Stealing the Game (13 page)

EVEN
though no one in the store was looking directly at me, it felt as if they were all secretly watching me. Like teachers at
their desks during a test, pretending to read a magazine or grade essays but out of the corners of their eyes always scanning the room for cheaters. That hopeful drool forming on their lips at the
thought of catching one.

I was as out of place as a quarterback suddenly pushed onstage in the middle of a ballet. Earrings, bracelets, and necklaces glittered and gleamed and sparkled on the walls like tiny fireworks.
Spinner racks of flavored lip gloss, bedazzled phone cases, and a bunch of stuff I couldn’t even identify crowded the small store so that you had to squeeze around them just to move through
the place.

I studied each customer with the fevered panic of a prisoner in the exercise yard who’d just been told that one of the inmates was coming for him with a sharpened toothbrush. Who would it
be?

Was that woman in the yoga outfit, who was holding up earrings to her ear and checking herself out in the mirror, actually watching my every move in the reflection?

Was the six-year-old boy fidgeting so much because he was bored waiting for his mom to select a bedazzled iPhone case, or because he was impatient to rat me out to the store manager?

Were the cute teenage girls with sparkling braces giggling over the enormous selection of mustache necklaces, or were they actually giggling over me and what I was trying to do?

Was everyone in the store today an undercover cop? FBI? CIA? Homeland Security?

So this is what being a criminal felt like: Extreme paranoia. Cold sweat. Thumping heartbeat. The strong need to pee.

I swallowed hard and wiped the sweat from my eyes. I also wiped the sweat from my hands on the back of my pants. I was sweating so badly that anything I picked up was likely to slip right out.
Would that cause me to be discovered and arrested? Would I end up in jail? Would the other inmates nickname me Sweaty the Shoplifter? What if my cell mates were Steve the Stabber or Carl the
Cannibal? How would Sweaty the Shoplifter survive against them? Not to mention Dave the Disembowler or Ben the Beheader.

Whewwwwwwww!

I took a deep breath, like I did before a basketball game. Calmed myself.

Brooke wandered around the store pretending to browse. Occasionally, she would lift her dark eyes and glare at me expectantly. Once she widened her eyes as if to say,
Do it already!

So I finally picked up something, a round copper bracelet with hearts engraved all around it, and examined it closely, like I was thinking how this would look on my imaginary girlfriend. All the
while I was wondering if I could get away with stuffing it down my pants and marching out the door.

Brooke nodded encouragement at this new step. Like a cheerleader at tip-off.

When we’d first walked into Accessory Depot half an hour ago, the tall man behind the counter had said, “Hi, Brooke. Your dad send you here to check up on me?” They’d
both laughed. Brooke had gone over to the counter to chat with the man. With his light blue shirt, dark blue tie, and shiny black shoes, he was clearly the manager. He looked about thirty and in
good shape. His bulging biceps pushed tight against his blue shirt. I might be able to outrun him in a flat race on the street, but if he ever caught me, he’d be able to snap me in two like a
wooden match.

I was pretty much against being snapped in two like a wooden match.

They’d talked in low voices while Brooke had signaled me with her hand behind her back to get to work. She’d even blocked his sight so he couldn’t see me. I’d appreciated
her distracting him for me and was about to jam a pair of sterling-silver mermaid earrings down my shirt when a girl I recognized as a senior at the high school came out of the back room carrying a
box full of jewelry. Her name was Janet Slovski, but everyone called her Goody.

I’d heard two versions of how she got her name. The first was that she’d once gotten an A on a history essay, then turned herself in for cheating because she felt she’d gotten
too much help on it from her mom, who was a history professor. The teacher had made her stay after school and write a new essay right there in class. She’d gotten an A on that, too. The
second version was that she’d gone to a beach party with Cameron Littlefield, a popular senior who thought he was cool because he interned at an alt-rock radio station. When she didn’t
want to kiss him after s’mores, even though everyone else was making out like their lips were on fire and the flames needed to be smothered, he started calling her Goody Two-Shoes.

