Stealing the Game (12 page)

But today she wore jeans, a maroon hoodie, and a purple Lakers cap pulled down low so you couldn’t see the face. No fancy clothes, no jewelry, no black leather briefcase.

She walked quickly away from the comic book store as if afraid she was being followed.

She was.

By me.

LOOK
,
I’m not going to make lame excuses here. It’s probably pretty evident that, for some reason I didn’t know,
I liked Brooke. Everyone agreed that she was one of the prettiest and smartest girls in the school. Sure, that was part of the reason. But there was something else about her. Like, even though she
was rich and pretty and smart, she didn’t have any friends at school. Not for lack of other kids trying. They were always inviting her to do stuff, join clubs, or just hang out. But she must
have figured they just wanted to be friends because she was super rich. She supposedly lived in this amazing mansion that everyone was dying to see. But no one had ever been invited. No play-dates,
sleepovers, birthday parties. Nothing.

Like me, she seemed to have a secret life.

I didn’t want to visit her mansion. I just liked the way her mind worked. The way she knew most of the answers in English class. The way she was so confident when she spoke. How she
didn’t care what anyone else thought of her, not even the teachers or principal.

Once Principal McDonald popped into English class to talk about this Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. Apparently, he was some sort of expert on the guy. He kept going on about this poem, “Do Not
Go Gentle into That Good Night,” about how you shouldn’t just give in to death, but “rage against the dying of the light.” Which means fight against dying. Principal
McDonald was being all passionate and poetic and stuff when suddenly Brooke says, “Thomas was only thirty-seven when he wrote that. What did he know about death?”

Even Principal McDonald was stunned, mostly because, as middle school kids, we never, ever talk about death or dying—unless it’s someone in the news, like a celebrity, and then only
with the word
tragic
stuck on somewhere. Or in a Hallmark card kind of way, like when someone’s grandparent dies and everyone asks how old he or she was, because if they were old,
then it’s supposed to be okay.

Principal McDonald stuttered at first, then said, “Well, he was writing about his father dying. He wanted him to fight against it. To live.”

“Why?” Brooke said. “Maybe that should be his father’s decision?”

I don’t remember what Principal McDonald said after that, but it was something to quickly change the subject. I don’t think he wanted a bunch of angry parents calling him later,
asking why he was being so morbid in English class with a bunch of thirteen-year-olds. See, we’re not supposed to know about anything sad until it sneaks right up on us, leaving us completely
unprepared. I mean, we read all these things in school about racism and bullying, but nothing about the other stuff we’re going through. When Peter Parker isn’t swinging around as
Spider-Man, he’s dealing with more crap at home than we read in
Romeo and Juliet
or
To Kill a Mockingbird
. Sometimes I think we’d be better off if English teachers
just passed out comic books and showed us John Hughes films every day.

Maybe that’s why I liked Brooke. Because of that day in English class.

(And, did I mention how pretty she was?)

“What’d you get?” I said as I walked up beside her.

She swung her head around, glared at me, and said, “What’d
you
get? A broken nose?”

Crap! Even though I was still holding the ice bag against it, I’d forgotten about my swollen nose. This is not how I wanted to look the first time I spoke to her alone. Too late.

“I don’t think it’s broken,” I said casually.

She nudged the bag away so she could see it better. Her glare softened as she examined my damaged face. “Nah. Nose is still straight, so it’ll probably be fine once the swelling
comes down and you look less like a pumpkin.”

I laughed.

She looked surprised at my laughter, like she’d expected me to get all mad and start yelling at her. Almost like she would have preferred that. Now she just looked uncomfortable.

“So, what’d you buy?” I said, nodding at her bag, hoping to relax her.

“Nothing,” she said. She started walking away.

I followed.

“Bet you I can guess,” I said.

She slowed down. “Go ahead,” she said. I knew she’d like a challenge.

“Uh…” I had no idea. Guessing which comics someone reads is trickier than you think. Guess wrong and they could be seriously insulted.
You think I’d read that
immature crap?!
But I was stuck now. I tried to back out gracefully. “Actually, I haven’t a clue what you’d read. I’m surprised you read comics at all.”

