The Classy Crooks Club (12 page)

Brianna nods, but I can tell she's impressed. “Totally,” she says.

Sabrina and Elena are staring at us with wide eyes. “You guys have been on private jets?” Elena asks. “You're so lucky!”

I really don't want her to ask me what a private jet looks like on the inside, so I shrug and look down like I'm embarrassed by how good I have it. “It's really not as exciting as it sounds,” I say.

“So, what are you wearing to the gala?” Brianna asks. It's the first time she's ever sounded truly interested in something I have to say, and it's pretty unnerving to have her full attention. What is
happening
right now? I'm trying to make her jealous of me, and it seems like I'm just making her like me more. Maybe I need to step up my game.

“Oh, I'm getting something new,” I say. “Everyone knows you can't wear the same gown in public twice.”

Brianna snorts out a laugh. “Yeah, seriously. You wouldn't want to look like
someone
we know.” To my dismay, she looks very pointedly at Maddie, and the other Bananas snicker. I glance over at my best friend and see that her face is turning bright red.

What am I supposed to do now? I want to stand up for Maddie, but that'll derail this whole gala conversation, which I started completely for Maddie's sake. Since the whole “make Brianna jealous” thing was her idea, I figure I should stick with that, so I don't say anything.

“You should get something that sparkles,” Brianna says. “It'll look really elegant in the candlelight. And you should wear your hair up—that way you'll look older. My mom's stylist did mine kind of like this for the last gala. . . .” Brianna twists up her long, thick rope of hair and turns around to show me the result. “There were rhinestone pins here and here and here.”

“What color dress do you think you'll get?” asks Sabrina.

My mind races, grasping for something, anything, that'll put snotty Brianna in her place. “Probably blue, since my grandmother says I can wear one of her sapphire necklaces,” I say. “She says it'll bring out my eyes.”

“Too bad you don't have your ears pierced,” says Brianna. “I have some sapphire earrings you could've borrowed.”

“Thanks for the offer, but I'm sure I'll have plenty of jewels without them.” I toss my hair and try to make a haughty face at her. “I mean, it's not like I care about looking nice for the crusty old people at the benefit, but Stanley's driving me there, soooo . . .”

All three of the Bananas giggle. “He really is cute,” Brianna says. “You're so lucky you get to hang out with him all the time.”

I did it
. Brianna Westlake actually admitted she was jealous of me! I look over at Maddie, sure she's going to be loving this whole exchange, and I'm surprised to find her gone—she's a little ways down the fence, laughing at something with Amy. I didn't even notice her getting up. When I catch her eye, she turns right back to Amy without even the smallest smile.

For a second, I wonder if she's mad about the “not wearing the same dress twice” comment. But she can't think I was actually being serious. She knows I don't care about dresses and that the only jewelry I ever wore was the bracelet she made me, before Fireball destroyed it. I tell myself it was a coincidence that she got up when she did; maybe Amy called her over and I didn't hear. But as Elena taps my shoulder and asks if I'm going to wear heels to my imaginary gala, I can't help feeling like I've done something wrong.

Maddie and I don't get to talk at all during practice. Coach Adrian's drills are tougher than usual today, and he makes us run suicides, back and forth and back and forth across the field until we're too winded to say anything. He finally lets us scrimmage at the end of the day, and he names Amy one of the team captains. I'm relieved when she picks me first and Maddie second, and as soon as my best friend jogs over to our side of the field, I approach her and touch her shoulder. “Hey,” I whisper. “You know I wasn't serious about any of that stuff I said earlier, right?”

Maddie glances up at me. “What do you mean?”

“There's no gala or ice sculptures or new phone or anything—I made it all up. I would never wear sapphires or go dress shopping with my grandmother. I mean, can you even imagine? I was just trying to make Brianna jealous, like you told me to.”

