City of Saints & Thieves
Natalie C. Anderson
ONE
If you’re going to be a thief, the first thing you need to know is that you don’t exist.
? ? ?
And I mean, you really have to know it. You have to own it. Bug Eye taught me that. Because if you do exist, you might snag someone’s eye who will frown and wonder who you are. They’ll want to know who’s letting you run around. Where you’ll sleep tonight. If you’ll sleep tonight.
If you exist, you won’t be able to slouch through a press of bodies, all warm arms and shoulders smelling of work and soap. You won’t be able to take your time and choose: a big lady in pink and gold. You won’t be able to bump into her and swivel away, her wallet stuffed down your pants. If you exist, you can’t exhale and slip through the bars on a window. Your feet might creak on the floorboards. Your sweat might smell too sharp.
You might.
But I don’t.
I’m the best thief in this town.
I don’t exist.
? ? ?
I’ve been sitting in this mango tree for long enough to squish seven mosquitoes dead. I can feel my own warm blood between my fingers. God only knows how many bites I have. Ants are exploring my nether regions. And yet Sister Gladys, bless her, will not sleep.
Through the windows I see her bathed in the light of the common room’s television. Her face shines a radiant blue, and her belly shudders with laughter. Feet propped up on a stool, her toes bend at odd angles like antelope horns. I wonder what she’s watching, relaxed now that all the students are asleep. Old Fresh Prince of Bel-Air reruns? Churchill Raw? What do nuns think is funny?
I check the time on my phone and briefly consider coming back tomorrow and lifting that ancient television once and for all. Shouldn’t she be praying or something?
Eight mosquitoes. My stomach growls. I clench it and it stops.
Finally, the sister’s head slumps. I wait for the rhythm of her breathing to steady, then slowly lower myself over the wall that surrounds the school.
A guard dog materializes from the darkness and rushes toward me.
I put my arms up. Dirty leaps on me, slobbering all over my face. “Shh . . .” I say to his whines. His wagging tail thumps my legs as I walk toward the washroom at the end of the dorms.
“What took you so long?” Kiki asks, pushing open a creaky window as I approach.
I wince at the noise and look around, even though I know there’s no one in the tidy yard but Dirty. He leans against my thigh, panting happily as I rub the soft fur between his ears. Dirty and I are old pals.
“I think Sister Gladys has a crush on Will Smith,” I say.
My sister grunts and pushes a white bun through the bars on the window meant to keep thieves like me out. It tastes sweet, store-bought. I give a bite to Dirty, who wolfs it down in one gulp, licks his lips, and whines.
“Everything okay?” I ask between bites. “The penguins aren’t beating you up too bad?”
She shakes her head. “You?”
“No penguins up on my roof. Can’t fly.”
“You know what I mean, Tina.”
“I’m fine,” I say. “Hey, I brought you something.” I rummage in my bag and pull out a pack of No. 2 pencils, still wrapped in cellophane. I slide them through the bars.
“Tina . . .”
“Wait, there’s more,” I say before she can protest, and fish out a notebook. It has a cartoon of happy kids on the front, and the words SCHOOL DAYS! in dark, emphatic capitals.
I push the goods toward her. Her eyes linger on the tattoos that cover my arms.
“The nuns will give me school supplies,” she says. “You don’t have to steal them.”
“They’ll give you the reject bits. You don’t have to depend on their charity. I can get you better.”
“But you’re giving me charity.”
“That’s different. I’m family.”
She doesn’t say anything.
I step back, leaving the gifts on the windowsill. “You’re welcome.”
“Tina,” she blurts, “you can’t just live on the streets for the rest of your life.”
I zip up my bag. “I don’t live on the streets. I live on a roof.”
Kiki’s doing that thing where her brow pinches, and she looks like Mama. I see more and more of our mother in Kiki every time I come here, which hurts sometimes, but still, better Mama than him. He’s most obvious in her lighter skin and eyes, in her loose curls. You can still see that we’re sisters; I just wish it wasn’t so obvious that we’re half sisters. Not that I would ever call her that. I hate how it sounds. Half sister. Like half a person.
But there’s no hiding that Kiki’s dad, unlike mine, is white. Once she let it slip that the other girls call her “Point-Five,” as in, point-five black, point-five white. I told her to tell me their names, but she just said, They don’t mean anything by it, Tina. It doesn’t bother me, and besides, you can’t go around beating up little kids. But sometimes I see her looking at my dark skin, comparing it against her own, and I can tell she wonders what it would be like to fit in for once, to not be the “Point-Five” orphan.
Kiki squeezes the bars separating us, as if she could pull them apart. She’s not finished. “You can come stay here with me. You know you can. Sister Eunice would let you. You’re not too old. She let that other sixteen-year-old in. They’ve got lots of books and a piano and—”