Challenge #17: Weekly Drabble
She hadn’t meant to do it. She’d checked out the laptop to finish her homework. In a hurry to her next class, she’d packed it up and scurried out the door. No alarm sounded. No one stopped her. She didn’t even realize she still had the laptop until she arrived home and dumped the contents of her backpack on her bed.
She gasped when she saw it, both afraid of the consequences and confused by far she’d been allowed to take it. All evening she worried she’d receive a threatening phone call or e-mail demanding the school’s property be returned. When no call or e-mail appeared, she began to worry about how she would return it, hopefully with as little notice as when she had taken it.
But she wasn’t so lucky. As soon as she set foot on campus the next morning, she heard rumors about who had taken a laptop from the library.
“I think it was Jason,” whispered a freckle-faced redhead. “He’s on parole for petty theft already.”
“No, you’re wrong. It was Ashley,” argued her petite brunette friend. “She works in the back of the library and has the opportunity.”
“You’re both wrong,” declared a football player coming up behind them. “It was Greg. He was bragging about his Mission Impossible skills in the locker room this morning.”
To her surprise, though, despite her having to sign out the laptop, her name was never mentioned. For some reason, against all logic, no one believed she was capable of taking something that wasn’t hers.
As this realization dawned on her, another one formed on its heels. Her reputation preceded her, but unlike most reputations hers made any discretions nearly invisible. The perfect life she’d led up until now provided her with flawless camouflage. She could do anything as long as she didn’t get caught.
She started to spot all the items in stores without anti-theft devices attached. She started to see how easy it would be to just pick things up at the mall, throw them in the bag she’d brought from home that looked as if it was a shopping bag from another boutique in the mall, and walk out the door. She did all the things she was told she shouldn’t do and, therefore, thought she couldn’t do. She suddenly had it all, by day, she was the model daughter and student but, at night, she was another person, a person no one who knew her would believe existed.