A lucky day

[Lugus Cardew]

This thread is for the december challenge and is inspired by 'Oliver Twist'

Lugus was starving. That was all he could feel right now, despite the cold whether he hardly noticed it, because his stomach was completely empty. His clothes were thin and filled with holes. He was only seven years old and had for years now mostly been living on the streets. His mother had been sick for years before she had died and this was his life. He could not remember it being any other way and he could not see any way out.

A quick look around showed that Lugus was not the only one living like this. He was just one of many, but despite the many small boys walking in the shadows they never talked about one another. Despite not ever agreeing on it officially, it was an unwritten law. Not that a written law was going to help, one or two of them might be lucky enough to be able to read decently, Lugus was not one of them. He had no idea what he should ever need to learn this.

Even though he was only seven, Lugus was already a pretty good thief. He was able to perfectly still got hold of a purse to a lady in an expensive dress, while she was talking with one of her friends. It was incredibly few things they noticed while gossiping about who knows what. They rarely ever noticed Lugus and if they did it was all a matter of running as fast as possible. It was easy when it was from a female. Because of their dresses and some sort of rules that Lugus did not understood they never ran after him, which meant he usually got to keep the money or whatever he had gotten his hands on this time. It was a bit more difficult with the males, but Lugus had over time learned to his small silhouette and had learned how to crawl into very tiny places. It helped and for some reason he was luckier than most of the other boys and rarely got spotted.

Today he had been following a seemingly wealthy young lady around, always staying hidden in the many shadows that easy got created on a busy day with many people walking around on a market. When she finally stopped and began talking to someone, possibly a friend or someone close related, (Lugus honestly did not care, he did not even knew the name of the woman that was his victim this time,) Lugus quickly got closer to her. He was not going to let this chance pass by. He had though experience learned what it meant if he did not take a chance. He was not going to get food any other way than this and falling asleep knowing you at least had tried was better than being annoyed about not even trying.

Once again Lugus was luckier than most. He managed to get to stand behind the lady, she and her friend were seemingly unaware that a seven year old boy had followed one of them and wanted to survive. Careful not to make any movement that would get noticed by either of them or the people walking by, Lugus allowed his hands to get closer to the purse. He could heat the beating of his heart and feel the small amount of sweat that always formed on the inside of his hands when he was trying to steal from people. It was the only option he had and to be honest he did not think that he did a wrong thing. They all had more money than he could even dream of getting his hands on; it was all about sharing for those who needed it.

He carefully got hold of a string to the purse and began pulling it towards him. One hand pulled in the string, trying to guide the purse into the other hand. He wanted to make the motion fluent, hoping it would work to make the ladies notice him when it was already too late. It seemed like forever to Lugus, he did this every day, more than one time during a day if he had a good day, but it took less than a minute. It was the same as every other time, while focusing on getting a purse without anyone noticing, he could not hear the steps from the people surrounding him, he could not hear the birds that carefree and happy chirped above him, he did not feel his ever rumbling stomach, he could not sense the wind that tried to make him feel cold, he could not feel the sun that tried to burn him. Even the sound of his own heartbeat dulled down, all his attention went on making the motion in the purse from the lady to his hand as quiet as possible and all he could hear was the vague voices of the two ladies, telling him that he had not yet to be seen.

Once the purse was gripped in his hand, he did not begin to run away. It always caught people's attention. Instead the purse found its way into his pocket, carefully out of sight and he began walking away, moving towards the shadows where he usual hid. For every step he got further away from the still talking ladies the sounds and light seemed to get stronger and brighter. Lugus began to breathe normal once again; he always held his breath while working, as if hoping it would make less people notice him.

He just kept walking, further and further away from the scene, not wanting to be even within a mile radius once it got noticed that the purse had been stolen. All this time while just walking, he kept his hands in his pockets, to hide the purse that was in his left pocket. After half an hour, he decided that he was safe enough and found an empty alley before taking the purse out from his pocket and opened it for the first time while it was in his possession. With a trained eye, he allowed the small amount of light that managed to shine down to him show what was in the purse. He had been lucky. There was more than enough to get him food, he quickly emptied the pocket and placed the money in his own small purse he had stolen years ago. He quickly hid the bright purse from the lady under his shirt. He knew he could sell it somewhere once he was out of money again.