After finally collecting my bearings and bringing my heart rate way back down again,  I started walking.  No real destination in mind, but hanging around in alleys tends to look sketchy.  I decided I may as well examine my new take.  Every one of the wallets was pretty much the exact same. Typical guy style.  A simple piece of folded black or brown leather, one of them was white though, it had a cool space helmet picture sewn on.  Just as I'd hoped, every one of these would be worth giving to Kevin.  None had less than forty dollars, a couple even broke two hundred.  As I walked down a street called Louadem Place and wondered how I'd find my last five picks as it got later, a thought crossed my mind.  What if the others actually pulled this off? I mean Nate had no chance, he was way too good a guy to even imagine trying, Trent was, well he was clever enough to maybe make it work.  Jessica and Riley I didn't know well enough to guess.  The question still remained, what if I only needed six extras, or even just three?  What if I was painting a target on every six foot tall eighteen year old with short dark hair for no reason?  I beat myself up with questions like that for a while, I mean come on I'm the only thief in the group.

"Wait, I'm the only thief in the group!"  I suddenly realized that my curse had become my salvation.  Kevin would probably be more suspicious of everyone meeting his quota than if only I brought anything back.  If I divided the extras up though, and gave everybody two, except someone would only get one.  Well then it would look like the party of amateurs that we are.

I took a deep breath of relief and called for another cab.  As I got home I saw my mom's car out front.  She was apparently home early today.

"Twenty two sixty."

"Huh? Oh right, sorry."  I grabbed the jackpot again to pay for my fare.  I didn't want to shave off any of the players' wallets because some of them were already kinda small.  I tossed the cabbie two twenties.

"How much change you want kid?"

"Call it square, Rheniel."  I had to crane my neck to see his name card.

"Are you serious?"

"Yea man, I'm in a good mood."

"Well shit now I am too."  We shared a quick laugh as I got out and I quickly got to my front door.  The house smelled like food, mom had probably microwaved the leftovers from last night.

"Mitch? That you?"  She called from the living room.

"Yo!"  I yelled back.  "You nuke last night's lasagna?"

"Yup,"  from the sound of it she was in the middle of chewing.  "I can't believe I made this while I was drunk!"

"I can't believe you were as drunk as you were."  I got to the kitchen, tossed some cold lasagna in the microwave for myself, set it to five minutes and wandered into the living room.

"Was that a cab out front?"

"Yea."

"Where'd you go?"

"I went for a walk.  Wound up at Hollen Park."  She gave me a questioning look.  "It's at the  end of Louadem Place."  I watched her draw the mental map in her head for a minute.

"What were you doing down there?"

"Just turned my music on and walked."  She was satisfied with the answer and took another bite of food.  My mom could be very absent minded with music playing so I learned I could get away with a lot with that excuse.  When the microwave beeped there was still a cold spot in the middle of my food but I was too hungry to give a shit, so I just went downstairs with it.

"Remember to bring your plate back up!"

"Will do!"  She and I both knew I'd forget it down here for about a week, yet that quick exchange had become something of a ritual between us.

I watched TV on my computer for a bit before I started to feel tired.  I looked at the system clock in the corner.  "Nine thirty?  What the hell?"  I'm the kind of guy who stays up late and bitches about waking up early, so feeling genuine sleepiness before eleven PM was strange to me.  I held out for one more episode before showering and heading to bed.  As I laid there, I no longer felt tired, typical.  I grabbed my phone, being careful as to not disturb the charging cable and opened a game that I played way too much, it had no right to be as fun as it was.  Two or three hours later I finally said to hell with it, put my phone down and rolled over.  Sleep came pretty quickly and I was gone.

As I started the ten minute walk to school, I let myself feel confident.  Yesterday had been successful, by all accounts.  Ten lifts my mentors would be proud of and a master plan to deal with my asshole English teacher.  I may hate the lifestyle, but there is a certain amount of pride I was able to feel in doing it well.

I found Trent in the commons area of the school around eight forty five.  "How was yesterday?"

"Meaning, did I do my homework?"

"Basically."

"No.  I kinda thought about it, but I couldn't."

"I know man.  That's why.."  I let myself trail off as I opened and showed him my backpack.

"You motherfucker."  He cursed quietly, but loud enough.

"Look Trent, I know what you're thinking, and what you want to say.  I agree with it, with all of it, you know that.  I didn't have a choice this time."

"How much is that?"

"There's ten of them, I don't know how much they all add up to."  His eyes went wide.  "Now take two."

"Green said three."

"Yes but you aren't a pro like I am."  He was about to argue but my logic made sense.  He carefully grabbed two wallets and stuffed them in his own bag.

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"This fucking sucks man."

