The 49ers

It wasn't on Lloyd's to-do-list that day to catch a criminal but curiosity got the better of him when he spotted Catherine Macaulay swipe a box of floating candles from Benson's Gift Emporium. If he hadn't been in there buying the usual box of floral soaps for his grandmother's birthday he'd have been none the wiser about her or her blossoming talent for shoplifting.
As Catherine strolled out of door Lloyd hurriedly paid for his gift, tossing coins and notes across the counter, and scuttled out into the rainy car park.
It had crossed his mind to turn her in, to shout thief across the shop, but he was impressed by the stealthy way Catherine swept the box across the shelf and into her open rucksack, as though it accidentally got caught by her jacket sleeve. Instead he decided to follow her, wondering what a fifteen year old could possibly want with six floating red candles moulded into roses. Was it a gift too, albeit a hot one?
He followed Catherine, keeping a safe distance, through a rundown housing estate where every other house was boarded up, and then down to the disused aluminium plant by the harbour. Catherine snuck inside the compound through the corner of a mesh fence that had been peeled back like a lid on a can of sardines and then scurried down the weed-strewn road that snaked between derelict warehouses and office blocks. As Lloyd tailed her he spotted a mobile phone laying on the cracked concrete road. Assuming it was her he pocketed it just as she disappeared through a broken door to one of the blocks. Peering round the doorway he watched her scale a metal staircase that led to a mezzanine floor of offices.
It crossed his mind, briefly, that what he was doing was dangerous, that if she caught him he might be in trouble, but he had seen Catherine round the school before and althoughs he hung about with a bad crowd she seemed pretty harmless, if a bit wimpish.
Brushing his mild concerns aside, he stealthily climbed the stairs and peered over the sill of the office she walked into. Catherine was at the far end of the room. She had unzipped her bag, pulled out the candles and was placing the box on a bookcase filled with a variety of other objects; a picture frame, a teddy bear, a loaf of mouldy bread, a cd player, a vase, a set of glass tumblers and a host of other random objects. Was she living here?
Boldlyhe stepped inside the room and shut the door behind him.
Catherine spun round and glared at him, her eyes wide.
"What are you doing here? Get out," she spat, reaching for a broken chair leg and brandishing in front of her like a sword.
Lloyd held his ground and her voice.
"I saw you steal those candles from Bensons," he stated.
"And what of it," said Catherine.
"You're Catherine Ziane aren't you?" he asked.
"What do you care who I am?"
"I'm just curious why a nice girl like you does something so damn stupid, that's all," he said as he casually strolled over to a dusty red office chair and sat down.
"You better get out of here quick smart of I'll hit you. I'll bash your skull open like a...like a..."
"Like an coconut? Melon? Egg?"
Catherine clenched the chair leg tighter, making her knuckles turn white, and she snorted through gritted teeth. "I will. I swear it."
"Where are you from?" Lloyd asked, swivelling round on the chair's castors. "I mean originally. Where you born in England?"
"Of course I was. I speak English don't I?" she spat.
"I only asked if you were born here."
"Well I was. I'm a Londoner. My mum's a Londoner."
"And your dad?"
"From Morocco."
"That explains a lot then."
"What do you mean?"
"Your funny accent."
Catherine scrutinised him. "If you're gonna come out with some names you can forget it, I've heard them all."
"What makes you think I want to mock you because you're different?" he asked, genuinely curious to know why she was so defensive.
"Because that's what most of you do," she said. "You stick labels on people."
"And what label would you stick on me?"
"Nosey, for one," she said, lowering her baton.
Lloyd laughed. "Well, I can't disagree with you there. I suppose if I wasn't I wouldn't be here."
"Why are you here?"
"Curiosity."
"Curiosity killed the cat you know. Ever heard that saying?"
"I have," he said. "But I'm not afraid of you. If you were Jonny Boyd though that would be a different matter. I know what he's capable of."
"You better watch what you say. He's a 49er."
"Is that what they're called?" he said as he slid his hands under his thighs and continued to swing on the chair. "And you want to be one too?"
"I am one now," she said, puffing out her chest. "This takes care of that," she added holding up the box of candles in her free hand.
"I don't understand," Lloyd said frowning at her.
