C3 DOUGHNUT THIEVES AREN'T BAD PEOPLE

NIGHTINGALE

***

As Quetzal’s eyes widened when she informed me that I was bleeding, I looked down at myself. I was indeed bleeding. I saw a few drops of blood on my arm and touched it, but the blood wasn’t from there. I knew where I was bleeding from when Quetzal touched my lip. Usually, our father avoided hitting me on the face where his abuse would be visible to anyone who looked at me. But today he seemed more edgy than usual so he had no qualms about it. Maybe he had realised as I had that nobody would really care what he was doing to me, and if they actually cared even a little, that there was nothing they could do to help me.

We lived in a rundown neighborhood where everyone had their own problems, and everyone minded their business. Someone could be getting killed and the neighbors would just shut their curtains and pretend like it never happened. Gangs operated around the area and clashes were normal so everyone tended to stay out of their way. The only somewhat normal person in the neighborhood was Ms Alisha. She had a garden that produced the food that a lot of families around the area depended on. She grew all sorts of things in her garden and people came to buy because it was cheaper to buy from her than from the stores, and also more fresh than the packaged products.

She had been a fairly wealthy woman at one point in her life, but she ran away from her city after her sons used her business as collateral while gambling. The gang that operated the casino where they had lost the bet threatened her life if she didn’t immediately vacate the place. She became almost penniless after that and ended up here. My sister and I were employed to work with her, but the pay wasn’t much because she had other workers in the fairly large garden. Other children from families in the area worked there too and we all had our allocated slots. She preferred to employ a lot of us and pay us smaller amounts, than just two or three being paid more. That was her way of taking care of us, and making sure everyone at least got something.

I couldn’t resent her for that, most of the other children either had drug addicts, drunkards, hookers and so on as parents so they were also fending for themselves. They needed the money as much as I did. A lot of them were also uneducated even though there was a school in the area. It was illegally run by Mr Omer and two others… Mrs Green, and a guy named Justin.

Mr Omer used to be a principal in one of the biggest schools in the country, but he was arrested for embezzling funds from the school’s account. He had been sentenced to five years in prison after only being able to pay half of the money he had stolen. When he finished serving his sentence, he ended up here and started a small illegal school because he knew that he would never be allowed to work in another registered school with his criminal record. Most of the children didn’t see the need to learn and preferred doing petty jobs or petty crimes to earn money instead.

Fortunately for me, my father had put us in school. I had been halfway through high school and Quetzal had just gotten into high school when he decided that schooling was a waste of money. It was a public school a bit of a distance from our neighborhood so we didn’t have to pay fees but there were other expenses like bus fare, books, etc. to pay for. My father decided that he would stop paying it, and that was when I started working in other places apart from Ms Alisha’s garden to make more money to pay for the other expenses of our schooling.

I graduated years ago, and Quetzal was almost done with high school now, we had a plan to run away together when she graduated. Then maybe we could both apply for college when we were safely far away from here. Ms Alisha didn’t know it, but her garden had our most prized possession. We had a box of all our savings buried deep in the earth somewhere in our own work section of her garden. We would have run away sooner, but we didn’t have enough money yet. By the time she finished high school in a few months, we would be home free.

“Don’t worry, it’s just a little cut. I’ll be fine.” I said to her as I stood and pulled her up with me.

“You’re not fine.” she said with a shaky voice as tears dropped from her eyes.

Another reason why I don’t cry anymore, Quetzal cried enough for the both of us.“

I’m okay, Quetzy. It’s just another Friday.” I said with a smile that was meant to make her stop crying but instead, she sobbed even harder.

“Your face is swollen and you’re bleeding.” She said and I hugged her.

“Ssh! Stop crying, Quetzy. Save your strength. You haven’t eaten properly today, and you just got back from school.” I rubbed her back. I almost laughed at the irony, I was trying to soothe her when I was the one that had just been hurt.

“You should be more worried about yourself. You gave me a doughnut before I went to school. I’m sure you haven’t eaten at all today.” She said as she pulled back to look at me.

After our father had taken the money I had been paid for taking out garbage for some businesses two blocks away, I had stolen a doughnut from my regular morning job at the coffee shop to give to her. I couldn’t stand the thought of her going to school without eating something no matter how small. The doughnuts had just been brought to the cooling trays so they hadn’t been counted yet which made it easier to take one for Quetzal. I didn’t regret stealing it. I would never steal their money, but if my sister needed to eat, then I had no problem stealing doughnuts. When I made a tip tomorrow or next, I would pay for the doughnut so no harm done.

“Did you get the lead role in the play?” I asked her to distract her.

Her eyes immediately lit up and I knew the answer before she said…

“Yes!”

The high school was having a play in a month and the audition for roles was today. I always encouraged Quetzal to join extra curricular activities, so when she told me that she had put her name down for the lead role, I was happy. We had practiced her lines together and I’m glad to see that it had paid off.

“That calls for a celebration. We’ll grab some food and get ice cream too.” I said to her and her smile faltered.

“Father took all the money you made after your coffee shop shift ended.” She said sadly.

The coffee shop paid weekly not daily like some of my other jobs and I wasn’t due for payment till Monday morning so after our father had taken my morning pay for garbage disposal, I had to search for something else to do and get paid. My search was futile, but thankfully, Mrs Elm called me to come walk her dogs.

“He didn’t take all the money. I have some more money on me and I hid it where he wouldn’t think to check.” I said and winked at her.

“Where?” She asked and I smiled.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Where did you think Nightingale hid the money? Any ideas?