Chapter 3
The fire of shame that Sam had lit within them had burned away their last reserves of pride. The gnawing hunger in their stomachs was now a more urgent command than any dream of dignity. Davins, Mavins, and Maurice found themselves standing at the gate of a known merchant, a man named Mr. Abudu, who was rumored to sometimes give away damaged or nearly-expired goods.
This time, they weren't looking for work. They were looking for charity.
"Mr. Abudu, sir," Davins began, his voice unnaturally bright, "we see your business is flourishing. Your store is the cleanest in the market."
Mavins, forcing his broad frame to look meek, added, "Yes, sir. God will continue to bless your handiwork."
The man, Mr. Abudu, watched them with narrow, calculating eyes. He was a large man who filled the doorway of his shop, a man whose prosperity was evident in the gold ring on his finger and the full shelves behind him.
Maurice, the thinker, tried the logical approach. "Sir, we have done some collection work for others in the market and have not yet been paid. Just a little something to see us through. We will pay you back as soon as we receive our money."
Mr. Abudu's face, which had been neutral, hardened into a mask of contempt. He had heard these stories before.
"Praise-singing will not put food in your belly, and stories will not fill my pockets," he scoffed, cutting Maurice off. "Every day, boys like you come here with your mouths full of sweet words and your hands empty. You say you did work? I say you are lazy. You say you were not paid? I say you probably did not work hard enough to deserve it!"
The insults landed, each one a sharp stone. He called them "worthless," "a plague on hardworking men." He told them their poverty was their own fault, a result of their weak spirits.
Humiliated and burning with a fresh, raw anger, the three boys stumbled away from the shop. They retreated to a narrow, filthy alley across the street, hidden from view but with a clear line of sight to the shop's open back door, where crates of bread and canned goods were stacked.
The thought, dark and desperate, bloomed in the silence between them without a word being spoken. They all looked at the unattended goods. Their hunger screamed at them to act.
"We could... just take one crate," Mavins whispered, his voice thick with shame. "He would never miss it."
Davins, the dreamer, imagined a clean getaway, a full stomach for his friends. Maurice, the thinker, calculated the angles, the guard's patrol pattern, the weight of the crate.
For a long, tense minute, they plotted. They saw the path, they identified the target. But as they prepared to move, a cold, terrifying reality froze them in place.
There was no way.
Not because they were afraid of being caught—though they were. Not because it was wrong—though they knew it was. But because the very act of stealing required a capacity they did not possess. They were too weak from hunger to run fast with a heavy crate. They had no getaway vehicle, not even a bicycle. The alley was a dead end. The market was a maze they could not navigate quickly.
They were trapped not just by poverty, but by their own utter powerlessness. They couldn't even succeed as thieves.
Defeated, they sank against the grimy wall. The anger at Mr. Abudu's insults turned inward, becoming a profound and crushing despair. The world had refused them work, refused them charity, and now, it had even refused them the desperate option of crime. They were left with nothing but the hollow, aching emptiness in their stomachs and the terrifying question: if they couldn't even steal, what was left?