There are no truly bad children, but there are children who, despite the best efforts (or more often, as a result of lack of effort, or just efforts in the wrong direction) of their parents, cannot honestly be said to be all that good or well-behaved either.
Now there happened to be a boy, a distant relative to the Shimeru clan, whose bloodline was so watered down by generations of intermarriage with humans, that it was almost certain that he, like his father and grandfather before him, would never experience The Shift, when he reached puberty (even Grandpa had only started growing boobs sometime after the age of 50, not that they went away when his moods changed, mind you). He was still a member of the Shimeru clan, however, even carrying the family name, passed down through his father's line. Shimeru Isle was therefore part of his heritage, and the family secrets were shared with him. Being as he was entirely "normal", and being a thoroughly miserable little brat, he privately scorned the whole wacky island as a bunch of freaks. He was humiliated to think these weirdoes were his relatives (but then, at 13, most kids think everything about their families is intended to personally humiliate them). Somewhere in his not-exactly-mature-and-reasonable mind, he was angry at these people for being his relatives, and felt a need to punish them for... well, if he thought any farther than that, giving life to him via his more immediate ancestors, though it seemed unlikely he followed his bitter and sulking train of thought all the way to that destination.
The boy (during in his involuntary tour of the island town, being shown historical landmarks and items of traditional significance) thought about how he could get revenge these freaks for being his relatives. He noticed a ring in a box on display in the Head Family's house, asked about it, and was treated to a long lecture on its history, superstitions, and the philosophical standpoints of the Founder who kept it. He ignored all of that, naturally, and merely focused on the fact that the simple ring appeared to be solid gold, and if the dry history lesson he was pretending to pay attention to were accurate, nearly 2000 years old. If he sold it, it would probably buy a lot of video games.
Nearing the end of his tour of the Main House, he claimed to need to use the bathroom, and left his guide to find it (after getting directions; the Main House was HUGE!). Rather than the bathroom though, he returned to the small room he'd marked the location of and stole the ring. Originally he'd wanted to try and take it out of the box, leaving the display there so it would take longer to notice it was empty, but closer examination of the display box revealed that, though it was clearly locked, there was no keyhole. Turning it over and over he eventually found a hidden panel that could be slid aside, revealing the keyhole for the locking mechanism... which had been filled with molten lead and sealed for all time. The boy supposed whoever put the ring in the box was dead serious about no one ever taking it out again, likely because of the vaguely recalled history lesson about doom coming to anyone who laid hand on the ring itself, much less dared to wear it on one's finger. Stupid backwater superstitions! Not only were these people freaks, they were hicks! For goodness sake, they didn't even have cable! (Which was true, though that probably had a lot more to do with the fact that it was a small ISLAND then that the Shimeru were failing to keep up with the times, which they actually did a fair job of, for a community keeping itself secluded on an island; though expecting them to keep up with the very latest in big-city trends was fairly unrealistic. Many houses did have satellite dishes, just not the one the boy happened to be staying in.)
At any rate, the boy slipped the entire box into his day-pack, and returned to his guide, privately wondering if he could get more selling the ring in its case (which did make it look more important) or if he should just smash the glass and sell the ring by itself.
As he'd hoped, the boy did indeed get away with his ill-gotten goods. Crime was almost unheard of in their relatively small community. It took a day for the box to be noticed missing, and two more before those who noticed began to doubt that it had merely been taken away for wood-polishing by some member of the cleaning staff. A further two days of thorough investigation narrowed down the last persons who had seen it, and produced the reasonable (if disappointing) conclusion that the visiting boy had taken it. Frankly, those of the Main House, who had grown up being told scary tales about the ring, had a hard time believing anyone WOULD steal it. All the warnings of doom to any who touched it aside, as gold rings went, it was fairly plain and of modest value, having no stones set in it or any other decorations. It was also badly tarnished with age, since no one really wanted to risk touching it to polish it (presuming they could get the box open, of course).
