No...

The creature tapped the book. “Because it says so. It’s the law!”     

“What’s the law?” The other creature, his partner in thievery, asked incredulously. “I thought we went by our own morals—”

“These are our morals!” The thief jammed the open book into the face of the other creature. It shook its head. “Besides, don’t you want to go by our ow—”

“No!” The first thief came from behind the book, tapping at it. “Don’t you see? It’s—”

The first creature squinted at the book, a light emerging from it. Then it widened its eyes. “Soso, don’t you see?” It grabbed the book, and whipped it around, demanding the first thief to see small words scrawling upon the cover. “They’re rewriting our moral—”

“We got to do something!” The first thief panicked. The first one bit its lip, Its very large red reptile eyes blinking furiously. Then it looked up at its partner. “Maybe it’s telling us to not—”

“NO!” The first thief snatched the book, it closing instantly. “How dare you speak the wrong words to me—”

“They’re not wrong! Those words—I see it even now in my mind.” The smallish thief morphed into a fish, and flopped around. The biggish thief scooped it up and put it quickly in a nearby fishbowl. Somewhere in this dump of an abandoned fishing boat. Anyway, the biggish thief said something, like whether they’d have to rewrite the law their own way.

“No!” The biggish thief slammed its fists down upon a huge table diagonally across the fishbowl. The first thief said assertively that it knew that the words in the book weren’t being written by it. They were written by someone. Someone who was trying to—  

“Rewrite our morals. No, rewrite us!” The biggish thief whizzed around, grabbed the fish bowl and dashed out of the stupid home of a fishing boat they’d been trapped in for so long. Well, they could get out, but the book—something about that book—made it so they couldn’t do so. They had to find out, and the biggish thief had to steal back their morals before whatever was trying to convert them was going to strip them of every rule they ever knew. Ever breathed. Ever took seriously.

“Turn back into your original form!”

The fish did as told, but the creature didn’t think it’d be much use this way. Its big head, scaly skin right in front of its ears and thin reddish orange hair along with its very large (and cute) eyes all were stared at in the mirror of the salty sea.

“Come on!” The biggish thief called to its friend.

“Wait.” The smallish thief looked at itself, and then looked up. “Do you think we could steal one more thing to guarantee our natural selves?”

“You’re always looking at yourself too much in that salty sea or in a mirror. It’s starting to make me grab your arm right now and pull you away!” In fact, it did, carrying the raging creature away from its precious time of looking at its beautiful self. The biggish thief said they had work to do.

“Yeah—like—”

“Like jumping into the book and taking whatever is this writer’s so he or she can give back what he or she has rewritten!” The biggish thief threw the book down, and both creatures jumped right into the book, landing somewhere. They were surrounded by words of all fonts and sizes. They didn’t want to write to this writer. They just wanted to grab what was theirs and go. They started looking around, searching for stuff to steal. Everything was locked up in glass cases like at a museum. Nothing was breakable, no matter how hard the smallish creature persisted on smashing the big glass windows with its huge baseball bat it found. Its claws did nothing. The biggish creature pounded, but they ended in vain. It roared that it couldn’t get to the stuff.

“Me neither!” The smallish creature saw its reflection in one of the mirrors, but turned away, promising itself it’d pay attention once it had stuff in its claws. This attitude of thievery went on seemingly for days. Time, it seemed, felt like a lot. But thievery never happened.

“Hey—why don’t we just figure out all this word stuff? Maybe that’ll help us.”

Words scrawled right in front of their faces, and were then enlarged by the writer (I guess, the smallish creature shrugged up to his partner) until the two creatures tried finding writing utensils but then discovered they could write in midair. They wrote to the writer, saying their morals were being violated. The writer wrote them back, but this time, the words had been scrawled on a parchment paper.

“Wow, I can even see myself! Think of all the jewels I could be wearing right now!” The smallish creature enjoyed itself in the reflection of the letters’ very narrow lines. “Think of all the stones and money I could be holding up—”

“For yourself!” the biggish creature snickered, and the smallish creature glared up at him. “Didn’t know you befriended loneliness—”

“Befriended!” The smallish creature shrieked. “I—”

Then a door opened. The smallish creature gasped, and then gaped as the white doors opened, and a calm voice requested them to come in. it sounded like a human man’s voice, but the creatures didn’t feel as though it was. But they still went, the smallish creature bravely stepping towards the door but ensuring the biggish creature was right with him.

“Why you scared?” The biggish creature asked, an eyebrow raised higher than the other. “You always slide in, disguise on, to the concerts, nightclubs and other places in which you can manipulate your greedy clawed hands on that deliciously shiny coin—”

“Come on!” The voice cheerfully invited. “No need to dawdle.”

