Nancy and Jimmy met everyday for quite a while. The girl took great care to make sure that she still brought Fagin home enough to keep him satisfied. Every evening it seemed to be the same old conversation. "Is that all?". "Yea it is you old wretch.". "Next time it's the streets for you my girl" or if she had been particularly impertinent or he was in a particularly bad mood she got knocked around a bit. But still, the old man kept her around despite his threats and abuses, day after day.
One day when Nancy reached the usual park bench where she met up with Jimmy, he wasn't sitting as he normally was but standing, as if ready to leave.
"What are you doing?" She asked, laughing.
"Come with me." He smiled.
He led her away to the market place. It was bustling with people of all shapes, sizes and classes. She smiled as she watched Jimmy's hands almost naturally sink into the coat pocket of an old gentleman, revealing a pocket book. He approached her smiling, leading her away and embracing her in a long kiss.
"Whatever you want, it's on me." He said as they broke apart the kiss.
"Why?" Nancy asked, laughing.
"It's your birthday."
"How do you know?"
"It's October the eighth. From now on, it's your birthday. I picked it for you." Jimmy smiled.
"So I'm twelve today, am I?" Nancy asked.
"Yea, you are."
"And I can have anything I want?"
"Within reason, of course." He smiled.
The entire day the two spent shopping, though Nancy was so overwhelmed that she could not buy anything other then a cheap locket from a pawn shop. Even then, she waited until it was the end of the day to make this purchase, just looking for an excuse to walk the streets hand-in-hand with Jimmy.
As the sun set, Jimmy escorted the young girl to a middle-class home, the boy explaining he had known that the family was on holiday. The climbed in through a window and Nancy's heart suddenly began to pound with excitement, certain that Jimmy planned to rob the house. She was surprised however, when all he did was take her up to the master bedroom.
Jimmy began to kiss her as they sat down. Nancy stopped him, for she had been burning to talk to him about something for a long time.
"Jimmy, 'old on." She giggled, pushing him off. "I want to ask you something."
"What?" Jimmy said, a little disappointed.
"Do you remember your life before Fagin took you in?"
"Oh." Jimmy sighed. "Not really. I lived on the streets and I didn't know how to steal. Ol' Joe, aw you don't know him, he left long ago. He found me and took me in."
"You found me." Nancy remembered.
"Poor li'l thing, 'alf starved. I remember." Jimmy smiled.
"I remember my father quite well." Nancy muttered.
"Do you? You were so small."
"My father, he was a drunk. Night and day, all I can remember was the ol' brute with a bottle in his right 'and beatin' me with the left."
"That why you run away?" The boy asked.
"Yea." Nancy lay down on the bed. "One night 'e almost kill me, so when he passes out I just up and leave."
"Yea, I thought something like that when I first saw yer." Jimmy lay down as well. "Your li'l neck was all mangled, like someone 'ad tried to choke yer."
"Someone did." Nancy sighed.
Jimmy took her hand and began to kiss her.
It was that night that twelve-year-old girl became a twelve-year-old adult.