The Thief Lord

Scipio looked at him thoughtfully.

"You know what? I've just had a crazy idea," he said slowly. "It's still a bit hazy, but it's completely brilliant ..."

"Brilliant?" Barbarossa reached for the wine again, but Victor grabbed the bottle and put it next to his own plate.

Barbarossa gave him a sinister look. "You know, Thief Lord," he snarled in Scipio's direction, "you can't possibly hatch any brilliant plans, because you're nothing more than a clone of your father."

Scipio shot up as if something had bitten him. "Say that again, you little squirt ..."

Prosper and Hornet had to use their combined strength to stop Scipio from jumping at Barbarossa.

"Don't let that little rat get to you, Scip!" Hornet whispered to him, while Barbarossa smugly inspected his rosy fingernails.

Scipio dropped back into his chair. "Fine," he muttered, not taking his eyes off Barbarossa. "I'll stay calm. Maybe I'll send a postcard to Signor Barbarossa at the orphanage one day. That's where he'll end up, if he doesn't starve to death in his shop. I won't waste another thought on him, let alone a brilliant one." He got up, pretending to be offended, and looked out into the night.

Riccio and Mosca nudged each other, and Prosper couldn't hold back a grin. Yes, that was definitely the Scipio they knew, still the gifted actor.

And Barbarossa swallowed the bait.

"OK, OK," he squawked, "what about your brilliant idea, Thief Lord? Heavens, that man is touchier than a dog with a bone."

But Scipio kept his back turned. He stood by the window and looked out at the Campo Santa Margherita as if he were completely alone.

"Spit it out, for heaven's sake!" Barbarossa shouted as the others began to chuckle. Scipio didn't move.

Barbarossa slurped the remaining wine from his glass and slammed it on the table so hard that it nearly broke. "Do I have to go down on my knees?"

"Prosper and Bo's aunt," Scipio said without turning around, "is looking for a sweet little boy who has good table manners and can behave like an adult. You are looking for shelter, and a home for the future. And someone who puts food in front of you and who sleeps next door when it's dark ..."

Barbarossa's eyebrows shot up. "Is she rich?" he asked, brushing a stray lock from his forehead.

"Oh yes!" Scipio answered. "Right, Prop?"

Prosper nodded. "That's really quite a crazy idea, Scip," he said. "It's never going to work."

49 What Now?

Barbarossa refused to sleep in the same room as the other children. Instead, he camped on the sofa in the living room. Ida let him suit himself, but she locked him in as a precaution. Luckily Barbarossa didn't notice. Then she saw Victor to the door before going to bed herself.

Scipio had long gone. He had asked Mosca for some of the money they had left from the deal with Barbarossa, and then he had vanished into the night. Where he intended to go he hadn't said.

"Just like old times," Hornet murmured as they watched him from Ida's balcony.

They all knew what they couldn't forget -- a door in a narrow alley, a curtain full of stars, mattresses on the floor, the moth-eaten chairs, and the gold and silver treasure from the Thief Lord's satchel. All lost.

"Come on, let's go inside," Hornet said finally. "It's starting to rain again."

They went up into their room. The piece of curtain Victor had cut off was hanging on the wall. Ida had put a carpet on the bare floor. The walls were decorated with whatever they had managed to salvage from the movie theater. But many of their favorite pictures and photographs were still hanging on that movie theater wall, above the empty mattresses, along with their homely scrawls and scribbles.

They all crept wearily under the covers. However, none of them could get to sleep, not even Bo, who usually dropped off as soon as his head touched the pillow.

"It would be quite something if Barbarossa managed to move in with your aunt," Mosca said into the dark after some time. "But what are we going to do? Now that Prop is back, and Bo too. Has anyone got any ideas?"

"Nope," Riccio mumbled into his pillow. "We'll never find anything like the Star-Palace again. Definitely not with a bag full of fake money. And there's not much left of the other cash either. Maybe we'll find something over in Castello. There are lots of empty houses over there."

"Why?" Bo sat up so abruptly that he pulled the blanket off Prosper. "I don't want a new hideout. I want to stay here, with Ida!"

"Oh, Bo!" Hornet switched on the lamp, which Ida had put by her bedside so she could read in the evenings.

"Listen to him," Riccio laughed. He was leaning against the wall and wrapping his blanket around his scrawny chest. "What does Ida know about honor among thieves? No, I'll have a look around in Castello tomorrow. What about you guys?"

Mosca nodded. "Count me in," he agreed. He was staring out of the window as if he were trying to stare a hole in the night.

Hornet avoided the question and grabbed one of the books she had taken from Ida's shelf and started to leaf through it.

"I'm staying here!" Bo insisted. He stubbornly folded his arms. "Yes, sir!"

"You go to sleep now," Prosper said to him, pushing him back down on to his pillow. "We'll talk about it tomorrow."

"We can talk about it for a hundred years, a thousand years!" Bo shouted, kicking the blanket off him again. "I'm staying here. My kittens like it here. They like teasing Lucia's dogs. And Victor picks me and Ida up and we go and have ice cream, and Lucia cooks my favorite pasta for me and ..."

"And what?" Riccio cut him off. "And soon they'll tell you that you have to go to school, and what you have to eat, and that you should wash more often. No, way! Jeez, we've been on our own for so long, I'm not going to let anyone tell me that I'm too young to go out, or that my fingernails need cleaning. No way, Jose! Not Riccio."

The others fell silent for a few moments. Then Mosca said with great deliberation, "Boy, Riccio, that was a real speech!"

Hornet put aside her book and walked slowly on her bare feet to the window to look outside.

"I'd like to stay here as well," she said so quietly that the others could hardly hear her. "This is much better than I ever imagined."

"You're nuts," Riccio yawned, crawling back under his blanket. "I'll ask Scipio what he's going to do now. If he comes back. Maybe he'll have another one of his brilliant ideas."

"I wonder what he's doing now," Mosca said. "Have you any idea, Prop?"

Hornet returned to her bed and switched off her light.

"Maybe," Prosper answered. He stared into the darkness and tried to imagine Scipio as he walked through the alleys, looking at his reflection in the dark shop windows, stepping into the glow of a streetlight to inspect his long shadow. Perhaps he would go into one of the bars where the grown-ups sat well into the night. Once he got tired he might check into a hotel room, like he had said, one with a big mirror, and shave for the first time.

"Is he OK?" Bo asked, laying his head on Prosper's chest.