Thief!

"Dee, wake up," coaxed Mom.
"What’s it, Mom?" I said groggily, half asleep.
"Tumi’s on the line," she said, handing me the cordless.
I was wide-awake now. My parents were given orders that the phone should reach me if the people calling were claiming to be Tumiana Montgomery or Nick Robertson, whatever I was doing at the time. There were times when I have talked to them in the shower.
"Hello Tumi, what’s up?" I asked readying myself to bear any shock.
"School’s in two weeks. We haven’t yet gone shopping for our stationery!"
"Tumi, I thought you were only allowed to wake me up this early in case of an emergency."
"Dee, you don’t understand, it is an emergency. School starts in two weeks! Wake up, sleepyhead!"
"All right, tell me, when do we meet?" I said reluctantly getting off the bed and drawing the curtains.
"How about in an hour at my place? And, could you do me a favor, Dee? Could you tell Nicky our plans? Mom’s screaming for me."
"Sure, see you in an hour."

I dialed Nicky’s number.
"Yes?" answered a drowsy voice. (Nicky has his own phone.)
"Good morning, Nicky," I bellowed, "the sun’s shining bright, the birds are chirping. It’s a beautiful day. So, what the hell are you doing in bed?!"
"Just because Tumi woke you up early, doesn’t mean you have the right to bother me."
"How did you guess?" I asked sighing.
"Oh, it was easy. She’s the early bird, not you. So, what is it now? Better be a good one or I swear I will slaughter her!"
"She wants us to go shopping for stationery. Meet you at her place in an hour."
"Umm, Dee, trouble."
"Trouble? What do you mean, Nicky?" I asked worried, because he rarely uses this tone.
"Yesterday, when I got home, George accused me of taking money from his wallet."
"Why does he suspect you? It could have been Vincent."
"I have no idea. He just does. Now, I am grounded. That means I am not allowed to go out and hang with Tumi and you."
"Well, look on the bright side. You haven’t lost your phone and computer facilities. You can yet keep in touch with your world."
"Yeah, that’s a good thing. So, I guess I won’t be able to make it. Tell Tumi for me, will you? Since I have nothing to do, I am going back to my beauty sleep."
"Well, I really hope it does wonders for your looks this time. Hang in there. You are not the thief. So things will turn out fine."
"Thanks, Dee. Have fun. Bye."

Nicky and George, Nicky’s stepfather, weren’t exactly the best of friends. Nicky always visited Joshua, his father, every Wednesday evening and returned on Thursday morning. I recall how Nicky hated the fact that ‘another man was trying to take his father’s place in his mother’s heart’. He almost didn’t attend the wedding, but Tumi and I finally managed to persuade him to do so for the sake of his mother’s happiness. George had a son of his own, Vincent. Nicky and Vincent didn’t get along well either. I was fuming. This was terrible, accusing Nicky of something he didn’t do.

I made my bed, replaced the flowers, got dressed, had breakfast and was at Tumi’s on time. The door was opened by Tumi’s younger brother, Brian.
"Hi, Brian, how are you?"
"Hi, Dee, I am fine. I got the new Sony Playstation III."
"Cool."
"By the way, Tumi’s in her room."
"Thanks, Brian."

I knocked on Tumi’s door.
"Come in, Dee!"
"Problem, Tumi," I said entering, "George accused Nicky of stealing some of his money. He’s grounded."
"What?! I respected George, Dee. Now, I don’t want to even talk about him. How unreasonable can a person get? He has no proof whatsoever that Nicky did it," said Tumi exasperated.
"Well, Tumi, this is the situation."
"What’s he doing at home?"
"Said he’s going back to sleep."
"I guess I will call him when we get back then."

Under normal circumstances, the both of us are hyper about going to the mall. But, these were certainly not ‘normal circumstances’. We were quiet and far from cheerful. We traveled by Subway to the City Center. Our final destination: Shopper’s Promenade. This mall actually had a large door in the basement leading to the Subway.

The basement was full of supermarkets while the other three levels had clothing stores, gift shops, stationery, cosmetics, furniture superstores, accessories, electronics, restaurants and everything else under the sun. Usually, we fool around, trying on clothes and shoes we can’t possibly afford with our meager allowances and feasting our eyes on diamond jewelry. This time, we made our way directly to our favorite stationery store, which was also a bookshop: The Shop Around The Corner, named after the children’s bookstore in the movie, ‘You’ve Got Mail’, starring Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks. It actually had a blowup pic of the last scene on one wall. You know the one where the both of them are hugging and the dog is on his hind legs pawing Tom Hanks looking like he wants to join in the hug as well?

Tumi, the most organized of the trio, produced a list from her handbag. The massive store had loads of stationery of various designs, styles and colors. We split the list up and in about thirty minutes, we were ready to leave. Both our mothers gad given us a list of things to get, and so we quickly headed towards the basement, to the supermarkets.

Armed with shopping carts and long lists, we shopped for groceries, which made us feel so grown-up and independent; looking for brand names, expiry dates, rejecting bruised fruit and standing in queues waiting to pay for our purchases.

Loaded with shopping bags, we hailed a taxi (traveling by Subway is close to impossible with all we had to carry) and headed home. We both agreed to meet outside Nicky’s after we dropped off our mothers’ foodstuff.

   •

I rang the bell.
"I just hope Vincent doesn’t answer the door," said Tumi looking towards the sky, her hands clasped in prayer.
Just then the door opened and there stood Vincent grinning wickedly from ear to ear.
"Too late," I whispered to Tumi.
I heard Tumi groan softly and I smiled to myself.
"Hi, Vincent," I said.
"Ooh, here are Nicky’s girlfriends," he sneered.
Tumi was now scowling openly.
I ignored the comment and asked where Nicky was.
"Upstairs. In his room. He’s grounded."
"It’s you who should be grounded," I heard Tumi say in an undertone.
"Thanks," I said.

We knocked on the door with the ‘Enter At Your Own Risk’ sign. Nicky opened the door. His face lit up in a huge grin. He hugged us both.
"Oh, am I glad to see you both. I was dying of boredom."
The both of us handed him a shopping bag each.
"What’s this?" he asked, overturning the paper bags over his bed.
"Stationery! Thanks a lot," he said coming over and embracing us in a bear hug, "All my favorite colors too."
"We love you, Nicky," I said.
"Ewww, gross, you both love me? Maybe now’s the time to end our friendship, don’t you think?" said Nicky in mock disgust.
"So, how’s everything here?" enquired Tumi while going through some sports magazines.
"George is yet mad at me and Vincent is having the time of his life."
"When did it happen?"
"When we were at Exotica. At least, that’s when George noticed."
"What did your Mom have to say?" I asked Nicky, putting his CDs back in the CD rack.
"Mom’s gone for an interior designing project for a week."
"Bad timing, huh?" asked Tumi.
"You said it," confirmed Nicky.
"Anyway, school’s starting in two weeks. You get to get out then, let’s see if it happens again. And, if it doesn’t, George would have forgotten about it by then," I said looking through some photographs.
"And, if it does happen again, we’ll do all we can to find out who did it," said Tumi looking very determined.