Easy meat! and then I'm flying too, scooting after leftovers. Into the forecourt even as the guy is rushing to his car, the securicam is whirring, and the bloke behind the counter is calling the cops. But there I am, sliding up next to the Mini. Window open, I look inside, where a stupid little handbag is just waiting for me. Excellent! The brown guy is running out of the shop now, a young woman with him, but way too slow because I reach in, grab the bag, and then out of there! Fucking great stuff. Flying home!

It took all my knowledge to shake off the Mini, and I was proud of that.

So we all meet up down the hole, and Dazzle lays in straight away, telling me off for being so stupid, for going in so late. I tell him I got summat, didn't I? I got the woman's handbag. What did Spike get? Only a fucking attache case.

There's fucking over a hundred quid in here, you twat!' says Spike, throwing the case at me. 'You nearly blew us wide!'

'But I didn't,' I say.

'That's right,' says Flute. 'Nobody got caught. Let's see what the kid got.'

'You fuck off, girlie,' says Spike. 'Like who asked you?'

'Enough,' says Dazzle, opening the handbag, pulling some stuff out of there. Some tampons, a wallet with ?15 in it, a beef sandwich in polythene, a computer disk, a photograph of a puppy dog, an A-Z map of Namchester. Nothing much else. Oh yeah, a bird's feather, don't ask me what that's doing in there. Green-and-yellow coloured. But then the eyes light up on Dazzle. He pulls out a piece!

That makes the crew go quiet, let me tell you, even though it was only a tiny, girl-friendly model.

'Jesus bike!' says Spike.

'Is it loaded?' asks Flute.

Click, click. 'Sure is.'

'Jesus mountain bike!' says Matchstick, laughing and twitching.

'What's a lousy handbag carrier doing with a gun?' asks Flute. 'What was she protecting?' But nobody answers.

Dazzle tucks the gun and the wallet into his rucksack and then hands the bag and remaining contents back to me. 'This is yours to keep, Melvin,' he says. And then, 'The Melv is in. But only on a trial basis, OK? We'll give him seven days.'

'Absolutely!' I shout.

'Oh fuck,' says Spike. 'The crew is doomed.'

'Crew super-doomed,' echoes Matchstick.

'He found us a gun, didn't he?' says Flute, and I'm sure there's a little smile between us, but most probably I'm just thinking there should be.

So Dazzle gives us our next job. Hang 5 alive! During which I perform the lookout duties like a trainee Nam United defender. I do OK. Another three jobs after that, then we call it a day. Dazzle gives us our share of the takings. I get the lowest except for Matchstick, who would only spend it on sweets or something. I tell Dazz that the gun must be worth hundreds. He tells me to fuck off, that he's the manager and that he has to sell it first. This is on account, he says.

I get ?45 for the trouble. The most I've ever had. And when I get home I give my mam a tenner for the housekeeping. My dad starts to warn me about messing about with kids like Dazzle, but my mam says he's only jealous and way past it.

I like my mam. She's had a hard fucking life bringing me up, and I don't blame her. Also, she's got tattoos. And she said that I could hang around with the gang as long as I didn't neglect the studying too much, which I promised not to do.

Anyway, that's how I got to join the Hang 5 crew.

That night I go up to my bedroom early, in order to examine the handbag. I eat the beef sandwich, throw the tampon and the photo of the puppy and the stupid bird's feather into the waste-paper basket. I look at the computer disk. Maybe it's a game? I slip it into the computer, and this title screen comes up, flight path 5.02 it says, and underneath that, demo version. Must be an air-sim with a name like that, and there's no real interface or anything, just these lines of techno stuff. Says it's been programmed by somebody called Celia Hobart. Maybe Hobart was the stupid woman in the Mini car, leaving her window open like that, doesn't she know there's some right bastards around? And I'm thinking this must be a pre-market copy, when what should happen but a press-to-play icon comes up.

I mouse on over and do the old clickety-click.

The screen lights up with a feather, yeah an animated bird's feather, just like the one I'd thrown away, sparkling with a million greens and yellows. I'm kind of pulled in by the sight, like I'm on drugs or something. I should be so lucky.

But nothing else happens, just this feather floating around the screen, like forever. No matter what keys I press, it just stays there, turning slowly. So I'm thinking I've stolen a bloody screen-saver, when a password please message comes up. Straight off I try the usual suspects that Jackie taught me, GOD, JESUS, SECRET, PASSWORD, MOTHER, FATHER, but none of them work, and after the six bad choices the password window vanishes, like I've used up my options, just leaving the feather, still spinning and there's nothing I can do about it.

I'm thinking that maybe I should send a net message to Dazzle, just to tell him that the disk has got a password, but that would make me look stupid, wouldn't it? Anyway, it makes me feel tired, just watching the feather, like I should lie down and sleep. Before doing so I grab the real feather from the basket and lay it on my pillow, I don't know why, and the smell of it makes me drowsy, and the spinning, spinning on the screen, the spinning, the spinning, and I didn't even know that feathers had a smell…

The next day I turn up at the hole, all excited for my second day's adventures, but nobody's there. I'm wondering what's up, like maybe they're avoiding me on purpose. I check out the Pitstoppers garage again, but there's no sign of action there, and I don't know any other places that the Hang 5ers patrol. Instead I ride over to the Caliban Mall, to see if Jackie knows where Dazzle's riding today, and to ask her about the disk I've stolen.

It's hours before her dinnertime, so I head for the shop where she works, which is called ye olde computer shoppe. Jeez! The guard from yesterday is hanging around outside, obviously wanting another kiss, so I tell him to mind my bike, cause I haven't got round to nicking a lock for it yet. He wants to argue, but already I'm inside the shop and looking for Jackie.

She doesn't know where her brother is, so I ask her if she'd have a go at cracking a password for me. I take the disk out of my bumbag, but not the feather, yeah I've brought that along as well, don't ask me why. It's quiet just then, so Jackie slots the disk into one of the shop's best computers. The title screen comes up, and then the pixel feather, but nothing else. 'Where's the password window?' Jackie asks.

'It vanished. I tried six words, and then it vanished.'

'Right. It knows you're not the owner. I'll take it home, have a look.'

Thanks.'

Just then there's some kind of commotion going on outside, and who should come in but Dazzle himself, followed by the stupid guard, who's looking pissed off about something, maybe the fact that Dazzle has actually ridden his bike into the shop! Wish I'd thought of that. He rides his bike all round the displays, laughing like he's on something wicked, obviously thinking to cause his sister some trouble, it was like that between them sometimes, and the guard is jogging along trying to keep up, but not doing very well.

Jackie is shouting at him to get out, and that brings the manager out from his office, and then they're all making some noise, Jackie, the guard and the manager. I'm the only one that's keeping quiet, mainly because I can see that Dazzle's not got his balaclava on, which is strange, but maybe he's not up to big trouble today, just messing about. Maybe that's why he didn't wait for me, the job wasn't big enough for it. Aye, that must be it.