After that first, painful caning, I kept thinking about vengeance, Vengeance against those who inflicted pain to my backside. Thwaites, the three boys whose names I seem to have forgotten, and myself concocted the master plan of all plans, the ultimate dare-devilish stunt, theft.

We had planned to steal Mrs Pratchett’s sweet jars while the store was closed. We watched each evening to see where she kept the sweets “after-hours”. When we saw she kept them in different places each day, we watched for another week working out a routine. On Monday, the sweets were held on the top shelf, on Tuesday, under the counter.

On Wednesday however, she did not move them. Wednesdays the day, I thought, devising our…”entrance” method into the shop.
Thwaites was in charge of the escape, another boy in charge of carrying with his twin brother, and lastly, me. The entrance method, which I shouldn’t go into detail about as it will spend too much time.

That one dark night was perfect, no moon, as Thwaites had predicted, and no moon was to be seen. I led the group of the darkly dressed six year olds with a kerosene lantern to illuminate the way. We were walking very quietly as we approached the sweet shop, looking like a black dragon, staring us in the face, as though barring our way to success.
I reached down to my pocket and felt my sister’s hair pin I had… “borrowed” from her. I put this into the key slot and moved it up and down, as I had read about in books. I heard the faint “plink” of a tumbler opening. I turned the knob and to my delight, the handle turned! Our eyes sparkled with happiness as we ran to the sweet jars. One of the boys picked one up, and to his dismay, he staggered across the room and “CRASH!” the sweet jar with the paper covered sweets shattered to pieces. We heard Mrs Pratchett squeal from her bed behind her shop, in her “house”. After her squeal we heard stomping feet along the old wooden floorboards, took what we could, and ran. In doing this I threw the old kerosene lantern on the pile of paper-wrapped sweets, and ran. The whole store was ablaze in seconds! I had not put the lantern, which I thought would encumber me, down properly!

“Oh, no”, Thwaites gasped, exhausted from carrying the sweet jar, “Run!” He yelled, and I could clearly see the look of fear on his face as the smoke bellowed out of the sweet shop, along with Mrs Pratchett, with nothing but a singed patch of hair on her head. “IT’S YOU AGAIN, THIS TIME, YOU’RE MINE!”

The next day at school, we were called into the Headmaster’s study, and his face was grim, “You boys, burnt down Mrs Pratchett’s store.” He said, “You boys, are expelled!” My heart sank lower than the sea-floor. Expelled at the age of six! I would be the laughing stock of the town from years to come. I could never go to another school with an expulsion record!

There was only one solution… homeschooling.