Marco and Johanna's Treasure Quest

The first thing I ever stole was a tiny gold key.

It was my fifth birthday, and my mother had taken me to the jewelry store to pick out something nice for the special day. Not that my mother was particularly into jewelry, but she was keen on making sure I had a good birthday, and so she selected the most valuable trinket she could afford out of the little shop's stock.

*The boy picked this one himself!*, my mother told the cranky old man in his thick Italian accent. *See how he looks at it? The boy knows quality.*

*He don't know anything,* the shopkeeper grumbled as he hung a price tag on the necklace. *He's just a kid.*

*I know quality when I see it,* I said with all the authority of a child who knew nothing about anything. In fact, I spent most of my time picking through garbage because I thought people threw away really cool stuff like swords and treasure maps and pieces of eight, and I hadn't spent much time examining jewelry at all. But I didn't want him to think I'd pick something crappy for my birthday present, not after he'd stolen it from me by marking up the price, so I decided to show off for my mom's benefit. It was also pretty rewarding to watch him blink in surprise at our native language before he recovered his nasty attitude.

*That necklace is worth maybe two hundred dollars,* he said with a smirk. *You're gonna have to work hard if you want to pay for it.*

*I am not scared of work!*, I declared bravely. My mother laughed and pulled me back into her arms before we left the shop. She paid with cash that day; she never used credit cards or left a paper trail because she didn't trust banks or government agencies or anyone else who liked collecting information better than they liked being honest with people who had earned their respect by working hard for what they had. We lived off the grid whenever possible, so nobody would be able to find us. We were always careful about that sort of thing because we were both wanted criminals who didn't have many friends willing to take us in when we needed help. We belonged together more than either of us belonged anywhere else on Earth; as long as we had each other we could survive almost anything.

*Thank you for today,* I said quietly when we got back to our apartment in Little Italy where we lived illegally without even trying very hard to cover our tracks.

*Happy birthday.*

My mother gave me one hell of a hug that day while we sat next to each other on our scratchy old sofa and ate lunch together - an entire can of beans between us because it was cheap enough that we could afford it - and opened our presents together instead of waiting until morning like an ordinary family might do. She handed me my birthday present last, which made sense since she'd waited until just before the party started in order to buy it after saving up for several months instead of taking out any loans from loan sharks or investors looking for a quick return on their investment in her future as well as mine. She handed me a small package wrapped in plain white paper with no name written on it because there wasn't enough money left over after buying food to get fancy wrapping paper or ribbons or even stickers with cartoon characters on them like most kids would have gotten if they'd gone shopping at Wal-Mart instead of scrounging through dumpsters with their parents looking for stuff they could sell or eat later or fix up and resell if they were lucky. That package was precious because she'd saved up just enough money to buy what was inside at full price while still getting some food that week instead of having only canned beans to eat unless she went dumpster diving herself and found something better than what she'd been able to scrape together from recycled cans and boxes this week; she had risked her freedom and safety showing up at a regular store like some moms did every week without thinking twice about it in order to make sure her son got treated right for one whole day in his life instead of eating nothing but garbage like most kids did every single meal until they grew up into adults who couldn't afford anything better than beans from a can themselves once their parents died or got arrested or just disappeared one day, leaving them behind without saying goodbye forever without any explanation whatsoever for why they went away without warning anyone about where they were going or whether they were ever coming back or not because there were too many bad people in this world willing to hurt children to scare parents into keeping quiet no matter how badly they wanted their kids back home safe again where they belonged: in their own homes with their families who loved them more than anything else in the world because no amount of money could ever equal love that strong.

I woke up the next morning after having nightmares about my father and the problems my family faced due to our criminal lives, desperately hungry for more than just beans. I knew that, ultimately