The Three Try to Steal All the Money, Chapter 1

1: The Girl Who Couldn’t Sleep

When Renee Altka turned five years old, she was no longer able to sleep.

            It didn’t occur exactly on her fifth birthday but rather sometime shortly afterwards. The exact date was lost because at first she and her family regarded it as little more than the insomnia brought on by hyperactivity that afflicts every small child. When a week passed without Renee sleeping a wink her parents took her to a doctor, and as far as he could tell she was just suffering from regular old insomnia. He gave her family a mild sedative to help her re-adjust to a regular sleep schedule and that seemed to work for everyone except Renee.

            Truth be told, all the drugs did for Renee was make her loopier than usual. She would swallow one of the little blue pills then lie in bed and stare at the ceiling for the entire night, a routine that continued well after she ran out of pills. Each morning she would watch the sunrise and at breakfast before school her parents would ask her how she’d slept. She always told them she’d slept fine - out as soon as her head hit the pillow – because it was far easier than telling them the whole truth. Then her parents would ask Renee about her dreams, which were always so vivid and colorful, and when Renee answered this question she didn’t have to lie, at least not totally. Her dreams were always recounted with exquisite detail because she still had those, and they were far livelier than any of the dreams she’d had in the first five years of her life.

             Rather than inhabiting the odd and varied landscapes of her mind, the creatures and objects that Renee dreamed of would occupy the space around her. A cat with three tails and the ability to speak the language of the Easterners would curl up at the foot of her bed. A woman with a fox for a head wearing an intricately decorated shawl would sing an ethereal melody, accompanying herself for the harmonies. There would be a man dressed in the same top hat and suit worn by the carnival barker at the town refinery’s fair every year, but instead of encouraging people to pitch in for the raffle he would simply laugh to himself while detaching and reattaching his right arm. At first Renee was worried all these apparitions would wake up her mother and father, but no matter how loud they were her parents never betrayed any suspicion that they’d heard weird noises coming from her room.  Every night a cavalcade of images and creatures would parade through Renee’s room as she lay on the bed and watched them go, occasionally throwing a pillow at them and watching as it sailed through their incorporeal forms.

            Aside from the nights Renee’s life was otherwise perfectly normal. She went to school, made friends, tried to talk to boys, and liked to read despite her town being small enough and distant enough from the Central Line that books were hard to come by. Rather than severely impairing her, her sleeplessness merely imbued her with a slightly loopy air. Sometimes she’d be asked what time it was and reply that her begonias were fine, thank you very much, before snapping back to reality and checking a clock. Occasionally she’d get into the habit of simply stopping in the middle of the street and staring off into space, but this rarely lasted more than half a minute. As far as Renee was concerned, being regarded as slightly weird was a small price to pay for being able to function on no sleep at all.

            One day when she was sixteen, one of her classmates kissed her. Tommy wasn’t the cutest kid in her year, but he wasn’t half-bad looking, and he seemed nice enough to boot. This all would have been fine if the kiss hadn’t happened immediately after lunch with about half the school watching, and even that would have been bearable if Tommy hadn’t followed the kiss by wheeling around and yelling, “Dave, you owe me two coins! I kissed the crazy girl! Pay up!”

            After suffering through the rest of school, Renee didn’t go with her friends to The Fountain for sweet drinks like they usually did. She also didn’t run home to bawl her eyes out into her pillow. For reasons she couldn’t entirely explain, Renee somehow found herself on Sentinel Hill overlooking the town. She took shelter beneath the solitary tree that was the hill’s namesake, planted after the guard tower that used to reside there was torn down some hundred years ago. While the willow shaded her from the afternoon sun Renee reflected on the town below. The tiny town, home to around five hundred people living in the shadow of the Carlson Slime Refinery where her father and half the other fathers in town worked, and whose newer generations would forever regard her as the crazy one. No matter what work she took on or what passions she pursued, her unique condition ensured that her title among the denizens of Carlson’s Landing would be Renee the Crazy Girl who just wasn’t right in the head.

            When Renee did allow herself to cry, she felt something brushing up against her cheek to wipe away the tears. The three-tailed cat purred and whispered something to her she didn’t understand. She blinked, rubbed her eyes, and saw the cat was still there, joined now by a baby-sized man in green pajamas squatting in the grass nearby and producing cans of beans from his pockets. Renee considered this for a moment as she scratched the cat behind its ears, then stopped and realized what she was doing. The cat looked up at her, its eyes almost as wide as hers, and meowed, “Jiaozi?”

            Renee dropped the cat and scrambled over to pick up one of the tiny cans of beans and found that it rested comfortably in the palm of her hand. She threw it at the tree and examined the chip of bark it knocked off the trunk. Renee smiled.

            At first she didn’t steal anything major. A cake or two from the bakery. Some extra fried potatoes from another customer at The Fountain. Food was easiest both because it was small enough and because the cat was her most willing accomplice in this regard, at least once the language barrier was overcome and she could assure him that he’d receive a portion of the profits. After a few months Renee could even control which dreams manifested. Her friends grew more distant as she spent less and less time with them, preferring to head from school straight to Sentinel Hill. The stares and whispers she received in the halls and streets didn’t matter as much to her anymore thanks to all the new and interesting friends she could spring forth from her head.

            A couple years later when Tommy asked her to the final school dance it was something of a surprise, and the giddiness it engendered was enough to keep her aloft for the rest of the week. The joy and shock settled down the night of the dance as the hours dragged on and Renee found herself sitting at her kitchen table, waiting for a knock on the door and passing the time by playing cards against the fox-headed woman. Rather than endure her parents returning to find her sitting alone at home she stormed to the school and burst into the gymnasium to find the dance in full swing.

            She brushed past her friends as they tried to speak to her and stormed over to where Tommy was holding another girl in his arms right in front of the band. At first he regarded her quizzically, but as memory kicked in a smile spread across his face. At last he couldn’t help himself and burst out into laughter, clearly amused by the idea that anyone would ever want to ask her to the dance. He found himself joined by the chuckles and jeers of his friends nearby. Renee couldn’t contain herself, but just as she was about to cry her head split open. It was different from the dull aching pains which she’d grown well accustomed to over the years. The sharp pain reverberated through her skull and as she clutched her temples a tall man with no face and clad in a dark suit strode out from the crowd and walked slowly but purposefully towards Tommy. The band stopped playing and the entire crowd turned to see this man approach a now pale Tommy and place a hand on his trembling shoulder.

            Renee redoubled her efforts and as she focused through the migraine the man in the suit disappeared. The gym was silent as Renee collected herself, started to say something, then thought better of it and made for the door. She took no chances that night. Before her parents or anyone else could hear of what happened she packed her things, grabbed what little money she’d saved in her sock drawer, and ran off down the street. When she reached the top of Sentinel Hill she stopped and regarded the small lights of Carlson’s Landing, hazy through the smoke that rose from the slime fields. A bird with rainbow plumage flapped down to perch on the tree branch above her and regarded her with its opal eye. When it took flight again along the course of the Kraslow River, she followed it for years.