"Hunger Makes a Thief of Any Child"

Hunger makes a thief of any man. ~Pearl S. Buck


The first crime I can recall committing was when I was about 6 years old. At the time I was too young to comprehend what I had done was actually a crime.

The “real” crime was actually committed by my mother; she was the one who put me in this situation; I only did what I had to do.

It was really early in the morning and I guess I should feel lucky that my mother even bothered to wake me and my brother up to tell us she was leaving.
“Where are you going?” I asked still half asleep.

She babbled on about going on a sleep over with a “friend” (a man) and that she arranged for a babysitter; who had yet to show up.

“Where is she? I have to go” my mother said to herself while rushing around the house looking for her purse.

“What are we supposed to do?” I asked her while holding my little brothers hand.
Ignoring me, she finally found her purse and then went over to the mirror hanging by the front door and fiddled with her hair. She pulled out a vial of perfume from her purse that smelled like geraniums and daubed it on her wrists and behind her ears.

“Mommy” I tried to get her attention, and she finally looked at us “What are we supposed to do?”

“The sitter said she would be here so just wait for her to show up and let her in” she replied exasperatedly. “Now how do I look?” She smiled sweetly at me.

“You look gorgeous mommy” I replied without enthusiasm.

A horn sounded outside and my mother looked out the window, the cab was here to pick her up. She was on her way to the airport to meet her “friend”. I didn’t even know where she was going.

“I’ll ring you tonight and will be back late tomorrow” she called out over her shoulder and walked out of the house.

“Wait!” I yelled after her, “What if the babysitter doesn’t come?”

Nana and Granddad were on a trip to Tahiti or something at the time so there would be nobody to take care of us and I didn’t want a complete stranger babysitting us.
My mother either didn’t hear me or ignored me, most likely the latter. I just stood outside on the porch hopelessly watching the taxi drive off. She didn’t even turn around to wave goodbye.

I felt a tugging at my bathroom sleeve “I’m hungry” my brother complained.
He was always hungry; Nana would nastily call him a “guts” because he ate so much. I didn’t think he ate too much, he was always so skinny.

“I’ll make you some cereal; go watch some cartoons” I muttered and went into the kitchen.

I couldn’t reach the cupboard that the cereal was in so I started dragging a big leather stool from the kitchen to get to it. The stool weighed more than I did, but I managed to get it to the cupboard and climbed up onto to it.
“What cereal do you want D?” I called out to my brother.

“I don’t know” he replied back.

There were only two boxes so I grabbed them both and got down. Neither of the boxes of cereal had much in them.

I poured the cereal in some bowls and used up one of the boxes and the other had enough left for one more serving. Opening the refrigerator I got the milk out, there was not enough for both of us to have cereal, so I gave it to my brother and I ate dry cereal.

It had been a while since my mother had left and I kept checking out the window every time I heard a car coming down the street I would look to see if it was the baby sitter. It was now after lunch time and she was still not here. It was obvious, she wasn’t coming. I still wonder to this day if my mother even called a sitter.

My brother was hungry again and so was I. There was some cottage cheese, a few pieces of bread and some green olives. Since Nana and Granddad had gone on vacation a few days ago my mother had not gone grocery shopping so there was no food in the house. I tried to make a meal out of what I could find, but by the time dinner rolled around there was virtually nothing to eat. There was some canned food stuff, but I couldn’t get the electric can opener to work and there wasn’t any other opener to use.

Normally my mother and grandparents would leave phone numbers of where they could be reached. I searched around the phone, there were no emergency phones numbers to call, no hotel numbers of where any of them were. We were all alone and I knew better than to go to the neighbors for help or call the police; this would embarrass my family and I was never to do that under any circumstances. Besides, if I had gone to the neighbors, they wouldn’t have believed me. My mother had told the neighbors that my brother and I were problem children and we tend to lie to get attention and ignoring us would help us get better.

My brother had fell asleep in front of the TV and I covered him with a blanket. It was late at night, way past my bedtime, but I was too scared to go to sleep. I went through the house making sure that every door and window was locked and closed all the curtains. I kept hearing noises and was afraid that someone was trying to break in, but it was only my mind playing tricks on me.

At some point I had fell asleep because my brother was shaking me awake. “I’m hungry” he said holding his stomach.

We had to get some food. I looked through all the drawers in the house for some money, but I could only find some loose change that would maybe buy us a few pieces of candy. Suddenly I had an idea.

“I’m going to walk to the store and you need to stay here” I told my brother sternly. “Do not open the door for anyone but me okay?” He nodded his head.

“I’ll get us some food and I will be back as fast as I can” I hugged him.
“What if you don’t?” he whimpered.

I knew what he meant “I will come back; you know that I wouldn’t leave you”.
He nodded again. I walked out of the house and locked the door behind me and hoped that my plan would work.

I didn’t want anyone from the neighborhood to see me so I ran the whole way to the store which was about a mile away. The grocery store was in an upscale a strip mall, there was a bank, liquor store, florist etc. It was around lunch time and the parking lot was full as I weaved in and out of the parked cars looking for what I needed.

Found one! I picked up a piece of paper lying on the ground; it was a grocery receipt. I looked on the list for some things that we could eat.

There were a couple of times that I had remembered that my mother had left a bag of groceries or a couple of items were not in the grocery bag when she got home, at the store. She would go back to the store, show them the receipt and they would give her the items. I knew if I could find some receipts lying around the parking lot I could do the same thing and just tell them my mother sent me.

