The Great Gold Robbery

This is Author Ashlie Harris’s challenge. she challenged me to write a story using all the prompts from today — So I did.

Prompts:
FOWC with Fandango — Character
Three Things Challenge #335 — Plum, Gold, Rich
Word of the Day Challenge — Supporting
Your Daily Word Prompt — Elusive
Ragtag Daily Prompt — Pause

Here’s what I came up with …

The Great Gold Robbery

Larry kickflipped his skateboard and landed a wallride as he shot through the city centre. He leapt a car scratching the bonnet and caused a lady to scream as he thumped down and raced away. He was in a hurry to get to a little known and disused warehouse. It had become a somewhat illegal skatepark, thanks to creative kinds making halfpipes and hip-ramps out of whatever plywood and garbage they could steal. Heading inside, he pulled a trick on the highest halfpipe, landed on the top and dropped behind it. 

A fire was blazing in a barrel here. Around it was the Canary Gang. An eclectic bunch of characters all dressed in black and yellow hoodies and black jeans. They were all school drop-outs in their late teens. Sara, Joe, bobo, Mikey and of course Larry had one goal; to get rich by any means necessary.  

“I’ve got it!” Larry said clanging his board into the corrugated iron wall as he sat down. 

“Got what? An’ be quiet, I gotta bloody headache!” Sara said. She was blond aside from bright red pigtails. 

“Sorry, Sara.” Larry hugged her. “Ooh, yeah! I know how we get rich!”

“Oh, boy. Last time he said that we ended up with three million condoms instead of money when you busted into the wrong ATM!” Mikey indicated a box of the contraceptives. 

“They make good water bottles anyway,” Joe said sniggering. 

“It’s not my fault, the machine had money pictured on the front.” Larry pouted as he warmed himself at the fire. 

“Yeah, but it was in the men’s bogs. That shoulda been a clue.” Sara said giggling at his idiocy. 

Bobo yawned and tossed an old box on the fire. “Better tell us where the money is then.”

“It’s in this van, right. I was on my board and heading to see you’s lot when I spotted it.”

“Get on with!” Mikey demanded. 

“Gah, don’t get yer bloomers knotted! I’m keeping you in suspenders.” Larry sniggered and gave everybody a devious look. “Anyway, the driver opened the back and showed it to be full of boxes. He opened one and it was loaded with gold coins, right.”

“Right? So, it could be anywhere by now.” Bobo pointed out. 

“Nah, he told his mate they’d leave it loaded and outside the house. They’re going to deal with it in the morning. Plenty of time for us to steal it and get rich.” 

Under the cover of darkness, the Canaries raced across the city on their skateboards and BMX bikes. They entered an estate led by Larry who had a problem.     

“You better be right or I’ll brain yer!” said Joe peddling his bike with Sara hugging him from behind. 

“It’ll be here.” Larry scratched his head. ‘Where was it?’ He was sure it was on this road. 

“Bloody hell! He can’t even find the sodding truck!” Bobo glared at him.     

“Ha, he couldn’t even find his boxer shorts if he was wearing them,” Sara added. 

“Is that before or after you take them off his arse,” Mikey chimed in.

“Ah, shut up!” Larry yelled as he bumped up a curb, lost his balance, hit a low wall and disappeared over it into the garden beyond.

“What a tosser!” Mikey roared with laughter. 

“Haha! That’s a ten out of ten for style and execution, mate,” Joe said.

“Piss off!” Larry emerged wearing several leaves in his hair and a torn off marigold flower lodged in his hoody pocket.   

Four roads and fifteen minutes later he was smiling triumphantly as he set eyes on the van. “That’s it, see. I knew it was here.”

“Blockhead! We rode passed it twice already!” Mikey reached out and cracked him over the head with a slap. 

“Ow! I’m sorry, I got confuzzled, alright!”

“Fine. How are we gonna steal it?” Sara asked the important question.  

Larry hadn’t thought that far ahead. “Hmm …” he came to a pause, looking at the others for help.

“It’s old, right? I’ll hotwire it.” Mikey suggested. 

“Fine, just don’t turn it into a pissing volcano!” Bobo warned. 

“As if.” Mikey started forward. 

“Remember, last time you did something with electrics?” Joe said.

Sara burst out laughing. “You made that tumble dryer spin so fast the door ripped off and sprayed knickers all over the laundromat!” 

“Button it and be quiet!” Mikey scowled as he abandoned his board under a tree and crept up to the van. Peering inside he made an ‘okay’ sign.

“Can we do it?” Larry whispered. 

