"Shoplifting?" The way Bob looked at me was a mix of disappointment and regret. "Did you really think that wise, Harry?"

"I didn't..."

"Your uncle does provide you with an allowance for your little excursions, does he not?"

"It wasn't my..."

"And now we are going to have to deal with whatever sort of punishment he sees fit to mete out. I do hope your lessons will not suffer during your restrictions."

"Thanks for your concern, Bob." I said. It's possible that my tone was lacking in respect or gratitude. "I thought you'd be thrilled about my being grounded. All that time to study..."

"Oh, surely Harry you don't think that your punishment will be limited to boredom? This is about family honor. There are sure to be unpleasant chores and time-wasters in your future."

Crap. Bob was probably right. Uncle Justin had seemed really calm and pleasant at the mall office (thankfully this hadn't made it to the police station), but the repressed anger had seethed off him in waves. This was not going to be a good week... month? Hopefully not year?

The thing is, it wasn't really my fault. Okay. That's not precisely true. It was partially my fault, but I hadn't meant to steal anything.

Bob and I had been working on controlling kinetic forces: making things fly, calling objects, you know, moving things with my mind. (Fine. With my magic powers. But doesn't it sound cooler the other way?) But everything Bob and I had covered was theory. All that drawing on a chalkboard. So much mind-numbing theory that fifteen-year-old me just couldn't take it anymore.

I was in the mall when I snapped. There was a display. There was a stuffed pig with wings. There were probably (definitely) pretty girls. So I reached out with my energy and made the pig fly. Sure I had made things fly before, but this time it was on purpose, and I sort of understood what it was I was doing. I understood enough to make the little toy swoop around the girls' heads and over toward me. It was awesome. So much so that I forgot where I was and failed to notice when the security alarms went off as the pig flew out of its store. When I heard the alarm blare, I abruptly lost concentration. I released the magic controlling the pig, and the left over force sent it careening directly into me. Naturally, I caught it just in time for the mall security guards to arrive and proclaim that I had stolen the toy. As if I wanted a stupid stuffed pig with wings! Of course nobody would stick up for me. Who would have believed that the thing took off on its own and flew over to me?

"Did you even steal something good, Harry? Couldn't have been jewels or anything valuable or there would have been more of a stir." Bob's question snapped me back to the present.

"It was a flying pig" I muttered. I was never going to hear the end of this.

"Oh-ho! A flying pig! What every growing boy needs!" Bob was having a hard time not dying of laughter. I could tell because of the tears welling up in his eyes and the fact that he was sniggering at me between words. "That is sure to win you all the girls, Harry! Well done!"

I put my head down on my makeshift desk. Next time, I would have to make sure that anything I accidentally removed from a store was worth the penalties. Something like the diamond horseshoe necklace I liberated when Libby Fuller was looking a little too interested in the football team when I was sixteen. (Bob laughed at me then too. Justin sentenced me to two months of theory-only magic lessons and polishing all of the silver in the house.)

And then I became a horse thief. But that's another story.