“Why?”

Oh, man, another trap. There was no winning with this girl.

I shrugged and went to my default setting: silence.

“Do you think I’m too intellectual, too snooty, only read Shakespeare?”

I repeated my silence, only with more emphasis.

“Or you think only cool kids read comics. And therefore I’m not cool enough.”

I sighed. “Can’t you just tell me and save all this talk for later?”

She almost smiled. She pointed to a nearby Burger King and I followed her to a table outside.

“Want a Coke or something?” I offered. I had just enough money for one drink, as long as she wanted nothing bigger than a medium.

“No thanks.” She plopped her bag of comics on the table. It was pretty thick. “Okay, guess. What did I buy?”

“I thought we were past this.”

“You thought wrong. Guess.”

I tried to see through the bag, but the white plastic was too thick. What the heck, I finally decided. I had nothing to lose. If I made her mad and she stalked off, I was no worse off than
before.

“Archie,” I said. “Or Veronica and Betty. Something in the Archie universe.”

She showed no expression. “Go on.”

I concentrated. What would I read if I was a girl? Wonder Woman? She-Hulk? Spider-Girl? Bomb Queen? Batwoman? Catwoman? Jennifer Blood? Scarlet? I tried to think of other girl characters.

But then I looked at Brooke’s face. A slight smug smile had crept onto it, like she knew what I was thinking and couldn’t wait for me to be wrong. Just like in the classroom.

I didn’t want to hear her laughing at my mistake, so I thought harder. Forget she’s a girl. Think about who she is besides that. She’s smart, funny, tough. Sarcastic.

“Deadpool,” I said.

Her smirk twitched. “Why Deadpool?”

“He’s funny, crazy, talks to the reader. Lots of pop culture references, which you would get.”

No expression now. Like looking at a backboard. “Go on.”

“Maybe Sherlock Holmes, because you’d like the challenge of solving a mystery.” I shrugged. “That’s all I’ve got.”

She opened the plastic bag and slid out her comics, except for one, which she left in the bag. She fanned the comics on the table. Deadpool was on top.

“Score one for you,” she said. She pulled out a Batwoman, whose long red hair seemed to dominate the cover. “You look surprised,” she said, not hiding her glee.

“I didn’t think you’d be into superhero types. Seemed more like something you would mock.”

“Technically, she’s not a superhero, because she doesn’t have superpowers.”

“Yeah, but she does stuff beyond what a normal person could do. And without all of Batman’s gadgets, because she doesn’t have Bruce Wayne’s family money.”

She looked surprised. “So, you read Batwoman?”

Was this a trap? Was she trying to discover whether I had a sensitive side? “When I was younger. Not since she got red hair.”

“She’s gay now. Batwoman has a girlfriend.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. Was she telling me this because she was gay and wanted to see how I would react? I tried to think of what to say to show her I was cool with it without
also showing I would be disappointed if she didn’t like guys.

“I’m not gay,” she said.

“I didn’t say anything. It’s cool either way.”

She laughed. One of the other comics was a Sherlock Holmes. One was the Walking Dead. She shrugged. “What can I say? I’m just a girl who likes zombies.”

“But not the fast ones like in
World War Z
or
Dawn of the Dead
, right?”

“Absolutely not! Fast ones are shocking, but slow ones are scary, because you know that someone’s going to get overconfident around them and then…” She made a zombie
face and bared her teeth as if she was going to bite me.

I laughed. So did she.

“Wow,” I said, “we’re having a
Breakfast Club
moment.”

Oh, crap! I had just reminded her that I solved the riddle and won Mr. Laubaugh’s DVD.

See, that’s why I usually don’t say anything. Safer that way.

But Brooke just shrugged. “Don’t get carried away, Richards. We’re not bonding. I just like watching you hold ice to your face so I can see you suffer.”

I lifted the opening of her shopping bag to see the final comic. She slapped her hand down on it. “If I’d wanted you to see it, I would have pulled it out with the others.”

“Too late,” I said. “I saw it. It’s an Archie.”