What I’d give for a piece of glass! The smallish creature kept looking back, longingly, at the letter, but the biggish creature kept nudging it, it finally, reluctantly, went into the doors. The voice appeared to be a creature not unlike them—huge quartz eyes, webbed hands like that of a fish and a bit of scaly skin around the face and arms. Its ears were like that of an elf (the biggish creature always read to the smallish creature before it went to bed way when those creatures were first stealing from bookstores and libraries). It looked strange, but its cheerful smile coupled with its warm handshake and its kind arm around these creatures’ shoulders soothed the smallish creature’s anxiety.

“You’re not here to rewrite any law, are you?”

The creature laughed, and Soso giggled nervously.

“No! I’m here to…” The creature grabbed something off the shelf and started writing in it. When it was done, it put it back. “Make sure you guys never steal again.” The creatures’ eyes were wide. Their eyes slid up to each other, and they blinked slowly. “Uh…so you’re rewriting our lives so we don’t steal?”

“Duh!” The creature hopped back on its royal chair it said was a throne—

“We know. We read all the fairytale books—”

“You stole from us—”

“Yeah, and if you keep stealing, you’ll be locked up in a room with all the things you’ve stolen. You don’t want to just be in solitary confinement forever, do you?”

“No.” the creatures started backing away, waving their hands in front of them. “No—we’re, like, best friends—”

“Oh, starting to lie, aren’t we?”

“We’re…” The creatures looked at each other again. “We’re—”

“Going to find yourselves in that place all alone, with no one but yourself.” It looked at the smallish creature. “You want to lie to yourself? Oh, and the mirror’s reflection talks back to you. So you’ll be—”

“No!” the smallish creature hugged itself. “No. I’m much too gorgeous to lie to myself!”

“Yeah!” The biggish creature piped up. “We’re the only thieves among humans. That’s why we steal. Because we’re freaks.”

“Yeah, yeah!” The smallish creature’s eyes shone. “We’re…losers. We don’t fit into a world of humans. We’re wierdos. So when others see us steal, or see our stuff, we say ‘We’re wierdos. We deserve a little reality, right?’ and they relent.”

“Hm.”

“We have so much stuff—”

“Hm.”

The smallish and biggish creatures looked at the creature on its throne. Blinking, the two thought. Then they turned around. Walking through the doors, the smallish creature lamented, “Why don’t we matter?”

The biggish creature said something about stealing and lying. The smallish creature looked hard at it and then looked away, crossing its arms. It mimicked the writer’s voice perfectly.

“Ditch your lives, your friendship—”

“You know, Soso. We’re just taking things from people.” Returning from the throne room, the biggish creature tapped the book. “Look here. Whoever thieves their way through life will see their stuff no more. We’re losers. Remember when I rescued you from the pitiful trashcan you were abandoned in? I took you in, gave you a blanket and a pillow from the local nursery and raised you from your young days. We are partners, aren’t we? We can’t live in solitary confinement forever!”

The smallish creature wringing its hands. It tried calming its friend down, but the biggish creature wailed that they were too innocent to suffer such punishment. Suddenly, scrawling was heard. “Look!”

The now calm biggish creature saw.

Please understand that you two will be watched. By me. Thanks!

“The writer!” The biggish creature narrowed its eyes.

The smallish creature ran over to one of the glasses protecting the precious clocks, and tried clawing its way into the thing. But the biggish creature grabbed onto the smallish creature, and while the first creature yanked the second, the second held onto the first. Then, suddenly, after some cracking, both creatures got shot out backwards. When they landed, the creatures looked in horror at the glass falling and smashing into a thousand pieces.

“What…?”

The biggish creature started having panic attacks again, but the smallish creature ordered it to help it clean it up.

“Maybe we should go back and get our stuff! Maybe we should…”

They both looked at each other. “Duct tape!”

They dashed around, trying to find an exit. Write yourself out, the writer wrote in midair. The smallish creature did, scribbling madly with a hand. Then both creatures found themselves out of their book. They scrambled, grabbing some duct tape from their belongings, but someone cried out that that thing belonged to a hardware store. Cringing and promising to bring it back, the creatures raced back to the book in which they found themselves. Grabbing and stretching and putting the glass pieces together in hopes they’d actually fix the glass frame, they both carried it very carefully to the open case. Pushing it so that it fit right into its shape in the wall, the two creatures stood back after putting it in and breathed a sigh of relief. Then when the creatures high-fived and told the writer they’d get going, the writer said goodbye!

“That was awesome!”

The biggish creature said that they’d sit a spell and read some books, but the smallish creature nodded, saying they had to return the duct tape. “Right!” The creatures went for the book, but it was nowhere to be seen.

“What?” The biggish creature clenched its hands, the smallish creature warning it to stop panicking all the time. “We need—”

“Let’s just look for it.” The smallish creature’s stomach was turning to knots. Swallowing nervously, it continued through the city and little towns. Some people remembered it, hurrying away. Others flipped the Open sign to Closed. The dejected smallish creature trudged over to a nearby alleyway, hissing cats scurrying in all directions. Eyes down, its ears would fall if they were on top of its head. However, they weren’t, so the clawed creature just sat, pulling its clawed hands to itself as it wrapped them around its legs, its knees being a chinrest.   

