The Teen, the Witch and the Thief

by Ben Jeapes

  Ted didn’t intend to talk about his family.

  “Just the cat at the moment. The others are all in Rome.”

  She turned to him in delight.

  “You’re a cat person?”

  “Uh. Yeah. I suppose.” He ventured a shy grin. “I mean, I don’t wash in my own spit or stick my leg straight up in the air and lick myself inappropriately, but apart from that.”

  “Name, breed, age?”

  “Right. Mr Furry, sort of tabby, and he must be ... I dunno, five, six? We got him when he was a kitten.”

  She laughed. “Mr Furry? Nice name.”

  He smiled. “Yeah, it’s what you get when you let three small children choose–”

  Arse! Ted bit his tongue. If she could do basic maths, and she probably could, then he had just revealed that he had two siblings. Now she would ask about them, and he couldn’t just talk about Sarah, he would have to talk about Robert too and that was such a long story. But she let it pass with a change of subject.

  “I must meet him one day. So, how do you know Malcolm? Oh, wait, you said. Your wanker stepdad.”

  Ted looked down so she couldn’t see him grinning.

  “That would be him. How do you know Mal- Mr Jackson?”

  “I heard there was a new bookshop opening and I threw myself at him until he said yes.”

  Ted raised his eyebrows and kept typing. Okay-y-y ...

  “I mean, I just love books,” she continued. “Love love love them. I’ve worked in bookshops since I was a kid and all through uni and after graduating too. And it’s kind of cool, working for a wizard.”

  “What?” Ted shot a look at the door through to the front room. “How do you mean?” He lowered his voice. “Is he, like, into weird Stonehenge stuff or something?”

  “Oh, he doesn’t know he’s a wizard,” Zoe said airily, “but he totally is.”

  Ted tried to image Mr Jackson with a long beard, in flowing robes, with a pet owl.

  “Nah!”

  “I’ll prove it. Magic is achieving a desired effect by the exercise of will. It’s all about manipulating the world, your environment, people, according to what you want. Think of a good teacher at school. Some are crap and have no control in class at all but others can make the class do exactly what they want without even trying. And I’m guessing it’s how Malcolm was such a good barrister. Little tricks here and there, making the system work for you ... magic!”

  “Not if people realise what you’re doing.”

  “Exactly. They have to not realise. Like, a witch doctor uses rituals and placebos to makes people better, or puts a curse on them and they die – but if a witch doctor came in here we’d just laugh because we know about medicine. So to Malcolm’s clients, him getting them off was like magic but to all the other barristers it was normal. If people know what’s happening, they can exercise their own will and fight back ... Sorta. Doesn’t always work. Like, Hitler could manipulate people so well it was magic, but he was so good at it that even people who realised what he was doing found it hard to resist. Or they didn’t mind being manipulated.”

  Ted thought for a moment.

  “So anyone could be a wizard, basically. The cat probably thinks I’m a wizard because I make food appear.”

  “The cat probably thinks he’s a wizard because you make food appear, but yes, you’re on the right track.”

  “Malcolm’s not a barrister anymore, though.”

  “No,” she agreed. “But this is so totally a wizard’s shop.”

  “Not quite seeing it–”

  “Malcolm loves old books. That’s why he set this place up. It’s basically a business front for the hobby he’s had all his life. The books have to be old. They have to have had at least one owner, preferably more. They have to have lasted generations. They’ve been read and re-read and treasured and loved. As far as Malcolm is concerned, those are the ones with power. Now, where are the shelves with the old books on them?”

  She went and stood by the door, obviously expecting Ted to get up and join her. So he did. He poked his head out into the front of the room. Mr Jackson looked up briefly from his work, then carried on. Ted glanced around the room, taking it in with fresh eyes, and withdrew.

  “There’s one right in front of the door, and one next to it, and one at the far end of the room.”

  “And ...?”

  “Oh, yeah.” There was a case with locked glass doors directly behind where Mr Jackson was sitting. That was where the especially treasured books went. “And behind the till.”

