Short story – written by Aarav Singh, a grade 5 student.

So let me give a quick introduction about myself. I am a thief along with a group of some of my friends. We have had many successful robberies, with no losses! We have a lair under the city. (Well two of them) – one is just stacked with riches while the other is our base of operations. I had to give a quick introduction because we are actually in the middle of a heist.

We entered the enormous building stealthily, armed with pistols and rifles. Avoiding the cameras, we snuck in towards the vault. It was enormous! Four metre thick titanium door with sensors all over. Using our pistols and rifles, we disabled the cameras and sensors. An alarm blared in our ears. We needed to get out as soon as possible. We made it halfway before lasers appeared. There were at least 30 lasers intercrossing with each other. That was okay because we were skilled heist masters. The main problem was 3 lasers that shot lightning in an effort to kill us. It was hard to knock them out because if a bullet went through a laser, our location would be alerted to the lightning shooters.

We are in a pickle, not the kind that you eat. One of the lightning shooters was 10 centimeters from and I remembered something. I had a mirror. I stepped on a laser and the lightning shooter was just above me. I was attempting a suicide mission, what’s wrong? Nothing! I could see the ball of electricity gathering above my head. Beads of sweat gathered on my head. The lightning shot and I jumped back thrusting my hand in the position I stood in before. All eyes were on me. Well not all. Some got scared and closed their eyes. The force of the lightning just shattered the mirror. The plan failed.

I racked my brain for an idea and got one. It was another suicide mission. All my ideas are like that. I realized that the lightning shooters only shoot straight down. They also take time to charge the lightning bolt. Con about that for us is that moves really fast. So I had an idea of just running for it because even if we alerted it would stop to recharge and it would never shoot. We ran.

I alerted one quite a few times and it struck me. I stared in horror as the ball of lightning charged up as the shooter moved. It was 5 centimeters away when it shot the lightning. The mosaic tiles on the floor shattered under the sheer force of lightning. I was flung into the air because of the force. I hit the floor hard and that hurt. My friends had come to where I was, the exit. But they were armed. I looked up to see the NYPD standing us armed with assault rifles.

Look, I know we are bad people but we ain’t gonna kill some innocent people. I then realized them. They were our very own company’s tranquilizer dart gun. I took my own out of the holster. On my mark, my heist-mates fired. All hell broke loose at that moment. We were wearing full bulletproof gear, including masks. Because of that we were invulnerable to the bullets. We fired with marksman aim. All of our darts hit and the police just slumped to the floor. We ran out to find a surprise.

There were at least 6 choppers surrounding the building. I told my mates to distract the choppers and destroy them if possible. Me and three other mates ran to our cars and took out 15 rocket launchers for each one of us. I started by shooting down one of them. Bad idea. It exploded and all hell broke loose again. The other choppers flew in for a dive with the searchlights on. The gun men fired with machine guns. We didn’t even flinch. Having bulletproof clothing we were invincible. I knew we had to take the choppers out quick before new reinforcements came. We could not shoot the choppers when they were diving or else we would be affected too. Unfortunately, the gun men busted up our cars. We had no ride. We were trapped.

I told five of our group to lock pick at least seven cars. We knocked out all the choppers but reinforcements arrived. I had an idea. I told everyone to give me their grenades. I told them to get in the cars and drive away. It was a long shot. I did not know if I would even survive. I chucked all twenty grenades that I had at the police cars. I then ran for life and jumped into an Audi R8. I slammed the accelerator. The needle flew past hundred in three seconds. There was then huge ‘BOOM!’ The AUDI staggered. Every building in a 50 metre radius had their windows shattered. I remember looking back in the side-view mirror and seeing a seven car pile-up of flame. All other reinforcements were just somewhere else exploded. We had escaped, but just barely.

I knew we made a poor attempt. We had to practice a lot before the main heist, robbing the ‘JP Morgan & Chase.co’.  They have $3.21 trillion assets. While we all trained in the lair, I decided to see what we were up against. I entered as a normal tourist. There were at least 75 cameras in the main hall. Shooting them all before an alarm went off was impossible. Apart from that there were a hundred places from which lasers issued. I imagined it and there was only enough space for a coin to fit through. There was no control panel to turn the lasers on and off. Probably just time sensors. The vault was the problem. It had a face and a thumbprint recognition sensor. There were five cameras at each angle guarding the vault. There were three guards at the vault and at 100 in the main hall. That would be hard.

I do not know how long I was standing there because the assistant at the front desk asked if I was okay.  I’ll tell why she did not recognize me as the crime boss of the country. I had worn a disguise. Had I just come strolling in with my black leather jacket and Ray-Bans, I would not be able to stroll around. I would be shot on sight by the guards. Though I wore bulletproof attire inside, just in case. “Uh…um…I was just admiring your…uh…security system!” She seemed to look suspicious of me but she just exclaimed indifferently. I read her name tag, it said, ‘Lizzy’. Lizzy was a tall and fit woman. She had her Blonde hair tied up in a bun and she was clacking her keys on her computer. I asked her about the vault and she said that all staff prints work. I nodded at that and went away.

