The (Not So) Discreet Art of Stealing a Book

Emma wondered how long it would take for the bookstore owner to realise that she'd stolen his receipt book.

She laughed to herself, thinking of the suspicious looks he'd thrown at her when she'd sauntered into the ancient-looking bookstore and looked around the place like a connoisseur, throwing a few approving looks here and there for good measure. Oh, little had the old man known that his books weren't going to be stolen tonight.

For a book containing “life-changing information”, it was very easy to steal. Emma was strolling down the “Fiction” aisle when the shelf marked “Young Adult Fantasy” caught her eye. She trailed her finger along the shiny spines, pausing at a golden one, and pretended to look perplexedly at it until the fat old man who was not-so-discreetly spying at her realised that she needed help. When she saw him hobbling towards her, she picked up pace till she reached a long table. Scooping up a few mags, she ran to the counter and swiped away all that was strewn on it, making sure to pick up the little red book she’d gone there for. When the man caught up to her, she smirked at his open jaw and ran out, dropping most of the books near a gutter at the end of the street.

The enraged man shouted after her, though Emma saw from behind a trashcan that his shouts slowly diminished when his gaze fell on the pile of books she dropped. As she watched the man retrieve them, she slipped the little book into her black woollen coat and walked into the night.

Emma would never admit it to anybody else, but she had to concede to herself that her fear of walking through the streets at night had reduced drastically after months of “missions”. She passed through dark lanes, dim-lit buildings and shabby, narrow streets until she reached a particular alley. It was so dark; she probably would’ve dismissed it as a mere dead end had she not known this place like the back of her hand.

A few steps further, and the stench of rotting meat, diapers and God-knows-what wafted up to her nose. Sure enough, a look on the sides confirmed it: trash bags were almost bursting with rubbish around half-empty garbage cans. Senseless humans, she shuddered. Of course, they had to throw litter around the place when the government had provided them with a perfectly working waste disposal system. She shook her head and walked on, stopping when she reached some broken furniture further up the alley. She held her breath as she crawled around the legs of a broken piano. She carefully swept aside a trash bag to reveal a trapdoor. Setting her feet on the metal ladder, she prayed the trapdoor would remain concealed in shadows, and descended.

The familiar dim lights hanging from the ceiling greeted her, followed by the grim stares of the men seated around a wooden dining table, which looked like it belonged in the rubble outside. However, Emma simply pursed her lips as she knew very well how much it irked the directors when rookies like her spoke out of line.

“Here, the book.” Reaching into her coat, she took out the book and set it into the half-outstretched hands of a grey-haired man, who looked too robust for someone in his late forties.

“Good. Not much trouble from that oaf sitting there, I hope?” he asked.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” she waved dismissively. Her eyes fell on the cracked glass of the clock on the yellowish-brown wall. “It’s getting late, can I go home now?”

“Sure, your work’s done for today. Can you come tomorrow at” he glanced at the clock, “seven?”

Emma frowned. “Sure, I’ll try my best.” Ignoring the sneer from a brunette beside him, she continued, “My painting lessons end at six-thirty, so I might get a little late.”

“No problem! You can cover the rest of your work hours on a weekend.”

“Yes, thank you, Mr Oscar.” She greeted them and stepped out, starting the way back home.

A/N: This one-shot was originally written by me in November 2020. I was going to make a full-fledged story out of it but trying to write further felt like I was (to no avail) exploring a dead end. I heavily edited it today, and here we are. Tell me what you think about the finished product, which you've just read!

Photo by Engin Akyurt from Pexels