  “So you see? The old books have the place covered! He’s manipulated the environment. That’s all magic is – using your will to create an effect. He’s positioned the really special books so that their special properties protect the entire room. It’s like feng shui, except that it isn’t.”

  Ted was baffled.

  “What special properties?”

  She shrugged.

  “I don’t know and neither does Malcolm, I expect. But he’s still going through the wizard motions because it’s who he is. If these books have power, we’re sorted.”

  “Right–” he said after a pause. He went back to the computer and silently downgraded her potential girlfriend status from ‘unlikely’ to ‘nope’. Too weird. Way too weird.

  *

  Diana Jackson brought Malcolm’s lunch in and threw Ted out, though he was still full of plans for improving the website.

  “You’re too young and good-looking to be stuck in front of a computer, so go out and enjoy yourself for an hour!”

  Then she demanded to know what he was grinning at, but he made his excuses and left as per orders without giving an answer.

  Great, he thought wryly as he slouched down New Canal in the sunshine, carefully avoiding the mall. The first woman who tells me I’m good-looking is old enough to be my grandma ...

  He used a fiver in his back pocket to buy lunch – burger and fries. It was pleasantly air-conditioned in the restaurant. Unfortunately that only accounted for ten minutes of his lunch break and it wasn’t a place to hang without any company. So he wandered outside again into the sun and gazed about for alternatives. Any shop that was air-conditioned and not in the Old George Mall would do ...

  He ended up in a DVD store on Fisherton Street.

  Browsing, he reminded himself. That’s all.

  I know, he told himself back. He was feeling pleased with himself for the idea of pinning up his pockets. He couldn’t slip anything into them and so far today he hadn’t even caught himself trying.

  Ted mooched through the Science Fiction and Crime sections, wandered on to Sports, and found it to be right next to the Adult titles. He picked up a couple of cases and studied them with a connoisseur’s eye, then smiled to himself as he mentally discarded them. The plastic women with scarily big breasts were just as much a turn-off as the plastic men with biceps of shiny rubber.

  But one snagged his attention and suddenly he couldn’t look away from it.

  “Oh, no–” he murmured. He didn’t want porn, he didn’t want a new DVD, but he wanted it. The desire to own it came cascading out of a dark place in his head and within seconds it was like every cell of his being wanted to take it.

  “No,” he said, more loudly, and he turned abruptly away. In a very short time he had walked a quick circle around the shop and come back to the same spot. The floor seemed to tilt in that direction: in fact, the whole shop seemed to be on a slope that pointed towards that one DVD. He kept his hands at his side. He folded his arms in front of him. He put his hands behind his back. It made no difference. It became physically uncomfortable to keep them like that when they just wanted to reach out and take, and he couldn’t think of a single good reason why he shouldn’t.

  A man was standing next to him, studying the movies on display.

  “How about that one?” Ted said, trying to sound bright and enthusiastic. He didn’t dare pick the box up but he nodded his head at it. If the man would just buy it then
that would prick the bubble. The man scowled at him and moved away.

  “Arse,” Ted murmured. Note to self: don’t chat to strangers in the porn section because they don’t like it. He felt his pockets. Even without the pins they would be too small for a DVD. Good. He could do this. He could beat the urge, by stages.

  He turned away.

  He started walking.

  And as he walked, his hand shot out and grabbed the DVD.

  Arse! Okay, I’ll try and buy it.

  Now, that was a good plan. He felt pleased with himself.

  I’ll try and buy it and I’ll tell them I’m sixteen. Plus I don’t have the money! They’ll throw me out and that will be it ...

  And then he lifted up his t-shirt and stuffed the DVD behind his belt. With his t-shirt hanging loose, the flat box was hidden.

  “Oh God, no!” he moaned silently. He couldn’t stop walking. He headed steadfastly towards the door. Not running. Not drawing attention. Dodge round the other customers. Keep his eye on the exit. Almost there. The edge of the box was digging into his stomach.

