This is the 8th grade one, The Great Thief Maria.
The Great Thief Maria ran, her burgundy and emerald hair flying out behind her, slit eyes flashing excitedly from the house she had just robbed of all its valuables. "You'll never catch me, Detective West and brat!" She flung a bag of valuable books and items over her shoulder and yelled to the graying detective and his teenage son, "Bye Bye Suckers!"
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Everyone talked about the theft at school the next day. "Did you hear? That thief stole over ten thousand dollars in books and jewelry!" Two girls were chatting excitedly walking down the hall. "Didn't the Great Thief burn all of his non-valuable books?" Brian gritted his teeth at the conversation; he and his father had been chasing down Maria for as long as Brian could remember.
A blur of brown and green bounded past Brian chatting nonsensically, "Hi from the Pie in the Sky! The weather will be snowy with a hundred percent chance of books!" The girl was in the elite school's uniform, nobody knew how she made it into the school, with how crazy she always acted. "It's called eccentric, Bri-boy! I got in here because my parents left me a fortune when they went to Egypt, and that I have something called a brain! They wanted me to go to their hometown, go to their old school while they were there."
Brian winced, "Oops, did I say that aloud?" The girl's eyes flashed dull yellow, she nodded. He looked away, blushing, he would sometimes say questions and information aloud; a trait he got from his dad the detective.
"Danger, there you are," spoke a quiet voice behind the girl, Danger. Danger jumped into the air screaming. The source of the voice tried calming her down, "Hey, hey, Danger, it's only me, Mokona!" Mokona had soft black eyes and even softer black hair. She was the foreign exchange student from Japan who had been sent to show them what a "proper" student was like. "I looked all over for you but couldn't find you, you forgot the homework assignment."
Nobody knew where Danger came from, her skin was a natural tan, her eyes had a dull slit pupil, and her hair was a mostly straight brown, then came the confusing part, her bangs were a forest green. Danger and Maria looked alike but they were complete opposites, anyone would tell you that.
Danger loved books. She'd read any type, most languages, any age group, any genre, she'd read them, her personal favorites were horror and romance, and a mixture of the two. She could read in Greek, Taiwanese, Chinese, Spanish, French, Cantonese Somalian, Dutch, and German. She could also read in dead and ancient languages like Latin, Egyptian, and Ancient Romanian. Danger would tell anyone who would listen about the newest book she had read, even if she didn't know them. She was clumsy, forgetful and way too happy-go-lucky. She liked anything shiny, which included but was not limited to gum wrappers and cut glass. She had never hated anyone in her life.
Maria was a cold heartless thief; she didn't care about anything unless it had material value. Even if it was the best book in the world, if it was in mass production she'd chuck it, burn it, or destroy it utterly somehow. It was estimated in her career she had destroyed at least four million worthless books, paintings, statues, replicas and the like, nobody knew for sure. She'd steal any high-priced jewels, sparkly or dull. Maria was as clever and lithe as a cat. Nobody had ever caught her, and how it was going it seemed nobody ever would.
Danger ran after Mokona as they headed to their next class. "WAAAAAAIIT!!!" Danger huffed, trying to catch her breath as they entered art. They had free-draw, where they can draw anything then paint over it using oil paints.
Mokona drew a scenic of a grove of trees. Then she erased part of it and put a temple in, it was a Shinto temple. Until she colored in the foliage it could have been any season, then it turned to early spring, flowers on the ground, barely opening their petal of pink, sky blue, and pastel purple. Some trees became oak and rowan; one became a delicate Japanese cherry tree, the entire tree was a light pink, except the bark.
Danger was, of course, drawing books. She drew a great library, one bookshelf said in delicate yet intricate gold writing, Rare Books; the bookshelf was made of the finest ivory. Each book had its title as a little scribble. Some covers were red velvet, others were dyed leather, and one looked eerily enough like flayed human skin. The other bookshelves were made of varying levels of decorated wood. Danger was a bad drawer, most of her pictures looked like scribbles, only her pictures of books looked good, it said something about her one-track mind.
The last bell rang, and Danger walked slowly out of the building, nose deep in her newest book, it was a thousand paged novel. She turned away from her house and towards the smells of the city, stale air, hotdog vendors, and smog mixed with the gentle perfume of flowers. When she reached her destination, she flopped down on the feathery substance. She was in the city's local wonder, a gigantic field of flowers. Danger smiled, breathing in the fragrance of lilacs, daisies, roses, and all the flowers. "I love it here, it's so peaceful." She turned onto her side and read her book till dusk. Then she started to home.