"My forty-ninth theft," she said, pointing to the bookcase stuffed with items she had obviously pilfered from stores across Wellborough.
"Why forty-nine?"
Catherine placed the candles on the shelf beside a shrink-wrapped box of blank cds. "Jonny said shoplifters get caught once every forty-nine times they steal stuff. He says if you can steal forty-nine times you're in the gang."
"But surely you could just buy forty-nine things and say you stole them."
Catherine shook her head. "They're not dumb you know. They say you have to video yourself stealin'. Happy snatchin' Jonny calls it."
Lloyd felt his mouth go dry. Did she video herself with her mobile phone? He ran a hand over his jacket pocket. It was still there. "I could turn you in you know?" he said
"You've got no evidence. No-one would believe you," she replied bluntly.
Lloyd thought about revealing what he had in his pocket but decided against it. Although she was a bit soft she might be unpredictable. He didn't want to risk it.
"If you're so sick of being labelled why are you so keen to be a 49er?" he asked.
"Because it's the last one people will ever stick on me."
"Aren't you happy being who you are?"
"I'm not anybody," she spat, hurling the chair leg into the corner of the room where it bounced off the wall and left a dent in the crumbly plasterwork.
"That's not what I heard."
Catherine shot him look that suggested he had better choose her next words carefully.
"I heard you entered the Interschool Under Sixteen Art competition for a self portrait you painted."
"I didn't. Miss Browns did. She did it behind my back."
"And you weren't happy about that?"
Catherine shrugged her shoulders. "Don't mean nothin'. I never won anyway."
"That's not the point. Miss Browns obviously saw something in it that made her enter you."
"Well she shouldn't have. It wasn't meant for no-one but me."
"Why only you?"
"To remind me that I'm worthless," she said as she slumped against the wall and kicked a rusty stapler at her feet across the room.
"Why are you so down on yourself?"
Catherine snapped her head round then marched up to him, her face red and her eyes narrowed. Lloyd held his breath. His body stiffened. He actually felt afraid now, afraid that he had chipped away too much of her outer shell and was now exposing a raw, explosive nerve.
"Because I ain't smart like you," she spluttered, showering Lloyd with spittle. "Yeah I know who you are. Lloyd Carter, school swot."
Lloyd leapt up out of his chair and challenged her. With only a hair's breadth separating their faces it was Catherine's turn to be afraid. Lloyd noticed her taught face loosen and her jaw quiver.
"Don't think you know so much about me, Catherine," he said as he barged past her, deliberately knocking her to the side with his shoulder. "I'm not exactly an angel you know."
Catherine rubbed her shoulder whilst he examined the contents of the bookcase.
"So what's your story then?" she asked.
"Oh you're interested in me now are you and not wallowing in self pity."
"Fine, if you don't wanna tell me."
"No, no. You asked so I'll tell you."
"The only reason I'm in state school is because my parents were sick of me being suspended from public school. They were fed up with having to pay for me to be in class when I was actually at home, getting under my mother's feet," he said.
"Why were you suspended?"
"Because I disrupted my classes. I'd throw stuff around, call the teachers names, tear up books."
"Why?"
"I was desperate to be different. In a sea of boring, stuffy, over-intelligent, ya-yas I wanted to be different. So I rebelled."
"We're not so different really, are we?" said Catherine.
Lloyd shook his head. "The thing is I realised when I left Wellborough Girls and enrolled at the Comp that no matter where I go I'm still me. I can get away from that. You just have to accept it and, without sounding really corny, embrace what you've got."
Catherine looked down at herself and across at her loot.
"Sure, I'm a straight A student. Lah-de-dah," Lloyd said. "But I'd trade that in to be able to paint like you."
"I could teach you," Catherine said. "And you could help me with my exams."
Lloyd extended a hand to her. "Sounds like you've made yourself a good deal there," he said.
Catherine took his hand in hers and with a smile gave it a firm shake.
He let go and made for the door of the office.
"What are you going to do? I mean about this stuff," she asked glancing at the bookcase of booty.
Lloyd reached a hand into his jacket pocket, pulled out her mobile phone and skimmed it across the linoleum towards Catherine.
"I'll leave that for you to decide," he said and left her in the office, alone. "See you tomorrow."