George walked down the street and then turned into a little alleyway for some privacy. Can you guess where he was? Yes, that’s right, he was on a school trip to Oxford as well. His school was actually in Oxford though, so he hadn’t come very far. His family was considerably richer than those of Jake, Chloe and Hannah, so he had been sent to board at a very expensive, snooty private school. He was also a couple of years older than them all, which is why he was currently on a trip to a University of Oxford ‘open day’ to try to decide whether he wanted to come to study here when he left school.

He didn’t, but he would probably apply anyway.

He had just been looking around one of the University’s colleges—Pembroke college, it was called—and was now sneaking outside for a quick break and to send a text to one of his friends. It had been decided that George was going to study Law at University. This had been decided by his father who himself was a high-flying lawyer in the city. The choice had been between Law or Medicine. George couldn’t stand the sight of blood, which made him feel queasy, so he had opted for Law. The trouble was, he wasn’t really very interested in Law either. What he was actually most interested in was gardening, in being outside in the open air, among things that grow. But he would never tell his father that.

And he did very well at school. In fact, George was a straight-A student. He had to be, because at his school if you weren’t then you got kicked out. He worked very hard at school, not only to stay in it but also to try to please his Dad. His father was an extremely hard-working man, but also an extremely angry man, and he demanded only the best from George and got angry with him if he didn’t produce it. George’s Mum had passed away from cancer a few years ago and his Dad had only gotten angrier and more demanding since then. If it wasn’t for the expensive school being there to churn the A-grades out of him, who knows what might have happened?

The fact that he went to a very expensive school was also the reason that George was wearing his fancy, expensive-looking school uniform, which included smart trousers, a shirt, a jacket and a tie. This, in turn, was the reason why, at that moment, someone decided to mug him.

The mugger in question was a man by the name of Crazy Pete (don’t ask me why he was called ‘Crazy’ because I don’t particularly want to tell you). He had not had anything to eat yet that day and his morning begging hadn’t been very successful, which meant that he was feeling both hungry and frustrated.

So when Crazy Pete saw this boy in his fancy, expensive-looking uniform standing in the alleyway, listening to music through one headphone, looking down at his new phone which he was texting on with his other hand (the latest Apple iPhone, of course), rather than doing what he normally would have done, which was to say “Got a light?” and ask for some spare change, he did something else: He ran up to George, punched him in the stomach, grabbed his phone out of his hand, and ran.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“Oomph!” said George. And then “Hey, get back here!”

The homeless man could run surprisingly fast. He charged out of the alleyway and then sprinted down Pembroke Street as quickly as he could go in an effort to put as much distance as he could between himself and George as quickly as possible. In other circumstances George would have let the mugger go but he was in a bad mood today and his Dad had been particularly angry with him lately, and he knew that he would be kill him if he found out that he had lost his new phone. Especially while he was down an alleyway, away from his school group. So he took off after the man.

Crazy Pete headed into a nearby Sainsburys to try to lose George. He slipped in through a one-way automatic door just as a customer was coming out of it, hoping that it would close after him, but George made it in just in time, bounding up the stairs beyond it and saying “Watch out!” to another customer that the man had knocked over on the way.

Inside, Crazy Pete ran between the food aisles, still trying his best to lose George. He knocked over some cans to try to slow him down. This was a bad move. Soon a Sainsburys aisle supervisor was running alongside George, saying “What’s going on?”

“That guy nicked my phone!”

The aisle supervisor needed no further explanation, and the chase was joined by another person, then another and another. They shot out of the shop entrance and then through some more doors and back into the street.

Crazy Pete was panicking now. After glancing around and seeing the boy and three more men running after him, he knew he was in trouble. As fast as his legs could carry him, his lungs panting for air, he pounded back down the length of Pembroke Street and then out into St Aldates Street, turning right. His pursuers followed. He stayed on the pavement for a bit, and then, in a mad dash, flew out into the road when he reached the glass doors of a church, aiming to cross it and then turn left, into Bear Lane. There was lots of traffic and a couple of cars screeched to avoid hitting him, beeping their horns in alarm.

The three men from Sainsburys stopped in front of the church. George didn’t. He wanted that phone back. He was determined to catch the mugger.

Unfortunately, this meant that he didn’t see the number 4 bus coming straight towards him.

For George, too, everything went dark, but for different reasons.