I got up, dusted off my hands, and shook with him. “It’s a pleasure, sir. I liked your daddy very much.”

  He smiled. “Me too.” After a few quiet seconds, he said, “My wife, Amy, made some lemonade. She thought you might like a glass.”

  That sounded good, except, “What I could really use is a pee break. Do you have a bathroom? I’d be glad for some lemonade, after.”

  He said that would be fine. I patted Bitsy on the nose and promised I’d be back soon. Then Jack and I strolled across Crispy’s peaceful acreage and down to the house.

  Amy greeted us at the door. “You’re always welcome here, Hush. Anytime you’re tending your cow, you just come up for a glass of lemonade, or a tinkle, or just to say hi.”

  I thanked her and managed not to crack a grin about the idea of having a tinkle.

  Jack pointed me to the bathroom.

  I shut the door behind me, remembering the day I’d stolen a box of floss from the Orrs’ cabinet. It was nice—and a little peculiar—to be in a stranger’s house and not have my loco bearing down on me.

  After I did my business, I went to wash up—and found myself face to face with the bathroom mirror.

  There was me.

  And there were my imps.

  I had a lot of them, mostly over my heart. Strangely, a couple clung to the left side of my head. All but a few were pale red. As for those darker ones, I reckoned I knew what they signified.

  With a certainty, one imp was my pain at having to leave Mabel’s. She was the finest, strongest grown woman I’d ever known, and it was breaking my heart to part from her. And, yeah, I knew I was gonna see her nearly every day, even after summer. She’d even made me her official garden assistant with a name badge and a wage and everything. But it wouldn’t be just her and me. We were both package deals now. Mabel with Shaw and Tom and Travis. And me with Nina.

  I figured the second pain imp was all about Nina. I hadn’t forgiven her, not all the way. My heart just wasn’t big enough yet. And, though it didn’t happen every time, there were a lot of times that just seeing her face made me think of the terrible thing she’d said in Sass Foods. A mother has a great power to hurt her child, if she chooses, and Nina had left me with wounds that were slow to heal.

  The last scarlet imp might be harder to fathom. It’s definitely harder to own up to. It was my longing for my old life. As a sneak thief, I might have been lonesome and friendless and ornery, but I was also free. I had adventures. And secrets. There is a certain savor to possessing a secret. In my new, honest world, I had few of them—and none of them juicy.

  Looking in that mirror, I couldn’t help thinking that I wasn’t the only pain lifter in town now. Nina hadn’t actually plucked any imps, but she could. The walk from Crispy Acres to Brandy’s was less than a mile long. It wouldn’t be hard to hunt down Nina. In twenty minutes, I could be feeling no pain.

  The spirit of Granny Cunningham seemed to rise up in me, though. Pain is a teacher, she whispered, and we should heed it.

  So, in the end, it came to this: I could let my mother pluck my pain—letting us both off the hook, in a way—or I could learn what the hurt had to teach me.

  I considered the still-thin but not-so-sickly girl in the mirror. All at once, it struck me that she—I—was alive.

  I was a real person. Through the ill and the good.

  What the heck, I figured. Keep the pain. It’s back-to-school time anyway.

  * * *

  —

  There were three items I very nearly left in Bitsy’s stall, but decided at the last minute to bring to Nina’s, for as long as we were staying there. My weed flower, potted in Mabel’s pretty yellow pot, I set on our front stoop. The other things I had tucked in my pocket.

  “Nina!” I knocked on the door, even though I had a key. “It’s Hush!”

  I’d decided to stick with the name Hush, except with Mabel, who I still wanted to call me Belle.

  Nina opened the door. She was dressed in her new work getup, a pair of jeans and a Beezer’s collared shirt.

  “You look smart,” I said as I entered.

  “I finish up my training today,” she told me. “Then I’m all alone on the register. I’m so afraid I’ll gaum it up!”

  I shrugged. “If you give out too much change, we’ll just pay it back. Peggy’s fairly understanding.”

  Nina nodded. “She’s giving me a real good employee discount.”

  At the same instant, though in very different tones, we both said, “Toilet paper!”

  Nina gave a nervous laugh. To be kind, I laughed along with her.

  “Your room’s back here,” she told me, leading the way. “I guess you know that by now.”

  “I ought to. I slept in it for a week’s worth of nights,” I said, following her.

  “But now you’re here to stay.” She threw the light switch. “Right?”

  I started to say, I reckon so, but my words caught in my throat. The bedroom was so pink and frilly, it looked more like a fancy cake than a place to sleep. There was a dust ruffle and pillow shams—solid pink lace—plus curtains and a comforter decorated in rainbows and pink-hued clouds. It was ugly as all get-out, but it was the first time, ever, that Nina had gone out of her way to do something nice for me.

  I even smiled a little. “You did this?”

  “Is it all right?” She looked so hopeful.

  “It’s fine,” I said. And because that didn’t seem like enough, I added, “Plus, it matches this.” I took Desiree’s rainbow rock from my pocket and set it on my new, chiffon-covered desk.

