The Theft
Sebastian Vasiliev
"I watched a movie called the Italian Job and that’s where i got the inspiration for writing this piece"
The Theft
After months of hard work and planning, Justin, Evan, and I stole $10 million from a Las Vegas hotel. Our tracks were completely covered, and we were in a far-off, foreign country in an apartment we hastily bought in cash under false identities. I was laying in my bed, dreaming about what to spend the money on, when there was a knocking on our door.
That's odd, I thought. Who would be knocking now? We just got this apartment. My two roommates, Justin and Evan, stood up in equal confusion. Evan was eating some jalapeno Cheetos while watching an episode of Friends, and Justin was just surfing the web on the computer. We opened the door to a pizza delivery man, and all sighed in relief.
“Who ordered this?” I asked.
“Me,” Evan said excitedly grabbing the pizza and handing the money to the delivery man. He eagerly tore open the pizza box and set it on the table.
I rolled my eyes, turning to the delivery man and said, “Thank you.” As I shut the door, I started yelling at Evan.
“Dude you need to learn some mann-” Before I could finish my sentence, he stuffed a slice in my mouth. Tasting the delicious pizza, I forgot my rant. As we sat down around the shabby kitchen table, we all took a slice of pizza. For the next few minutes we sat around trying not to burn our tongues, and attempting to have a conversation .
“So what do you guys want to spend the money on?” I asked. Before they could answer, we heard pounding on the door.
“EVAN, WHAT DID YOU ORDER THIS TIME?!” we cried simultaneously.
He looked at us and said, “I didn't order anything.”
The pounding on the door gradually grew louder and louder. As we opened the door, we saw Vincent standing in the doorway. He was a small man and a really good friend of mine, and he was standing in his leather jacket with a cigarette in his mouth. He just lit it and put the lighter in his pocket as he walked in, saying, “Where's my cut?”
Evan didn’t miss a beat, and responded shoving a pizza slice his way, “Here you go.”
“No the money you idiot. The money,” he said as he walked in the room.
“Okay, fine.”
I took out a suitcase filled to the brim with 100 dollar bills. He eagerly grabbed for it, but I pulled it back, pushed it against his chest. The screeching sound of a microphone being touched could be heard, and we all jumped to our feet as a wire dropped out of his shirt, clanging against the ground in a grand spectacle of metal and wire. We all scurried after the wire. As we pushed him to the ground, he cried out in pain.
“I was framed I swear.” At this point I was almost in tears. Vincent was one my closest friends. As we pushed him against the wall, demanding who he was working for after a lot of pounding and struggling we eventually subdued him to the ground tieing him up to the chairs we were just relaxing on and questioned him. After awhile of getting nothing out of him we gave up and locked him in the bathroom.
“What are we gonna do?” I complained to Justin and Evan, “If we keep him with us the police here will find out and do a missing person search, but if we leave him here the police will find him eventually and he will spill the beans and we obviously can't trust him. He proved this seconds ago.”
“Any chance he’ll take a bribe?” Evan asked.
“Yeah, bribes always work,” Justin chimed in.
“It wouldn't work since Vince is not the most trustworthy person”.
“So what are we gonna do then?” Evan replied with annoyance.
“We're gonna take him with us, I guess.”
“That is by far the worst idea I ever heard,” Justin said.
“And it's the only one we have, so suck it up.
As I finished my sentence we heard police sirens wailing - there was banshee wail coming at us. We jumped up and down and cursed ourselves for being so foolish, for not moving earlier, for staying here waiting for police to track us down, Evan and Justin went to secure the money as always, and I went to the bathroom to grab Vincent and he was gone, a window shattered, blood on the floor and no Vincent. At this point half the words I was saying where curse words.
I lept out of the bathroom, proclaiming to everyone around me that Vincent was gone. Evan and Justin did not even give me a sideways glance not caring about Vincent or me, just the money. We quickly changed clothing, not wanting to give the police a single chance to notice us. As we did this, Evan ran downstairs having been changed already to wave a taxi. Justin and I feverishly dressed ourselves, and then I noticed something odd: a bulge in Justin’s shirt. I saw at once what he meant to do even before he reached for the pistol in his shirt. I cried out and charged him trying bash the gun out of his hand. I heard a shot and the last thing remember was me waking up in an hospital with nurse staff scrambling around me like ants, trying desperately to keep me alive.