Danger opened one of the double front doors, and walked into the silent, empty, mansion. She lived in the sixty room mansion all alone. Well, almost all alone. "Peace! Come here! Here kitty kitty!" Whatever her pet was, it wasn't peaceful. It tore down the stairs in a rage, letting out a yowl that reverberated around in the gigantic ceiling. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be gone so long. How 'bout I feed you now?" Danger headed towards the kitchen. Peace quieted instantly and followed, tail in the air. The black and white cat chewed daintily on the wet and dry cat food mixture. "You are insane, you know that, cat? You should be named Banshee instead of Peace." Danger glared half-heartedly, wagging her finger at Peace. She picked up Peace, who let out one indignant meow at being pulled away from her food before settling into Danger's arms contentedly.
Danger peeked into one room after another, doggedly searching for something. Books were strewn across the floor of each and every room, books on shelves, tables, chairs, beds basically any available surface. There were over a hundred paper backs and hard covers in just the first room. Peace followed right behind her, eyes oddly bright, as if hopeful. Peace's ears flattened when Danger scolded her, "You know you're not allowed in these rooms! You could damage a book!" Taking no heed of Danger she ran into a pile of books, which toppled over. Peace rolled in the books, paws flailing, then ran on to the next pile as Danger ran stumbling over, screaming in anguish "PEACE YOU BANSHEE STOP IT!!!!"
Half an hour later one soaked and tired Danger heavily slammed the door to the downstairs bathroom shut, one furious yowling cat inside. "It's your fault! You were gonna destroy the books!" Danger dragged herself to her room, changed into dry clothes and put bandages on her hands to cover the scratches, courtesy of a frantic Peace.
She picked up a small, grubby package on her dresser and fondly reread the letter on top of it. The date was from over a year ago, the stamp was from Egypt.
Dear Danger,
Dad and I hope you like this book, it is a reprint and has been through a lot, but we know you can fix it up.
Love,
Mom and Dad.
The book was on legends of Egypt and had a picture of a stone tablet on its cover. The book said it had been taken from the tomb of a pharaoh who's tomb was over six hundred thousand years ago. The pages were bent and yellowing and the back cover had been ripped off but Danger didn't notice, she hugged the ratty book to her chest and started to cry, little prism teardrops hitting the book. She left the room to fix the damage made by the psycho kitty.
********
She knew every inch of the house; after all she had memorized it earlier that day. The cops had gotten her notice all right. They had been swarming the house like a large colony of ants. The idiot police hadn't even noticed an extra member; they hadn't even suspected who she was. The jewels were in a safe under the bed, the statue was behind an alarm ridden case in the formal drawing room, and there were no books! "Finally, a house with no idiotic books." The shadowed figure smiled, revealing sharp white teeth.
Maria reached out a gloved hand towards the window, sliding it open silently. The night watchman's face appeared in the window, about to call the police from downstairs. Maria pulled him through the window, showing her teeth as the unfortunate man fell two stories. "Buh Bye ya weakling!"
She skittered down the hall to the great bedroom, reaching under the bed and dragging the safe out. "Trash, junk, replica, paste, oho! Finally some real jewels!" She stepped back, foot crushing the cut glass jewels with a crunch, before stuffing handful after handful of jewels into her black bag. "Now for the Sapphire Sphinx!"
The police were waiting downstairs, lookouts waiting in different areas, searching for her. A young rookie came huffing and puffing into the room, "Maria is coming! Guard the Sphinx!" While he was blubbering, Maria casually walked into the door behind him.
She shrugged her shoulders, "Sorry for making ya wait, I was sorta busy takin' the jewels from upstairs." She was so casual it was weird, shaking the bag of precious stones resting over her shoulder. "I'll be takin' the Sphinx now, ya idiots." She darted towards the glass case, pulling it open.
A shrill siren filled the room, making many a cop cover their ears. Just as she was pulling the statue off its pedestal, Brian rushed out from the crowd and grabbed her right wrist. The glove on her hand started to come off, revealing a slightly bandaged hand. Maria glared at Brian, gold eyes meeting blue before an intense pain spread from Brian's lower torso, making him let go her the sly thief's hand. The police started open firing as she smashed the figurine on the floor, blue shards flinging everywhere. The last Brian saw of Maria that night was her quick smile and a wave of her bandaged hand and she vanished through a newly broken window.
The graying detective checked to see if his son was okay, then met the young police chief halfway across the room. "She got it! Somehow she knew of our plans, the statues gone!"
The detective looked towards the chief dryly, "Of course she did, I thought it was obvious from how she shattered the fake" He was practically screaming, face a deep purple. Grabbing the note in the police chief's hand his face darkened with determination. "You won't get away with this, Maria you petty thief!" He let the letter float to the floor, deciding to take his anger out by punching the wall instead.
The note said:
You idiots should have known an obvious fake like that couldn't fool me. I'll see you later, two weeks from today at the Rare Artifacts Museum, even though you can't catch me, I feel like letting you know where I'll be then, it makes things more interesting, and I can annoy the fuck outta you, so you better come!
Love,
~G.T. Maria~