The boy sits next to the girl, nearly pushing her off the small bench. The girl turns her head and concentrates on her phone, avoiding eye contact with this boy who obviously doesn't run with the right crowd. The boy doesn't care; in fact, he's happy to find her wallet sticking out of her purse. Quickly and carefully, he pulls it out and places it in his own pocket, making sure the bulge isn't visible. He doesn't check it, but he's sure that the girl must have been tipped well at whatever job she does, because the wallet is fatter than a wallet of that design should be.
Because he is polite (and very bored) the boy asks the girl how she has been.
"Fine" is her reply.
He asks about the coffee stain on her shirt.
"Bigoted customers" is her answer.
He then asks her name.
He receives no reply.
"My name's Robertson, in case you were wondering. Fletcher Robertson." The boy decides that this girl truly does not deserve all those tips, if this is how she treats her customers.
The girl's head turns slightly at the mention of his name. How did this street rat end up with that name? she wonders.
He notices and carries on.
"I was quite the brat when I was a kid. Had all the money I wanted and then some. Gave a lot of kids crap for not having what I did. One day, I sorta realized how much of a shitty person I was, so I ran away. Been living off of tourists since then."
The girl is of good morals, and never in her life had she met anyone who earned a living in the way he described. So, despite her unspoken oath of stoicism, she turns and asks, "What do you mean, 'living off of tourists?'"
The boy's face takes on a huge grin. "Why, I mean pick-pocketing of course."
"Like you tried to do with me?"
The boy's grin slides a bit, but he manages to fix it back into place. "What do you mean?"
Now it is the girl's turn to smile. "You really don't think I felt that?"
"Felt what?"
She has to give it to him, he's playing innocent very well. "I know you stole my wallet."
"What wallet?"
She reaches into his jacket pocket, the one with barely a crease, and pulls out her wallet. She drops it in the boy's lap and says, "Go ahead. Take what's in it."
"What?"
"You heard me. I just want the wallet back. That thing was expensive."
The boy empties the wallet and stuffs the contents into his pocket without looking at them.
"Are you sure?"
The girl laughs. "I work in a coffee shop. I never want to see any of those again."
He hands her the wallet, and as he does the bus comes.
"Use it well," says the girl as she climbs on the bus. "It took me a long time to get all that."
The boy shakes his head, hardly believing his good luck. He boards the bus, nodding at the driver and dropping four quarters into his tip jar.
____________________________
It won't be until the boy gets home to his small apartment that he'll realize he's been duped. He'll find the "tips" that he got from the girl are actually several torn dollar bills varying in age and size that had been left as tips by bitter customers. He will laugh at her cunning, then promise himself that he'll find pretty girl and figure out her name before the end of the month.