Goodness, the clan charter still held an ancient law that any person who happened, by accident or intention, to touch the ring should be isolated for a full 48 hours in a locked room, and only if they showed no signs of change (not that the old records described what type of change should be expected) would they be released. The law also stated that if they did change, they, and "any other they have contaminated with the curse" was to be put to death at once for the greater safety of the community. A corollary also remarked that if a person should actually put the ring onto their finger, the waiting period could be waived and the doomed individual given the peace of the grave immediately. This law, written in ancient times, had caused modern Shimeru historians to posit the theory that the ring had been involved with the onset of some great plague that had caused their ancestors to flee their ancient homeland, wherever that had been. The idea that the ring, made of metal, had once been contaminated somehow by some awful virus was somewhat dubious by itself, and the belief that any virus could still be alive on it so many centuries later was absurd by the reckonings of any viral biologist of the modern era. Still, the clan law had never been removed from the charter, and who wanted to be locked in a dark room for two days just to prove a scientifically obvious point?
At any rate, it was fairly clear that the ring was taken by the visiting boy, only a distant genetic relation and not a "true Shimeru" in the sense of being able to identify with the clan's unique biological traits. A task force from the island's private police force were sent to the main islands, to recover the ring from the boy, as well as bring him back to face the traditional punishment (whether he'd actually handled it or not, the decision of the head family was that two days of solitary confinement was a reasonable and appropriate method to discourage the boy from every repeating such crimes, though of course they had no intention of applying the death penalty to a boy who'd barely reached puberty. Besides which, that part of the law was conditional on him displaying effects of this "curse" that few of them genuinely believed existed anyway.)
Four Shimeru police officers apprehended the boy at his home, when he came back from school, some six days after he'd returned from his island trip. His parents had been reluctant to accept that their boy had done such a thing, but had allowed the officers to search the boy's room, which produced, from under the lad's bed, a small display box, with the glass pane broken out, which was unfortunately empty.
The lad had stepped through the door of his home and called out his arrival as he did every day, but today his call was cut off in surprise as two large men in uniform clamped a hand over his upper arms the second he stepped inside. They had been waiting for him, and certainly had no intentions of giving him opportunity to run, and having to chase him all over the neighborhood. The other two officers, standing in front of his disappointed-looking parents, did not bother returning the traditional greeting. With folded arms and a grave, no-nonsense tone, the speaking officer simply demanded to know where the ring was.
The boy played dumb. "What ring?"
The officer had no intention of playing this kind of game, so she merely held up the broken display box. "Where?" She repeated.
The boy turned his head to the side, sniffing indifferently. "Never seen that box before in my life."
The officer lowered the box and glowered at the boy. "I can see you don't really grasp your situation. Allow me to explain how much trouble you're ALREADY in, before you decide to make things even worse for yourself. After we're done questioning you here, you are going to be taken back to Shimeru Isle, where you are going to be put in a very small, very dark, and not especially warm room, for a full 48 hours. Since it is only expected to be two days, and that you will have absolutely nothing to do but lie there in the dark and sob like a little girl, we have no reason to feed you. A human being can live for about a week without water, and about a month without food, so it's not as though you're in any real danger, though I doubt you will be all that comfortable, particularly by the second day."
She leaned closer, getting right into the paling boy's face. "That's how things stand right as of this moment; the lightest possible punishment you can receive for the crime you've already done. If we very quickly find the ring again, and no further problems have arisen from your theft of it, after two days in the box, we'll give you breakfast and send you home again. If we cannot find the ring quickly, or if we discover that there is some hidden kernel of truth behind our ancestors' firm belief that the ring was cursed in some way, OR if you refuse to answer my questions and aid us in finding it as quickly as possible... we may actually have to feed you, considering how long you'll be rotting in that small... dark... cold... room, alone by yourself. Are we clear?"
The boy did look rattled. "It's just a dumb superstition!"
"Perhaps," the officer conceded, "or perhaps it is just something our ancestors couldn’t understand in there day, and 'curse' was the best explanation they could come up with for why a simple ring had the ability to cause such disaster. Consider, if you will, the possibility that, on the inside surface of the ring, there might be a tiny needle, so small it's almost invisible to the naked eye, which could have been infected with a reactive poison; something that by itself is dry and able to keep indefinitely, but when wetted with blood, leads to a chemical reaction producing a dangerous toxin, introduced directly into the bloodstream via the small scratch from that needle, killing the person in moments. What if, boy, you gave the ring to somebody and they end up dead as a result? Then you've become guilty of far more than just stealing from the Main House; you'd be a murderer."
The boy paled even further. "Is that what the ring really is? Some kinda ninja assassin tool?"
