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“Right. So a kid came in wearing a gray hoodie, closed up tight. I could barely see his eyes. No one was in the store but me.”

I jotted a few notes. “Tell me about your interactions with him.”

“He put a Snickers on the counter and then said that if I wanted to live I should give him all the money in the register.”

“He held a gun on you?”

“No, but there was one in his pocket. I thought he was faking me out, so I told him to go to hell. Next thing I know there’s a bullet in the floor, and I’m tap-dancing.”

I looked behind me at the very noticeable mar in the black and white linoleum. “How’d that happen?”

“Got me.” He scratched the back of his head. “Thing went off, I guess. Shit. I about jumped out of my shorts.”

Ty took a long pull from his straw as he sidled up next to me. “No lime.”

“I gathered.”

“Blueberry works, though.” He held it up to the manager. “Pumped you have more than cherry, bud. Good lookin’ out.”

The employee offered a fist bump, which Ty reciprocated. “I got you.”

I broke up the new bromance. “Okay, so the gun went off. There’s the hole in the floor. Then what happened?”

“Once he shot, the kid took off. I think he scared himself to death. Ran down the street like a little bitch. Didn’t even take the Snickers.”

“So a botched robbery. Anything stand out to you?” This was going nowhere, which was to be expected, but I was really hoping to come back with something for Kristin. Prove myself on my first time out.

“Other than the fact that his name was stitched on his damn backpack. Who does that? Robs a store with their name on their bag?”

Interesting. “What was the name?”

“Seth. Big letters. I bet he runs with a group of kids that are in here a lot. They don’t have much to do and get into trouble. It’s a fucked-up cycle that really speaks to the decline of our community in the face of near recession.Freakonomicsat work.”

Huh. I hadn’t seen the insight coming. And Seth was such an innocuous name. Why couldn’t he have been Razorblade or Muppet Man or Mooch. Anything memorable. “Mind if we talk to you on camera now?”

He puffed up like a D-list celebrity who’d just been recognized. “Not at all. Think the other stations will be by?”

I didn’t. There was no story here. For a city the size of San Diego, an accidental bullet in the floor of a would-be robbery scene was not a big deal. Caroline was right. I should have fought for something meatier. That was on me. My only chance of salvaging this thing was to play up the emotion of the incident, get the manager to explain his fear, and focus on the happy ending tied in a neat little bow with a Snickers on top. Even then, the only chance the piece would see air was if it was the slowest news day ever.

“Anything good?” Mila from assignments asked when I called in. She’d be gathering up all potentials and helping the producers understand what stories they had coming in.

“Not a lot here. No,” I told her honestly.

“Okay. I’m gonna send you to the council meeting, then. You have maybe thirty minutes to get over to City Hall. Room three. Can you swing it?”

“Yep.” I closed my eyes and nodded, cringing because of the mundane nature of the coverage. Hell, they didn’t even need a reporter there, just Ty with a question or two in his back pocket should they need a sound bite. I pushed through the afternoon, feeling defeated and silly for arriving with a whimper.

“Hey, new kid. You’ll get ’em next time,” Ty said and bopped me on the shoulder. He lifted his camera. “Gonna get started editing the convenience store footage, just in case.”

“I wouldn’t waste too much time on it,” I said with a sigh. There was something about his energy that I liked, though. Goofy, but at the same time steady and confident. I felt like I could count on Ty, which was what you wanted in a partnership.

“How’d that robbery thing go?” Carlos asked with a grin, leaning against my desk as I sat with a sigh.

“Not much there,” I said honestly. “And the smelly birds?”

“Total infestation. Great visuals of the flocks hanging in the trees, bird crap everywhere, and some testimony from some really irate homeowners, one in a bathrobe. They’re running with it at five and likely ten, too.”

“Nice,” I said, half-heartedly.

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