She sighed. “Not just any Archie, moron. A speculative Archie.” She pulled it out of the bag. It was oversize and thick. “It’s a what-if issue with two stories. What if
Archie marries Betty, and what if he marries Veronica. And it deals with important grown-up issues, like divorce and betrayal and losing one’s job.…” She stopped talking, as if
afraid that anything else she said would make things worse. But actually, I found that particular selection somehow touching. I didn’t know why, but it made me like her even more.

“I’ve got to go,” she said suddenly, and started shoveling her comics back into the bag.

I didn’t want her to go. For one thing, I didn’t want to go home and face my lying brother. I still hadn’t figured out what to say to him or whether I should tell my parents
what Theo had discovered. I also didn’t want to face my parents’ sickeningly enthusiastic campaign to make me Stanford material. Would there now be a Stanford pennant on the wall above
my bed?

And I certainly didn’t want to explain what had happened to my face.

“I draw comics,” I blurted out. She was the first person—other than Jax—I’d told that to, and she didn’t even like me.

“Oh?” she said. She laid her hands on top of her bag and waited for me to continue.

So I told her about Master Thief and how I couldn’t figure out what powers to give him and that I sucked at drawing, so all my characters looked like something you’d find scribbled
in crayon on a kid’s mat in a restaurant.

“Master Thief, huh?” she said. I couldn’t tell if she was making fun of me or really interested.

I just nodded.

“Ever steal anything?” she asked, a strange smile creeping across her face.

“No.”

“How are you going to understand the mind of a thief if you’ve never experienced the thrill and danger of actually doing it yourself?”

“I’m pretty sure Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster never flew or had bullets bounce off their chests, but they still did a good job.”

“The original Superman didn’t fly,” she said. “He leaped over buildings. It wasn’t until 1941, two years after his first appearance, that he could fly.”

Remind me what I liked about her again? Man, she was frustrating.

“My point is,” I said slowly, trying to keep the frustration out of my voice, “a good writer imagines things without having to do them.”

“I don’t think Ernest Hemingway would agree.”

All I knew about Hemingway was that he did a lot of things he wrote about: hunted for lions, fished for marlin, fought bulls. I couldn’t chance a literary debate. She’d easily win. I
changed the subject. “Did you ever steal?”

“As a kid, I shoplifted some candy from a 7-Eleven. And a scrunchie from Nordstrom. No major felonies.”

“Did you get caught?”

“Nope.” She grinned wickedly. “So which one of us is the real Master Thief?”

I didn’t say anything.

She frowned at me. “So, how does this whole silence-is-golden thing work with you? Anytime you get outthought or outwitted you just clam up?”

I clammed up.

“And then what? People get bored and move on?”

Pretty much, I thought, but didn’t say anything. Bored yet?

“I’ve got an idea,” she said excitedly, like she’d just invented peanut butter. “Let’s go to a store and you can shoplift something. That will help you get
into your character better.”

I laughed, because I thought she was kidding. Then I realized she wasn’t.

“I don’t want to steal,” I said.

“It doesn’t have to be anything expensive. It can be anything, even a candy bar. Then once you’ve made it outside the store you can give it back. Just tell them you forgot you
had it.”

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that this is a really bad idea. If it were a movie, everyone in the audience would be saying, “Don’t do it, Chris!”
because this is the part of the story where the good guy (me!) gets caught and his life is forever ruined.

On the other hand (just hear me out), she had a point. Maybe I was stuck with my comic because I didn’t really know what it felt like. I mean, I could plan the perfect heist, but that was
all on paper. I didn’t know firsthand the kind of adrenaline-pumping, heart-stopping, am-I-going-to-prison feeling.

And, like she said, I’d give it right back afterward. Technically, that wasn’t even stealing. More like borrowing.

“I just thought of something else,” she said. “We can go to the Accessory Depot over at the Tustin Marketplace.”

“Accessory Depot?”

“They sell accessories like earrings, bracelets, smartphone covers, barrettes, stuff like that. My dad is a part owner, so if you get caught, I can explain it to the manager. No harm, no
foul. Sound good?”

I looked at her bright smile and said, “Sure, okay.”

And off we went to my first heist.