“
Oh
,” Maddie says. She looks as relieved as she did that time she got a B on a geography test she thought she'd failed, and something in my chest releases. “I thought . . . I mean . . . wow. Okay. You were really convincing.”

“I think she totally bought it. Did you see her face when I was talking about Stanley? She flat-out said she was jealous of me.”

“I didn't hear that part,” Maddie says. “So, if there's no gala, does that mean you can sleep over on Friday? We can think up more good lies to tell Brianna.”

“No, I really can't,” I say. “I'm still grounded from the other day.”

“Oh. Maybe I could come over there, then? I could sneak Lindsay's diary out of her room after she leaves for youth group.”

“I don't think that's going to work. I'm not even allowed to have friends over when I'm
not
grounded.”

Maddie rolls her eyes. “Ugh, your grandma's so annoying. If I invite Amy over on Friday, maybe you could Skype with us?”

“I don't have a computer, remember?”

“Right. Jeez, it's like you're in prison or something.”

“It feels like that sometimes,” I say, though my grandmother's house is infinitely weirder than any prison.

“Okay. Well, next time, I guess. She can't ground you forever, right?”

I want more than anything to tell Maddie what's really going on, but I remember Grandma Jo saying she'd make me sorry if I let her secrets slip. It seems like it would be safe to talk about it in this open field; how could she possibly find out about it? But for all I know, she's bugged my cleats or something. I have no idea how that kind of thing works. So I just say, “Right. Next time.”

Talking to my best friend has always been the easiest thing in the world. But right now, for the first time, it feels a lot like running around in my grandmother's attic in the pitch dark, never knowing when I'm going to slam into a unsteady pile of boxes and send them crashing to the ground.

N
ow that she sees I can be useful to her, Grandma Jo finally seems to be warming up to me a little. She stops being quite so strict about my bedtime, speaks more gently when she reminds me which one is the salad fork, and even lets me have seconds on dessert sometimes. On Wednesday morning, she actually
does
take me shopping, though it's certainly not for a gala dress. Instead, she buys me a black stocking cap and some skintight black clothing that doesn't make even a whisper of noise when I move around. When the saleslady tells me I look adorable and asks what it's for, Grandma Jo tells her I'm playing a ninja in a community theater production. I'm impressed by the way the lie rolls off her tongue; I could probably learn a thing or two from her for the next time I have to talk to Brianna.

The night of the heist, Betty, Cookie, and Edna arrive early, and we pass the time playing Hearts until a quarter to twelve, when Grandma Jo sends me upstairs to get dressed. I pull on my new black turtleneck, pants, gloves, and soft-soled shoes, then put on my black knit hat. I'm way too hot, but I guess it's more important to be stealthy than comfortable tonight. I clip the utility belt Grandma Jo got me around my waist and make sure all the objects are in place: a flashlight, a tiny can of  WD-40 in case the attic door creaks, some peanuts for Picasso, and my library card, in case I have to swipe open any dead bolts. When I look in the mirror and see myself all decked out in serious gear, it makes this heist seem real, and my heart starts hammering.

“Annemarie,” Grandma Jo calls up the stairs, “are you ready?”

“Almost,” I call back. At the last minute, I grab my broken friendship bracelet from my night table and shove the remains into my utility belt for luck.

When I come downstairs, I see that Edna's dressed in a skintight black bodysuit, to help her blend into the shadows while she picks the lock on the front door. Her tall, willowy frame looks even skinnier when it's not draped in all its usual scarves, and I feel like she might disappear if she turned sideways. Cookie and Betty are wearing regular clothes, since they have to look like normal pedestrians while they act as our lookouts. I was really hoping Grandma Jo would be wearing a ninja suit too, but she's in her usual black dress.

Cookie's holding a large wrapped present with a big red bow on top, and she holds it out to me. “For you,” she says. “Your very first heist! We're so proud.” She says it in the same teary way most parents talk about their kid's first day of kindergarten.

“Thank you so much, Cookie,” I say. I take the present, which is lighter than it looks. “You didn't have to get me anything.”