The creature saw its reflection and then tore away. “No! I mustn’t break the rule. We must look at ourselves when we’re happy. After we’ve taken something!”

The creature heard something, and fled the scene. Geese flocked and waddled, the creature looking at them a minute. That clock. Time’s important. So if we stop it… It shook its head. “No. That’s ridiculous.”

The smallish creature saw the biggish creature, and it hopped up. Marching through honking and swerving traffic, the smallish creature ended up on the other side of the road on the sidewalk, and halted right in the path of the biggish creature. This creature glanced mournfully down. “What do we do?”

“I’ll tell you!” The glaring smallish creature jabbed the biggish creature’s stomach with a claw. “I’ll return all that stuff. And I’ll also avoid you—as much as possible.”

“What? Soso, we’ve been best friends—”

“I wish I never had been found by you. You taught me to steal. Now we’re in the mess we’re in. Because of you. Friends don’t lie to another!”

“You’ve agreed to it!”

“What’d you want me to do—starve out on the streets?” Then the smallish creature sighed. “You know, we’re both up to no good. Or used to. I used to. But you know what? It’s just no good. We’re not going to end up anywhere but in that confinement the writer was talking about. Besides, I don’t want to wander for the rest of my life. If this life was wasted, then I want to start over!”

The smallish creature packed up its things, gave them back and then yelled that the biggish creature could fix the dumb case itself. It was just something that was broken. It’d never look at itself again. It didn’t allow him to study himself. It was broken into a million pieces. It found the book, but when the biggish creature grabbed it, it fought with its former friend. “Give me the book! I need to return it—”

“Give me it! I want to return to the writing world so we can tell the writer that our laws are—”   

“We’re not going back there anymore!” The smallish creature finally yanked roughly, ripping the book right in half! The book was torn in two, one half in the claws of the smallish creature, and the other half in the hands of the biggish creature.

“Uh…” The biggish creature said dumbly.  

“Well,” the smallish creature made a face, “we duct tape it!” Grabbing the duct tape out of the back pocket of its jeans, the smallish creature stretched and aligned the tape so it went neatly over the book’s middle. “There!” The smallish creature dropped the book off in a library, knowing this place was the right place where it had been found. It paid for the damage, but the librarian took it anyway.

“See?” the smallish creature punched the brow-furrowed biggish creature. “It’s all okay!” Continuing through an alleyway, the smallish creature kept going, unlike the biggish creature. “Come on! What are you waiting for?”

“Uh…” The biggish creature said. “Um, Soso, stop walking.”

“Come on! We don’t have all day—”

“The writer’s right behind you!”

The smallish creature spun around nonchalantly. Asking whether the mirror had been fixed, the smallish creature looked back at his gaping friend with a smug facial expression after the writer had nodded.

“Yes—thanks to you!” The creature beamed.

 “See? Everything’s good.”

The smallish creature said it had returned all that it had stolen. The biggish creature saw the two’s smiles radiating like the world was lifted off their shoulders. The biggish creature, hands fisted and teeth clenched, marched up to the smallish creature, the pebbles crunching loudly under its feet. The biggish creature sarcastically ordered the smallish creature to go become a fish in a pond again.  

The smallish creature shook its head.

The biggish creature grabbed the smallish creature and threw it down onto a puddle. “Look—it’s you. It’s you, Soso! Don’t you want to study yourself?” The biggish creature forced the smallish creature’s face into the very shallow puddle. The smallish creature tried getting up, but the biggish creature pulled it up and shook it very hard. “Get with the program—”

“Stop!” The smallish creature shrieked. “Leave me alone.” But it had tears in its eyes. “Why?”

At a bar, it ordered a drink. Taking a sip, the smallish creature desired someone besides a flesh-and-blood person to live with it. That night, it studied itself in the mirror at its apartment. Yes, the reflection asked it, what are you going to do?

 “What should I do?”

“Stop looking in the mirror all the time!”

The creature whipped around. The biggish creature!

“What are you doing here?” The smallish creature raised a paw-like hand. “Get back!”

“I raised you.”

Then, the biggish creature asked to be shown to the door. Opening it and then watching the biggish creature leave, the smallish creature returned to its reflection.

“Even friends disagree.”  

But the smallish creature didn’t want to be lonely. The biggish creature—it was like a father to it. The smallish creature met the biggish creature on the street one night. The biggish creature pointed to some big cobalt, hot pink and lemon yellow stuffed bears staring back at them adoringly in the glass window of a store.  

“I thought we were best friends. Come on!” The biggish creature tugged his former friend’s arm. “Let’s go!”  

“No thanks.” The smallish creature jerked away and walked home.

Soon, a female smallish creature and it lived happily, marrying and…

Living their lives among people.