Dear Chief Inspector LePlouef

 

I hope you don’t mind me writing to you but I’m your biggest fan, even though I know you hate me.

 

After all, it’s because of you that I’m locked up here in Albania at the Mount Zlog Prison for Girls who Happen to be International Jewel Thieves. They say it’s impossible to escape. The prison was carved out of the very mountain itself. My cell is a cage dangling from the cave roof where 10,000 roosting vampire bats poo on me in great abundance. There’s only one entrance and it’s guarded by no fewer than 14 dogs, each more ferocious than the last (or less ferocious, depending on which dog you start counting from).

 

Anyway, I thought I owed it to you to explain how I became quite simply the finest jewel thief in the world. Maybe that way you’ll forgive me for all the years you spent trying to arrest me.

 

I have no memory of not being a thief. When other kids were online gaming or playing on monkey bars, I would be working out how to steal stuff.

 

I stole my first piece of jewellery when I was four. My parents and I were grocery shopping when I saw this pretty bracelet worn by an old lady. I removed it without her noticing. When we got home, I showed my parents what I’d accomplished and they freaked out. They took me straight back to the supermarket and gave the bracelet to the manager. When we returned home, they found I’d stolen the manager’s Swiss watch, had re-stolen the bracelet and confiscated a Snickers bar on the way out.

 

Probably it was just a phase I was going through, had it not been for my parents.

 

You see, I only stole stuff that was worth stealing and more importantly, I never, ever got caught in the act. Over time, they realised that having a child who was a natural thief and criminal genius has certain advantages. So they stopped scolding me. And they stopped returning the loot.

 

At age six, I started to lose interest in stealing and told them I wanted to become a human rights lawyer when I grew up, but they told me that only silly, bad people become human rights lawyers and that only good and clever people become international jewel thieves. I believed them and carried on stealing.

 

At age nine, I had stolen so much gear that we were super rich. My parents retired and took me out of school so I could focus on my thieving. They started ‘home schooling’ me, by which I mean they brought in ex-criminals and military-types to teach me how to abseil off buildings, use tranquiliser darts, set explosives, crack safes, disable alarm systems, and crawl through air ducts. (If you’re an international jewel thief and you’re not crawling through air ducts a lot, you’re doing it wrong).

 

It isn’t easy though having to support your parents. My parents had used my money to buy a mansion on Sydney Harbour and there they lazed about all day, taking their lifestyle for granted just like children do. You get resentful, coming home from a difficult job to find them mucking about in the pool or jumping around like baboons on their very-own bouncy castle. They were also spending less and less time with me. Instead they were ‘rekindling their relationship’ or ‘pursuing their dreams’ and other crazy stuff.

 

As punishment, I framed them for one of my heists. They’re now both serving five years in jail. Was that wrong?

 

Anyway, I was getting lonely. But then I found out that you had been assigned to arrest me. You! The world’s most famous jewel thief hunter, Chief Inspector Lulu LePlouef of Interpol – the famous international police organisation. The woman who tracked down the notorious Silver Slipper whose lair was on the island of Borneo and who had trained an army of homicidal orangutans. And the Serpent who used a super-intelligent python called Scaly Joe to steal some of the biggest diamonds in the world. But you got them both!

 

At last I had a worthy adversary. Someone with the resources of every police force in the world at her disposal. Someone who, unlike my parents, took a really keen interest in me. Not that we’ve ever met, but I’ve always known where I stood with you. You wanted me behind bars. You understand the huge importance of boundaries.

 

And you did find me, didn’t you? Even though it did take three years. I’m sorry that the stress of constantly failing to find me gave you that nervous tic, and the stutter and the broken marriage. Also the drooling and the dizzy spells and the night terrors and the paranoia. You always thought I was watching you, or was hacking your emails. How hilarious, because of course I was!!!

 

This letter probably won’t help. Because I have a confession to make. I let you arrest me. That tip-off you received about me breaking into the Tower of London to steal the Royal Family’s Crown Jewels was from me!

 

Why did I let you? Because you deserved it. I knew your career was on the ropes because you couldn’t find me, and I really wanted to see that look of triumph on your face as you finally, finally, finally put me in handcuffs.

 

Though that look of triumph turned out to be more a look of confusion followed by shock followed by humiliation. Because the international jewel thief you’d been hunting for so long – so much longer than you had the Slipper or the Serpent – turned out to be an 13-year-old Australian girl with fetching blonde pigtails.

 

That was probably why instead of being promoted for collaring me you were actually demoted. What with the newspapers saying things like ‘Idiot cop finally arrests small child’. So embarrassing …

 

Which brings us back to the Mount Zlog Prison for Girls who Happen to be International Jewel Thieves. I’ve been here three weeks now, and I confess I’m a little bored. I am after all the only inmate, and the pooing bats, the nasty dogs and the Albanian guards are poor company. Which is why you’re reading this – my farewell letter. It was, as you know, found on the bed in my empty cell. I am as you read this hundreds if not thousands of kilometres away, relaxing on a beach, toying with the Cullinan diamond. Yes, the one I prised out of the Queen’s Crown. Though the fake one I left behind looks just like the real thing. If people don’t look too closely.

 

But take heart. If anyone could have properly caught me, it would have been you. And I’m sure you’ll do well taking your puppet round to schools explaining stranger danger to seven-year-olds. Wow, that really was a demotion wasn’t it?

 

But you mustn’t blame yourself. You really mustn’t.

 

Love

​

Cleopatra Munchkin-Smith (aka The Golden Mandrake)

​

​