Life of a Street Kid ☑️

Chapter 8

We were back out side after I finished with my mannequin. Will stared at the thing in front of him confused beyond belief. At the same height as him, the mannequin was a few feet wide made from boxes, brooms, and anything else I could find. It had string as hair, rotten old oranges as eyes and a pair of my old clothes on with a belt holding a sack around the waist. It also had bells hanging from the waist.

"How is this... thing going to help me train for fighting?"

"It isn't for fighting. Well at least for a while. It's for teaching you to be stealthy, graceful, and how to not get caught."

"What?"

"It's to help you become a pickpocketer. One of the key points of being a thief is to help get what is needed in a time of crisis. Stealing something without anyone noticing is the best way."

"You want me to become a thief? No way! You're out of your mind. There is no reason to steal from people. I'm not going to do it." He made it clear.

"If you don't learn how to be stealthy you're not going to learn to fight." I explained.

"How exactly is stealing going to help me fight. I see no correlation."

"Let me put it this way. Say you're in need of food. You have three options: starve, steal money to pay for food, or steal food straight off. In a situation starving is never good. You don't know when you'll eat again. You steal food from a market, which could work, but one: You'll have a watchful clerk on you making it hard to get something, two: Someone else in the market may catch you, which is just as worst, or three: Someone in the market will rat you out to that person you're running from. It's an okay decision but you'll have to be lucky.

"Then you have stealing money. It's risky like everything else done but you won't have as many problems. Not many people will be watching you so that's good. You could always blow it off as an accident bump in and finally you could get food without getting caught. "

Will looked at the mannequin for a while deciding what to. He shook his head a few times then said, "Fine but only for extreme emergencies."

"Great let's get started then." Slowly I explained the technique, procedure, and demonstrated how a good pickpocketer worked so it would sink in. Will watched and listened intently absorbing as much as he could.

"Now you try." I encouraged stepping out of the way.

With a hesitant step Will came to the mannequin. Before he proceeded he asked, "What are the bells for?"

"You'll see" With that Will tried to imitate what he had just seen. All the bells rang out during his attempt to take the sack. The sudden sound made Will jump away.

"Now you see. The bells are a marker. They ring with the slightest vibration or movement from the mannequin. They're there to notify you that you made a move that someone would feel. In other worlds they're going to tell if you made a successful snatch."

"What you did wrong on that attempt was putting too much pressure. It made the belt go up when you let go and it rang the bells. For a helpful tip try not to release so suddenly. Let the belt go gradually until it's in the right position. Now that's all the help you'll get from me. You're on your own for now on. Learn from your mistakes by yourself and you'll learn faster and more efficiently. It'll help you figure out strategies on the spot like in a real world situation."

Will didn't respond to that he just got back to trying to figure out more efficient solution. Satisfied with my help I turned away ready to work on my chores. Missing two days made for a lot of it.