It’s hard sneaking around a busy part of town when your face has been all over the news. But Robin was short, and Alan’s ten-year-old sister was above average height, so he slipped nicely into her striped leggings, pink Converse All Stars and a lemon hoodie with a shimmering unicorn on the front.
His scruffy hair passed for girly once Marion swept it back, fixed a couple of hair grips in it and packed the mess under a baseball cap.
‘It’s not that funny,’ Robin protested, as Alan rolled around his bedroom floor clutching his sides and claiming that he was going to die.
‘I think he’s got a great bum for leggings,’ Marion grinned.
Marion’s battered forest boots looked wrong with Alan’s shorts and hockey shirt. He had clown feet and his sister’s shoes were too small, but Alan dug some suitably sized Nikes out of years-old junk at the bottom of his wardrobe.
Alan gave hugs and wished them luck when they left. Nobody batted an eye at two girls riding a city bus into the centre of Locksley.
After stepping off at the semi-derelict transit terminal, they took a short walk, hiding Marion’s wooden bow and Robin’s heavy bag of clothes on an overgrown lot behind Hipsta Donut.
Then they split up, Marion heading for Locksley’s civic square six blocks west, and Robin cutting through nettles into the back lot of Hipsta’s. He caught a dose of nerves and the stupid jingle as he stepped through the automatic doors of Captain Cash.
Don’t take fright when money’s tight …
‘We close in eight minutes,’ the security officer warned Robin as he swept into the main part of the store.
He’d assumed it would be quiet this near closing time, but the place was a zoo, busier than when he’d visited with his dad.
He walked between rows of cabinets, lowering his gaze when he passed Rhongomaiwenua, unlocking a sliding glass panel and retrieving an Xbox controller for a kid with a cast on his wrist.
‘This is your last one ever,’ his mum warned. ‘You can’t hurl the pad every time you lose …’
It was quieter at the rear of the store, where the two ATMs stood back to back and glass cabinets gave way to raised platforms displaying larger items like lawnmowers and kid-sized electric cars.
Robin spent a few minutes pretending to be interested in a box filled with wetsuits, while two toddlers tussled over the driver’s seat of a mini police car.
‘This store is now closed,’ a recorded announcement began. ‘Please leave the premises, or move to the front of the store to purchase your items. Captain Cash is available twenty-four hours a day online. So why not check us out …’
A dad came over and retrieved the two kids. After a backwards glance down the row of cabinets, Robin ducked through a rack of used skis and squatted in a shadowy gap between a ride-on mower and the box of wetsuits.