The officer straightened. "We don't know. That's just one of the theories that have been suggested based on the records we still have from our ancestor who really did know exactly what the ring was, and why it was dangerous. What he decided to do with that understanding was seal it in a box that couldn't be unlocked, and warn everyone who came after him in his writings and records to never, ever, so much as touch the damned thing, much less wear it. Actually, given the wording of the warnings, it seems to have been something worse than just a poison. He mentioned having to put to death anyone who became affected by the ring's curse, and also anyone else who the cursed person further affected, for the safety of all our people. That sounds more like an infectious plague or ancient germ-warfare to me."
The boy's eyes widened. "You're going to KILL me?"
His parents gasped. The officer, on the other hand, merely raised an eyebrow. "I'm hoping that won't be necessary. After all, you're hardly more than a child... a very stupid and disrespectful child, mind you, but still a child. The only way that would be necessary, of course, is if you had become affected by whatever it is about the ring that our ancestors considered it 'cursed' and had become a danger to yourself and others. Death wouldn't be your punishment; it would be something we were regrettably forced to do to save everyone else from the stupid thing you'd done. Now, I don't THINK that should be necessary, but in order for all of us to be sure, would you kindly mind answering my questions?"
The boy gulped and nodded.
"When you broke the case, did you touch the ring with your hands?"
"...Yes."
"Hmm... but did you put it onto your finger?"
"No. Why would I? Guys don't wear jewelry!"
The officer rolled her eyes and shifted genders with a directed thought. Typically by their late teens, the Shimeru had learned to control the shift fairly well, though it could still happen on its own when they were surprised, excited or stressed, and it was near to impossible not to shift while experiencing the level of sexual excitement present during actual sex; one reason why marriage outside the clan was so rare. "If you'd been born with more of the Shimeru clan's blood in you, you might eventually have changed that opinion. Never mind that. When was this, or more to the point, when did you last touch the ring?"
"Monday."
The officer nodded, breathing a sigh of relief. "Four days ago, meaning it has been more than 48 hours since you touched it. I take it that you haven't noticed anything unusual? You feel healthy, and more or less the same as you were last week?"
"I feel fine!"
She (now he) nodded. "Good. In fact, the main purpose of the 48 hours of isolation the law demands isn't a punishment; it's to keep you quarantined until we could be sure you weren't affected by the ring. You seem to have passed that marker without ill effect."
The boy sighed with relief. He tensed up again as the now-male officer got in his face and glowered again.
"So, where is the ring now?" He demanded.
The boy swallowed. "I... sold it."
The officer's eye twitched. "Sold it to who?"
"The pawn shop."
The officer slowly closed his eyes, straightened, and began rubbing the bridge of his nose. "I don't know whether to be more disgusted at your lack of respect for the clan's history and traditions... or your lack of financial sense. Given the age of the ring, the legend behind it, and that the earliest rings of that quality weren't being made anywhere in the world until a good 500 years later than that ring is said to be, you could easily have gotten 100 times as much from a museum or a collector of historical artifacts. The Head Family considered that you might have sold it, and granted me the authority to offer up to 50,000,000 yen to get it back... and that's just without having to contact them and arrange serious negotiations if the individual holding it demands more."
The boy's eyes widened. "He only gave me 10,000 for it!"
As the first officer palmed his face, the other officer not holding the boy turned nearly purple and unintentionally shifted into a woman. "YOU SOLD A TREASURE GUARDED BY OUR ANCESTORS FOR ALMOST 2000 YEARS FOR THE PRICE OF 2 OR 3 NEW DVDS!" She thundered.
The boy cringed. "He said it was dingy and didn't have any stones fitted to it..."
The fuming officer looked to their leader. "Are you SURE we can't risk police brutality? Maybe just a little bit?"
"He's THIRTEEN, Kenji..."
"I know, but still..."
"Just drop it." The leader turned back to the boy. "Where is this pawn shop?"
"S-south end of Market street."
The officer turned to the shamefaced and silent parents. "Would either of you be able to lead us there? That should be the end of any need for you to be further involved in this investigation."
The boy's mother nodded morosely.
The lead officer turned back to the boy. "Cuff him. Kenji... no... make that Sayumi... take a taxi or something back to port and get him back to the island for his two day confinement. The rest of us will use the car we rented to continue looking for the ring."
"Understood." One of the (apparently) male officers holding the boy nodded, and held both the boy's wrists for his partner to handcuff the teenager.
"Hey wait! You said I was past the 48 hours!" The boy cried. "What do you gotta stick me in a box for!"
