Little Mafia

This piece is pure fun. I have a deep love for heist movies, and I began to wonder what a team of child thieves might look like. This story is lighter than some of my other work, and it is not science fiction or fantasy, but it is most definitely fantastical. For this piece, I focused on tone and pacing. It is whimsical, but not humorous. The heist had to impart a sense of urgency, the dread of a ticking clock. All the while, I was using language more suited for a children's story. For a few days, these thieves stole all of my attention, and I hope they do the same for you.

Little Mafia

They were the mafia of the fifth grade, and she wanted to be Robin Hood. They ruled with an iron fist—collecting a portion of everyone’s lunch money as protection against being beaten up, getting “help with homework” (which really meant bullying kids into doing their homework for them), and deciding who could be friends. Rachel had just gone along with it really. They didn’t bother her that much, and it was easier to just keep her head down. She had convinced her parents that she needed a little more money for lunch so she could pay them off. She didn’t show off in class so they didn’t use her for “homework help,” and she had a best friend—Jenny—who she’d been friends with since they were five. Not even the mafia could separate them. Sure, it wasn’t an ideal situation, but she was fine. Then they went after Jenny.
            Jenny was the best artist in the whole school. She always had been. Brittany, the mafia head, wanted her talents for herself, because about a month ago, Jenny had figured out how to successfully mimic the handwriting of each of their teachers. She did it for fun, as a way of focussing. She wrote out her notes in each class in that teacher’s handwriting. Brittany saw an opportunity. She approached Jenny during recess with an offer: a month’s worth of hall passes made to look like different teachers had signed them in exchange for Brittany’s protection. Jenny turned her down. During their math test the next day, Jenny was accused of cheating. Her parents were called in, and she was given detention along with a zero on the test.
            That was it. Rachel had had enough; it was time to assemble her own band of Merry Men. She started with her best chance: Jenny. “So you want to join my Merry Men?”
            “Sure.”
            “Awesome!”
            “What does that mean exactly?”
            “You know, Robin Hood and his, or her, band of Merry Men? You can be Little Jen.”
            “What will we be doing as Merry Men? I assume you’re Robin?”
            “Of course I am. And we’re going to take Brittany down.”
            “You’re kidding.”
            “No! Someone needs to stop her. You saw what happened to Jackie. What happened to you. Enough’s enough.”
            “Yeah, but like you said, I saw what happened to Jackie. And to me.”
            “Well we’re not going to be stupid about it. Look, are you in?”
            “Of course.”
            Rachel grinned. It was time to plan. They worked their way through the outcasts first—those with nothing to lose by going up against Brittany. There was Jackie, who had refused to do Brittany’s history report. Loudly. In front of a teacher. Half her hair had been shaved off the next day during lunch, and she was too scared to tell anyone who had done it. They snuck over to her house after school. She immediately agreed to help.
            Next was Danny. Danny was awkward and chubby and had broken Brittany’s favorite doll when they were in kindergarten. She never forgot. He was almost pathetically happy that anyone wanted to even talk to him, let alone spend time together. He was willing to go along with their plans.
            Lydia was the new girl. She was really smart and loved school; unfortunately, no one had warned her about the mafia. She had told on Christy, Brittany’s best friend and second-in-command, when Christy had asked her to do her math homework. No one knew what had happened exactly, but Lydia spent the next week crying. She was ready to do whatever it took to get her revenge.
            After the outcasts had firmly established their covert friendships, Rachel began to plan their first attack. They would start with stealing back lunch money. Brittany’s enforcers were two boys named Jack and Dallas. Jack was a skinny rat of a kid who had held the title of Fastest Kid in School since the first grade. Dallas had been held back a year and was over a head taller than everyone else. The money they took, they gave to Christy, who made sure that everybody in the mafia got some. Jack held on to the money until they had collected everything, normally before science class, then gave it to Christy, who distributed it at lunch. So they had two options: take it from Jack or take it from Christy. Jack was so fast that they would have to make sure he didn’t notice, but Christy kept it in her backpack.
            At the first official meeting of the Merry Men, Rachel laid out her plan to be carried out the next day. Rachel walked into science class with a swarm of bees in her stomach. She had the biggest job today. Everyone else was too scared, and her dad had told her that leaders should never ask of their men what they themselves are not willing to do. Christy sat down in the second to last row, and Jack immediately handed her the money. She put it in the zippered front pocket of her polka dotted pink backpack. Rachel sat directly behind her, trading seats with Jackie for the day. The bell rang, and as Miss Woodstein began talking about tide pools, Rachel carefully leaned forward.
            Inch by inch, she slowly reached for the backpack. With her pencil tip, she dragged the zipper open. But then Christy shifted, and her backpack swung where it hung from the back of her seat. Rachel froze, but Christy hadn’t noticed anything. A minute or so later, she had the pocket open wide enough. She tapped her pencil against her desk five times in a row. Lydia immediately raised her hand. “Miss Woodstein? Are tide pools in any danger from global warming?” And Miss Woodstein was safely distracted for the next ten minutes.
            The rest of the class, particularly the Merry Men, groaned, and Rachel reached forward and plucked the money out, tucking it into her jacket pocket. Now she just had to close the backpack. She was halfway done when Christy started to turn around. She panicked. Across the room, Jen suddenly screamed and smacked her desk with a book. Rachel jumped and jerked the zipper closed while the entire class whipped around to stare at Jen. “Sorry. Spider.”
            Miss Woodstein continued her lecture, and Jen winked at Rachel as best she could. The first heist was complete. At lunch, Brittany held her hand out expectantly. From where they sat around the room, the Merry Men barely dared to breathe. Christy reached in, then frowned. She frantically began to search through her backpack. “Well?” Brittany asked.
