Гарри Гаррисон - A Stainless Steel Rat Is Born

And where did I get the money to bribe the teacher? Not from Dad, I can tell you. Three bucks a week was my allowance, enough to buy maybe two Gaspo-Fizzes and a small sized Get-Stuffed candy bar. Need, not greed, taught me my first economic lesson. Buy cheap and sell dear and keep the profits for yourself.

Of course there was nothing I could buy, having no capital, so I resorted to not paying at all for the basic product. All kids shoplift. They go through the phase and usually get it beaten out of them when they are detected. I saw the unhappy and tear-stained results of failure and decided to do a market survey as well as a time and motion study before I entered on a career of very petty crime.

Firstly - stay away from the small merchants. They know their stock and have a strong interest in keeping it intact. So do your shopping at the large multis. All you have to worry about then are the store detectives and alarm systems. Then careful study of how they operate will generate techniques to circumvent them.

One of my earliest and most primitive techniques - I blush at revealing its simplicity - I called the book-trap. I constructed a box that looked exactly like a book. Only it had a spring-loaded, hinged bottom. All I needed to do was to push it down on an unsuspecting Get-Stuffed bar to have the candy vanish from sight. This was a crude but workable device that I used for a good length of time. I was about to abandon it for a superior technique when I perceived an opportunity to finish it off in a most positive manner. I was going to take care of Smelly.

His name was Bedford Smillingham but Smelly was the only name we ever called him. As some are born dancers or painters, others are shaped for lesser tasks. Smelly was a born snitch. His only pleasure in life was ratting on his schoolmates. He peeked and watched and snitched. No juvenile peccadillo was too minor for him to note and report to the authorities. They loved him for this - which will tell you a lot about the kind of teachers we had. Nor could he be beatup with impunity. His word was always believed and it was the beater-uppers who suffered the punishment.

Smelly had done me some small ill, I forget exactly what, but it was enough to stir dark and brooding thought, to eventually produce a plan of action. Bragging is a thing all boys enjoy, and I achieved great status by revealing my book-shaped candy bar collector to my peer group. There were oohs and ahhs, made more ooh and ahhish by portioning out some of the loot free for the taking. Not only did this help my juvenile status - but I made sure that it was done where Smelly could eavesdrop. It still feels like yesterday, and I glow warmly with the memory.

"Not only does it work - but I'll show you just how! Come with me to Ming's Multistore!" "Can we, Jimmy - can we really?" "You can. But not in a bunch. Drift over there a few at a time and stand where you can watch the Get-Stuffed counter. Be thereat 1500 hours and you will really see something!" Something far better than they could possibly have imagined. I dismissed them and watched the Head's office. As soon as Smelly went through the door I nipped down and broke into his locker.

It worked like a charm. I take some pride in this since it was the first criminal scenario that I prepared for others to take part in. All unsuspecting of course. At the appointed time I drifted up to the candy counter at Ming's, working very hard to ignore the rentaflics, who were working equally hard pretending they weren't watching me. With relaxed motions I placed the book atop the candies and bent to fix my boot fastener.

"Nicked!" the burlier of them shouted, seizing me by the coat collar. "Gotcha!" the other crowed, grabbing up the book.

"What are you doing," I croaked - I had to croak because my coat was now pulled tight about my throat as I hung suspended from it. "Thief - give me back my sevenbuck history book that my Mom bought with money earned weaving matts from porcuswine quills!" "Book?" the great bully sneered. "We know all about this book." He seized the ends and pulled. It opened and the look on his face as the pages flipped over was something sweet to behold. "I have been framed," I squeaked, opening my coat and dropping free, rubbing at my sore throat. "Framed by the criminal who bragged about using that same technique for his own nefarious ends. He stands there, one Smelly by name. Grab him, guys, before he runs away!" Smelly could only stand and gape while the ready hands of his peers clutched tight. His schoolbooks fell to the floor and the imitation book burst open and disgorged its contents of Get-Stuffeds upon the floor.

It was beautiful. Tears and recriminations and shouting. A perfect distraction as well. Because this was the day that I field-tested my Mark II Get-Stuffed stuffer. I had worked hard on this device which was built around a silent vacuum pump - with a tube down my sleeve. I brought the tube end close to the candy bars and – zip! - the first of them vanished from sight. It ended up in my trousers, or rather inside the hideous plus-fours we were forced to wear as a school uniform. These bagged out and were secured above the ankle by a sturdy elastic band. The candy bar dropped safely into it, to be followed by another and yet another.

Except I couldn't turn the damn thing off. Thank goodness for Smelly's screaming and struggling. All eyes were on him and not me as I struggled with the switch. Meanwhile the pump still pumped and the Get-Stuffeds shot up my sleeve and into my trousers. I turned it off eventually but if anyone had bothered to look my way, why the empty counter and my bulging-legged form would have been a might suspicious. But thankfully no one did. I exited with a rolling gait, as quickly as I could. As I said, a memory I will always cherish.

Which, of course, does not explain why I have now, on my birthday, made the major decision to hold up a bank. And get caught.

The police had finally broken down the door and were swarming in. I raised my hands over my head and prepared to welcome them with warm smiles.

The birthday, that is the final reason. My seventeenth birthday. Becoming seventeen here on Bit O'Heaven is a very important time in a young man's life.

The judge leaned forward and looked down at me, not unkindly. "Now come on, Jimmy, tell me what this tomfoolery is all about." Judge Nixon had a summer house on the river, not too far from our farm, and I had been there often enough with his youngest son for the judge to get to know me.

"My name is James diGriz, buster. Let us not get too familiar." This heightened his color a good deal, as you might imagine. His big nose stuck out like a red ski slope and his nostrils flared. "You will have more respect in this courtroom! You are faced with serious charges, my boy, and it might help your case to keep a civil tongue in your mouth. I am appointing Arnold Fortescue, the public defender, as your attorney..." "I don't need an attorney-and I particularly don't need old Skewey who has been on the sauce so long there isn't a man alive who has seen him sober..." There was a ripple of laughter from the public seats, which infuriated the judge. "Order in the court!" he bellowed, hammering his gavel so hard that the handle broke. He threw the stub across the room and glared angrily at me. "You are trying the patience of this court. Lawyer Fortescue has been appointed..." "Not by me he hasn't. Send him back to Mooney's Bar. I plead guilty to all charges and throw myself on the mercy of this merciless court.

He drew in his breath with a shuddering sigh and I decided to ease off a bit before he had a stroke and collapsed; then there would be a mistrial and more time would be wasted.

"I'm sorry, judge." I hung my head to hide an unrepressed smile. "But I done wrong and I will have to pay the penalty." "Well, that's more like it, Jimmy. You always were a smart lad and I hate to see all that intelligence going to waste. You will go to Juvenile Correction Hall for a term of not less than-" "Sorry, your honor," I broke in. "Not possible. Oh, if I only had committed my criraes last week or last month! The law is firm on this and I have no escape. Today is my birthday. My seventeenth birthday.