The lead officer narrowed his eyes. "It's true you don't need to be quarantined for your own safety or those around you, but you still need to be punished for your crime. Frankly, considering the seriousness of what you've done, and how bad a disaster this could still turn out to be, I have to say I think the Head Family is being extraordinarily lenient. If you were my own son, I would be trying to convince them that you needed a full month in solitary to properly learn your lesson (with food and water, naturally). That's merely my opinion though. Tell you what, if your actions turn out to lead to an epidemic that sweeps the whole of Japan like the Black Plague did to Europe, when you get out after your 48 hours are up, we'll give you a meal, and an update to let you know if you deserve to go back in the box until you grow a white beard long enough to use as toilet paper. Fair?"
All the blood dropped out of the boy's face in horror. The stress proved too much for him to handle, and he blacked out. Fortunately, with the two officers still holding him, he didn't fall on his face.
"Greeaat." The "male" officer with the noticeably feminine name of Sayumi drawled, rolling his eyes. "And now I have to carry the brat! You do realize you just scared him out of three years growth?"
The lead officer smirked. "Good. I was TRYING to scare him straight. You have to teach kids that their actions can have consequences well beyond what they currently understand, as young as possible. Honestly, I don't know what these mainlander parents are thinking these days."
"Um... we're RIGHT here!" The boy's mother grumbled.
The officer turned, shifting back into her female shape again to give the cheery look of blatantly false innocence a greater impact. "Oh, so you are! I'd quite forgotten. Silly me!" Dropping the act, she nodded to Officer Sayumi, who just sighed and hefted the unconscious boy over one broad shoulder.
"Now just a minute!" The father demanded.
The lead officer turned back to him. "Yes?"
"This taking my son and sticking him in a box without food for two days... is that even legal? Do you even have the authority to come into our house and take our son? This isn't your own private little island, you realize."
She cocked her head thoughtfully. "Well, the short answer is 'yes', as in, if you want to stand here and argue about it for another hour, it won't change anything whether I take the time to explain why or not... except that I'd much prefer to track down that ring as quickly as possible, and if the worst we fear comes to pass, and we aren't able to contain it, even lifetime confinement for your son would be far gentler than the disaster he may have caused really warrants."
"How bad could it really be? I mean realistically, not some old superstitious mumbo-jumbo! All he really did was steal a ring!" His father insisted.
"A ring that our ancestors had their reasons to be terrified of touching, which may even now passing hand to hand among the population of Japan. Now perhaps they didn't have the knowledge to explain why the ring was dangerous in scientific terms you or I might accept, but that doesn't mean it makes any sense for them to seal an ordinary, harmless ring in an unopenable box and set down serious warnings to their descendants not to touch the damned thing for no reason. Now, I grant you, it's entirely possible there's no real threat from the ring anymore. If you favour the poison needle theory I mentioned earlier, it's reasonable to assume that any organic-based poison would have deteriorated ages ago."
"So it's just a ring?"
"I did say 'if'." The officer noted. "There are a number of other theories, not all of which would agree that the mere passage of time as made the ring safe. The point is that we don't know anything for sure, so it's wisest not to take risks."
The father still frowned. "I still don't think what you intend to do with my son sounds entirely in keeping with our country's standards of ethical treatment of accused criminals."
"What accusation? He confessed. And besides, it's not as though the boy will come to any harm. He'll come out of the cell (which is reasonably sized, actually, though I called it a box to make it sound less attractive to him) hungry and lonely, but otherwise fine. It would be different to go two days without food if he was going to go about his regular, more active lifestyle; he could easily get lightheaded on the 2nd day, and might faint during gym class, but he's just going to be sitting on his ass or laying down the whole time. Look, I have kids of my own, and as I said before, I wouldn't have any concerns putting one of mine through the same treatment, if they'd done something this bad. Just think of it as a more serious combination of a time-out, grounding, being sent to bed without supper, and the silent treatment. It'll be not having anyone to talk to for two days that will most likely unsettle him most... and that is the point, you realize."
His mother tugged her lip in concern. "You said it was cold. Couldn't he get sick?"
The officer shook her head. "I was intentionally making it sound worse than it really is to scare him. It's underground, so it is noticeably cool, but not moreso than your typical basement. Besides, it's late summer. The room being cool would almost be considered a positive."
The husband frowned. "I still don't know about this..."
