Bandages and Salt (PJO X BSD AU)

Chapter Two

"It's no big deal," I smile at him. "See," I gesture to the rest of me with my other arm, "not even a scratch on my."

The boy looks doubtful, but eventually lets out a small sigh, apologizing one last time for his friend's behavior before running after them. My smile drops the second that they are out of sight, already turned the corner.

Easy.

In my "hurt hand", being pressed between the book and my chest, is the drunk student's wallet and about twenty bucks off the one that helped me up. It was a petty trick, but it was still one of the main reasons that I managed to survive Smelly Gabe. Him and his poker friends sure were clumsy drunks.

I repeat this process a few more times, making sure to look weak and pathetic each time. If people saw you as weak, injured or just lesser then they were easy to fool. They were so sure that they had the upper hand, that they don't even notice when you break it. By the time I make it back to the library, it is well past closing time. I repeat the process of jumping up from the dumpster to the wall, crawling safely up the rest of the way to the roof.

When I'm safely on the roof, curled up in the far corner again, I pull out all the stolen items: six wallets and four assorted wads of cash. The city lights cast a harsh glare on me as I counted all the money: four hundred cash (between the wads and what was in the wallets themselves), a couple cards, and even a gift card or two. Hermes would be proud of me, I think belatedly.

Tomorrow, I'll walk south some and drop the wallets with their cards around the area. I hesitate. It would be strange for a kid to have so much money just sitting in their pockets. I look at the wallet of the first drunk student, I'll keep one and ditch the rest.

That was just what I did.

After that, I came back north to the shopping center close to the library. While it was nice walking around, instead of being stuck on a roof all day and night, one glance at the display T.V.s told me that doing this often would get me caught.

"Thirteen year old, Percy Jackson found in suspicion-"

"Do not approach-"

"Is considered dangerous. If seen-"

I didn't stop to listen to the rest.

The store I went to was only small by New York standaws, it could easily be considered huge to anyone from a smaller city. There was a technology secession,grocery, kid's toys, clothing section, and even a small food court. In a way, the place was something of a knock off target or Walmart. Maybe a strange hybrid of both, drawing in green instead of red or blue.

I skipped the shopping cart and grabbed the basket instead. Anything bought here today needs to be able to fit in my bookbag. I didn't need to buy anything more than I could wear or carry. I grabbed a shirt, blanket, toothbrush and toothpaste, a refillable water bottle, and found some small cans of canned food. If I was keeping a mental count in my head, and I was, of the balance so far, it would be somewhere in the ballpark of one-eighty as of now. Knowing this, I threw in a box of crackers as well.

Heading to the front, my eyes couldn't help but catch on the art supplies. Art had never really interested me much before, but I couldn't help but think of the fact that I'm going to be stuck on a roof for hours with nothing else to do but read and go insane. I grabbed a thick sketch book and some fine point pens. I'll grab a box of mechanical pencils and erasers from the school supplies section on the way out.

—

The next few months went much the same as the first few days. Pickpocketing strangers on the streets, sneaking down into the library at night to use the computers, and drawing during the day. I was able to continue learning Japanese through the computers, language learning websites and videos that taught grammar and pronunciation when speaking. If I had done this through school, I would have failed the class. But now, it was almost fun. It at least passed as a good distraction from everything else.