My family lived in a very affluent area and the grocery store patrons were mainly wealthy people. Nobody took much notice of a six year old little girl wandering around the parking lot picking up bits of paper; it was as though I was almost invisible. A few snobby old biddies gave me a look of disgust as they got into their fancy Cadillacs or Mercedes. I am sure they were thinking that I was some impoverished child from the “wrong side of the tracks” invading their upper class sanctum.

After finding several more receipts I choose one that had milk, cereal, bread and some other stuff that we could eat and I walked into the store. I had been in there many times with my Nana and Mother, so quite a few of the clerks knew me. I saw a man that I knew and walked up to him.

“Excuse me” I said politely to him.

Turning around he looked down and immediately recognized me and gave me a big smile “Where’s your mother or grandmother sweetie? Did you lose them?” he chuckled.
“No, my mom’s waiting in the car” I lied “She was here earlier this morning and when she got home she was missing some things from the grocery bag” I tried to keep my voice steady “so she sent me in here to get them for her” I hoped he would believe me.

“What items is she missing?” he said and took the receipt from me.
I kept the list small, just a few items to feed us until my mother came home tonight. Without question, he walked through the aisles and got me the food and put it into a bag.

“Please tell your mother I am sorry for the inconvenience” he smiled and handed me the bag.

“Thank you, I will” I pasted on a fake smile and skipped out the door.
Keeping to the sidewalk I checked to make sure that no one was going to grab me for doing this and then started running. I was shaking so badly that I thought I was going to pass out as I waited for the light to change so to get across the busy avenue. I leaned against the light pole at the crosswalk trying to catch my breath. The light changed and I forced myself to move, as I stepped down from the curb I fell, and some of the groceries fell out of the bag.

I looked up and saw that a couple of drivers had seen me, but no one got out to help. I collected the groceries and stood up, I had skinned my knee and blood was dripping down my leg. I closed my eyes for a moment and wished that someone, anyone would rescue me.

Suddenly I heard a voice call out to me from a car! My wish was granted! Somebody was going to help me!

“Hey girl!” a woman yelled out her window at me.

I looked at her with gratefulness and before I could reply she spoke again.

“Hey you! She snapped at me “move or you’re going to block traffic!”

The mean look on her face terrified me; ignoring the pain and blood I ran across the road as fast as I could to get away from her. I didn’t stop running until I turned down my street that ended in a cul-de-sac. Finally I made it up to the front door and rang the door bell.

“Open the door. It’s me!” I called out to my brother.

The front door had a window that was covered by a curtain, I saw it move and my brother peeked out and quickly opened the door.

He hugged me tight “I was scared you were gone” he said through tears.

“I told you I would come back. It’s okay now, I got us some food” I said and opened the grocery bag to show him.

“I’m hungry” he whined

“I will make you something to eat” I said as I walked into the kitchen. I stopped as I saw that there was a mess in the middle of the floor. It looked like blood!
I started to panic, but then saw a ketchup bottle on the counter.

“You were eating plain ketchup?” I questioned him.

“I was hungry” he said sheepishly.

“It’s okay. I’ll clean it up after we eat.”

“You’re bleeding!” my brother yelled out at me in terror.

I had forgotten about the pain and blood. It was just a scrape and the blood was already dried.

I told my brother I fell, but it didn’t hurt and quickly took a towel and wet it to wipe away the blood.

“See?” I said cheerfully “all better”.

I quickly made us big bowls of cereal with milk and some toast with some marmalade jam that was in the fridge. Ravenous, we shoveled the food in our mouths as fast as we could.

We waited for my mother to come home as she said she would, but she didn’t. I tucked my brother into bed and crawl in next to him. As I lay there unable to sleep I came to a realization that nobody is going to help me and I would be right about that for a very long time.

The next morning I awoke to the phone ringing and answered it. It was my mother.
“Hi moppet! Let mommy talk to the babysitter” she happily chirped at me.

“She isn’t here” I answered coldly.

“Where is she? Did she leave you alone this morning?” my mother sounded mad.

“She never showed up” I said flatly.

“What do you mean?” my mother snapped at me.

“She never showed up” I shrieked at her and slammed down the phone.

I hated my mother and I didn’t love her. I knew there is something wrong with me because everybody loves their mother, but I didn’t.

There were times I “liked” her and showed her affection that could be mistaken for love. Strangely enough I didn’t feel guilty about not loving her because I knew the feeling was mutual. My mother was incapable of love and one day I would find out why.

After I hung up on her I didn’t answer the phone as I knew it was her trying to call me back. The ringing finally stopped and I figured she gave up. I knew that she would beat the shit out of me for hanging up on her, but I welcomed the beating because it would briefly numb the mental pain which was much worse than the physical.

My mother showed up later that evening and immediately began physically and verbally assaulting me from the moment she walked in the door. First she said I was a liar and that the babysitter had been here, then she accused me of not letting the sitter in when she came. My mother went on and on hurtling crazy accusations at as to why it was my fault that we were left alone. The final thing she said to me before walking away was not to tell nana and granddad and threatened to send away my brother if I did.

She knew that threat would work; my lips were sealed.

Throughout the years as I got older, there were many time that she left us alone and as I got older I smarter.

I used the grocery receipt trick and would boldly walk through the store putting the items in the bag; if anyone stopped me I had a receipt. Sometimes I would just shoplift food, but only enough just to feed us. I never stole anything that was not a necessity to live when I was younger.

But, that would change one day soon.

END CHAPTER