Smile with Fangs

chapter 4 - the optimistic mugger

Chapter 4

“Can you go to prison for leaving a flat unattended?” I asked as Mick issued a steaming hot cup of tea into my hand. He wrinkled his nose and shrugged.

“I wouldn’t have thought so,” he said uncertainly, “At least… no surely not, that’s a ridiculous thing to go to prison for. Surely you’ll just get evicted.”

I gave an indignant groan. Mick chuckled quietly to himself as he pulled a chair up to the kitchen table, kicking his feet onto its surface and reclining lazily in his seat.

“How are you finding it there?” he asked after a brief moment’s silence, “In your flat, I mean.”

 I hunched my shoulders to my ears and jumped onto the kitchen work surface, perching there like a garden gnome. Our irregular sleeping pattern had seen that we had woken just a little before dawn and, realising it was far too early to feasibly warrant doing anything, I had elected to fix my life with a bacon sandwich. On a normal day I would have surpassed this dawn rising with an even earlier start, yet the sudden shift and panic of the previous day’s upheaval had left me out of sorts.

 “It’s OK,” I shrugged. Mick sat quietly for a moment as he contemplated his next words. For a minute, I thought he would not press the matter, though I was soon proved wrong.

“Then why are you still wearing your adventure bangles?”

I groaned loudly and rattled the thick metal bracelets at my wrist, hoping that their obnoxious clamour would postpone my need to answer. The adventure bangles were a rather childish tradition that I had still not managed to grow out of. The wearing of the bangles signified movement and travelling; a great change in my life or just a trip abroad. They were the embodiment of adventure, only to be hung up in the place I called home. I thought, given that I was pushing twenty, that I’d be able to abandon this childish ploy. I had not.

“You don’t feel at home there, do you,” he pried further, “You’re lonely in that flat of yours and you don’t like it.”

I gave another groan and moved from my seat on the kitchen counter to one at the table, slumping myself into the chair directly opposite Mick with a loud scrape.

“What?” he pouted as he hunched his shoulders in want of sympathy, “Wouldn’t you rather move back in with us?”

 “I thought you were sick of me,” I mumbled through a mouthful of bacon, “that’s why I moved out,”

Mick gawped in complete offense as he reached across the table and snatched the sandwich out of my hand. He presently placed it back in my grip after tearing a chunk from it with his teeth then opened a newspaper that was lying on the table.

“At what point did I say I was sick of you?” he asked, shuffling further into his seat. I shrugged.

“Well I am quite annoying,” I mumbled, “and I just figured you could do without me.’

Mick rolled his eyes.

“Get yourself moved back in with us,” he instructed firmly, rolling up his newspaper and pretending to hit me with it, “I’m not sick of you. And Titch couldn’t get sick of you if you had mad cow disease.”

Speaking of the devil, Titch wandered drowsily into the kitchen, rubbing her eyes and yawning like a sleepy bear cub.

“I could smell bacon,” she explained, glancing about hopefully. I was about to summon the effort to plate some up for her, when Mick beat me to the cooker and usurped my intention.

“So what are you girls gonna do today?” he asked, pressing the plate of bacon into Titch’s grasp.

“Well, Marni invited me on a museum trip,” I replied, “I’m meeting her at eleven.”