Luke's Diner, Wednesday Morning

[outofherdepths]

Duke hadn't come home yesterday. And while that wasn't exactly not normal, usually he called, if only to tell Larceny where the easy food was and to remind her not to eat the porgs. (Not that she had! In...MONTHS!)

But last night...nothing. And while both the radio and her messages held the answer, she didn't know to (or how to) check them.

"It's gonna be okay," the busboy said, all sympathy, when he came out with her expected noodles and cake - before she'd even had to ask. "It'll all come to nothing. You'll see."

Larceny didn't even get to ask 'what will' before he was scurrying back into the kitchen, wailing something about Duke being the only one who cared enough to know their names.

Humans sure were weird sometimes.

Today's Specials
JUSTICE NOODLES
FREEDOM CAKE
FREE DUKE! FREE DUKE! FREE DUKE!

[No OCD]

Comments

[thatwaslucky]

Rey tilted her head. "What's a momca?"

Not so much with the clarification, no.

[outofherdepths]

"A mom's card," Larceny explained. "You keep it for emergencies - like lunch when you are very hungry - and it is not money but it acts like money."

She'd learned about it when she'd mugged a first grader in Baltimore.

[thatwaslucky]

"I had no idea that was a thing."

Being literally dirt poor and not having a mom and all.

[outofherdepths]

"My friend told me about it," Larceny explained. "She bought me lunch to teach me that mugging people is bad."

Again. A first grader.

[thatwaslucky]

"That was a very good lesson for her to teach you," Rey said firmly.

[outofherdepths]

"The other girls were doing it!" Larceny protested.

[thatwaslucky]

"...The other girls were mugging people?"

Next would be checking to make sure they had the same definition of 'mugging.'

[outofherdepths]

Larceny nodded. "They would swarm around another girl and put an arm around her shoulder and demand the money. That is how I learned to do it. But then the little girl I mugged didn't have money just a momca and she told me it was a bad thing to do. Even though I was very hungry."

[thatwaslucky]

There was a pause.

A slightly long pause.

"You mugged a little girl?"

[outofherdepths]

"Yes," Larceny said gravely. "But I said I was sorry and now we are friends."

Beat.

"Well, the second one."

[thatwaslucky]

"I'll accept that," Rey decided.

[outofherdepths]

And Larceny was smart enough not to clarify that she meant this had happened with the second girl she'd mugged and not--

You know what? Never mind.

"I also found the other girls and told them not to do it any more," she added. "In case no one had told them, either."

And had beaten them up a little, but, in fairness, they had attacked first.