What transpired after was the happiest time Rumple had known in his short memory. Just him and Astrid without the fear of Malcolm hanging over them.
No Malcolm pushing Astrid to take the weird medicine with him when he was using and wanted company. Now that Malcolm was gone Rumple was pleased to see she didn't feel the need to use it as much. She was with him now most of the time and she was herself, not the drugged out version of her he hated. They got along great and they worked as a team- nicking things all over the city.
Astrid's had plenty of cunning plans. They went to a store and Rumple took whatever she told him to.
He was lower than the eyeline of most of the clerks in his stroller and could hide things underneath his jacket which he kept in his lap. If anybody caught them, and yes it did occasionally happen, Astrid would act surprised that Rumple had taken things from the store and pretend to scold him and make him return it to the shop owner with apologies.
She never actually got angry at him if he got caught. Whenever Rumple worried she'd be upset that he'd made a mistake, she would just laugh and say it was the odds of the "nicking stuff game." Sometimes even the best, most brazen person got caught. Whatever the odds, she was just glad Rumple was on her team.
Some of the things they nicked they took to the pawnshops. There was one area of Church Street, Astrid explained to Rumple, between Queen and Shuter near the creepy park, where every shop for two blocks solid was either a pawnshop or a "We Buy Your Jewelry" type place.
At first he'd only liked this part of Church Street because so many of the shops had his last name, "Gold" on their signs. "Lookit Astrid! All the shops here have my name on them! They all belong to me!" he told Astrid who just laughed. Rumple couldn't actually read, but Astrid had shown him how to write his own name in full, so he knew the word "Gold." He was excited to see it and recognize it on so many shop windows and awnings all around.
"No, no sweetheart. They're saying 'We buy your Gold,'" she corrected him, "that's all."
He shrunk into his stroller in fright. "No, no Astrid please! Don't let them buy me offa you!"
"Oh, you're too much!" she giggled. "They don't want little boys whose name is Gold. They want real gold, like gold bracelets and necklaces and stuff."
"Oh." Once he discovered they weren't interested in buying him, Rumple found he quite liked the pawnshops. There were so many exciting things in them and unlike the mall where cash or card were the only currency they took, at the pawnshops you could usually make a trade for an item. You could give them something you'd nicked and they would give you money or something else you needed. The only drawback was that sometimes the people who worked in the shops made him feel funny. They looked at Astrid in strange ways, almost as if they wanted to buy her and it made him uncomfortable.
However even the people running the pawnshops could be done in by Rumple's patented "puppy dog look." Lots of the older folks who ran the places had grandkids and Rumple knew how to amp up the cute and use his small size for the desired effect. He'd even begin talking to Astrid in a more babyish way when they were in the shops, so they thought he was way younger and gave Astrid a good deal.
Food wasn't a problem during that time. Astrid had a friend working at the CNE. It was like a big gigantic fair downtown by the waterfront near the abandoned Ontario Place which they might or might not be converting into a casino. It took ages to get out there, but once they did they could get all the leftover food at the end of the day that the food stands would otherwise just throw out. They took home bags of tasty treats like funnel cakes and huge boxes of low mein and bacon burgers. Plus, they got to go to the CNE at night and see all the rides lit up full of lights and the people playing games of chance on the midway and the food tents with people giving out free samples of all sorts of exotic delights Rumple had never tried before. There were so many people that it was easy to take things, leftover food that nobody threw out or shopping bags forgotten underneath a seat. Companies gave out samples of hair products and strange flavours of gum and coupons for McDonald's all day long and if you came more than once they usually didn't remember.
One day Astrid even took Rumple to the beach. It wasn't a real beach, of course, although there was a real one somewhere in the city she said, but there was lots of sand. They bought pails and shovels from the dollar store and went down all the way to the waterfront near the Guvernment club where Astrid said she used to go dancing. Across the street was Sugar Beach. It was a tiny area of artificial sand next to some entertainment company offices and the old Redpath Sugar refinery. There was no water because the beach was created on a platform up above the lake level, but you could still play in the sand.
Rumple loved to sit and play in the sand. There were a few other kids there too although it was the middle of the day when big kids were in school, so most of them were really young. "Condo kids," Astrid said dismissively. Rumple didn't know what a "Condo Kid" was but, he thought they looked very nice, all clean and well dressed, not like the kids at the park near his house who often had rashes around their mouths or smelled like pee. Rumple got Astrid to bury his legs in the sand and they made a castle together.
Rumple played and pretended to be like everyone else. Astrid called this sort of thing "acting" and said people could do it for a profession when they got older. She told Rumple that he was great at acting and he felt proud because it was true. He could act all babyish for pawnshop owners or like a silly little kid who took items from store shelves without thinking or like an invisible ball that no one would notice under the covers when Malcolm was in one of his angry moods or one of the other people in the house came up in their room to make trouble. He could put the sand over him and act like he had two normal working legs underneath like the other kids at the beach. But the best acting he did, was when he pretended that Astrid was his mom or his really big sister. He did it all the time and so did she.
And not just for strangers who asked either. Sometimes they'd just tell people that, even when they didn't ask, because it was fun and they felt that way. It wasn't really acting, Rumple thought, not if you really felt that way inside. And inside he loved Astrid like she was his family, and he thought she loved him in the same way.
Sitting in the sand as the sun was going down, a half finished castle by his side Rumple stared out at the lake. It was catching the last rays of the sun and glowed full of yellow and pink ripples. It was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. It sparkled bright blue underneath the ripples. More than anything he longed to jump out off the platform into the water and go swimming like Astrid had once told him he could do one day.
"Maybe at the community pool," she said when he suggested it. "Not here Rumple, this water is bad. It's gross and polluted, maybe a long time ago it used to be clean and all right, but it's not anymore."
"But it looks so very beautiful, so blue," he protested.
But Astrid just shook her head. "Things aren't always what they look like, Rum," she just said.
"The lake is just acting, then," he said and she nodded.
The thought made him feel sad for the pretty lake. Something that had started off so clean and pure, made dirty and hurt and corrupted by people too careless to realize, only lovely from a distance now.
But things in the world were usually like that, he thought now, sitting with Kate in the waiting room. He'd gotten lulled into a false sense of security recently with everyone being so nice to him. It was never anything but fake. Shouldn't he know better by now? That whatever good thing you thought might happen—whatever treasure you were promised was just within your grasp, it would always get snatched away in the end, even if everyone promised it wouldn't.
Grown-ups, even Astrid in the end, all grown-ups were liars at the core. Other children were sadists who'd use any weakness you had to dominate you. He'd been at a children's home, for a short time and he'd seen how it could happen. Bigger, stronger kids taking what should by rights have been yours. Other kids could have lives like people on TV but not him, never him, he thought sadly.