After a while I passed out and woke up again to my chest feeling like I just got shot and realized I just did. I jumped in my bed looking for Justin and Evan to see if they were here too or if they made out with the money. After a while my conscious faded. The police rammed the door breaking it down, pushing aside the startled hospital staff. They insisted that I was not ready to leave the hospital as I was still hooked up to an IV. I recognized these officers and the chief was not there, but Vincent was. I looked around in confusion waiting for the guards to notice that the chief had been replaced, but they didn’t seem to care; I listened to Vincent's every word, and I responded with rough grunts to his, “check him for weapons and unplug that IV.” I could barely stand having to lean on the guards for support. He backed away, but I just smiled and used him for support. I saw what game they were playing - they needed me alive. I leaned on the guard pretending to grab at him as I fake stumbled. It would be minutes even hours before he noticed his pass card missing, a Herodion Matteo.
Rooky mistake wearing it on the outside of your shirt. This was not a team of seasoned well trained cops, but a gang of rookies: Follow the leadership of Vincent. I thought as a I read the pass card. As we walked to an elevator the guards were eyeing me like I would try to make a break for it at any moment.
Which I was but still people were so suspicious with highly dangerous mastermind criminals these days. C'mon. Racial profiling was supposed to be done with. It was 2016 for crying out loud.
I tried to make small talk to the guards next to me. As the one on the right pushed the lobby button I saw this as my only chance. I pushed the second guard outside of the door the elevator ripping his shirt while the other guard was seeing if his friend was ok, I grabbed the pistol from his coat and pointed at him.
He put his hands up, begging for his life. “Please don't kill me I have a family please I will do anything”
I looked at him and said, “Anything?”
“YES ANYTHING!” he said, tears in his eyes.
“Well then give me your suit, tie, shoes everything glasses and even that nice hat”
Calling it a nice hat was an understatement. It was a Stetson Temple. Worth easily a 100 dollars. He was desperate to complete the command, giving me all of his clothes. I had the gun locked on him in one hand and the clothes in the other making me feel really snazzy. After I finished putting the outfit on and plopped that 100 dollar hat on top of my head. I walked to the elevator, and pressed the down button patiently waiting for it to come down I looked at the man and smiled.
“Well good day. Don’t get into any trouble, now,” I said as I stepped in the elevator putting the gun back into the sleeve of my shirt pocket.
I tried my best to look business-like and a cop. It wasn’t hard. At this point, I was sweating like a pig. All I needed to do was add some fake gasping and I was set. The elevator dinged down, then 12 guns were pointed at me. I said in ragged breaths, “He punched HUUU and HUUU ran HUUU off.”
The cops rushed passed me patting me on the back asking what direction he went in. I gave a feeble thumb to the left and they were the only ones left were me and Vincent. He just smiled and at me and said, “So where are we going now Sebi?”
I responded with an even bigger smile and said, “Wherever you want to go Captain Vincent.”
He chuckled as we both walked out of the door and stepped outside into the sunlight. Then climbing into his car, a Jaguar F type, I called driving and he obliged and let me into the driver's seat. I gunned the engine and we were off speeding through traffic hoping that our disappearance would not be noticed by the cops.
Vincent rolled up the windows and said, “Sooooooo where's my cut?”
I laughed but Vincent looked at me deadly serious. “Just as soon as we find out where Evan and Justin, are and some bandages and some painkillers,” I said as I remembered the bullet wound in my chest.
“Well of course,” Vincent replied, “but where are they going to?”
“I have a feeling just let me drive.” Then Vincent closed his eyes and fell asleep.
I sighed and shook myself awake. I need to think where would Justin and Evan go and I wondered if Vincet only tried getting Justin and Evan arrested. I don't really want to talk about his betrayal, but was it possible he was trying to get me to betray Justin and Evan. I would like to say that thought had never crossed my mind but that was not the truth.
I had thought it over many many times, restless nights sleeping with eyes opening waiting for the dagger in the back from my trustworthy companions, but we still needed each other to get out of this. After a while I decided we were far enough from the cops and we rolled up in a car dealership. I explained to the bewildered assistant that the passed out man in the shotgun seat was asleep and not dead, after that he was quite happy to help us do a brand new paint job painting our car a metallic white. He was also very happy to empty our wallets, as I did not try to negotiate with him.