  The alarm barriers! Of course the shop had them. They would go off the moment he walked between them. Well, let them. Once he was outside, he could run. He wouldn’t head straight back to the Agora. He would turn the other direction, run round the block, go back to work that way. Probably ditching the DVD en route.

  He was two feet from the door. He was between the barriers. They flashed and blared their alarm and Ted bolted–

  ... And skidded to a halt just outside, where two old ladies with baskets on wheels, line abreast, were slowly making their way along the pavement.

  Out of the way! It was so tempting just to give them a good shove, but he couldn’t do it. He lost valuable seconds while he dodged and weaved to get between them, and then the hand clamped hard on his shoulder.

  “Going somewhere, mate?”

  Chapter 4

  Malcolm Jackson muttered under his breath as the computer beeped at him yet again because he had pressed the wrong key. He needed Ted.

  He had decided he liked Ted, which was good. It made for a happy workplace.

  When Ted’s stepfather had brought him round for a chat, Malcolm had been expecting a smaller version of the man – well meaning, not that imaginative, frankly a little dull. Instead he had got this fresh-faced lad with stuff in his hair, and trainers, and a T-shirt that was probably hilariously funny to anyone in on the joke. But it was a fresh new t-shirt today, which suggested he understood the basics of hygiene; he met your eye when you spoke to him; he asked sensible questions and gave intelligent answers; he was polite; he understood computers; and he didn’t grumble about shifting heavy boxes full of books. Malcolm had appreciated his frankness about the website and his initial good impression was being borne out.

  It was also pretty clear there was plenty Ted wasn’t telling him. A lifetime of cross-examining witnesses told him that much. In particular, if ever the conversation got round to something concerning Ted himself, or his family, there was the minutest pause as if he was running his words past a mental censor for approval. But that was teenagers for you, and Malcolm knew it was none of his business anyway.

  Still, if he could just put the boy on the stand, he would get to whatever it was in five minutes at the outside ...

  Malcolm turned his attention back to the screen. Right, that didn’t work. So I need to go back to that field, so I press the up arrow ...

  Beep.

  No I do not want to abandon entry, you stupid, stupid, stupid machine ...

  He answered the phone without taking his eyes off the screen. The voice at the other end was blunt and uncompromising and at first he thought it must be a not very good salesman.

  “May I speak to Mr Malcolm Jackson? Oh, good afternoon, sir. We have a young man here who says he’ll only talk to you–”

  *

  “... and this,” said the manager, “was hidden under his shirt.”

  He was a small and dapper man with a moustache that was probably meant to give him a few years of added authority. Ted sat hunched up to half his size in a chair. He had glanced up, white faced and red eyed, when Malcolm came in, then quickly looked back at the floor and not looked up since.

  When Malcolm had reached the manager’s office he had still been fired up with his first instinct: that there must have been some mistake. The sheer, naked guilt when Ted looked up was shocking and it got worse as the bare facts were laid out. Contempt fuelled of bitter disappointment still surged inside him and he had had to use all his stony-faced court experience to keep it out of his eyes. His first and only reaction had been, so lock the little porn thief up! – until he had imagined going back to the shop and explaining it to Diana and Zoe. They liked the boy.

  Malcolm took the DVD and studied it.

  “She Likes It Backward, volume 7. Quality British cinema in the best tradition of Powell and Pressburger. I’m sure your chain is proud to be associated with it.” He handed the box back.

  “That’s really not the point, Mr Jackson. It’s our store’s policy to prosecute shoplifters.”

  Ted whispered something and both men looked at him.

  “What was that, Ted?” the manager asked. Malcolm had to stop himself advising Ted he did not have to answer. He wasn’t Ted’s solicitor.

  Ted lifted his head and glared defiantly at the manager.

  “I said, good. Prosecute me. Lock me up.”

  Yes, just lock the thieving little brute up, Malcolm thought. But again, he imagined the women’s reaction. Diana would never forgive him if he just let Ted go down without a fight.

