Straw Hat's Guardian

Chapter Forty-Two: Landfall on Loguetown! Enter I-Pin!

"The key is sleight of hand.", Nami enlightens her young new protege, "You always want your target focus on where you want their full attention, allowing you to slide your sticky fingers and grab what you want."

Lambo nods along attentively, writing in a notepad Nami had given him the day before when these lessons had first begun. He can still feel the warmth in his chest when thinking back to how proud Nami was when she saw how well Lambo could already lockpick. Quickly moving on and teaching him a few tricks to make the process go faster and how to go about trickier locks. She even taught him how to crack a safe!

Granted, it took Lambo nearly the rest of the day, with Ussop nearly dragging the younger boy to bed before he had finally cracked it, Nami of course did it in nearly seconds during her demonstration earlier that day.

"Keep attention... where.... you... want it.", Lambo mutters under his breath, tongue sticking out in concentration.

Nami flicked Lambo on the forehead.

"Ow! What was that for?", Lambo cried out as he rubbed his forehead with an angry pout.

"Lesson number two.", Nami holds up two fingers with a smirk, "Always be aware of your surroundings, less you become the one being robbed rather than the robber. Like this!"

Nami holds up Lambo's wallet that has all his money with a giggle. Immediately, Lambo's hands went flying to his waistband, where he securely, or so he thought, hides the wallet so as to not be pickpocketed as easily as Nami has just done. For of course, the wallet was no longer there.

"Oh, come on...", Lambo slouches with a disappointed sigh, "I thought that was a good spot!"

"It was.", Nami shrugged, "If it were anyone else than me, you would have caught them pretty quick, especially since it's not a place one would usually think to put their wallet. If it's not in a pocket, it's usually in a hat or shoe. But this means you already got Lesson number three down all on your own then, take precautions. That's good, but it's pretty much rendered useless if you don't follow the second lesson and continue to remain aware of everyone and everything around, both in and outside of battles."

"Okay, okay. I need to pay more attention to people around me and stuff, I get it.", Lambo nearly whined with a near dead panned tone, "Now can I have my wallet back please?"

"I don't know.", Nami hummed in playful consideration, before winking at the younger teen, sticking her tongue down at him, "Why don't you just steal it from me?"

"C'mon Nami!", Lambo protested, jumping to his feet in his near desperation, "We're going to port soon, I need my money when we get to Loguetown!"

"Then take it back if you need it so bad.", Nami teased as she waved the wallet behind her, just out of the boy's reach.

An irk mark pulsed on Lambo's head as he glared at the Straw Hat Navigator in frustration.

Lambo then his eyes widened as he suddenly points behind Nami, "Luffy's messing with your charts again!"

"Again!?", Nami whirls around, only to see that her charts are perfectly fine.

Lambo snatched back his wallet, and jumped back a couple steps, out of Nami's reach, just as the Navigator turns back to him with a raised brow.

"Alright. I'll give you that one, for now.", Nami concedes, "Classic misdirection, but still works if used well. Speaking of my charts, Lambo's right, we should be making land soon guys."

Nami addresses the rest of the room, their audience consisting of Sanji and Ussop, Zoro and Luffy are still hanging outside. Zoro is most likely napping like the cat he is, and Luffy likes being the most, always the last one to come inside for bed. And Lambo has the feeling that, for once, it does not have to do with the older teens seemingly endless reserves of energy.