The Adventures of a Teenage Con-Artist

Chapter Two: The Master Thief and the Master Mind

CHAPTER 2:

             The Master Thief and the Master Mind

I stood in front of the mall and stared up with a mix of apprehension and excitement at the looming building.

Bellvale Mall was nothing like the obscenely bright posters had made it out to be. The inside of the mall was teeming with tiny stores that all seemed to have been named by a child and traces of fresh paint mixed in with the scent of roasting coffee and fried food.

Libby stood next to me and put her arm around my shoulder.

“Okay, Mastermind, now what?”she said, looking to me to come up with the plan, as usual. Honestly, the number of times I had to work out how to pull off her stunts when they were her idea in the first place, would even shock Einstein.

My eyes scanned from one side of the room to the other. We had entered through the second entrance, right into the main food court. Just like in the rest of the mall, this section included several multi coloured stalls, all with ridiculous names.

Of course Dreamland, the mattress and bed linen store would be painted a baby blue and covered in three-dimensional clouds. And naturally the store Magic Mayhem would have a monstrous black and white top hat with a rabbit jumping out of it as their logo. The only place that was actually cool was the arcade, Kapow! Its neon yellow sign looked like it came directly out of an old comic book and the sound of pinball and racing car machines carried right across the food court.

Seriously, who named these places?Only a kid would give a store a cheesy name and then make it even more cringe worthy by decorating it with the most obvious and tacky choices imaginable.

  “Okay, so I googled the new centre and its directory in class so I could work out our game plan,”I whispered in the crowded centre, pulling out my diagram from my bag. “We have to make sure that we get in and out within five minutes before they notice us so I think we need to choose our targets carefully.”

I didn’t even get the change to unfold the piece of paper before Libby snatched it from my hands and tore it up.

“Screw that,”she grabbed my hand and dragged me to a hippie style store with strong incense burning in the room and seeping through the entrance. “This’ll work.”

God, she really didn’t think anything through. If we were going to do with then we needed to be smart about it.

“Just stop,”I ripped my hand out of her grasp and guided her away from the store’s entrance. “You have no idea what kind of security system they have in place and besides, the sales assistant is on customer service duty by the look of it.”

The slightly overweight man was roaming through each aisle, chatting with the few people who were looking through the racks of tie dyed scarves.

We weren’t going to get two steps inside that store without the man jumping on us.

“Fine, tell me then, Sherlock, which one of these stores do you suggest?”Libby flicked her hair out of her eyes.

“GroovyGirl is our best option.”I pointed across the room to the tiny store with a bright purple window display. “It’s pretty small and the sales assistant seems distracted. It’ll be a good place to practise.”

Libby raised her eyebrow but quickly relented, walking over to the store.

“GroovyGirl huh?”she shook her head and scrunched up her face in disapproval. “I dare you to find a lamer name, Jesus.”

Yeah okay, she was spot on with that.

GroovyGirl was lined from one end to the other with different coloured jewellery. There seemed to be a different shape and colour on every single hanger. I watched Libby walk towards the green section of jewellery without any hesitation. Unsure of where to go next, I decided to go for the make-up that was in the middle of the store. The rectangle stand perched on the bench held neon coloured eye shadows and different shades of lipstick. I wasn’t really paying much attention to what colours I wanted; I was more focused on discreetly watching the sales assistant. She looked like she was only in her early twenties and had a wide smile plastered on her face. Currently she was absorbed in a conversation with some unshaven creep who seemed to be flirting with her, if you could even call it that.