It was a cool morning in the middle of June. Lady was sitting on the white washed porch in a rocking chair. Normally her mother would be yelling at her for being lazy and to get inside to do chores which was pretty much the entire day. If there were no chores to be done, then Lady was expected to be out of the house. If she was inside, there would always be chores assigned for her to do. Everyone around town knew that she was the most popular kid in school, but she didn’t like the publicity that came with it. No one knew why, but no one really knew her secret life, a life that was frowned upon in society. She wanted to be someone more than just a popular kid who hates being the top man on the totem pole. Lately she had been devising a scheme to make her a known person, one with a name that most would fear. Lady Dye the most feared thief in the state of Oregon. She had started to devise the scheme once she received a letter with no return address label, and on the actual letter itself, there was no name, just a request that was most wise to follow. The request was to steal items when requested in return for a good wad of money in return.
“Lady! Get in here right now!”
“Alas the Queen calls.” Lady muttered under her breath.
Her mother had interrupted her thinking of the most schematic plan yet known to the small town where she lived. Her mother had turned to being stricter since her father had left and now when the morning is nice and cool and crisp with the smell of summer coming, she had to answer her mother’s call. Frost hung around all the plants and trees within the seeing distance of her house. The window panes of the house were covered with frost also. The next thing that Lady knew, she was scraping the windows clean, washing them, and then cleaning the entire house. Lady didn’t mind the work since most of it kept her away from her mother. Being her mother, she was always around to critique her on practically everything. As soon as her mother told her to get out of the house, she took the opportunity.
That night, she threw on her faded blue jeans and a black V-neck T-shirt on her thin frame and took her shoulder length black hair out of its pony tail. She met her most trusted friend Jane Millane who was her co-hart in crime or an accomplice. Jane was small for being 14, but was just as muscular as a 16 year old soccer jock who worked out every day. Jane had scouted out a small house on the end of 2nd street. The plan was to find houses that were empty and when there was no one home, pick lock the door, and take some of the valuable items that weren’t normally looked for like an old piece of ceramic or china that was chipped in places. Jane pick locked the door, and went to the back of the little cottage that people rented as a summer get-away. Lady looked first in the mid-sized modern kitchen. Lady found some old china in a closet. Lady picked through what she wanted and left the rest. Lady hated to steal from people, but the guy who had hired her, didn’t care about the valuables that people had or what attachment that they held. The only rules were number one, not get caught, the number two rule was to get the things that weren’t normally missed but were still valuable, and the last rule was to not make a mess or break anything. The first and the last rule were the rules that were stressed the most out of the three.
Once the items were loaded into the back of Jane’s candy apple Mustang, they headed out to a corn field on a back road that was rarely used. Since the farmers that had farmed the field had lost interest, it was left to grow wild. The field was surrounded by willow trees with the overgrown field in the middle. A black sedan was sitting on the side of the access road. Once they pulled up alongside of the sedan, a masked driver that was stocky built, got out of the car and asked in a gruff voice “You got the items requested?”
Jane replied in a sweet voice only used to sweet-talk people “Sure sweetie. Got them right here in the trunk.”
The man didn’t reply. Lady guessed that his job was to transfer the items and the money from both sides. Once done, the black sedan practically vanished out of sight. No one even knew that there was a deal being done right under the town’s noses. Lady didn’t much care whether or not the man got the items that the boss requested, just to get the money and get out of there without anyone noticing.
The next day went by slowly. Lady checked the mail that day and noticed another letter from the boss. The letter didn’t have a return address label as you would expect most to have. The entire letter contained nothing but another list of things to acquire before midnight. Lady was starting to get tired of stealing, but the money was good in return for doing it, and the items were out of their hair once with the man in the black sedan. Later that night, Lady and Jane got back out onto the streets. They didn’t notice that there was a black unmarked police car sitting in an abandoned drive of a house. Lady wouldn’t have cared even if she knew they were about to get caught. Next, they moved to a house that was Lady’s neighbors that were out partying. Jane got a bobby pin out of her hair, and gave it to Lady this time, to use it to unlock the door. Lady hated to be the one to break into houses by unlocking the doors so most of the time Jane was the one to do it. Lady started to insert the pin into the door and stopped.
Jane whispered to Lady, “what is the matter with you?’
Lady replied “I just don’t want to be the one that is breaking into the houses. I am starting to get tired of stealing. Sooner or later we will be caught. The people that live in the last house we broke into are bound to notice some of their property gone.”
Jane who was impatient, “fine, if you are going to be so slow, then I will open the door. I thought I would give you a bit of freedom when doing this, but you blew it.”
Jane took the bobby pin from Lady, inserted the pin into the door’s lock. Jane turned the pin and a satisfying click was herd from the lock. The bobby pin worked on most doors since the houses that they normally broke into had old styled locks. They both went into the house not knowing they were being flanked by police.
As soon as they split up to gather the items, a voice shouted “Come out of the house with your hands up!”
Jane mouthed to Lady “Oh my. I forgot that I left some of the items in the last house in a mess. I think I broke a few things too.”
Lady was astonished. That was one of the rules to not do make a mess or break anything. They both eased out of the house really slowly as almost as they weren’t moving at all. Lady wanted to stay in the house just so she wouldn’t be in the line of fire if the police decided to shoot.
Lady decided then and mouthed back to Jane “I am tired of stealing. I quit.”
Jane didn’t like the idea but then mouthed back “fine. Then we’re through.”
When they got outside, they saw four police officers with bullet-proof vests on and pointing guns at them. Jane didn’t want to be caught so she ran flat out before she was hit by a police officer that was on one of the sides of the house. They were both handcuffed and put in the backseat of a police cruiser.
* * * * *
With the money that Lady and Jane had acquired from their boss, they paid for the rest of the items that were stolen that weren’t on the market. The ones that were, were gone and there would be no way of recovering the lost goods. Once the items were either returned or paid for, they were basically free to go. The boss was eventually caught. Turns out, he had had many people stealing things even before Lady and Jane had. Once the summer was over, Jane and Lady returned back to their normal lives. Lady realized that stealing was tearing apart her family and if any of her other friends at school found out, that would be the end of their friendship. She didn’t want to steal, but had turned to it out of the desire to be someone other than herself. Once back in school, she ended up becoming and academic star and was at the top of her class in pretty much every subject. She decided to go to college. After that, her life was pretty much the way it should be - living the life of Riley.