illegal love

2

"Vada, I need another five dollars for the school ecusion."
Reaching into my back pocket, I pulled out a few one dollar bills.
These I counted off.
"Here, Ace.", I handed the money to my little brother and returned my attention to preparing the school sandwiches.
Slack toast with jam - the cheapest you could get.

"Why does he get money and I don't?", annoyed, I looked into the face of my little sister Laika.
"Because he's going to the museum today. You guys went last year," I explained, handing her and Ace the food.
Grumpily, the younger one pocketed it and disappeared out the door without another word, sight followed by my brother.

"Thank you vada for getting out extra early and fixing the house...", I muttered to myself in frustration.
But I didn't blame them, they just weren't thinking about how hard life could be yet.

After grabbing my school bag, I also made my way to school.

...

"Didn't you already write the term paper yesterday during free period?", confused, my best friend Alex looked down at me.
It was just before school started and I was sitting on the floor of the toilet with a piece of paper and pen.
Eerily hygienic, I know.

"Yeah, this one's for Monica," I explained, at which point it clicked for him.
"You should really stop doing all this school junk for money," I looked at him.
"I need the money and this is easy. It's sad that even these airheads can't make this work.", shaking my head, I wrote the last sentence of the essay.

"You can make a lot more money a lot faster though," he explained to me.
As if I didn't know that....
"A lot of money. 200 bucks straight to the hand, for practically nothing, Vada.", now I looked at Alex with interest after all.
Because 200 bucks I could really use, for the electricity and water bill for example.

"Mhm...what are we talking about?"
I watched Alex as he took a deep drag from his cigarette, then held it out to me.
This one I accepted with thanks.
For the nerve.

"Standing guard and exchanging a key. Very simple.", he explained the job to me.
"And that was all?", incredulously I looked at him.
He nodded, whereupon I took a thoughtful drag on my cigarette.
"And why don't you do the job?"
"Because they want a woman," he explained to me. "Men are suspicious first, apparently.", shrugging his shoulders, he helped me up.

"Mmm...okay, I'll do it," I decided.
It wasn't the first thing I shot and definitely not the last.