It didn’t really matter which version was true. Maybe both. Maybe neither. Thing is, when did it become a bad thing to be good? I get that when somebody is really good it makes the rest of
us feel bad, like we’re not trying hard enough, and so instead of becoming good ourselves, it’s easier to pull the good person down. Like with Lex Luthor and Superman. In
Lex
Luthor: Man of Steel
, the thing that drives Luthor so crazy about Superman is that he’s an alien with enormous powers setting this example for the rest of us to live up to. Luthor thinks
it sets an impossible standard that just makes us all miserable. That we’d be better off looking to regular humans for models of goodness, like Martin Luther King Jr., and former president
Jimmy Carter, who builds homes for poor people. Maybe Lex has a point. On the other hand, maybe it’s better to see that even superheroes have flaws. Like my brother, Jax.

I wanted to say something nice to Goody, to let her know I was on her side. But once again, words seem to tumble around in my mouth like bingo balls rattling around in a cage, until finally it
spit out only one ball.

“Hi,” I said to Goody.

She looked up from her cardboard box, gave me a be-polite-to-all-customers-even-middle-school-boys-on-a-limited-budget smile, and said, “Hi.”

And that was it. Nothing had changed. I hadn’t improved her life.

So I went back to trying to steal and she went back to stocking shelves.

And now I had two sets of eyes to worry about, not to mention all the customers who were pretending to ignore me.

Which is why, after almost thirty minutes, I was still skulking around and Brooke was glaring at me to
Get it done already, moron!
Her glares were very articulate.

She was right. In terms of sweat alone, I was losing more moisture than my body could bear. I felt like I’d been playing full-court basketball for three hours instead of walking around an
accessory store for thirty minutes. I was probably two pounds lighter than when I’d arrived.

That’s when it occurred to me.

WWMTD?

What Would Master Thief Do?

I was pretty good at planning crimes. In my comics I’m always figuring every larcenous move, down to the last detail. Actually, planning a heist isn’t much different from coming up
with a game plan to beat an opposing basketball team. Just look at their strengths and weaknesses and act accordingly. For years, I’d been walking into stores and banks, figuring out their
security, imagining various ways to rob the places so I could write about it for Master Thief. Once I’d confessed my love of comics to Jax and shown him my stories, he’d started driving
me to various locations. Afterward, he’d take me out for ice cream sundaes and play cop to my robber, trying to poke holes in my plans. He made a pretty good cop, too, finding every weakness
and forcing me to come up with something even better. I missed those times more than I wanted him to know.

So why had I walked in here without thinking things through, mapping the place out first, observing every tiny detail, and then coming up with a plan? Instead, I’d allowed Brooke to
pressure me into doing the heist (okay, it’s shoplifting trinkets, but I’m calling it a heist anyway). She’d picked the time and place and was even acting as my accomplice.

WWMTD?

Take control of the situation.

I looked around the store. It didn’t take long to spot the security cameras in the corners. That’s because they wanted you to see those. They were meant to discourage the amateur
thief short on allowance or looking for a thrill. The real danger was the hidden security cameras in the ceilings. (Part of my research for my Master Thief comic was reading about security systems.
A lot.) There would be one above the cashier island in the middle of the store, in order to keep an eye on the cash register, making sure the employees weren’t pocketing any cash. And there
would be two fisheye lenses—one at the front of the store above the entrance door, and one at the back above the rear exit. That covered almost all the store.

Almost.

I put the copper bracelet back and waited. I couldn’t wait much longer or I would be suspicious just for being in here so long. Most guys didn’t tend to dawdle in accessories
stores.

Brooke looked up from the display of colorful earbuds and screwed up her face into a combination glare and frown that meant,
Are you the lamest boy in the world?
Or something like
that.

I ignored her and inspected some earrings that had both peace symbols and tiny silver guns. I guess it was meant to be ironic or something.