            “It’s not here. The money. It’s not here!”
            The two girls had a rushed, whispered conversation that ended with Christy giving Brittany half of her own lunch money. So even though Brittany still had her pick of the cafeteria, the rest of the mafia were forced to have smaller lunches than normal. On the other hand, the other fifth graders found their stolen money in their desks, lockers, and backpacks, all signed “MM”.
            But one time wasn’t enough. They met again that afternoon in Rachel’s backyard. Danny wanted to steal the money again, and while Rachel agreed, she was worried. They were going to have to be more careful this time. They decided to wait, at least for a day or two.
            The next morning, they were glad they had. Christy put the money in the front pocket of her jeans. They would need a new plan. Jackie realized what had to be done. “Well, if we can’t take it from Christy, we’ll have to take it from Jack. We’ll just have to slow him down somehow.”
            This time, the planning took more than one afternoon, so they weren’t able to act until Thursday. They waited until Jack had collected all of the money and was headed to science. Then Jenny and Rachel broke out into a loud argument in the middle of the hallway, drawing everyone’s attention. Danny stumbled into Jack, knocking him to the ground. “I’m so so sorry.”
            “Watch it, freak.”
            Lydia snuck behind them and quickly unzipped the backpack, taking the wad of cash, while Danny tried to help Jack up, delaying him in the process. Just in case she had been spotted, Lydia then passed the money to Jackie. The teachers were used to Jackie sitting in the back silently, so she was able to separate the money out for each kid, signing each pile “MM.”
            That night, the Merry Men were nearly giddy with their success. Once could have been a fluke, but twice was awesome. Time to step it up. It wasn’t enough to take back their lunch money; they had to send a message. This time their work would be a bit more long-term.
            Brittany was furious. She had never been blatantly challenged like this before. She started collecting even more money from everyone. She recruited more spies, paying them with favors and protection. Kids were scared, but the Merry Men had a plan.
            They began small, with little pranks designed to drive Brittany crazy and hold her attention. Jenny wrote notes with different handwriting, all about Brittany and how much they hated her and how ridiculous she was. They planted these where various mafia members would notice. At first, Brittany was just annoyed, but they kept appearing until she was doing everything she could to find the authors, but no one would admit to writing them.
            Still, they needed more information. Rachel managed to get Dallas’s locker combination. He muttered it under his breath as he spun the lock, and she just stood near him, pretending to read Robin Hood. Jenny wrote Danny a hall pass, and he opened Dallas’s locker. Inside he found Brittany’s combination along with nearly a dozen pictures of her.
            The next night, Friday, Jackie broke into the school (they didn’t ask how) and into Brittany’s locker. She took pictures of everything, and then they all met up at Rachel’s house. Brittany was obsessively organized, with lists and notes in perfect order. “Wait. Where’s her notebook of doom?”
            Jenny laughed. “I’m sorry. What did you say Rach?”
            “Her notebook of doom. You know, her pink one that she keeps mafia stuff in.”
            They all stared at her blankly. “Has no one else noticed it?”
            Danny broke the silence. “Yeah, I think that’s a no.”
            “Okay. So she keeps this small pink notebook with her. At first I thought it was for class notes, but no. I managed to sneak a look one day. It’s all mafia business. We need to get a hold of that notebook.”
            Jackie was the first to point out the problem. If it wasn’t in her locker, that meant that Brittany kept the notebook with her at all times. “Do we even want her to know yet that we are working against her? Or are we gonna keep staying in the shadows?”
            “It’s a bit too late for that. We signed all the money,” Jenny reminded her.
            “Okay,” Rachel thought aloud, “so we’re going to need a big distraction... Jenny can you copy Brittany’s handwriting?”
            “If you get me a sample and some time, sure.”
            They fleshed out the plan and then settled in for a movie night together. Ocean’s Eleven. They called it research.
            On Monday, after they were given back their history homework, Danny grabbed Brittany’s from the trash where she’d dropped it. By Wednesday, Jenny was ready. She wrote Dallas a love note from Brittany and slipped it through the slats and into his locker. It said that Brittany had liked him for a long time, but she was scared he didn’t like her back. She needed a big demonstration of his affections. When nothing had happened by Friday lunch, the Merry Men were worried. What if they had somehow misread the situation? But then Dallas came through. In English class, he suddenly stood up on his desk and started quoting ‘Romeo and Juliet’. Not exactly what they were expecting, but it worked. He walked to the front of the room, grabbed Brittany’s hands, and got down on one knee as he finished. The whole class was stunned into silence for a moment, then burst out laughing. In the confusion, Jackie grabbed the notebook. The bell rang, covering Brittany’s yells. “How could you even think I’d— What the heck were you— I mean, did you really—”
             The Merry Men gathered at Rachel’s house after school. She opened the notebook. It was perfect. More than they had even hoped for. Brittany had kept records of everything. Money collected. Favors owed. Kids she’d punished. There was a moment of stunned silence, before they all burst into loud cheers. By Monday, the mafia would be gone.
            On Monday morning, when Brittany walked in to their first class and sat down, Rachel brushed by her, dropping a note onto her desk. Brittany looked down. There, in her own handwriting, it said, Your notebook was such an interesting read. Have fun at your new school. -- the Merry Men. Just then, over the intercom came, “Brittany Parsons and Christy Francino to the Principal’s office.”
            She stood up shakily and began the long walk to the principal’s office. At the doorway, she turned to look back. Danny winked; Lydia grinned; Jackie stuck out her tongue; Jenny bared her teeth; and Rachel waved. The little mafia was no more. The Merry Men would disband. For now.