Flunked (Fairy Tale Reform School, #1)(3)
Told you it was easy. Like taking lunch from a sleeping ogre.
CHAPTER 2
The Great Escape
After a mega score like that dragon’s tooth comb, I always head home.
No gloating to fellow thieves about my take. No stopping for bread at Gnome-olia Bakery (even if it smells heavenly). And this is definitely not the time to go to the Arabian Nights Pawn Shop to cash in. That is a classic rookie mistake.
Now is the time to blend in, stay out of sight. Disappear.
Never, ever run.
Running is like asking to be followed by the dwarf squad and their henchmen. That’s Enchantasia’s police. Snow White’s dwarves got sick of the mines but love their pickaxes, so Snow found them a job where they could still use weapons—law enforcement.
The squad was a joke at first—not many people are afraid of dwarves—but then Princess Ella got wise and hired a bunch of guys who are rumored to be half ogre to be the squad’s muscle. Those guys are scary. They could break you in half with their pudgy pinkie fingers. Now crime has gone way down…but it hasn’t disappeared. To stay ahead of the ogres, I’ve had to be smarter about my marks. Royals are still easy targets, but I can’t be sloppy.
My eyes scan the village laid out in front of me like a map. I watch as shopkeepers call out end-of-the-day deals (half-price bread, free shoe shining with any repair, a sale on scarves for the coming winter). I ignore them all, even if my family could use the scarves. Our boot is always cold. I hurry down the cobblestone streets, switching my route home from the way I came this morning. You never want to be seen in the same spot twice when you’re in the middle of a caper.
I hurry past the pricier shops and restaurants I wouldn’t dare enter because I’m not of royal blood. I pull up the collar of my coat when I walk past the marketplace where commoners are buying their nightly fish or fresh vegetables from farmers. I skip the row where magical goods are being illegally traded. The dwarf squad is undercover in that row all the time.
When I enter the busy town square, I exhale slightly. With so many people and carriages around, it’s easy to blend in. Schoolchildren from the Royal Academy are carelessly throwing their coins in the fountain. (Thief tip: Never steal from those waters. They’re always being watched.) Someone from Happily Ever After Scrolls is trying to sell mini magical scrolls (their latest invention) and is drawing a crowd. A carriage driver is offering rides home for two pence, and royal carriages are lined up in the valet area waiting to take the royals’ loot home. One look at the dimming skyline and you remember where your place is in Enchantasia. We commoners live down in the village, while high on the hill, the silver turrets of Royal Manor gleam bright as if to say, “You’ll never climb your way up here.”
I hear a neigh and then a “whoa,” and I turn back toward the fountain, quickly pulling my hood over my head.
“You there!” I freeze. “Have you seen anyone running through the square with a green satchel?” says Pete, the chief of the dwarf squad, in a deep voice that makes him sound much more menacing than he looks. “The baker has lost his shipment for Royal Manor, which was waiting on his steps to be taken to the castle.”
I picture Pete high on his horse, looking tough although he isn’t even three feet tall on the ground. With his pudgy midsection (he likes cinnamon rolls) and long black beard, he resembles a troll. But his wide, red nose and oversized ears remind me he’s a dwarf. The two of us have a love-hate relationship. I’ve gotten out of a few jams by feeding him info about other thieves, but when I catch a big haul, he comes after me hard.
“Nah,” says the small boy standing right next to me. “Haven’t seen nuthin’.”
Pete sighs and I exhale. “You mean ‘I haven’t seen anything.’ Schools these days,” he mumbles. “Okay, go about your business. Find Olaf if you hear of anything.” I hear Pete kick the horse’s sides with his small feet and gallop off into the square.
I reach into the pocket of my overalls Mother just patched and give the boy two pence. “Thanks, kid,” I say, patting the satchel under my cloak. I lifted that this afternoon when the royals left the bakery. No surprise it took Pete ’til now to realize it was gone.
Then I disappear through a narrow alleyway off the square that leads to the smaller, poorer streets on my side of town where oversized teacups, boots, and thatched huts replace the nicer brick buildings. The streets are already dark—we don’t have lanterns to light the way—but I would know this trail blindfolded. I hurry past the panhandler, dropping a biscuit into his outstretched hand, and move toward the smell of shoe polish that always leads me home. My boot is one of four on this tiny block. With one last look around to make sure I am not being followed, I turn the key and head inside.
“Gilly!” My four-year-old twin brothers, Han and Hamish, knock me backward into the door I just came through. They’re so light, they roll off me. I see they got into the shoe polish again. There is black all over their cheeks, foreheads, and identical plaid rompers.
“What did you get?” Six-year-old Trixie, with her rosy cheeks and bright red hair, runs into the room at the sound of the collision. “Jam? Cheese? That good pepperoni you got last week?”
“Shh….” Felix, my five-year-old brother, hushes her as he comes down the ladder from the loft where we all sleep in bunk beds. Felix is the wise-beyond-his-years one and looks the most like Father. His dark brown eyes seem to see right through me. “You didn’t get caught, did you?”