After a while of searching, I found a hotel, parked and checked in under fake identities explaining we need a place to sleep. After showing the manager our badges and a couple of causal threats to put this place under quarantine for “Sanitary Issues” they gladly gave us the suite. I smiled and woke up Vincent from his nap and we groggily got out of his car and walked up the stairs. I collapsed in the bed as Vincent was in the next room over watching a movie I fell asleep to the prerecorded laughter of sitcoms.
I woke up to the small of bacon and pancakes, and looked around wildly forgetting where I was. Then, realizing I was still in the apartment with Vincent who had apparently ordered room service. I got out of the bed, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes as I walked towards the smell of pancakes covered with syrup and bacon. I walked into the room to see Vincent still on the couch watching a sitcom with a huge stack of pancakes drowned in syrup and several strands of crispy bacon.
My stomach grumbled at that and I realized that last time I ate was at the apartment that Justin, Evan and I had rented. Vincent barely acknowledged me with a nod then I realized his mouth was full and he was nodding towards my very own stack of pancakes and bacon. I jumped in triumph and dug into my pancakes rejoicing gluttony.
I grabbed the controller wanting to change the channel, but before I could, the channel switched to a breaking news report. The newscaster was spitting words, talking about how one of the wildest chase scenes in the country had just occurred.
“Two young men assumed, 21-22, just out drove police and helicopters. The last place we they were seen was in Paris,” the newscaster prompted us. “If you see a black BMW e95 5m please report it to the nearest police station immediately.”
I looked at Vincent his eyes wide and mumbled through a mouth full of pancakes, “There's your cut.”
-Sierra Bainbridge-Bowman
“This is a part of the realistic fiction I wrote about a tsunami. I am submitting it because I am proud of the use of figurative language.”
Wave
I can still remember the day. My frizzy strawberry curls bouncing around my shoulders as I skipped along the crystal gold shores of Northeast Japan. There wasn’t a single cloud in the sky. A light breeze swept through the air. It was a perfect day. My heart soared across that flawless, cloudless sky.
But of course happiness never lasts forever. As evening stepped closer, dark smoky clouds marched towards the coast, The sky transforming from a light joyful blue to a menacing gray. The temperature dropped like a rock. The sea foamed, waves slicing through the storm, violently attacking the shore, retreating farther into the sea with every wave. My mom stood over me, probably talking, but my attention was stolen by the stick of a girl with long, dark chocolate hair running down the shore, waving her hands screaming the single word that ruined, and nearly ended my life.
The Storm Within
Charleigh Lawlor
"This story is about a girl whose parents fight often. She has a special tree that she runs to for comfort, but this same tree causes her conflict in the end.
I chose to submit this piece because I am proud of the word choice and figurative lanaguage."
The Storm Within
Robyn’s parents always fought. They fought about everything. What they were going to have for supper, how much time Robyn’s father spent at the office, who took out the trash. All hours they were together, they screamed at each other. Robyn couldn’t take it, every shrill holler that exited their mouths was torture. She would always leave her house to go to the place where she felt safe, her special tree. She felt as though she could see the whole world. With the wind rustling through the branches and her long hair, she was always at peace there, in her tree. Sometimes the feeling of freedom overwhelmed her, the feeling that she could fly, soar in the sky away from her troubled parents.
One day, Robyn sat with her mother and father for supper. They told her they were not happy together.
Her parents said, “We love you Robyn, and that’s the only thing that keeps us together in marriage. We have decided to get a divorce.”
Once again, Robyn left the pain in her home and sprinted like a wild buffalo was chasing her. She reached her tree and climbed to the top, sobbing all the way. She felt hopeless and then the sky opened up and cried with her. Robyn was soaked to the bone, drenched. Her hair was heavy, like an extra thirty pounds on her small body. As she began to descend to the ground, she felt the earth shake.
A bolt of lightning struck the earth and thunder sounded like it could be heard from a thousand miles away. Within the blink of an eye, thunder roared once more and another strong bolt of lightning hit Robyn’s special tree. The feeling of flying, complete freedom came to her, but Robyn wasn’t flying she was falling. Thud. The girl hit the ground. Robyn’s parents did not fight or scream, or bicker but they did cry because they lost Robyn.
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