The Burglar's Rough Night

The burglar squatted down in front of the door and felt something sharp dig into his right thigh. He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a No. 2 pencil he now regretted sharpening earlier. The burglar wondered if he might get lead poisoning from what just happened. Then he remembered once reading on Wikipedia that you could only get lead poisoning from odd-numbered pencils, so he stopped worrying.

He tossed the pencil aside and got to work. It was an old lock, so a paperclip would do the job. At least he hoped so, since he didn’t have any of his normal burglary tools with him. He took a paperclip from his pocket, twisted it around, and into the keyhole it went.

He’d broken into dozens of homes this way, so this should have been easy. It wasn’t. The lock wouldn’t budge. He wondered if he was losing his touch or if something else was wrong. Maybe he did have lead poisoning and it was already screwing with his system. There was a slim chance that Wikipedia had been wrong.

The hell with it, he thought. There had to be another way in. He walked through the front yard and looked at the windows on the second floor and saw that one of them was partially open. Perfect.

The burglar looked around for something to use to get him up to the window. There was nothing, so he went to the yard of the house next door. He found a small ladder there and carried it back.

He put it in place and climbed up. Just as he got to the top, he heard footsteps from the sidewalk in front of the house.

“Hey, look up there!” A boy’s voice said. The burglar looked down and saw a teenage boy and a middle-aged woman looking up at him.

“Bill Kucharski,” the woman said. “Did you lock yourself out of your house again?”

The burglar looked down at them. “Yeah, I lost my keys. Sorry for taking your ladder without asking, Beth. Was afraid you’d be asleep. I’ll bring it back first thing in the morning.”

They said goodbye and he climbed into his house and got into bed. As he laid his head on his pillow, he wondered how he could easily break into other homes but suck so badly at breaking into his own. 

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The above story was written in response to a flash fiction writing challenge from writer Wade Finnegan on his website yesterday. Wade's parameters for the challenge were: Somewhere in the story you must use the words pencil, paperclip, and pillow. Also, a character must say, “Look up there.” You have a maximum of 400 words to work with. 

I had a fun time with it. To check out Wade Finnegan's cool site and his story for this challenge, go here. You'll also find another cool story there by writer Carl Sinclair. 

Check them out!