The officer raised an eyebrow. "Not to be rude, but your permission isn't exactly required. This is a criminal matter, both by the measure of the Japanese Criminal Code, and Shimeru Clan law, and is under the jurisdiction of the police branch in whose territory the crime was committed, namely the Shimeru Isle Police Department. We are part of Japan, so extradition of the criminal to another, mainland branch of the same police force is irrelevant. We have a certain minor degree of governmental autonomy on our island, as we negotiated long, long ago, knowing that keeping our clan's unique traits a secret would require some privacy. So as I said before, the short answer is 'yes', this is all quite legal and within the Shimeru PD's authority. That's about all the time I'm willing to waste explaining it to you, considering the possible threat of the ring, so if you don't mind, could we all head off to this pawn shop immediately?"
The father hesitated, but the mother bit her lip and nodded, coming forward to put on her shoes. "Is it alright if we talk more along the way?"
"Certainly. I'll answer any questions of yours that I have time for, though admittedly I'll feel a lot less rushed once the ring is back in our hands... er... well not literally, of course. I'm planning to use a handkerchief to hold it."
As the three remaining officers headed to their rented car, along with the boy's mother, they paused to watch a local police car pull up and a local officer step out to assist officer Sayumi (now female again so that her face matched the name on her badge) with loading the still unconscious teenager into the back seat. Apparently, Sayumi had opted to request local assistance through her police radio rather than explain to a cabbie why his taxi was being drafted as a prisoner transport. On the whole, a far better idea, and much less likely to cause embarrassment to the local police force if the cabbie decided to tell the newspapers that their local cops were absurdly under-funded, if they were taking cabs nowadays.
The boy's mother sadly watched her son taken away, shaking her head. "Where on earth did I go wrong?" She muttered to herself as she sat in the passenger seat of the island officers' rented car.
"Do you want me to tell you what I think, or was that rhetorical?" The lead officer mused with a wry look, as she got behind the wheel.
The mother actually considered that for a moment. "I have another son, 4 years younger that that one, and I certainly don't intend to write my firstborn off as a lost cause when he comes back... so yes. I'm not saying I'll automatically agree with what you say, but I wouldn't mind hearing your thoughts."
The lead officer nodded as she pulled away from the curb. "Too soft. That was the first thing that flew into my mind when you both started complaining so much about our employing a punishment that, compared to the mainland criminal courts, is actually very short and reasonably mild. Self-discipline isn't an in-born trait for children. They have to learn it from the discipline they receive from their parents and other authority figures right from the beginning, so that as they grow old enough to take more responsibility for themselves, they continue behaving along similar lines with the enforced habits they were raised on. These days, parents are so paranoid about being labeled abusive and having their kids taken away that most won't even spank their kids when they're young enough that that's about all they can grasp. 'Do something bad equals sore butt' is a pretty simple equation, and it sends a much more understandable message to them when their under six than being sent to their room where they keep all their toys. Even worse, a lot of kids figure out sooner or later that their parents, teachers and other roll models are afraid of being reported for something, and they see it as a shift in the balance of power. Now they can threaten their parents with calling Child Services, and get them to do what THEY want, instead of having to obey what the adults know they should do. The long-term consequences of that sort of stunt to their parents, and also themselves, are way over their heads to grasp, but they understand how to blackmail their own parents into not punishing them for doing wrong things. So now they're in charge, and have figured out how to get away with everything just by telling wild lies into the right ears. If they grow up thinking that's how the world works, what kind of adults could they possibly turn out like other than rotten?"
The mother sighed and nodded. "You make a very convincing point, but if I don't want my children taken from me, what choice would I have?"
"That's completely defeatist talk," the officer scolded, "and frankly rather selfish, and certainly won't do your kids any good at all. You have to be firm with children, and by firm I mean unmovable as Fuji-san. You are in charge, always and absolutely. Never surrender that authority until they're old enough to move out, no matter how much they hate it. Never let them order you around. Never accept backtalk or insults to you or their father under any circumstances. Never cave in and shorten punishments because you feel bad for them. If they break a rule that they'd been told they'd be grounded for, and it causes them to miss going on a school trip or some other fun event, then they miss it, and it's a direct result of their own actions. Above all you must never allow any wrong decision or bad behavior to just slide or be ignored, because that leads them to believe that they don't necessarily have to suffer the consequences of their own actions if they can find some way to wiggle out of it; an attitude that will cripple their future potential as adults, and make it extremely likely that they'll be speaking to someone in a uniform like mine fairly often."