  “It doesn’t have to come to that, Ted,” he said. “Look, for a first offence–”

  Malcolm didn’t exactly hear anything but he sensed it. Ted almost drew a breath, almost opened his mouth. The boy had been on the verge of contradicting him. Oh, great.

  “First offence or not–” the manager began. He didn’t seem to have noticed and Malcolm ploughed on over him.

  “–for a first offence,” he said, with a sideways warning glance at Ted, “you would probably get a community resolution or a youth caution.” There – a true statement of fact, at no point saying that this wasn’t Ted’s first offence.

  “It is our policy to prosecute,” the manager repeated. Malcolm could see he wasn’t shifting and he could see why. Ted had been caught red-handed and admitted everything.

  “Actually,” Malcolm pointed out, “you don’t prosecute. You recommend prosecution. The Crown Prosecution Service decides whether or not to prosecute, unless you want to bring the matter before the court privately, which, trust me, you don’t. However, even if the CPS goes ahead, questions will be raised in court such as: why is a pornographic DVD, clearly labelled 18, within easy reach of a minor? In fact, it’s right next to the Sports section where plenty of healthy underage young men like Ted will gather quite innocently and legally. You won’t let them buy it but you certainly don’t discourage their looking, do you? The whole layout of your shop leaves a lot to be desired.”

  “I don’t see that’s relevant.” The manager showed the first trace of uncertainty and he reinforced himself with indignation. “It is adult cinema, it is not pornographic–”

  “She Likes It Backward is not pornographic?”

  “... and we have plenty of non-adult 18-rated movies on display elsewhere on the premises–”

  “That would be volumes 1 to 6, then?”

  “... side by side with more age appropriate items–”

  “And then there’s the whole procedural matter,” Malcolm interrupted.

  The manager frowned. “Procedural?”

  “Do you do this a lot? No? It shows. You’ve been holding a sixteen-year-old and preventing him from leaving. You haven’t called the police, you haven’t called his parents, you haven’t even called a solicitor or a family friend who could act as loco parentis. The court could easily be persuaded that the irregularities–”

  “But .
.. what are you if you’re not his solicitor?” The manager looked startled, as he had every right to be.

  “Me? Oh, I’m just his employer. Part time.” Malcolm reached into his jacket and pulled out his wallet, then made a show of flicking through it until he found one of his old cards. “Malcolm Jackson.” He passed it over and saw the manager glance at it, then glance again when he saw the magic words Barrister and Lincoln’s Inn.

  “No longer practising, of course,” he added. “But I doubt the law has changed that much in the last year.”

  He had to add that. A barrister who was no longer officially practising could get into several kinds of trouble if he continued to practice, and so far he had seen nothing to suggest Ted was worth it.

  The manager spoke slowly and clearly as if he was trying to convince himself.

  “The simple facts are – our store detective observed Ted stealing our property, and apprehended him with our property on him. Now, you might be the world’s greatest defender but–”

  “Defender?” Malcolm chuckled. “Oh, no. I never defended. I always prosecuted.”

  The manager perked up while Ted’s jaw dropped and the colour drained from his face. He looked as if he might faint. Then the boy stared blankly at the floor as if all hope had just been eradicated.

  “You are right,” Malcolm continued, “and Ted will probably still be found guilty. In fact, since he plainly is guilty, his counsel would have to advise him to plead that way in the first place.”

  The manager looked cautiously pleased; Ted looked even more hunched up.

  “If it goes to court. But ask yourself this.” Malcolm made his tone change. Diana called it wheedling but it was a bit more than that. The manager presented harsh facts in a harsh tone that he probably thought was brusque and no-nonsense. He didn’t realise it just put people’s backs up. Malcolm knew he could make himself sound so reasonable that no one could possibly argue. “Is all this really worth the theft of a DVD costing fifteen quid which you got back anyway? Could you not consider cheaper alternatives like, say, a simple lifetime ban ...?”

  *