I escape the school, and spend a while trying to find my bicycle amidst the chaos. 

I’m chronically late in the mornings, so I always toss the thing in the hedges, which is faster than finding an empty rack to place it in, to the dismay of our janitor. Fred totally hates my guts, which is proven by the fact that he keeps moving my bike to stupid places.   

After a whole ten minutes, I spot the thing amongst the massive sea of bicycles. I wasn’t expecting it to be in a normal spot after I last found it hanging from a tree. For a minute I think Fred has finally given up and conceded to be my personal valet. But when I unlock the bike, I find that it has two flat tires.   

“Damnit Fred.” I groan. I have already resigned myself to walking, but then I realise Fred wouldn’t have the balls to actually puncture my tires. He probably just opened the air valves.

I check, and it seems my assumption was correct. So I steal the first hand-pump I spot on another bike and use it to refill my tires. It works, but it took time and effort, and I hated it. Time-technically it would be prudent to get to school three minutes earlier in the morning and stow my bicycle somewhere it belongs. Three minutes is most certainly less than the time I’m spending on this hoax day after day. It would be more efficient to conform.

But then Fred will have won. And I will be a conformist. So that can never happen. No. Fred is a man that touches his own face a lot. Tomorrow I’ll put red pepper oil on the valves, so that when he messes with them again, he’ll regret it.

I cycle through the park to the city hall square, where I’m hoping to find the bunch of hungry hippos that have made themselves into my social circle. If you can call it that. None of them are the epitome of social. Not as my parents put it.

No. In their book, social is the equivalent of being popular with your classmates, having a girlfriend, playing team sports and getting high fives from every team member after you scored a goal, and generally getting along with everyone that has a cool Instagram.

My hippos don’t have Instagram. Some of them don’t even have a phone. None of them play team sports, none of them have a girlfriend (I think), and none of them have classmates. Or class, for that matter. Most of them doesn’t have a home either.

They’re societies biggest failure.

Jasmine ran away from home after her parents wanted to send her off to family in Morocco over the summer. She was certain she’d come back with an abusive husband like her dad, so she fled. She found solace with her classmate Anna and her brother Joshua, who were watching the funds drain from their existence as their addicted mother was slowly killing herself. When she finally did, the kids weren’t allowed to stay in the house, so they had to move. Joshua was eighteen, so he had to go and fend for himself, whilst Anna was placed in foster care, from which she fled after only 16 hours.

Fuzz (no that isn’t his real name, his parents named him Milan, but no one knew that except for me, because he used to live on the same block when we were little. He asked me not to tell anyone and I didn’t.) was kicked out of three schools for being a lying, stealing, drug abusing brat. Ivanka was sexually abused before she ran away, I think. She doesn’t talk about it.

Yinthas never told her story either, but she still hardly speaks Dutch. I think she’s an illegal immigrant that ran away from the asylum centre. And Ogon, well… He’s just a 20-year old thieving fuck that doesn’t give a shit about anything. But he does have a home. I don’t know where. No one does, obviously. These kids wouldn’t be sleeping in the streets if they knew where the fucker lived.

Obviously, I told my parents about them. My mother was very supportive, especially so about Jasmine’s story, since that hit close to home. But all she did was call child support services, which led to the whole bunch fleeing to god knows where. In the months that followed they all came back, one by one. I obviously never mentioned them to my parents after that.

Joshua went to jail in the meantime, which sucked ass. But thanks to the Dutch legal system he was out in three months. It was only petty theft anyway.

So now they’re back. And Joris can’t steal them food anymore. Ogon won’t. Fuzz has too many strikes on his youth card to ever get arrested again. Yinthas can’t be arrested period. And Anna and Jasmine are going to fuck this up. So that’s probably why they tolerate me: the entitled fucker.

As I said. They’re not really my friends. But we hang out all the time. They don’t ignore me. They even respect me for being me. And as much as I loathe to admit. Since Abby moved away, I really, really need that.

I watch with glee as my plan unfurl beautifully. Joshua has gone in, his worn-out hoodie pulled over his head, sunglasses on, walking around the store so inconspicuously, it’s absolutely conspicuous. The second he touches the first thing he laid eyes on, the two security guards immediately make their way to the aisle he’s in. Great.

Enter me and the girls. They are going to get the grocery list. At least, if they don’t get distracted by the make-up counter again. I go on my way to do the heavy lifting, praying Jasmine and Anna will just do as they are told. I promised Ogon a tent, and he’s gonna get it.

I have no idea why Ogon needs a tent. He doesn’t strike me as the camping type. Part of me thinks he just picked the biggest, most conspicuous thing to steal in the store. Does he want me to get arrested? Take me down a notch? Probably. Or maybe I’m paranoid.

