LateNightHacking Louis My Writing

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The bigger girl shoved Kayla into the corner between the dumpster and the alley wall. Their fur quickly took on the colors of the dirty brick.

"Do you remember the plan?" hissed Mora angrily as they hid in the little protection offered by the dumpster. She was muzzle to muzzle with the smaller girl, her eyes communicating the threat not stated by her words.

Shaken, Kayla nodded. The rough brick and mortar of the alley wall hurt her arm as Mora kept her pressed against the wall. The stench of rotting fish-guts from the dumpster filled Kayla's nose and made it hard to breathe, hard to think. Her heart was racing as she tried to remember her instructions after being shaken up by the older girl. They were going to steal some bread from the Baker's shop. Kayla had to.... She was supposed to.... Hosco had told her to help Mora get bread. No one had told her about any plan! Kayla shook her head and looked at Mora with confused eyes.

Mora scowled at her and peaked around the corner of the dumpster, down the alley. "Why did Hosco saddle me with this little snot?" she seethed quietly to herself. She turned to Kayla, eyes flashing. "If you screw this up, I'll box your ears so hard you'll wish you'd never been born. And that's before Hosco gets a hold of you! Now, take this," and she handed Kayla a well-used bag of brown, coarsely woven cloth. "I'll distract Benet. When the Baker goes up front, you go inside, grab three loaves from the week-old rack, and get back here as fast as you can. Got it?"

Kayla nodded once, clutching the bag with paw and tail. She could do this, she told herself, bolstering her fading confidence. It wasn't fair for Mora to be angry with her already, Kayla thought. It wasn't her fault things always seemed to go wrong for her.

"Now stay still while I get ready."

Mora pulled a small, painted, wooden comb from her satchel and began to quickly brush her fur. Kayla watched with envy. She had nothing to call her own. Even the bag she was holding really belonged to the gang, not her. Mora had a small red satchel that matched her eye patch, and only Mora knew what further prizes the satchel contained. It wasn't much, but for a lushay, a street urchin, it was a lot.

Kayla had other reasons to be envious. Mora was pretty, or at least she could be. Mora had a red eye patch, a patch of fur that wouldn't change color no matter how much she tried. She was disfigured from birth. However, when she matched the red eye patch with pink socks and gloves instead of the usual solid white coat, Mora was pretty. Kayla's disfigurement was truly ugly. She had an irregularly shaped moss green splotch that covered her right side. No matter how she colored the rest of her fur, the ugly green splotch remained an ugly green splotch, and Kayla remained ugly with it.

Mora was also popular with the boys of the gang. Kayla figured that one of them probably filched the satchel for Mora, hoping she would pay more attention to him. Kayla wasn't old enough to want to or even know how to attract the boys' attention, but she was old enough to be envious of the way Mora could manipulate them. Hosco always gave her the easy jobs.

Mora put the comb away and took a red ribbon from the satchel. She tied a bow behind her ear and closed the satchel. She was ready.

The two crouched in the shadows and waited. Benet was the Baker's apprentice, and he was responsible for getting wood for the oven fires. The Baker would have to handle customers himself while Benet was gathering wood from the pile in the alley, so the kitchen would be empty. A lucky lushay might be able to sneak in and grab a few loaves for his gang. If Mora and Kayla worked together, the chances of bringing back food without getting caught were even better.

Finally, the clatter of wood was heard. Benet was gathering fuel for the ovens. Mora cast one last threatening glance at Kayla, then stepped out from behind the dumpster. Quickly she changed her fur to a respectable solid white and recolored her footpaws and forepaws pink. She walked up to the apprentice, hips and tail swaying.

"Oh! Hello, Benet!" she cooed, smiling coquettishly.

Kayla heard Benet fumble with the wood he was picking up. She winced. Mora was good. Peeking around the corner, she watched Mora flirt with Benet and draw him into a conversation on the other side of the woodpile. Kayla gulped. Here was her chance. Gripping the bag tightly with her tail, she crept up to the doorway of the kitchen and peeked inside.

The kitchen was hot and dimly lit from above by a half-open skylight. The Baker was still there, peering into one of the large dome shaped ovens that lined the left wall. Kayla watched him work, waiting for her chance. The Baker was large for a Kink, slightly rotund but nimble as he moved across the kitchen to get a spatula board. He wore an apron that was dusted in brown flour, and he hummed as he moved dough from a freestanding counter in the center of the room into one of the ovens. Along the near and far walls were smooth, cool, marble countertops where the dough was mixed and kneaded. Above the counters, the walls were lined with shelves holding bowls and spoons, racks and rolling pins, large containers of flour and sugar, and other accoutrements of the Baker's art that Kayla did not recognize. On one counter, she noticed a pair of oilcloth gloves the Baker wore when he kneaded dough. The gloves kept his fur out of the dough and vice versa. On the far wall there was a door leading to the front shop where the bread was sold to customers. Over the door was a bell that told the Baker when customers were waiting. On the right wall, Kayla saw what she was looking for. There stood the cooling racks where the bread that was not on display in the front shop was stored. Old bread was stored here too, until it went bad or was sold to those who could afford no better. Lushay could not even afford that.