The mother shook her head. "That sounds pretty harsh."
The officer nodded readily in agreement. "It certainly is, particularly on a parent that loves them, but it teaches them what they'll need to grow up and face a world that doesn't."
"And if my children hate me for it?"
"Oh, I'm sure they'll say they do fairly often," the officer rolled her eyes, "especially in their teens, when they really start comparing how lax all their friends' lazy parents are relative to you. Just remember that their 'I hate you' really just means 'I'm angry with you, at least right now' and that takes a bit of the sting out of it. Also remember (and remind them of it too if you feel like it) that someday they will be all grown up, watching all their coddled, slacker friends try to make a life for themselves out in the real world, failing again and again and not understanding why... and that will be the day that they call you up on the phone and thank you for every single spanking with the deepest sincerity."
The officer turned to look the mother in the eye as the car came to a stoplight, and the mother could see those strong eyes wet with moisture, and a small smile that was nonetheless warmer than anything she'd have suspected the rigid woman capable of expressing. "My oldest is 26 now. I got that call last year."
The mother's smile slowly grew to match the officer's. "And... was it worth it? Ten or more years of 'I hate you' in exchange for that one phone call?"
The officer smirked a little and scratched her cheek. "Well... that phase didn't take quite that long, since I made sure he had his act together well before he was out of his teens. As for if it was worth it? Well, we're certainly into the realm of my personal opinions now... but yes... I really do think so, not so much just for that phone call (though I dearly did appreciate it) but because I know with absolute certainty that I have a kid to be proud of, and that I deserve that pride, because it's a result of all those tough years when I didn't let him have any slack or make any excuses, snapped at him like a drill sergeant... and then closed the door to my room and cried. It WAS hard, because I did and do love my baby more than anyone else in the world, but the result is that I have the most amazing kid that I get to brag about!"
"And does she ever!" One of the officers in the back moaned as he leaned forward to address the mother. "I swear, she never shuts up about him! You’d think her kid walked on water or something."
"Hey!" The lead officer pouted.
The one in back grinned. "Well, in all fairness, the kid IS a huge success story. He ain't our little island boy anymore; he's in Tokyo these days, running a company he started himself. I've met the kid (well, not so much a kid anymore) and I have to say, I think the reason he's does so fantastically well is that he never gives up, and never accepts less than 100% effort from himself in anything he does. Dictionaries have his picture in them next to the word 'determined'. He's going to be able to retire before any of us do, and on an income that will make our pensions look like donut money."
"Speak for yourself! I'm gonna get him to buy Mommy a big house as a retirement present!" The driver grinned. "I probably WILL use my pension for snacks!"
The man (currently) leaning over the seatback rolled his eyes. "Yeah probably, where as mine's more likely to still be living with me until he's 30."
The other officer in the back piped up. "Well, to be fair, it's not the same economy it was when we were their ages. Inflation's put the cost of most things up about 300% of what they were 20 years ago, but incomes have only risen 34%. Hell, back in the 70s, our daddies worked just one 40 hour a week job, while our mothers stayed at home (or visa versa; it was always pretty interchangeable on our island) and that was usually enough to support the whole family easily. Your kid might not be able to AFFORD to move out until he's married and has two or three lines of income flowing in."
The leaning man sighed. "Boy, you sure know how to cheer me up. You have a point though; way things are these days, there ain't nobody who can afford to just punch a clock and coast through life anymore." He shook his head and looked at the mother seriously. "Anyways, look lady, no one's saying you have to take her advice on child-rearing --either all together or in part-- straight to heart, but I have to say, my attitude towards my kids was probably more like yours than hers... and I dearly wish I had been sitting where you're sitting, hearing something like what she's been telling you, 20 or even just 10 years ago. They're your kids; you do what you like with them, but I think she's struck gold here with the idea that you need to keep in mind what sort of adults you want them to be when their grown, and make THAT your goal, whatever you think you want them to be like. Could be you have a different sort of plan for the kind of adults you want them to be, but do have that picture firmly in your mind and approach parenting as though you were training them to become more like that every single day. Granted, they probably won't turn out EXACTLY as you imagine, but if you don't set expectations for them... they usually meet them, if you catch my drift. Or such has been my unfortunate experience, anyway."
"Hmm..." The mother paused, clearly giving it all some deep thought. Then her head came up as she noticed something out of the corner of her eye. "Oh, this is it here, on the left."