  Nina set a fingertip to the stone. “That’s pretty enough. And it does match, don’t it?”

  I stood for a time longer, staring at the confection that was my room.

  “Well, I don’t want to be late,” Nina said.

  “Right,” I replied. “Have a good day.”

  Then, apparently deciding she had to be a little motherish, she added, “What’ll you do while I’m gone? Study?”

  “School doesn’t start till tomorrow,” I reminded her. “Today I’m teaching yoga.”

  “Right, yoga.” She bobbed her head. “Maybe I’ll come to that class sometime?”

  I could see this was hard for her. She didn’t know how to open a door into her daughter’s life, and she wasn’t sure she’d be welcome if she did.

  “Sure,” I said. Then I tiptoed onto my own limb. “I could even teach you a little tonight, when you get home, if you ain’t too tired.”

  Her grin was as wide as her face.

  * * *

  —

  Standing alone in my decorated room, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Plainly, Nina had stood in the thrift store contemplating the bedding choices, thinking, She’s a girl. Girl
s like pink, and snatched up every pink thing she could afford. It was tough to judge her too harshly, as she really was making an almighty effort. But it was a little painful to admit that the only thing my own ma knew about me was that I was female.

  Other thoughts came crashing in, too. More big changes were heading my way, starting tomorrow. Besides the beginning-of-the-middle Desiree had mentioned, there’d be plenty of new beginnings, too. Frightful ones, perhaps. Ashamed as I was to worry about such a childish thing, I couldn’t help wondering—would the kids still call me Smell Cantrell?

  The closer school got—and the more inescapable my new life seemed—the bigger the quiver in my liver.

  When my pink alarm clock shrieked the next morning, my loco was barreling high-speed down the track of my mind. Head pounding, belly pukish, I watched helplessly as a parade of things I might steal, and where to find them, marched through my brain.

  We ain’t done, you and I, the loco seemed to say.

  Sick and tired, I slapped a hand down on the alarm, hating that clock with every twist in my gut. Alarm clocks! School! Homework? Are you addled? I’m Hush Cantrell! I ain’t no goody-goody! I’m a sneak thief and a rascal! I’m—

  Oh, Lordy. I’m in trouble.

  And there was nothing I could do to stop myself! Heck, I didn’t even really have a hankering to try. I wanted to steal! I wanted me a big fat stash full of borrows! I just wasn’t strong enough!

  You’re not alone anymore, though, the Voice reminded me.

  All at once and just like that, I knew what do to. I’d known it all along.

  My loco steamrolled on, showing me a pair of fancy sewing scissors left out on a neighbor’s windowsill. I even dreamed the sensation of their cold metal through the cloth of my clothing, after I’d slipped them into my pocket.

  Right beside my rainbow rock.

  Shut up, loco, I said. Things are different now.

  I clenched my fists, took a deep breath—and imagined drawing those scissors from my pocket and setting them back on the windowsill.

  Then I stomped barefoot into Nina’s room.

  “Nina,” I said. “Wake up, please.”

  “Mmwhat?”

  “Wake up now. It’s time to do some mama’s duties.”

  She sat up and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “You all right?”

  I sat down next to her. Without so much as a good morning, I explained about my loco.

  “Just because things are tidier now, doesn’t mean it’s gone,” I told her, my voice hard with strain. “I’m gonna need to talk about it sometimes. And it won’t always be when it’s convenient for you. If you can’t handle that, you better say so, quick.”

  She gave me a nod I could almost believe in. “I can handle it.”

  “All right, then, here it is.”

  I talked.

  And Nina listened.

  And by the time Desiree knocked on our door, ready to walk me to school, the loco was nothing more than a quiet rushing sound—a train in the distance.

  It was a full week before I got around to dealing with that slip of paper I’d been carting around in my jeans pocket. Good thing I don’t stay on top of my laundry so good.

  You have to put it someplace safe, Desiree had told me. Then, after a while, take it out and see if your treasures have appeared.

  Standing in my new room, I pulled the page from my pocket and unfolded it real careful-like. It was my treasure map, and I hadn’t looked on it for nearly three months. Two little girls holding hands. A lady grinning peacefully in her sleep. A flying bird. And in big, chunky letters, the words SHE KNOWS LIFE IS MEANT TO BE MAGICAL.

  It was no work of art, but maps aren’t made to be admired.

  A map shows you the way.

  Where you’ve been. Where you are. Where you’re going.

  I reckoned my map showed a little of each.

  I took out a pushpin and tacked it up on the wall.

  Then I grabbed my satchel and swung sideways out the front door. Me and Desiree were meeting at Ham’s to do our homework over milk shakes.

  FAITH HARKEY finds her inspiration on the back roads of America. From small towns in the heartland to footpaths deep in the mountains, she is drawn to places that remind us we are all together part of something larger. When she isn’t on the road in search of a story, she recharges her batteries in Tallahassee, Florida. Faith is also the author of Genuine Sweet. Find out more at FaithHarkey.com.

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