The Catburglar Named Geoff

"It all started when I was born...-

No wait, maybe it was when I was five.

It was just me and me sweet Ma y’see. She worked really hard to support me ya, made sure I learned me letters. Ma always came home kinda oily, but she said she worked at a bakery. She always told me there was lots of oil bread making, I never bothered to check.

Well one day when I was 10, I was makin’ me way over to Mother Murphy’s, and this big top prick tripped me and spat on me. Said to me “What’re you gonna do about it you little shite?’ I says ‘Well I’ll break into your house and break your shite!’

Y’know what the prick said? ‘I’d like to see you try!’

And y’see dear whoever the fuck reads this,

I took that personally…

By Eleven i started to skip school. Met a silently friendly homeless man who’d share his beans with me on sundays. He never really talked much, but I’d talk to him sure. Told him about the big Top that wronged me, how I wanted to learn to steal. So he taught me lockpicking, still no idea what he’d snatch inside with them shaky hands o his, but he always had a bottle of lickor on him.

When I was twelve I started pinching coin purses. Lotsa guards around when I nabbed some pouches from the quietest Big Top, pretending to be a waiter or what have ya. Always was Lucky. Soon I started seeing that Ma was comin home with nice things. Left me wondering how well her bakery was doing. Prolly pretty good I thought.

By The time I was 20 I was sneaking in through the windows of the fanciest men in New Ashen, all the buddies of that Rich Prick that spat on me, Thadius T. Tanterberry!

More Like Can’t-erberry!

Learned his name from my special contact y’see! I was makin a splash in the underworld apparently! Says I was the “talk’o’the’town!” Tells me he can keep me in the know for big scores. We has a few drinks, we swap stories, or at least I told mine. Tells me about how apparently Tanterberry is a pretty sick fuck. Likes to screw around with commoners. Tricks for laughs, tripping kids, real piece of Shite.

Well one night me 30s I finally tracks him down ya, got to his place. I swept through his bedroom like lightning, got all the shiny bits and bobs, found a strange key. So I looked around, found a door behind a big painting of the prick.

Made me way up the stairs and found a bunch more, and that was when I saw It. My stomach turned, that bastard Tanterberry, he had a painting o Me and me Ma, and Himself? I looked like I was 4!

“What the Fuck,” I says.

He wasn’t supposed to be home! But he was. I guess he heard me. He called the guards while I had his family jewels in me arms. They of course took acception to that… Not really, I was on the floor in no time, being dragged out kickin and screaming.

Ma never came to me in prison, supposedly I’m goin to a bigger cell. That bastard Tanterberry came for a visit, I yelled at him to leave, but he wouldn’t. Had the freakiest smile on his face as he gestured me to come closer, leans in to say,

“The Aristocrats”

Then he walked off laughing harder than the poorest drunk in the bar, like he thought something was funnier than the mists madness itself.

Guess the guards are here. Maybe I’ll get a better meal where I’m headed. They said something about “tests, dashin’, and a chair.”

Maybe more schoolin?"