But if I'm not? {Tommyinnit au}

Getting in big trouble

Then everything happened really fast. I saw Wilbur's face look into the shed, and in a millisecond go from curious to surprised.I didn't give him time to react. As if shot out of a cannon, I sprang up, pushed past him and ran out. I could feel his hands sliding over the jacket in an attempt to hold on, but I was too fast. I could hear a surprised noise from Techno, and a "Wait, stop!" from Phil, and then:

"Hey, that's my jacket!"

It was Wilbur who roared out the last sentence, before I got into the woods. I thought I could make out some comments from Techno and Phil, but I wasn't listening. I ran faster than ever, faster than the day Phil found me in the kitchen, faster than when the villagers had chased me and thrown stones. I could hear someone following me through what little was left of the withered undergrowth, but I ran on. I took all the shortcuts I knew, into the tightest part of the woods, jumped the stream at the widest point (and got very wet), and then back out on the road. I hardly noticed that my pursuer slowed down more and more, and finally stopped, but I ran until my muscles ached and my chest felt like it was going to explode.

I finally collapsed on the damp grass, and spent several minutes coughing and trying to breathe.
When I finally recovered enough to breathe normally, I sat up and looked around to figure out where I was.

The answer was, near the north side of L'manburg, on the main road that led away towards the larger cities. Or, it wasn't bigger then that a car could drive on it, but it was the biggest one near L'manburg.
At least I wasn't unbearably far away.

But being far from home was the least of my problems. The sun was going down fast, I was wet, cold and dirty, had nothing to contribute to the tree house, I had officially been discovered by my family, and Wilbur had figured out the theft.

It was his jacket, or at least until I took it. After my first visit to L'manburg I had found that it was too cold with nothing warm to wear, so when I got home I had simply gone to the coat rack and picked out a jacket that didn't seem to be used very often, but which would still keep me warm.
To be fair, he hadn't discovered it until now.

Oh, that's right. I had completely forgotten to come up with 'something secret' for Ranboo's birthday. One more thing to put on the misery list.

I could feel my stomach twist with nausea. This was not good. 

A cold breeze blew over me, and I shivered. Even with a stolen jacket, it was cold this time.
It felt smarter to walk all the way home like a raccoon. If Phil had time to tell anyone else in L'maburg about the incident, it would be a bit much if I stomped right into the lion's den, and also looked like I'd been living on the streets for half my life.

So, I transformed into my raccoon shape, and began to trot at a steady pace along the road.
Soon I entered L'manburg. Normally I would have avoided going in between the houses, but now that darkness had fallen at 4pm and the only sources of light came from the street lamps, or the occasional window, I had no problem wedging between the large houses.

It wasn't until I got to the edge of town that I saw anything. At first glance it looked like a small brown cloth in the glow of the street lights. As I got closer, I smelled wet leather, and saw that it was, in fact a wallet.

Curious, I sniffed it, because after my time on the run, I had discovered that this way I could find out a lot of information I would have had no idea about otherwise.

The wallet smelled mostly of wet leather, but I also smelled something else, a scent that was almost too familiar.

This was undoubtedly Phil's wallet.

For a moment I just stood there staring at it in pure shock, before realizing that it would look weird if someone walked by and saw me. I quickly took the notebook in my mouth, and hurried away to a dark alley, where I could think undisturbed. In the shelter of a dustbin, I changed my shape to human. With trembling fingers I opened the wallet.