"Tell me about it."  The entire day, I was preoccupied with making sure I met up with the other three in my group. I had second period History with Jessica.  After the hour of boring useless information I caught her at the door.  She didn't make much argument, in fact she seemed a little bit scared after what happened yesterday.  As for Riley, I literally bumped into her in a hallway during lunch.  I definitely saw proof of her anxiety, keeping distance from everyone, no eye contact, nothing, until I almost accidentally knocked her over that is.  She accepted my offer without question and went on her way.  As fourth period let out I was beginning to think I wouldn't be able to find Nate in time.  Then I did.  I saw his fairly iconic hoodie, seriously the thing is smoke grey with a highlighter yellow hood.

"Fuck no!"

"It's just one, and believe me, you don't want this prick mad at you."  That must have resonated in his self preservation instinct because he silently grabbed and pocketed the remaining wallet.

"I fucking hate you for this."

"Good, I do too."  With that we headed to class.

As everyone took their seats Kevin looked pleased.  Immediately after the second bell sounded, the class went silent.  He wasn't wasting any time.

"Assignments out everyone."  Everything about his voice irritated me now.  Hell everything about him in general.  As we all grabbed the wallets we had, Kevin had a pleasantly surprised look on his face.  "Wow.  Well Mitch, what say we start with you?"  I dropped my three on the desk.  The jackpot, the cards, and the one from in front of the street performer.  Kevin grabbed the last one first.  "Not bad."  Next he grabbed the jackpot.  I had hoped he would take it last so it could smooth out the potential problems the card wallet would cause.  "Holy shit! What is this? Five hundred?"

"Just over four."

"All small bills too, very nice Mitch."  That struck a cord.  He sounded exactly like my dad right there, I almost lost it.  "And last but hopefully not least."  As he thumbed the card wallet, Kevin's expression turned.  "Mitch what the fuck is this?"

"A wallet, one of three.  Like you asked for."  What the fuck was I doing?  Why did I think being a smartass was a good idea?

"That's true, however.  Most wallets have fucking money in them!"  Kevin didn't just yell, he roared.

"All you asked for were wallets, contents were never specified."  I guess I'm committing to this.  Kevin did, well exactly what I would do.  He took a deep breath, calmed down, and smiled.  

"Alrighty then. Moving on.  Riley, your turn." I was worried now, I had no idea how well the others could lie.  Riley however, looked fine.  She displayed the wallets on her desk and looked Kevin right in the eye.

"Have at them." As Kevin picked up one of the baseball wallets all I could think was, "what the shit?"  Suddenly she was calm, collected, confident.  Where was the nervous wreck who was afraid to make eye contact?

"I only see two here Riley, I believe I asked for three."

"Yea well two was all I could manage, and to be fair, even the prodigy over there really only brought two."  Bitch!  What the hell was that?  Kevin laughed.

"Very well, I suppose I can lower my standards for those of you who aren't professionals."  I silently cheered as my hopes came true, I wondered if Riley throwing me under the bus like that had helped cement Kevin's change in attitude.  "On to Jessica."  She had nowhere near the composure Riley had,  I could see she was anxious.  Then, she impressed me.   Jessica tossed one of her two wallets at Kevin who was still about a desk and a half away.

"Not bad."  I thought.  Suddenly he had to focus on the thing flying at his face and not how increasingly freaked out she was getting.  Now, whether Kevin saw right through it, or he was just curious, the gamble didn't pay off.

"Who did you get this from?"  Fuck.  That was the perfect question to ask.  I knew the white wallet came from a tall lanky kid who played baseball.  Jessica didn't.  After Kevin had pocketed the hundred and some dollars Jessica still hadn't made a sound.  "Well?"

"I got it from Mitch" she spoke quietly.

"So?  You, picked the pocket, of the pickpocket?" I was getting all set to help dig her out of it with a fake that's where it went!  When Nate fucking burned us.

"Mitch gave it to her!.  Both of them.  Mine too, probably Trent's and Riley's too."  In that moment I contemplated killing him.  Kevin's eyes darted to Trent, who just kind of sat there, unaware of what to do.

"Motherfucker I earned mine!"  Thank god,  I reminded myself to later apologize to Riley for calling her a bitch.  What happened next started to terrify me.  Kevin walked back to his desk, and picked up his fancy ass pen.

"So,  Nate, Trent and Jessica all accepted work and potential credit for work they weren't willing to do themselves.  Mitch, you did complete your assignment however I will not permit enabling laziness in your classmates.  Congratulations Riley on being the only student to not piss me off today."  With that, he brought the pen down, and we all screamed, well, not Riley.  Amidst the white hot pain I could only form one coherent thought.

"Fuck me!"