Kayla waited anxiously as the seconds crawled past. How long until there was a customer? Until Benet returned? Until the Baker got annoyed with his apprentice's dawdling? Kayla watched as the Baker carefully removed fresh loaves from the oven and set them on the center counter. One loaf. Two. Three.

DING-DING-DING!

The Baker grunted and set the fourth loaf and the spatula board on the center counter. He shuffled through the door into the shop, scooping up a poofy hat and placing it on his head as he smiled a greeting to the customer in the other room.

This was her chance. Quickly, quietly, Kayla stepped into the kitchen. It was like stepping into one of the ovens! The air was hot and full of the smell of raw yeast. Kayla darkened her fur (all except for that hideous green blotch) and sidled over to the cooling racks. So far, so good. She reached up for a small, round loaf when a breeze blew through the open back door and brought with it a tantalizing scent. Fresh baked bread, right out of the oven! Kayla's mouth began to water. Why should she bring back stale bread when there was fresh bread sitting right there? And it smelled incredibly delicious. Kayla's empty stomach rumbled. Mora might even be proud of her. The smell was heavenly to the lushay's nose and she crept over to the center counter. Hearing voices from the shop, she crouched and hid. No one came, so she reached up, feeling with one paw for the bread she could smell just above her head.

CRASH!

Kayla froze, eyes wide with panic. Her paw had knocked against the spatula board, which had spun and knocked an empty, round-bottomed, metal bowl onto the floor. Just her luck!

She peeked around the counter, getting ready to make a run for it. There stood the Baker, filling the shop doorway with his powerful presence and getting ready to berate his clumsy apprentice, his eyes scanning the kitchen for the cause of the disruption. When the Baker spotted Kayla, his expression turned from annoyance to rage.

"Gutter thief!" he roared, grabbing a heavy rolling pin. "Steal from me again, will you? That's the second time this week! I am not here to provide free food for lushay. I'll turn your wretched hide over to the constable and have you thrown in jail!"

Kayla ran for the door to the alley, thinking of nothing but escaping the enraged Baker.

"Come back here!" the Baker yelled, brandishing the rolling pin as he chased her across the room and out to the street. "Benet!"

Out in the alley, Mora and Benet turned to see the cause of the commotion. Benet took a step after the escaping thief, but Mora deftly tripped him and the dazed apprentice was left sprawling on the cobblestones as she ran after Kayla.

In a roar of defeat, the Baker thew the heavy rolling pin at the escaping lushay. It bounced once on the cobblestones but hit Kayla on the ankle, knocking her down. Mora stopped and helped the younger girl to her feet. Kayla hobbled as fast as she could while clutching on to Mora for support as they made their pell-mell escape from the shop district.

The lushay quickly found their way to the safety of the park. The two girls hid in a dense copse of trees to catch their breath. Their fur quickly matched the mottle of the shadows and they were effectively invisible should anyone still be trying to find them.

Kayla tried to put weight on her injured left foot and nearly fell down as her ankle suddenly gave way in pain. Mora caught her.

"You're going to have to go see Doc. That ankle doesn't look good," Mora said gruffly. "This raid had better have been worth it, Kayla. What did you get? I hope it was five loaves."

Oh, no! The younger girl bit her lower lip and stared at her toes.

"Where's the bag, Kayla?"

Kayla ducked her head and hunched her shoulders, wincing.

"Blast it, Kayla! You lost the bag? No bread for the gang, a broken ankle that Hosco will have to pay Doc to fix, and you lost the bag too? Dye my fur, Kayla! All you had to do was grab a loaf off the rack. Instead, you had to go crashing about the kitchen until the Baker found you! And you didn't even have enough wits to hold on to the bag!" cried Mora furiously. She cuffed the younger lushay on the ear.

"But I was going to get fresh bread from..."

"All you had to do is what you were told!" Mora interrupted, angrily shaking her finger in Kayla's face. She cuffed Kayla harder.

Tears stung Kayla's eyes. "But..."

"And Hosco is going to blame me!" Mora hit Kayla again, harder still.

The little girl's ears stung from the buffeting and her head rang. She turned and limped away as fast as she could, refusing to cry in front of Mora.

"You wait, Hosco is going to hear the whole story, and then you'll really be sorry!" shouted Mora, quivering with rage. She stormed off in the opposite direction, intent on seeking retribution from the gang leader.

Kayla plunged on, deeper into the forest of the park. Soon she was crying so hard that she could barely see where she was going. She stumbled many times as she brushed by trees and bushes, leaving a trail of bitter, angry tears.

Why was everything so unfair, Kayla wondered bitterly to herself? Nobody else in the gang had such terrible luck. Why was Mora so mean when she had been trying hard to do what was right? Why was Mora pretty while she was ugly? Why was the Baker so stingy when she went hungry almost every night? Why did everybody in the gang hate her? Why did the Baker, Hosco, and Mora hate her? Oh, why did her mother abandon her? That question she knew the answer to, and that hurt most of all. She knew it was the hideous green splotch on her side. She could not change it, no matter how long and how hard she tried. It marked her as different, as something to hate. But it was part of her.

Finally, she arrived at her secret spot. It was just a mossy niche in the rocks next to a stream. Here was the one place in the world where she fit in: a mossy green lump sitting on a mossy green rock. The rock didn't hate her, the stream didn't hate her, the trees didn't hate her. Their benign indifference was as close to love as she ever received.