"Thank goodness. This car ride was starting to sound like an episode of Dr. Phil. I mean, we ARE on official duty..."
"Oh shush!"
~ ~ ~
There are few people a pawn shop owner likes to see walk into his shop less than a uniformed police officer, let alone three. Even if he ran his business strictly on the up-and-up, the same couldn't always be said of his selling customers, and telling the difference was often quite tricky. Cops usually meant he'd made a mistake somewhere, and the difference would typically be coming out of his profits. Not that he intended to be anything but cooperative. They had their jobs to do, just like he did, and Japanese police were generally very well respected by the communities they served, for any number of well-deserved reasons. Also, there was another woman who came in at the same time, and began looking around, so she might be a customer. It never hurt to look law-abiding and upstanding when potential customers were in the store.
"Welcome..." The shop owner said, though he didn't sound very enthusiastic. "Can I assume you're not here to shop?"
The lead officer smirked wryly. "Unfortunately no; we're on the trail of some stolen property. I take it from your tone that you have about as much interest in beating about the bush as I do, so I'll get straight to the point. We have information indicating that a 13-year-old boy sold you a very old, simple golden ring, about 4 days ago. Do you recall the transaction?"
The heavyset man scratched his cheek. "That little thing? Yeah, I remember it, though I don't have it anymore."
She frowned. "Aren't you supposed to hold items for a certain period before reselling them, in case the 'owner' wants them back?"
The man shrugged. "Only if they say they do. I give them a numbered ticket for the item, and hold it for a month. I'll be honest; 9 times out of 10, they never come back, even if they say they will, so if someone wants the item and really doesn't want to wait out the waiting period, I usually sell it to them. In this case though, the kid clearly wasn't interested in having it back, so it was a straight, one-way sale."
The lead officer rubbed the bridge of her nose, as the other two made faces of distaste. "I don't suppose you might have any information on who bought it, would you?"
The fat man raised an eyebrow. "Generally I wouldn't, but in this case, yes, I know exactly who I sold it to."
The officers perked up a bit. "Well, that's something. Who would that be then?"
"Owner of another shop nearby." The man shrugged again. "See, when the kid came in with that dingy, plain little ring, he didn't like the price I offered for it, so he tried to scam me with some half-assed legend of a curse or something, so I looked him in the eye and asked him who he thought would buy a ring supposed to bring doom to whoever wears it? Then he changes his story, says it's an important historical artifact of some weird old family lives on an isolated island off the coast of Kyuushu, an' that it was older than Japan. I didn't buy that load of crap either, but it gave me the idea that maybe I could sell the thing to old man Shigawa, who runs his Cursed Antique Shop down the ways. I borrowed a few bits from the kid's story and filled in the holes to make it sound better. Feh, if the kid was gonna try tellin' tales out of school like that, he ought to at least practice his lines of bull more. He sounded like he barely knew what he was saying."
The officer rolled her eyes. "More like he wasn't paying enough attention to the stories when he was being told them. It is the property of a very very old and influential clan based out of that area, and there is, in fact, a legend about it causing a terrible fate to whoever wears it... in fact the records of the period that talk about it seem to take it seriously enough that there might well be something about the ring to make touching it dangerous." She pause for a moment and then went through the version of the story she'd planned ahead of time to use for any non-Shimeru people to explain why they were so eager to have it back. "One theory is that the metal used in it contains trace elements of some radioactive isotope, and it was certainly made ages before anyone understood how radiation poisoning worked. It could well be that a few people who wore it started getting sick and dying without any other explanation, which led to the legend about it being cursed. Honestly, the legend has kept anyone from wanting to take it out of its sealed case for ages, so it's never been properly examined to determine what might have been or still be the problem. Having said that, I should ask you just as a safety precaution; did you handle the ring with bare skin?"
The fat man's eyebrows rose. "I did, at least long enough to take it out of that kid's bare hand, and to polish it up a bit so it could get a better price. The kid ain't sick is he?"
"Fortunately no, but he is arrested. Did you put it on? The records seem to indicate that's what directly lead to their mysterious disasters, whereas they merely strongly advise against handling it at all, whatever the problem with it really was."
The fat man put his hand down on the countertop, displaying his sausage-like fingers. "Size of that ring best fits either a thin man or a thicker woman. I wouldn't have been able to get it on past the 2nd knuckle if I tried. An' besides, as you might guess from the used dresses in the back corner, I tend not to wear my own merchandise."
