All three of them were sixteen, I’d say, and rich. One sidekick had a stoaty meanness and acne not even ornate make-up could cover. The other sidekick’d been turned from a fish into a wide-eyed fat-lipped girl by a third-rate wizard. The leader, however, who’d come into La Boîte aux Mille Surprises first, she could’ve been off a shampoo advert. Pixie ears, pixie eyes, swelling cream T-shirt, liquorice miniskirt, leggings that looked sprayed on to her perfect legs and toffee hair I’d’ve given my soul to bury myself in. (Girls’ curves never used to yank me hard like this.) Even Pixie’s furry sunflower bag was from a world where nothing ugly’s allowed. Not gawping at her was impossible, so I went and sat in the tiny office. Mum came in a minute later to phone Yasmin Morton-Bagot, leaving Agnes on the till. A pipeline of vision went through the door crack, between two giant candles from Palermo and under an amber lampshade from Poland. By chance, Pixie’s angelic bum hovered at the end of this pipeline. It stayed there while Acne and Codgirl got Agnes to get a Chinese scroll off the wall. Their voices were posh and horsey. I was still stroking Pixie’s curves with my eyes. That’s why I saw her fingers flicker behind the glass display, snatch the opal earrings and slip them into her sunflower bag.
Trouble, shouts, threats, police, whimpered Maggot. Stammering in court when you’re called to give evidence. And are you sure you just saw what you thought you saw?
I hissed, ‘Mum!’
Mum asked me just the once. ‘Are you sure?’ I nodded. Mum told Yasmin Morton-Bagot she’d call her back, hung up and got out a Polaroid Instamatic. ‘Can you shoot them when I say so?’ I nodded. ‘Good lad.’
Mum walked to the front of the shop and quietly locked the door. Agnes noticed and the atmosphere in the shop went tense and dark, like before a scrap at school. Pixie gave a sign to her sidekicks it was time to leave.
Pixie’s voice was brassy. ‘The door’s locked!’
‘I’m perfectly aware the door is locked. I just locked it.’
‘Well, you can unlock it again, can’t you?’
‘Well,’ Mum jangled her keys, ‘it’s like this. A thief has just put a pair of rather valuable Australian opals in her bag. Obviously, I need to protect my stock. The thief wants to escape with her stolen goods. So we have an impasse. What would you do, if you were in my position?’
Acne and Codgirl were already on the verge of tears.
‘What I wouldn’t do,’ Pixie sounded dangerous now, ‘if I were a shop assistant, is throw around totally pathetic accusations.’
‘So you won’t mind proving my accusations are totally pathetic by emptying your bag. Imagine how stupid this shop assistant will look when there are no earrings in it!’
For one awful second I thought Pixie’d somehow put the jewellery back.
‘I’m not going to let you or anyone rifle through my bag.’
Pixie was tough. This battle could still go either way.
‘Do your parents know you’re thieves?’ Mum turned on Acne and Codgirl. ‘How are they going to react when the police call?’
Acne and Codgirl even smelt guilty.
‘We were going to pay.’ Pixie made her first mistake.
‘Pay for what?’ Mum smiled, sort of creepily.
‘Unless you catch us walking out of your shop, you can’t do a thing! My father has an excellent solicitor.’
‘Does he? So do I,’ Mum replied, brightly. ‘I have two witnesses who saw you trying to leave.’
Pixie marched up to Mum and I thought she was going to hit her. ‘GIVE ME THE KEY OR YOU’LL REGRET IT!’
‘Haven’t you realized by now’ (I had no idea Mum could be so bulletproof) ‘you’re not intimidating me in the least?’
‘Please,’ tears shone in Acne’s face, ‘please – I—’
‘In that case,’ Pixie snapped, ‘suppose I just pick up one of your crappy statues and smash my way out of this—’
Mum nodded at me, Now.
The flash made all three girls jump.
The photo grundled out of the Polaroid. I waved it by its corner to dry it for a second or two. Then I took another photo for good measure.
‘What,’ Pixie was beginning to crumble, ‘does he think he’s doing?’
‘Next week,’ Mum said, ‘I shall visit every school in town – with a police officer, and these photographs – starting with Cheltenham Girls’ College.’ Codgirl let out a flutter of despair. ‘Headmistresses are always so cooperative. They’d rather expel a bad apple or two than