Born a Crime - Trevor Noah Page 0,58

went wide. I tried to walk away, acting natural. Then he shouted out, “Hey! Stop!”

And the chase was on. We bolted, heading for the doors. I knew if a guard cut us off at the exit we’d be trapped, so we were hauling ass as fast as we could. We cleared the exit. The second we hit the parking lot, mall cops were coming at us from every direction, a dozen of them at least. I was running with my head down. These guards knew me. I was in that mall all the time. The guards knew my mom, too. She did her banking at that mall. If they even caught a glimpse of who I was, I was dead.

We ran straight across the parking lot, ducking and weaving between parked cars, the guards right behind us, yelling. We made it to the petrol station out at the road, ran through there, and hooked left up the main road. They chased and chased and we ran and ran, and it was awesome. The risk of getting caught was half the fun of being naughty, and now the chase was on. I was loving it. I was shitting myself, but also loving it. This was my turf. This was my neighborhood. You couldn’t catch me in my neighborhood. I knew every alley and every street, every back wall to climb over, every fence with a gap big enough to slip through. I knew every shortcut you could possibly imagine. As a kid, wherever I went, whatever building I was in, I was always plotting my escape. You know, in case shit went down. In reality I was a nerdy kid with almost no friends, but in my mind I was an important and dangerous man who needed to know where every camera was and where all the exit points were.

I knew we couldn’t run forever. We needed a plan. As Teddy and I booked past the fire station there was a road off to the left, a dead end that ran into a metal fence. I knew that there was a hole in the fence to squeeze through and on the far side was an empty field behind the mall that took you back to the main road and back to my house. A grown-up couldn’t fit through the hole, but a kid could. All my years of imagining the life of a secret agent for myself finally paid off. Now that I needed an escape, I had one.

“Teddy, this way!” I yelled.

“No, it’s a dead end!”

“We can get through! Follow me!”

He didn’t. I turned and ran into the dead end. Teddy broke the other way. Half the mall cops followed him, half followed me. I got to the fence and knew exactly how to squirm through. Head, then shoulder, one leg, then twist, then the other leg—done. I was through. The guards hit the fence behind me and couldn’t follow. I ran across the field to a fence on the far side, popped through there, and then I was right on the road, three blocks from my house. I slipped my hands into my pockets and casually walked home, another harmless pedestrian out for a stroll.

Once I got back to my house I waited for Teddy. He didn’t show up. I waited thirty minutes, forty minutes, an hour. No Teddy.

Fuck.

I ran to Teddy’s house in Linksfield. No Teddy. Monday morning I went to school. Still no Teddy.

Fuck.

Now I was worried. After school I went home and checked at my house again, nothing. Teddy’s house again, nothing. Then I ran back home.

An hour later Teddy’s parents showed up. My mom greeted them at the door.

“Teddy’s been arrested for shoplifting,” they said.

Fuuuck.

I eavesdropped on their whole conversation from the other room. From the start my mom was certain I was involved.

“Well, where was Trevor?” she asked.

“Teddy said he wasn’t with Trevor,” they said.

My mom was skeptical. “Hmm. Are you sure Trevor wasn’t involved?”

“No, apparently not. The cops said there was another kid, but he got away.”

“So it was Trevor.”

“No, we asked Teddy, and he said it wasn’t Trevor. He said it was some other kid.”

“Huh…okay.” My mom called me in. “Do you know about this thing?”

“What thing?”

“Teddy was caught shoplifting.”

“Whhaaat?” I played dumb. “Noooo. That’s crazy. I can’t believe it. Teddy? No.”

“Where were you?” my mom asked.

“I was at home.”

“But you’re always with Teddy.”

I shrugged. “Not on this occasion, I suppose.”

For a moment my mom thought she’d caught me red-handed, but Teddy’d