In the Bag by Jim Carrington Read Free Book Online Page A

answer right away. I’m not sure how Joe’d react if I told him how much it really cost. Time for a white lie, I think. ‘Two hundred,’ I say.
    Joe raises his eyebrows. ‘Two hundred?’ He whistles, like that’s a lot of money. Which I guess it is. Although not if you’ve just found a bag with twenty grand in it.
    I nod. And I can tell that he’s a little bit pissed off with me, just from the tone of his voice. He doesn’t say it in so many words, though. He just looks down at his trainers. And so do I.
    I smile. ‘ Are they new?’
    He nods and goes slightly red. And I know, even without asking him, that he spent some of the money from the bag today as well.
    ‘Nice,’ I say. ‘They’re cool.’
    Joe mumbles something that I think is ‘Thanks’.
    We’re both quiet for a while. I watch some kids who are having a kickabout, using their bikes as goalposts. One of the kids gets hacked to the ground and starts rolling around as though he’s been shot or something. He gets up as soon as he’s awarded a penalty.
    ‘I guess this means we should keep the money,’ Joe says after a while. ‘Now that we’ve spent some of it. We can’t exactly take the bag to the police with some of the money missing.’
    I look at him and nod. I smile. ‘Yeah, I guess you’re right,’ I say.
    He looks across the rec and nods. ‘Yeah,’ he says. He pauses. ‘Did anyone ask you any questions about where you got the money from?’
    I shake my head. It’s easiest to lie. ‘Not at all. You?’
    He sighs. ‘Kind of,’ he says. ‘My sister did. She asked where I got the money for the trainers. I told her I saved my pocket money.’
    I nod. ‘Good thinking. Did she buy the excuse?’
    Joe looks at me. He smiles. ‘Yeah.’
    I smile back at him. ‘Nice one,’ I say. ‘We just have to be careful, that’s all. Just make sure we don’t let anyone suspect us of anything. And then we’re loaded!’
    ‘It made me think, though,’ he says, ‘that we should probably try and ration the money.’
    I look at him.
    ‘So we don’t draw attention to ourselves,’ he goes on. ‘My sister got suspicious enough just cos I spent forty quid.’
    I nod. Maybe he has a point. ‘OK. How much do you reckon, then? Hundred quid a week?’
    He shakes his head. ‘Too much.’
    ‘ A hundred’s not too much,’ I say. ‘No one in a shop’s gonna get suspicious about that.’
    Joe shakes his head, though. ‘No,’ he says. ‘It should be less than that. Kate and my parents would get suspicious if I started spending that much every week.’
    ‘My mum and dad wouldn’t,’ I say. ‘They couldn’t give a toss. They hardly even notice I’m there anyway. How about fifty quid, then? No one’ll notice that.’
    Joe shakes his head again. ‘Thirty.’
    ‘Forty.’
    Joe thinks about it for a second. ‘Thirty-five,’ he says after a bit.
    ‘Deal,’ I say. Thirty-five quid is nothing, but I know I can get away with spending more than that a week. This way, I let Joe think he’s in charge.
    We shake on it.
    We fall silent and look out across the rec at the little kids playing football. And as we do, I wonder whether I should tell him that I sold some of the weed to Jack. But something stops me from saying anything. So I sit quietly and I stare at the football without really following the game.
    ‘Do you believe in fate?’ Joe says eventually.
    I look at him, wondering what the hell he’s talking about. He stares straight back at me. I shrug. ‘I s’pose. Why?’
    Joe looks away from me, across the rec. ‘I was just thinking, maybe we were meant to find the money,’ he says. ‘Maybe it was fate. Maybe someone up there wanted us to find it.’
    ‘What do you mean? God?’
    Joe shakes his head. ‘Not like that. I just mean, like, what if we found it so that we can do some good with it?’
    ‘We’ve done that already, haven’t we?’ I say. ‘My bike looks wicked with the new frame. And your trainers aren’t too bad,