The Blue Coat Redemption

The same kid is still staring at me from across the dining hall. He's been doing this for the past few minutes. I'm not even sure he's blinked in all that time. Maybe he's dead.

The bell resonates throughout the ill-lit room to proclaim the start of afternoon lessons. I get up and head towards the creaking double doors that predate education itself.

"I understand you're a man who can get things," I hear a voice in my ear. It's that same kid.
"I've been known to locate certain things from time to time," I reply after a pause, slightly interested now in his undivided attention of me.
"How much two grey coursework folders, three highlighters, two yellow, one orange, a black biro and a Brunch Bar?" he asks from the list in his head. I do a quick mental calculation.
"£3.20" I reply, "You can have the pen free. Meet me on the maths corridor at 1:35 tomorrow."
"Thanks," he stammers ambivalently.

It seems business has been flourishing lately. I'm sometimes known as Red around the corridors of chaos that is my college. Last time I checked, selling things wasn't legitimate, although I prefer to call it swapping; cash for goods sort of thing.

The whole thing started a couple of years ago with the newly opened Home Bargains store opposite our school. Although I tend to use some other suppliers from time to time, generally for the more expensive and unusual types of double-ended Fair-trade green gel pens, this store has sewn the seeds of my of current business success.

Coupled with a qualification in Business Studies, I am set to do very well in my chosen area of school-based illegal activity. Others people have chosen more risky careers (generally the extroverts) such as theft, drugs and trying to avoid the dining hall queue system. There are only however, two and a half years left at my college and my turnover isn't exactly exciting. I now find myself regularly journeying over to the other side of the city just to get some cheap folders or writing implements from various warehouses. The problem now is that people are actually realising that it doesn't actually require that much effort to cross the road at the bottom of the hill and go into Home Bargains themselves. People now have the stamina and initiative to avoid my 15% mark-ups.

But, the real secret to my success is not just excellent salesmanship skills, high quality products or low, low prices, but scouting. Before buying anything more expensive than a bus ticket, I will always have a good look around every shop in the city that I can find that would sell a particular product. The same applies to supplies for others. When I have discovered the cheapest option for an item, I will constantly check back on all the other places just to make sure I haven't been getting ripped-off. Any savings will usually be passed onto me, unless particularly large or I need a quick sale, in which case I am my own sales executive with a bit of bartering power. As a Victorian sea merchant would say: "Arghh, I love a good deal!" (In the Sea Captain's voice from the Simpsons)

Thankfully, with everyone so busy and pre-occupied with coursework and detentions for queue-jumping, added to that the shear laziness of my customers, the profits should be bountiful and finance for a university degree secure.