“It's from all of us,” she says, and I start feeling a little less excited. If Grandma Jo had anything to do with this present, it'll probably be a dress or a device to monitor my posture or something. I try to keep an enthusiastic smile on my face as I rip open the wrapping paper and lift the lid off the box inside.

There, sitting in a nest of tissue paper, is . . . actually, I have no idea what this is. It's certainly not a dress. I lift out the object, which looks kind of like a camera with a long lens and two big, soft eyepieces. Attached to one side is a plastic ring and a bunch of crisscrossed straps. “Wow,” I say. “I . . . um . . . what
is
this?”

“They're night vision goggles, dear,” Betty says. “You didn't think we were going to send you into a dark, unfamiliar attic completely blind, did you?”

“Whoa.”
This is by far the best thing Grandma Jo has ever gotten me. “Thank you so much! I did all those drills in the dark, so I assumed . . .”

“It's always good to be prepared to do the job without equipment, in case something malfunctions,” Cookie says. “But if you have tools to help you, it would be stupid not to use them. Go ahead—try them on!”

The goggles look expensive, and I'm suddenly terrified I'm going to drop them. I carefully slip them over my head, and Cookie's bracelets clink and jangle and clatter next to my ears as she helps me tighten the straps. When the goggles fit snugly against my face, Edna kills the lights, and Cookie shows me where the power button is. The room springs back into focus before me, crisp and clear as if it were the middle of the day, except everything is bright green.

“Oh
man
,” I whisper. “This is awesome! I can see
everything
!” Then I realize that these goggles will protect my eyes from Picasso's claws and beak, and I love them even more.

A neon green Cookie moves to stand in front of me. “Aren't they wonderful?” she crows. “I knew you would love them!” She does a ridiculous little dance that only I can see, shimmying her shoulders and hips, and I start giggling.

“What's so funny?” Betty asks.

“Oh, nothing,” green Cookie says, turning around and shaking her butt at me.

Edna flips the lights back on, and I push the goggles up onto the top of my head while Grandma Jo distributes little black earpieces to everyone. “I'll be listening from the van the whole time,” she says. “Even if you whisper, I'll be able to hear you. If you're in trouble, say ‘Mayday,' and I'll find a way to bail you out.”

“Your grandmother's an amazing getaway car driver when her foot isn't all Velcroed up in a boot,” Cookie says. “You should've seen the way she drove in '79 when we were being chased by—”

“Earpieces in,” Grandma Jo orders, and to my extreme disappointment, Cookie takes the hint and stops talking. I watch what the other ladies do with their earpieces, then put mine in the same way.

“This is Agent Condor,” my grandmother says when it's all secure, and it's so weird to hear her voice directly in my ear that I jump. “Agents, do you copy?”

“Agent Cardinal copies,” says Cookie.

“Agent Sparrow copies,” says Betty.

“Agent Heron copies,” says Edna.

Grandma Jo looks at me. “What would you like your code name to be, Annemarie?”

I wish I'd known before now that we got to choose code names so I could've thought up something really cool. But everyone else has a bird name, so I guess I should stick to the theme. I try to think of a bird that's calm and graceful and bold and fierce all at once, all the qualities I'll need while I'm doing this heist.

And then it comes to me, and I smile to myself.

“Agent Swan copies,” I say.

•  •  •

Fran Tupperman's house is twenty minutes from my grandmother's, and Cookie drives us over in Grandma Jo's black van with tinted windows—of course,
this
is what it's for. There's a giant dog carrier fitted with a bunch of perches strapped into the trunk so that Picasso will be comfortable on the ride home. Sitting in the backseat in my ninja clothes, I feel like a legitimate spy, and I'm starting to understand why the grannies like doing this so much. I love the feeling of being part of a team, and even though the heist hasn't even started yet, I can already feel the adrenaline rushing all the way to the tips of my fingers.