The Thursday Shop

The extra Thursday cost seventy pounds.

“It goes between Wednesday and Thursday,” the woman behind the counter explained. “Nobody else notices it. Nothing you move stays moved. Nothing you break stays broken.”

“What can I keep?”

“Anything you learn.”

Ben paid.

He had watched the jeweller across the street for six weeks. An entire day inside the shop, with no consequences, would tell him everything: where the alarm panel stood, which drawer held the keys, how long the rear door took to unlock.

At midnight, the city went pale.

Ben walked through the jeweller’s front door. Its lock yielded to a hairpin after forty minutes of effort. He wrote that down.

The alarm began screaming.

He waited. No police came.

He found the safe, tried four combinations and gave up. Behind the counter stood a framed photograph of a little girl holding a violin. Beside it lay a sandwich wrapped in yesterday’s newspaper.

He had expected a more impressive criminal education.

At three, bored and hungry, he wandered into the music shop next door.

A piano stood open by the window.

Ben sat down and found the beginning of a tune his sister used to play. Three notes were right. The fourth stubbornly wasn’t.

He tried again.

By morning, he could manage the first line.

By lunchtime, he had stopped checking the jeweller’s back door.

There were instruction books on a shelf. He worked through finger numbers, laughed at a drawing meant for children, and discovered that his left hand seemed to belong to somebody who disliked him.

At eleven that night, he played the tune all the way through.

Slowly. Badly in two places. But through.

When the ordinary Thursday arrived, Ben stood outside the jeweller’s. The front door was locked again. His notebook was blank.

His fingers remembered.

He went next door.

The music-shop owner looked up from a delivery slip.

“Can I try that one?”

“Of course.”

Ben played. Halfway through, his left hand failed him. He stopped, started again and reached the end.

“How long have you been learning?” the owner asked.

“Since yesterday.”

She looked doubtful.

He pointed to a card advertising evening lessons.

“Do you take complete beginners?”

“You’re not quite a complete beginner.”

Outside, across the street, the Thursday shop had disappeared.

Ben checked his wallet. Eight pounds remained.

He asked the price of a lesson, winced, and then noticed the music shop’s other card.

Saturday help wanted. Heavy lifting involved.

He took that one to the counter too.