The officer favored him with a wry smirk. "When did you last handle the ring?"
"The morning before yesterday, when I talked Shigawa into taking it off my hands before he opened." He replied worriedly. "Think I ought to go see a doctor?"
The officer shook her head reassuringly. "Not if you haven't noticed any really obvious changes to your health anytime in the last 48 hours. As I said, the old records may not have known WHY the ring caused people trouble, but they definitely took careful note of the so-called 'curse's' results. They seemed to think they'd be extremely obvious to anyone, whatever they were. You're fine."
The owner let out a breath.
"AAAAH!" A cry of outrage gave everyone in the shop a start. They turned to see the boy's mother, scowling down at a jewelry display. "That's the necklace my mother gave me! I've been trying to figure out where that disappeared to for a year!"
The owner palmed his face as the lead officer turned back to him with a raised eyebrow. "Any chance the same boy sold you that necklace?"
"Could be. I can't claim to remember details that far back, but I had seen him before... and I think I might have bought A necklace from him. Couldn't tell ya what story he might have spun that long ago though. Late mother's old jewelry, I imagine."
"I am NOT late!" His mother huffed.
"Apparently." The morbidly amused lead officer remarked, then gave the proprietor a pointed look.
The man winced, then sighed and came over to the case. "Which one is it, lady?"
"The silver one with the sapphires."
"Hmm... one of the better ones." He sighed as he reluctantly pulled it out, examining it, but not handing it to her. "Alright lady, now try and see this from my point of view. I got a kid coming in here telling me tales to hock jewelry that clearly ain't his style. Now I got you in here saying one of the most expensive necklaces in my case is both hers and is stolen goods. So before I hand it over, which means a total loss on my books of whatever I paid to what I presume is your own punk kid, not to mention it's been about a year already... I hope you don't mind if I ask for a little bit of confirmation."
She frowned at him, though she clearly saw his point. "Such as?"
He turned the necklace in his hands. "There's a little inscription here on the back of the center setting. Wasn't showing when it was in the display case. Can you tell me what it says?"
The mother nodded, though her expression was one of a person experiencing deep hurt and betrayal. "It says: 'Congratulations, my beloved daughter.' It was my mother's wedding present to me."
"Ouch..." One of the other officers muttered.
The owner sighed, and reluctantly handed the necklace respectfully to its rightful owner. "Bloody hell... that's one fine quality piece there. I'm sorry to see it go... particularly free. I could have gotten a full month's overhead just from that sale..."
The lead officer chewed her lip for a moment in thought, then bent over the display case to read the price from the now-bare spot in the display. Her eyebrows briefly rose at the high number, which seemed to her eyes closer to what one would see for a slightly less nice necklace in a professional jewelry store. Sighing, she pulled out an unused checkbook from an envelope and began filling it out. On the memo line, she wrote 'on the authority of Clan Shimeru'.
"As it happens," she said, while writing, "the old-money clan whom the boy stole the ring from gave me authorization to purchase it back from whosever's hands we eventually tracked it down to. Now granted, you don't have the ring anymore, but you have certainly been quite helpful, so it seems ungrateful of us for your assistance to walk out of your shop leaving you poorer than when we walked in. Granted, the intention was for me to buy back a valuable artifact, not repay the original purchase price of a mostly unrelated necklace, but considering how much more valuable they consider the ring to be by comparison, I don't think they'll mind, and if they do, I can pay them back for my error in judgment at a later date."
She handed the pleasantly surprised shop owner the check. "I'm not certain exactly what you paid the boy for the necklace a year ago, so I assumed half the price you were going to sell it for. Is that fairly accurate?"
He blinked. "You honestly think I could stay in business if I paid 50% of my selling price for anyth... uh... I mean yes, half of the listed selling price should just about manage to cover my losses, and thank you so much for your professional courtesy."
The officer smirked wryly as he very politely (but quickly, before she changed her mind) accepted the offered check from her hands. "Don't lay it on so thick, would you? Also don't mistake gratitude for a poor business sense. Incidentally, if the generosity of the clan whose interests I'm representing today has allowed you to avoid having to use a red pen on today's balance sheets, would you consider briefly closing up shop for a few minutes to point out this antique shop to us? Just so we don't have to wander about looking for it?"
"Certainly! Just let me get my keys..."
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(Posted Fri, 16 Jan 2009 03:29)
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