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“That beats me,” Darcy said. She revealed a fountain pen. “This was only thirty-nine.”

Shirley’s smile went from ear to ear. I looked nervously at Del, who was shaking his head.

“Voila!” Shirley said, and produced a PalmPilot from her jacket pocket. “Four hundred and ninety dollars. And it was on sale. It’s worth a lot more. It’s the newest model.”

“Sorry,” I said, raising

my wrist slowly. Mouths dropped.

“How much was that?” Selma asked, breathlessly.

“Ten thousand dollars,” I revealed as nonchalantly as I could while looking at Del.

“How did you do that?” he asked.

“I simply exchanged my cheaper one for this one in the box. There was a close enough resemblance so that Old Man Mazel won’t notice until someone else looks at it. Maybe they’ll buy it anyway and he won’t lose a cent,” I added.

They were all speechless.

“That’s pretty serious shoplifting,” Del said, impressed.

“It’s not important,” I said.

“It’s beautiful,” Shirley moaned, practically swooning.

“Big deal. It’s just a bracelet,” I said, and unfastened it. “Here. Consider it your birthday gift,” I told her, and gave it to her.

She didn’t move to take it. She looked from me to the other girls to Del and then at the bracelet.

“Really?”

“I’m not impressed by expensive things,” I said, my eyes half on Del.

“I am!” she declared, and snatched it out of my hands.

“That doesn’t matter,” I said. “You’ve all still lost. Can I borrow a pen, Del?” I asked him.

“A pen, sure,” he said, and handed me one.

I took a napkin and wrote a list of things I needed at the drugstore and at the department store, and a CD I wanted for the car.

“Here,” I said. “Take this list and this money,” I said, handing Shirley five twenties, “and get me these things. Bring them back here while I have a piece of pizza. And hurry,” I ordered.

They left, Shirley practically hypnotized by the bracelet on her wrist.

Del laughed. He got me a piece of pizza, and I sat at the counter and picked at it. I really wasn’t hungry.

“I guess you have them wrapped around your little finger,” he said, standing back, his arms folded.

“I get bored, that’s all,” I said. I could see he was looking at me harder and with a lot more interest. “Don’t you?”

“All the time. That’s why I like to work. It keeps me from thinking.”

“Sometimes I think I’m years older than all my friends. It takes so little to impress them.”

He shook his head.

“That bracelet wasn’t so little.”