Still stealing but I tell someone about it

I continued to take money from the managers office at the bus depot for months more. Finally I heard the manager bitching to the assistant manager that he just couldn't figure out who was stealing all the money.

The made plans to trap the person or persons doing it. As they were in the managers office I overheard the whole conversation and it wasn't going to be a problem. Lol, they even got around to asking me if I ever saw anyone strange around the area.

Naturally I hadn't and I told them all I'd seen was the usual kids and people when I was there but I did tell them I'd let them know if I did. Yeah, right.

At least there were no electronics around back then that could trip me up. No hidden surveillance cameras, nothing. The stuff just didn't exist. You had to actually be caught in the act and that was sometimes very hard to do.

The manager had started locking the door again and this time he wasn't forgetting to lock it. That sucked but I still had enough tucked way to last a kid for a couple of years. I missed the adrenaline rushes tho. Heh, even started collecting from people on my paper route so I didn't have to get into my stash.

Then I met another guy with a paper route and he and I became friends and hung around together quite a bit. We both liked the same things and got along pretty well. Bowling, fishing, pinball we had in common. He wasn't quite as good at any of them as I was but still better than most people.

One day we were talking about our paper routes and how we hated to collect. He finally told me he hardly ever collected and I asked him how he managed that. He told me he found a way to steal money from the paper office and no one could ever figure out who was doing it.

Once a week he'd steal enough to pay his paper bill and that was it. I asked him to tell me how to do it and he wouldn't. Irritated the hell out of me so I proposed a trade of information. I'd tell him where I was stealing from if he'd tell me how to do the paper office.

He agreed so I told him about the bus depot. He thought that was cool and he told me how to steal money from the newspaper office. So I traded a piece of worthless info for some currently good info. He was a bit irritated when he found out we couldn't take any money from the bus depot.

Turns out I got very lucky and a few weeks after we exchanged information his dad got a job in a different town and he was moving in a couple of weeks. As far as I know he never mentioned to anyone else that I had been stealing from the depot and him from the paper office.

At least no one ever watched me any closer than they ever did. Makes me wonder now if people even kept very good track of their money back then. Of course almost everyone back in the late 50's was much more trustworthy than people are now.

I kept playing pinball and watching the office door to see if it was open. It took a while but the manager did start leaving it unlocked again. Naturally I just kept waiting for my next opportunity.

It was summertime and nothing much else was going on. My uncle had managed to get invited to our house and molested me again a couple of times. I got the usual beatings for things I did and for things I didn't do. Whatever. None of it mattered as it was just life as usual for me.

I still spent as little time at home as was possible and snuck out frequently after my parents went to the bar or went to bed. I had to wait for my sister to go to sleep but she always went to bed when she was supposed to so I was free to go do what I wanted.