I spent days racking my brain for ideas. Separate ones came to my mind but they never clicked together. It struck my brain. It was perfect. It would require lots of work, but it will happen. First step, clear the bank. A person and I from the technical department created a flyer saying, ‘ALL GUARDS ARE REQUESTED TO GO HOME FOR TIME TO CHILL. ONLY LIZZY HAS TO STAY.’ It was a long shot but apparently the guards were as dumb as rocks. They went home happily chattering. First, the vault work. We went over and gagged Lizzy.

First, we got her thumbprint and then the iris recognition. We shot her with a tranquilizer dart then we opened one of her eyelids. We used a machine to scan the iris data and copy it.  That was the first step. We then got crates full of tranquilizer guns for each of the guards. We installed those. We then went to the control panel and synced it to my phone via Bluetooth. Our work was done. We had to wait for another day. We hopped in our cars and sped away.

Ok, so Lizzy just told the police about us. On the night of our strike, which is today, there was some extra security. Seven choppers circled the building; there were police cars everywhere and then extra guards. One problem was getting our pack in the bank. I wore a disguise of Lizzy so the guards should have been okay, but seeing my friends wouldn’t get them too happy. As soon as I saw the extra guards I knew what to do. I went to the back door. I told the guards to guard the front part of the building as that would be the only entrance for the thieves. They nodded and just ran away. I couldn’t help it but I snickered at their foolishness.

The guards grunted at me in a greeting. At that moment I pulled out my phone and switched the cameras off. After that, I fired the trigger the tranquilizer darts shot and the guards fell with a thud. As I stepped closer to the vault, sweat was building on my forehead. That would melt my mask off. That should not happen. I took a deep breath to calm down. I put my thumb on the sensor. It beeped in approval. I then opened my eye wide to the sensor. There was then a tick on that as well. Gas hissed and the vault door opened. We were in. The door then closed behind us.

Usually something always goes wrong when you are performing a heist. This time everything was going perfectly, almost too perfect. I checked my watch, only fifteen minutes left for us to rob. I told us all to grab as much as we can. We exited with five minutes on the clock before the guards woke up. We completed the heist with everything perfect. I spoke way, way, way too soon.

At the back door waiting for us was Lizzy, all of the NYPD and then the seven choppers. They were circling our escape vehicles. They were armed with rocket launchers. I stared at them, eyes almost popping out of their sockets. “You are not gonna dare shoot the vehicles. IT’LL KILL YOU!” I shouted over the noise. One of the guards and said, “Since when do you care, huh?” I rolled my eyes and shouted to my crew. “RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!” They did so but we were not fast enough. Lizzy shouted, “FIRE!!” as though she did not know the consequences. Apparently, she did know. She tore down the hallway faster than us.

The moment the rockets came in contact with our cars, it all exploded. I mean, you can’t blame us for carrying explosives. We are thieves on a heist we might need them. Since we carried a lot, the ‘BOOM!!’ factor went sky high. Multiply that with seven rockets, the whole of USA is dead. The explosion was huge. The helicopters and police cars were swallowed by flames and very soon we would be too. The explosion had shaken the society very hard. The windows shattered and stuff fell. But that was not the worst. The foundation of the building we were in was dead. The force shattered the whole thing, including the vault. (We grabbed a few more things)- the ceiling was crumbling and we had to run quick.

The floor ordered an earthquake with extra destruction. The floor shattered and we thrown all over. I mean, my gang took it well but I was slammed into a wall at an odd angle. I got up and looked at my body. I was cut and bleeding from all over. I sprinted to the exit while the others waited.

We all got into cars and whacked the accelerator. Mine actually broke. I was speeding past everyone and drifting a lot on corners. I then saw the building that we robbed collapse. It crushed 7 other buildings in its range. The shake tossed our cars 10 metres in the air. We had a rough landing, but I am happy to be alive.

We saw lots police cars, helicopters and rescue teams gathered at the building. We stepped on it and after fifteen minutes of driving we reached our headquarters. We all sat at tables, happily chatting about our success. I then thought, “Why did Lizzy help us?” She looked at me understood what I was thinking.

She walked over to my table and said in a whisper, “I know about your sister. She’s still alive.” I shook my head in frustration, “That is not possible. She is dead.”Lizzy just chuckled and said, “Is she really?” I widened my eyes and shook my head, “No it can’t…it just can’t…no that’s not possible.” Lizzy grinned and replied, “Yes it is, you knucklehead. You, Frank Lucas, are my elder brother.