Either way, I’m confident I can pull this off.

As I cut the alarm from the bag, I look around to make sure everything is still in place, and spot Anna pocketing a vial of nail polish. Stupid girl. I sincerely hope there is no one left watching the cameras right now. But if I counted correctly there won’t be…

I throw the tent over my shoulder and make my way across the aisles, lingering at the que for the counters on the west exit. Then act like I forgot something and cross all over to the other side of the store, past the counters and out of the exit on the north. As I predicted, no alarm goes off.

I keep walking in a normal tempo until I round the corner, then drop the tent and sit down on it. I light the cigarette I stole from Ogon in waiting. Three minutes later the girls appear, giggling.

“We got the list and more!” Anna exclaims cheerfully, squeezing Jasmine’s shoulder in the process.

I glare at her. “You shouldn’t have pocketed the nail polish.”

“Don’t be a dick. Your plan worked, no one saw us take anything.” She replies defiantly, flicking her red hair back and winking at Jasmine.

“Look!” Jasmine follows her example, reaching into her hijab and fishing out a string of cheap jewellery. She looks proud. But this was incredibly stupid. Those two will get caught any day now, and I won’t be able to stop it from happening. Not that I owe the silly girls anything, but fuck…

“Go on.” I tell them. I’ll meet them at the square later. I could go, but I really want to wait for Josh. That isn’t the smartest move on my part. But I had gotten him into this mess, and I want to thank him before we get back to the rest of the gang.

It takes 20 minutes for him to finally show up. He looks thoroughly annoyed.

“Yo Josh, you OK?” I say, as I see him scowling at me.

“Yeah, I’m fine. They fucking frisked me, you know that?”

“I expected as much.”

“Did Anna and Jasmine get out fine?”

“Yep, plan worked. Got Ogon’s tent right here too.”

“Good, let’s have lunch.” Joshua states as he walks on, combing his hand through his long unkempt locks of stained ash blond hair. I can’t help but think he really needed to wash them, but who am I to talk? I’m not the one surviving in homeless shelters.

When we come up to the square, the entire posse has already started on their lunch. I drop the tent in front of Ogon, who looks at me with his eyebrows raised.

“You really did it, huh?”

“Piece of cake. Now pay up.” I say, smiling at his surprise. 

He forks over 50 euro’s, saying he’ll pay 50 more if I do that again wearing a dress. It makes me laugh. I wink at him and state that if I did that again he’d owe me 50 bucks for the tent anyway. Adding that if he’d give me a hundred and a fitting dress upfront, I’d be his man.

And I would. I loved this.

They all feel like they’re mine, in some weird way. Not exactly friends, nor co-workers, and definitely not my subordinates. There is nothing subordinate about them. They are just unlucky kids who all have their own fucked-up reasons for ending up at the wrong side of the law.

As for me, I have no fucking excuse.

None whatsoever.

I have parents, two of them. Neither is dead, neither is in prison, and neither is a junkie. They aren’t even divorced. Compared to the standard, they are certainly not filthy rich, but they sure as hell aren’t poor either. They don’t beat me up, abuse me or neglect me in any way. Except maybe a slap on the wrist when I use words that I know I shouldn’t throw around the house.

And maybe my father isn’t especially supportive or politically correct all the time. But hey, he’s just pushing us to thrive in his own very un-woke way. In general, they are okay people and they love me, even if I fail to live up to their standards. I even have a brother that loves me too. Well, probably.

None of these things I have in common with the people I’m hanging around with. So why on earth would I ditch classes to hang around with the scum of the earth, helping them perfecting their art of committing petty crime?

I don’t think I have a good answer to that.

Maybe I’m rotten inside. My classmates sure seem to think so.

I could never belong with them, even if some ugly conformist sheep-like part of my brain wants nothing more. I don’t belong with these people either. But here, with the hippos, I am at least appreciated. And that does count for something.

Also, theft is exciting, and it saves money. Yeah, it might be morally wrong, but honestly… I don’t really care about some big retail chain being ripped off.

In the grand scheme of things: climate change, war in Ukraine and who knows where else, inflation, the widening of the income gap, world leaders fucking up, China taking over Africa, plagues, billionaires only caring about their own cash, even though they couldn’t possibly spend it all… Theft is really just petty crime.

And maybe, in that same grand scheme, we don’t mean anything either. It’s not as if people like us are capable of changing anything anyway. And the people that can, won’t, because of their own selfish reasons.

So yeah, I know I’m not Robin Hood. But doing this makes me feel good anyway. As long as I’m not caught, that is. But I do think I’m smart enough not to get arrested.

Maybe, if I perfect my art, I could one day make an actual difference. Wouldn’t that be nice?