Chapter 5: The New Orphan and the Secret Admirer
"Tomarrow is Christmas Eve," Sly said to Bentley. "We're gonna make a ton of money from selling all of that loot." Sly had already finished "editing" the list of almost every student.
Bentley glanced up from his book, and looked at Sly. "Will Fraley even have the money to buy all of this stuff?"
"Of course he will. The pawnshop is just a front. He's actually a very rich man. He was my dad's fence, always buying random loot from him. He always sells the loot to other buyers to get his money back. He's probably been in the crime business for at least fifty years now. He's also a very skilled thief. He and my dad once pulled off a big casino robbery in Vegas." Sly had always wanted to pull off a casino heist himself. Maybe once they graduated...
"Say, why is he so crazy and paranoid?" Bentley's question interrupted Sly's thoughts, bringing him back to reality.
"Oh. Well, my dad said that about five years ago Mr. Fraley claimed to have been visited by eight robed men who demanded he hand over his ancient bottle of wine. According to what Fraley told dad, he pulled out a sawed-off shotgun and proceeded to open fire on them. Of course, Fraley once served in the military as a sniper for twenty years, so his aim was true."
The story had piqued Bentley's interest. "Did that really happen?"
"Probably not. Fraley is really old, he's probably just becoming senile." A loud bell began ringing, signaling that class was about to begin. "See you later," Sly said with an annoyed sigh.
Sly hated science. Sly hated having to wake up very early in the morning. Most of all, though, Sly hated waking up very early in the morning to go to science class. Mr. Roger, a grouchy and fat old black bear, had given them an assignment to do, telling them to pick a partner and get to work. Sly did no such thing. He hadn't paid any attention to the lecture so he had no idea what he was supposed to do. With a mighty yawn, he laid his head on the desk, preparing to get some extra sleep. 'A thief wouldn't need to know anything about the cells of the human body anyway. At least, I think that's what he was going on about. I wish Bentley had this class with me. I could just copy his work like I do in every other class.' With these thoughts, Sly closed his eyes, hoping for some much wanted sleep.
"Sly?" So much for that. He lazily raised his head and saw Erika June staring at him. He didn't know her all that well. She was a pretty snow white rabbit who was known around the school as a klutzy love maniac, but beyond that, he knew nothing about her. Unknown to him and everybody else, Erika had developed a massive crush on Sly, and was very shy when speaking to him. "Um, I don't have a partner, so I w-was wondering if m-maybe you would like..." She gulped, nervousness easily detectable in her voice. "That maybe you would like to b-be my p-partner?"
'What's wrong with this girl? Does she have a speech problem? Ah, who cares. As long as I get to copy off of her...' "Sure, I don't mind. I wasn't paying any attention to a single thing that old fart said though, so I have no clue as to what we're doing."
The girl seemed to relax greatly with Sly's answer. "Oh, that's no problem. I can show you what to do," she said with a small smile. A tiny bit of nervousness was still detectable in her voice, though.
Sly's hopes of being able to just simply copy her work crashed though the water. "Well...Alright, fine. I doubt I'll remember it though. My choice of career won't require any knowledge of science."
"Oh? What do you hope to be when you're older?"
"I'm gonna be a legendary, well-known, infamous master thie-th-th-th-th-teacher," he said quickly, realizing that he had almost blown his cover as a thief. He looked at Erica, hoping that she had bought his poor cover-up.
"A legendary, well-known, infamous master teacher. Oh, how romantic! I'm sure you'll do great! People who aspire to become that great are usually very nice and lovely people. How wonderful." She began staring off into space with a large smile on her face. Sly raised an eyebrow, wondering what the heck was wrong with this girl. Unknown to him, she was day dreaming about having a nice picnic underneath a big cherry tree with Sly. Her smile widened as she imagined Sly leaning over to plant an affectionate kiss on her cheek.
Sly whistled loudly, trying to snap her back into reality. "Ericka? This is Sly, calling you all the way from Earth. Are you okay?" Sly had caught her attention. With a quick jolt she snapped back into reality. Unfortunately, the sudden reaction caused her pencil to break, tearing a rather large hole through the middle of her paper. "Oh, shoot," she pouted.
Sly stood up, and grabbed the broken pencil. "Allow me," he said while walking towards the pencil sharpener.
"Oh, what a gentlemen." She once again began staring off into space, imagining that she and Sly were vacationing in Hawaii for their honeymoon.
'Wow. That girl really is a klutzy love maniac.' As he was sharpening the pencil, Mr. Mendez entered the classroom with a fat hippo following behind him. 'A new student, maybe?'
After saying a few words to the teacher, Mr. Mendez walked out of the room, leaving the new student to stand behind Mr. Roger. Mr. Roger walked to the front of the class and cleared his throat rather loudly, getting the class's attention. "Ladies and gentlemen and..." He glared at Sly. "...scoundrels, we have a new student here today. His name is...It's..." He leaned over to the new student and whispered, "What's your name, son?"
"Murray," he whispered back.
"Urm, right." He cleared his throat again, and spoke. "This is Murray, Murray, this is the science class. In all honesty, I'm too damn tired to get your class materials ready at the moment, it'll have to wait until tomarrow. So, just grab a seat and do whatever you want for the time being. Personally, I don't really care what you do as long as it doesn't interrupt my reading." With that, he sat back down in his chair, making a loud 'thump' that shook every item on his desk. He then picked up a thick novel and began reading. Unknown to everybody else, between the pages of the open book was a dirty magazine he had been studying.
Sly walked back to his desk and handed Erika her pencil. He sat back down and began watching the new kid, Murray. He sat down heavily in the desk, causing the wood to creak loudly. He unzipped his backpack and pulled out a large bag of donuts that he began to devour in large handfuls. Sly also noticed that despite his weight, Murray was also very strong.
"Look at how strong that guy is! I bet he could bend a steel bar into a perfect figure eight!"
"Do you respect anybody with who can do things like that? Well, I bet that a great man such as yourself could do the same thing, only better." She stared at Sly dreamily.
Sly stared at her curiously, but then let a smile cross his face. If she, for some strange reason, was going to worship him as a god, then he was going to gladly make up great lies about himslef and boast about them. "Well, of course somebody of my stature could easily outdo any brainless muscle man. I mean, what can I say, I'm a very talented individual. Of course, not that I wouldn't use my God-given abilities to help others," he added quickly so as to not sound like a snob.
"Oh, Sly, you're such a kind and talented person. How romantic." She clapped her hands together and rested her chin on them while once again staring off into space. Unfortunately, her elbow had pushed her notebook off of the desk and into the floor, causing the papers to scatter everywhere. "Oh, shoot," she pouted. She stood up and proceeded to clean up her mess.
'That girl...is really weird,' Sly thought to himself.
