Halt's Ranger Apprentices- John Flanagan Ranger Apprentice fan-fiction

CHAPTER THREE:

"Halt!" The girl, hair tied tight behind her head, brown leather jacket on and brown cloak, called out. "I'm just going to the village to get some supplies." Not worrying about asking to go there, not caring to ask. She swung her pack over her shoulder, some money stashed in there.
She heard grunt in response before walking out the shack, the warm afternoon air hitting her bare skin like waves hit rocks. She walked along the almost disappeared path after years of neglect and went toward the castle not far from where she was. It took a couple of steps for Halt to slam back the wooden shack door as he always did, calling out to her, "Behave yourself." She almost laughed and nodded half-heartedly, without turning around, her cheeks wrinkling at the smirk that grew on her lips.

As she strode past the tapestries of colour and other little miscellaneous trinkets at the Market Town Square, she noticed a stall of food, the smell venturing to her rumbling stomach. She headed towards there, the fruit and vegetables and fresh meat varying in different sizes and colours.
There was a sign in front of the stall saying: "Stealing NOT permitted" she smirked at the sign, glancing either sides of her, the busy people not caring to look in her direction, as she kept heading towards the stall, then when she was in arms reach she turned to the left with the food on her right then slipped her hand out of her plain brown cloak, gripped her hand around an apple and took it hiding it under the cloak.
She moved away in a fast movement, but not too quickly for anyone to look at it as suspicious, after getting away from the stall, she stopped next to a trinket selling stall and took a luscious bite of it with the juice spraying her teeth and gums inside her mouth.

She became consumed by the taste, that she almost didn't notice the grip around her arm, but as the hand tightened she suddenly turned to the attacker. The chocolate brown eyes were the first things she saw, and as her eyes ventured around the features, a boy who came across as around her age, his height seeming quite small at his age had the thought of familiarity pounding at the back of her mind. It took seconds to realise who he was.
It was the boy, Will, who Halt had kept carrying on about. She stared at him with curiosity then realising she was being rude she put her hand out for him to shake and said in a formal tone,
"Hi my name is-"She hesitated trying to think of a name to use.

The girl's stumble on her words made a flush of red drown her features, her life had been bottled up with these moment when she had nothing to answer to her name. An orphan early from birth gave her the gift of no name to call herself. Halt usually just called her Squirt and she was always very isolated from the kids in Castle Redmont, so she never really has worry about things like this. It was Will's turn to stare at her with curiosity. Then as if he had just come out of a trance, shook his head and gestured to the apple.

"You do realise you're not supposed to steal?" The girl caught by surprise of him speaking had completely forgotten about the apple incident which she was still clinging onto in her hand.
"Huh?" She asked, her ability of manners had slipped passed her as her life growing up for the last 15 years with a ranger had seemed to make her words come off as rude and unladylike. Will ignored the misuse of her manners and carried on with his debate. It wasn't really because he saw what she did was wrong, but more out of jealousy that she got away with it.
"Can't you read the sign? It says that stealing is not permitted?" she took note of Will emphasising the word "not" and looked back at the sign he was pointing at and smiled in that way that always got Halt's teeth grinding.

"Well," she started, "it seems I chose not to see the word." she smiled widely at him and he gave a hint of humour in his eyes, and a slight twitch of his mouth turning into a smile, something that seemed to escape from Will usually.
But his smile didn't last long as a voice from behind him called his name. He turned around and she looked at where the voice was and saw a tall muscly figure with a not too happy expression on his face. This doesn't look good; she thought and heard a slight groan from Will.