Abi: Little Burglar [21/30]

Amanda wrote the other day about how I ended up having to break into our Nana’s house. It reminded me of how many windows I’d climbed into. I remember very clearly having to break into Christina’s house and our own (quite a few times), in addition to Nana’s house.
I really was some strange little girl, in retrospect… that I was the go-to person for climbing through windows.
I did earn the nickname Black Cat for awhile (which developed into Kittie later in life), mostly for my ability to sneak up on people and do things they think I ought not know how to (like pick locks, climb into houses).
Adding to that now a few unsavoury stories about me stealing things.

In Haines City, when I was about 10 or younger, I would steal things for no other reason than to steal them. I can’t explain it, because I didn’t need or want these things really, I think I just wanted to know I could get away with it.

We had a neighbour named Vanessa, she lived across the way from us and right behind Christina’s house. She was a mean, stuck up, little girl, who I rarely got along with, but played with nonetheless… I remember one day I stole from her a Nintendo video game. I don’t quite remember what it was, but I know I really didn’t care much for it… It was just something I wanted to do at the moment, and given the window, did so.
I remember how incredibly nervous I became, after having it stashed in my bag. I kept thinking that they’d notice, as much as I tried to pull from a pile of games out of view and mostly unplayed.
I remember we went out onto her front porch, I was tired of watching her play her dumb video games. She had a porch swing there and we sat for awhile talking about whatever 3rd or 4th graders talk about… She was probably carrying on about Bobbie-Jo, who lived down a little dirt road not but 100 feet from her house. She didn’t like Bobbie-Jo, she thought very little of her. Bobbie-Jo was very much what you could imagine her to be, based solely on her name: a poor white girl in a redneck type family… but I can say I enjoyed Bobbie-Jo a hell of a lot more than Vanessa.
Well, after finding a reasonable excuse to return home, I took my bounty and promptly buried it under the back of our house (a few feet from a washing machine, which I think was not working… because I thought our washer was in the little shed-like building to the side), where I left it for several months.

I even stole from my best friend of the time, Christina. It was a necklace, a golden coloured heart locket. I took it one day out of her little jewellery box she had sitting on a dresser by the far window (in her new room that she’d moved into after her brother Robert left… I remember it had BB pellet holes everywhere, ceiling included, and spray painted black-out windows… which was kind of cool to us little children, and a total step up from her having a bed in the corner by the second fridge (or stand-up freezer) in the dinning room/living room area).
When I got home I set the necklace aside somewhere safe in the closet until a few weeks later after she eventually found out it was missing and then as quickly forgot about. After it wasn’t brought up again I placed it back, right where I had taken it from… I had completed my mission, she never suspected me…

I also remember stealing from school. In my 4th grade class (Ms. Dean) I sat at a round table that’s back was against a large wall of cubbyholes, where there were stored craft supplies and papers.
I remember taking a pack of paper not once, but at least twice. I just slipped it into my backpack right from the shelf, just because I could do it without being noticed.

I can’t remember details of the other events as clearly, but I think I stole a candy souvenir once from someone after a field trip, right out of his open backpack… and I have the feeling there was more things, but they were all small and unimportant, and not something I can remember anymore.

I never got caught  and so eventually grew out of these things… which is, looking at it for what it is, a hell of a lot better than growing into trying bigger and better thievings!