My Unfair Godmother by Janette Rallison

spot—long black dresses and wimples. Very few of them sneak up on people.”
    He went back to staking out the parking lot. “Women,” he said with disgust. I wasn’t sure whether he was referring to me or nuns.
    I lowered my voice. “We need to talk. You see, you don’t need to rob anyone here. We have agencies that take care of the poor, and if you keep holding places up, someone will get hurt.” He didn’t look at me. He waved at some of the men, and they ran forward, still crouching and darting between cars. “Never worry, no harm shall come to me. I am more than a match for the menfolk here.

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    My arms will remain unbound and will hold you in their embrace soon enough, just as you wished.”
    Several of the men chuckled knowingly at that.
    My cheeks burned from embarrassment, but I kept my voice even.
    “I’m not worried about you —I don’t want you to injure anybody else .
    You’re attacking people who don’t carry weapons.”
    “Such foolishness is astounding,” he said. “But a fool and his money are soon parted. Our swords only speed the process.” The first two of Robin Hood’s men had reached the Walgreens’
    front entrance. They pressed themselves against either side of the door, looking inside.
    “Robin, this isn’t stealing from the rich and giving to the poor; this is just stealing.”
    Robin Hood glanced at the building behind us, a Laundromat. On the top of it, a Merry Man lay on his stomach, a bow in his hands. “Ah, but you’re wrong. Everyone here is rich, and my men and I are poor.
    It’s fitting we should relieve your village folk of some of their goods.” He motioned to the men nearest him, and then he and the men left their hiding places and sprinted toward the store doors.
    They timed their surge wrong, piling up at the entrance, and had to wait for the automatic door to open all the way before they rushed inside.
    I leaned my bike against a car and strode after them. When I walked into the store, Robin Hood already had his sword drawn and held it only inches away from a startled store clerk. He was a thin teenage boy who’d gone completely pale. The Merry Men walked along the aisles, dumping things into their sacks. A small group of shoppers were lined up, hands in the air, by the photo counter.
    Maybe some stories have more sway than fact. Maybe they carve themselves into our minds and slant the way we see things. Because 77/356
    even then, I saw Robin Hood as a hero, as someone who cared about right and wrong. I marched over and tried one more time to make him understand. “You’ve got to stop. This is wrong.” Robin Hood didn’t take his eyes off the clerk. The muscles in his arm flexed. “Hold your tongue, wench. I asked not for your blessing.” He moved his sword tip close to the clerk. “Your jewelry, my good man, hand it over forthwith.”
    The teenage boy held his hands up higher. “I don’t have any jewelry,” he croaked.
    I took a step closer to Robin Hood, frustration banging around inside of me. “You were supposed to be the good guy, the defender of the common people. But you’re not—you’re terrorizing innocent shoppers.”
    “Your beauty notwithstanding,” Robin Hood said, glancing at me for a moment before he turned his attention back to the clerk, “you had best hold your tongue before I’m tempted to hold it on the blade of my sword.”
    I let out an incredulous gasp. “You’re threatening me?” Friar Tuck snorted as he dumped a box of Snickers into his bag.
    “The lady is quick-witted as well as beautiful.” I opened my mouth to say more, but someone took hold of my arm and yanked me sideways. I turned, expecting to see one of the Merry Men. Instead Mr. Handsome Undercover Policeman had a hold on me. In his jeans and T-shirt, he had blended in with the rest of the shoppers who stood over at the photo counter, and I hadn’t seen him before. The police guy towed me over to the counter, keeping his gaze not on me but on