I come from a long line of master thieves.

And I’ve earned the right to say I am a part of that legacy.

The first caper I ever did, with my orphan buddies Bentley and Murray, stealing the cookie jar at the top of that humongous intimidating pantry, was a surefire foretelling I would follow in the footsteps of my father and all my ancestors. Eating those cookies (the ones Bentley and I were able to hide from Murray while he wasn’t looking, anyway) and the look of pure rage on Mrs. Puffin’s face when she realized there was no clue who’d done it, made me just know being a thief wasn’t only in my blood; it was something I loved doing.

Here’s a pointer to all the thief-wannabes out there. It’s not just stealing. It’s proving something. Everyone gets pushed around unfairly sometimes. And it’s okay to shove back. Stealing from the corrupt and greedy, which is a specialty of our gang, not only gives payback to those who have been wronged, it proves to the world no one is invulnerable to rebellion. Okay, maybe I can be a bit greedy too. I can’t deny shiny things and the riches they promise, not to mention the glory of such a grand heist gone successful, make my heart race. I have always tried to keep my stealing for the nobility of the world and stealing for the enjoyment of the Cooper gang, at a reasonable rate. 80-20, maybe? That would best describe my way of life.

And yet...look where it’s got me.

After Le Paradox stole my parachute and escaped from his inflamed blimp, his time circuits turned on and brought me back in time...somewhere. His blimp has Wi-fi connectors. I tried them, using my knowledge of basic configuration, and there was no signal I could latch onto, so I’m probably in a generally old time. It’s where that I’m more curious about. 

I’m in the middle of a desert somewhere.

I consider staying with the blimp, allowing Bentley to maybe trace it. Maybe, just maybe, either I didn’t really go back in time and that whole sensation was just the blimp malfunctioning and glitching off, or Bentley has something on him to track my location. I stay where I am for two hours, and it’s not easy. Underneath my fur I’m really sweating, and I feel heavier and gross. No matter how much shade the blimp can give me, the sun’s overpowering. Every time I open my mouth I regret it because I can feel the water vapor in my mouth evaporating. It then occurs to me that perhaps Bentley doesn’t know where, or when, I am right now. I look to the sky. The sun’s right overtop of me, so it must be only noon. I can feel my skin seriously burning and threatening to dry up. I’ve done my best to stay non-hot and I feel the desperation of just one drink of water.

I look out around me. All I see are stupid sand dunes. No sign of other life. No other animals, no hint of anyone else ever having even been here. I have no idea which way I should go. Thinking about how the sun has been, I guess the directions of east and west and decide to start north. Not a single thing educates my guess, except for the fact the slight wind is blowing that way, so I won’t have the least bit of interference. No sand in my eyes. That could bring luck.

I start heading out, then abruptly stop. For the first time in my life, I almost left behind, in a place I wouldn’t be able to retrieve, my beloved cane.

I grab it. It’s oven-hot.

As I walk, my head away from the sun and my neck suffering as a result, my scarf over my mouth but threatening to slip off without some pressure on my end, I eventually get so exhausted I actually kind of wish I left the cane behind. I think I’d be a mile further on without the extra weight, and what’s my cane if I lose my life? I stare at my cane and its golden tip as I ponder this. I’ve ziplined with this, beaten down foes, and picked locks like that of the Cooper Vault with this. If I’d abandoned my cane long ago when it got stuck in the pipe during our getaway in Mongolia, I never would’ve been able to use it to unlock that vault and see what all my ancestors, including my father, added to it. It was the only thing I had to remind me of my mother and father when I was sent to the orphanage. But surely they, and all my ancestors who owned this cane, would understand. 

I try to think of what Bentley would say. He’d probably have come up with a theory on which way was best for me to walk, judging by the wind or dune patterns, and I’d be drinking from a stream under coconut trees by now. Murray would probably tell me to get angry, and push on, so you can show the world how tough you are with a whack of that cane. And I’m definitely angry at Le Paradox. Angry at Penelope. Angry at all the Fiendish Five members, even the Panda King, for if he alongside the others hadn’t killed my father...I don’t know where I’d be, but I’d probably not be in the desert with no plan or backup. 

The heat is starting to really sizzle under my skin. I think I’m beginning to see hints of mirages. Of my crew, of my father, of Carmelita…

I think I can hear their voices. Is that really them in the corner?

I begin running. They’re all there. The whole gang. Even Penelope, in her old mechanical clothes. Everyone’s gesturing me forward.

When I run through their hugs and I fall down a dune of sand, some of it gets in my mouth. I try to cough it out, but my mouth is too dry to expel all of it, much less the taste. 

I barely get up. I feel my fist still around my cane, numb from holding it for so long.

I then feel a breeze. I look up, and see a sandstorm is heading my way.

I don’t know how I didn’t see it before. It still looks relatively far away, if far away qualifies when I think I have fifteen minutes before it consumes me. I walk around, a little desperately now, and I faintly see a rock. A rock a little bigger than Murray if he were laying down. I go over to it and lay beside it, away from the storm. 

Getting there quicker than I thought, I close my mouth, close my eyes and cover my face as the sand goes barely above me. It’s very difficult to breathe. The storm offers a bit of shade, but it’s possibly worse, as particles of the stuff are scratching at my neck. It hurts.

I’ve been in pickles. But there have been so few, so brief moments, where I began to lose hope and my composure actually sagged.

When Clock-La resurfaced after Jean Bison knocked us out and stole every Clockwerk part we worked so hard to steal, I felt like I’d failed to protect the world from that horrible metal owl. We lost the van too. But at the very least, Bentley and Murray were alongside me. And we did get to stop Clock-La. And we eventually got the van back.

It was definitely worse when Dr. M had me in his robot’s grip. I truly thought that was the end for me. Why else would my life flash before me? I at least thought, Bentley, Murray, Dimitri, the Guru, Penelope and the Panda King would continue fighting and not let Dr. M kill me without paying the price. Once I escaped, that was when I decided, it wasn’t worth playing Cops & Robbers anymore with the woman I loved, and I wanted to see if I could make it work. And I tried to make it work. It was working. Even when my cover was blown and I actually thought Carmelita and I might be done, we figured out, literally through time, that maybe it still wasn’t beyond repair. 

Laying down, protecting myself from something as mundane as a sandstorm, I don’t think I’ve felt this alone since I was a toddler and my dad left me.