Free Being Me by Pete Kalu

his wallet in his inside jacket pocket. Cakes leads, pretending to be arguing with a boyfriend on her phone. At the last second she stumbles into the man, using her weight to wobble him. MC is in his jacket in a flash as he’s trying to untangle himself from Cakes. MC palms me the wallet. I’m down the street as Cakes and MC are still apologising to the business guy. He swats them away while keeping up his conversation on his phone. Mikaela’s with me. We run down a side street, take the stone steps down onto a canal bank and half walk, half run under a bridge. I take out the wallet. It’s bulging. I unzip it. A huge bundle of notes. In three currencies. My heart is hammering my rib cage as I count them. Two hundred in English pounds. Two hundred and fifty in Euros, and ten twenty dollar USA notes. Plus four credit cards.
    MC and Cakes come running up. MC’s annoyed that we’ve opened the wallet before she caught up with us. She grabs it off us.
    Ten minutes later, we’re in a Fruit Slurp Bar, sipping smoothies. Mikaela is drooling over a Coconut and Mango Medley. MC grabs her in a hold that is part head lock, part friendly neck massage and says: ‘So Mikaela, does it “feel so wrong” now?’
    Mikaela smiles. And for the first time ever, I see a glint of pure evil rise in her eyes. I think, ohmygod I’ve created a monster.
    Cakes says we should stop robbing for the day cos we’ve got so much already. I agree, but MC says let’s do Kendals. It’s a massive department store on the rich side of the city centre and it could have been designed by shoplifters – full of lifts, stairs and escalators, eight exits, rubbish cameras and bored staff. Plus it’s stuffed with the most expensive brands on earth. It has a restaurant at the top where you get a free cream cake if you have a receipt above ten pounds. We finish our smoothies and pour out into Market Street, heading for Kendals.
    There’s a silver statue guy in the middle of the street with a crowd around him. He’s frozen on one leg in a sitting angle that means he should fall down but he doesn’t. He’s got a stiff scarf around his neck sticking out sideways like he’s piloting an open-top airplane except we can’t see the plane. People walk round him, staring. Nobody can figure out how he stays in the position he’s in. There’s gasps when he moves a hand to thank someone who drops money in his bowler hat on the ground. Cakes drops him a pound. He nods then freezes again.
    Further up, there’s a beat box kid in a back-to-front cap, four break dancers doing rubbish moves on lino and an artist copying a photo of Mona Lisa onto the pavement. After Mona Lisa we come across the white faced, statue-on-a-box-in-a-white-bed-sheet guy we saw on the bus. He’s rubbish compared with the airplane guy. I giggle with Cakes. MC Banshee whispers to Mikaela, then saunters up to him. I can tell from MC’s swagger she’s going to do something. Mikaela’s right behind her.
    Me and Cakes are chewing pretzels, hanging back.
    Suddenly MC rushes at him and pushes him off his box. Mikaela ducks down and scoops coins out of his money plate. They both leg it, laughing. The statue man hitches up his bed-sheet and gives chase but he trips up and goes sprawling. The crowd laughs at him. Me and Cakes walk past. Our pretzels are rammed right into the back of our mouths so we don’t laugh. He’s swearing in a foreign language.
    Mikaela agrees to be the turnstile in Kendals. We sail up and down the escalators and stairs for a bit, to show her the ropes.
    Perfume is tough in Kendals because the perfume stalls all have their own commissioned sellers watching eagle-eyed as you go past. All the women on the perfume stalls have pouty lips and botox eyebrows. Mrs Richards would be appalled. We spray a few testers on each other till they get jumpy with us, thinking we’re timewasters. It’s great seeing their faces when MC Banshee says, ‘Do you take European money?’
    Then she buys