“Yeah, no flashy red light. It’s not alarmed.” Mikey got busy with a long pick he stole from his father who worked as a locksmith.

“Back’s locked,” Bobo announced. 

“So’s the slider,” said Joe coming around with Sara. 

“Let’s just nick it and get in the back later,” Larry remarked. The lock clicked open beside him. “Good work, Mikey!” Larry pulled the door with an overzealous hand. It flew open, bounced off Bobo’s nose and swung shut on Joe’s fingers leaving both swearing in agony. 

“Stupid twat!” Joe grumbled with Sara massaging his squashed fingers. 

“I’ll knock your block off for that!” Bobo added his nose streaming with blood. 

“Just get in the van before they see us!” Larry hissed. “Sara, you and Joe get back to the warehouse. We’ll bring the van.”

“Good plan! He’ll probably hit every car on the bloody route!” Sara said, mounting Bobo’s bike to take it back for him. 

Within a couple of minutes, Mikey had the van started. Sara and Joe had scattered to beat them back. Larry being the only one with a Licence took to the steering wheel. Mikey and Bobo, still bleeding from his nose, sat alongside on the bench seats. 

“Haha! We got it, boys, we’re rich!” Larry said accelerating away with a screech of tires. The van thundered up the curb on the first turn. Its wing mirror crunched into a lamppost and vanished. 

“Watch where you’re bloody going!” Mikey yelled. 

“Sorry!” Larry took a calming breath. He turned right to get out of the estate and headed toward the roundabout. A couple of cars and a lorry meant he’d have to stop, he crunched the gears and stomped the brake pedal. The van jolted forward instead. 

“Whaa! Shit!” yelled Bobo covering his eyes. 

Mikey screamed something unrepeatable and ducked.

Larry had mashed the accelerator. The van narrowly avoided the lorry and erupted onto the grassy mound, obliterating flower beds. It clanged into a road sign which flew across the road and disappeared though an office window like a ballistic missile. Bouncing like a mechanical rabbit on drugs, the van crunched back down on the road.

Bobo hit his head on the roof and swore.

Mikey screamed in three languages as a red car flashed by removing the other wing mirror.

“Holy crap!” Larry mashed the brakes,

The van’s wheels screeched and locked up. It performed a perfect pirouette, swiping a poor cyclist into a pile of rubbish bags and slammed broadside into the central reservation railings. 

“Okay, I got it now,” Larry said as he headed down the road at a much slower pace. 

“You sure about that you bloody idiot!” Mikey complained with his head in his hands.    

“Yes, I’m sure. The controls are a bit funky that’s all,” Larry told him.

“Funky! I’ll make you walk funky when I break your arse in a minute!” Bobo threatened. 

Ten terrifying minutes later, Larry drove into the warehouse. It was there he hit the accelerator to stop again. The van slammed into the halfpipe and came to an abrupt halt. 

Mikey found himself defenestrated. He shot through the windscreen in an explosion of glass, hit the halfpipe, and slid down the ramp on the other side. He came to rest with his head inside an old cardboard box. “That’s it, Larry’s dead!” he grumbled from within the box. 

“Shit, Larry! We were joking when we said you’d hit every car on the way back!” Sara said her hand over her mouth as she took in the van minus its wing mirrors and full of dents. 

“Bloody nutter nearly destroy half the city!” said Bobo staggering out of the van. He took up a sledgehammer and came back to the van.

“What’s that for?” Larry asked. 

“To play croquet with your balls, you berk!” Bobo hefted the hammer and bludgeoned the backdoors of the van. It took three hits to knock the lock out and get inside. 

By then, Mikey had staggered round to see what was happening with Sara supporting him. “Whass in there?” he asked drunkenly. 

Joe clambered inside and tore open one of maybe fifteen white boxes and looked inside. “Oh, Larry you pillock!”

“What I do now!” Larry looked scared. 

Joe picked up a box and emptied a hundred nets of gold coins on his head. 

Sara burst out laughing as she saw what was going on.

Larry’s eyes went wide, his face burning red. 

“You prized, plum! We can’t get rich on gold coins if they’re made of chocolate!” Bobo sank to the floor against a pillar. “I can’t believe we broke my face, crushed his fingers, and wrecked half the city for chocolate coins.” 

“One of these days, I’ll get something right, I promise!” Larry said, feeling sick through worry and failure. 

“It’s not all bad.,” said Sara, peeling off a gold wrapper and having a munch. “They taste delicious!”

The End

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Thanks for reading my friends. As always there are more stories to be enjoyed (I hope) in the Short Stories and Short Stories 2 tabs. There’s also poetry here in Poetry Corner

Have a great day!