It was weird, but I no longer felt shaky or had to pee. I’d stopped sweating. I was still scared, but in a different way. In a way that was exciting. Like when I’m dribbling down the
court and the double team is clamping on me, and my teammates are all being swarmed, and suddenly I see just the tiniest possible opening. Maybe, just maybe, if I juke to the right and spin to the
left and duck under and pivot twice…In real life, that almost never works, but that tingly feeling you have when you see it all, know it’s probably going to fail, but decide to try it
anyway…that’s how I felt.

That’s how Master Thief would feel.

And we both liked it.

Then what I’d been waiting for happened. The manager and Goody were both ringing up sales for customers at the same time. Yoga Lady had decided earrings that looked like gold suns were
right for her. And the two Giggly Girls each bought matching mustache necklaces that made them BFFs. Then they saw a fishbowl filled with various-flavored lip gloss and couldn’t decide which
flavors would be best. Goody cheerfully explained the flavors to them. “The Dreamsicle tastes like a fifty-fifty ice cream bar,” Goody said.

That’s when I walked over to the one-foot strip on the wall that was a blind spot from the security cameras and from the manager and Goody. I lifted both hands as if trying to grab the
stuffed blue monkey from the top shelf. As I reached high, I used my right hand to brush three pairs of earrings into my left arm sleeve. The small squares of plastic they were attached to slid
down the sleeve of my hoodie, feeling like hard-shelled insects skittering against my skin. When they reached my armpit, I clamped down, pinning all three pairs under my arm. Then I stuck my hand
in my pocket, twisted slightly, and let them slide back down my arm and into the pocket of my hoodie.

Master Thief had scored!

Brooke was trying on a barrette with a big yellow flower attached. It was way too cheerful for her taste, yet it looked good on her. I quickly grabbed her comic book bag from the counter and
said, “Time to go.”

“You done shopping?” she asked in way that let me know what she really meant: had I chickened out?

“Done,” I said.

She smiled, took her bag of comics from me, and I picked up my backpack from the front of the store, where there was a sign ordering customers to leave them. Together we nonchalantly walked out
of the store and into the bustling noise of the mall.

It could have been a cool slow-motion movie moment, like in
Ocean’s 11
,
12
, and
13
, when they bust the casinos.

Except…

Except the manager followed us out the door and grabbed my arm.

He was just as strong as I’d thought he’d be. There would be no pulling free from that grip and making a run for it.

“
EXCUSE
me, sir,” the manager said firmly. I could smell his peppermint breath mint and tangy Axe body spray. He had a
three-day stubble. He seemed like the kind of guy who always had a three-day stubble, like he imagined himself living in a cologne ad.

“Yes?” I said innocently. “Did I drop something?”

His answer was to tighten his grip on my arm until the bones shifted.

Touché.

“I’m going to have to search you, sir,” he said. His grip was making my arm go numb.

My mind suddenly started wondering: what would I call him if he were a supervillain?

Miami Vice Grip?

Edward Pliershands?

The Crushinator?

Rumple-stubble-skin?

“Sir, please turn out your pockets,” he insisted.

“I don’t understand,” I said, furrowing my brow to show confusion.

“You were observed shoplifting.”

I gasped, just like on TV, when joggers discover a body in the brush. It’s not that hard to do and does add nice dramatic flair. Being a successful Master Thief requires some basic acting
skills.

“There must be some mistake,” I said. Cue the angry scowl.

“No, sir,” he said, his voice getting lower and more menacing. The polite veneer was starting to shed like a collie in July. Even his stubble looked threatening.

“That’s impossible,” I said, raising my voice. My heart seemed to have migrated from my chest to right behind my eyes. Each rapid heartbeat felt like it was kicking against my
eyes, making them bulge like a squeeze doll’s.

“Drop the innocent act, kid,” he growled. “I’ve already called the cops.”

“Fine,” I said. I handed him my backpack. He searched through it and found nothing. He dropped it on the ground.

Mall shoppers were slowing to watch the excitement.

“See?” Brooke said. “Nothing.”

“The hoodie,” he said, pointing at my pockets.

I didn’t move.

He growled, “Now, I’m going to look in your jacket one way or the other. And you won’t like the other.”