The Classy Crooks Club (17 page)

Amy scrunches up her nose. “Too much screaming, not enough kissing.” She turns to Maddie. “What do you think?”

I expect Maddie to agree with me, but instead she says, “We can watch one of yours, if you want.”

What is up with her tonight? “But you hate these,” I say. “We both do.”

“They're not that bad,” Maddie says. “Maybe you're not the only one who wants to try new things.” She glances over at my bag, where the top of the stupid silver envelope is poking out.

I take a deep breath. “Hey, if this is about—”

“It's not about anything—we're just picking a movie.” Maddie randomly grabs a DVD out of Amy's hand. “Come on, let's go downstairs.”

I tell myself she probably doesn't want to talk about our private stuff in front of other people. Maybe later, after Amy falls asleep, we can have a real conversation, and I can reassure her that I don't even like Brianna and that she'll always be my best friend, no matter what.

But right now, as I look at her clutching that stupid
Sweetness and Sorrow
DVD box, I'm afraid the feeling isn't mutual.

•  •  •

The movie is exactly as horrible as I think it's going to be. It's about a woman who's in love with the ghost of this guy from the Renaissance, and the only place they can be together is this enchanted gondola, but then the gondola sinks, and they're separated forever. Ordinarily, Maddie and I would laugh our heads off and talk over the movie with our own silly dialogue, and I can see her rolling her eyes on the other side of the couch. But when I make a snarky comment out loud, Amy shushes me, and Maddie doesn't take my side, so I shut up.

When the movie ends, Amy is all teary, which is totally ridiculous. I mean, the word “sorrow” is
in the title
; she can't have expected it to end well. “So romantic,” she says, wiping her eyes.

“I guess, if you like wispy dudes in boats,” I say, and the corner of Maddie's mouth twitches up a little. She pulls it back down before Amy can see, but it still feels like a reward.

“Want to watch another one?” Amy asks.

“I think I might go to bed,” I say, even though it's only eleven. “I'm really tired.” I look at Maddie, sending her a telepathic message that she should leave Amy down here to swoon over
The Wild Winds of Love
and come upstairs with me so we can have a real talk.

But she either doesn't get the message or chooses to ignore it. “I'm up for another one,” she says. “Should I get more popcorn?”

“Sure,” Amy says. “See you up there later,  AJ.”

“Okay. Good night,” I say. I hope they don't notice how strained my voice sounds.

“ 'Night,” Maddie calls as she heads into the kitchen.

I change into my pajamas and get into the second twin bed in Maddie's room, the one I've slept in so many times I think of it as mine. The sounds of the Kolheins' house wrap around me when I close my eyes—Jordan and Lindsay playing competing music in their rooms, Maddie's parents watching some late-night talk show down the hall, the whir of the air conditioner as it flips on and off. This house has always felt like a second home to me, but tonight all the familiar sounds make me feel homesick. If Maddie were up here too, breathing quietly in the other bed, I'm sure I'd be able to fall asleep, but knowing she's downstairs with Amy keeps me wide awake. I find myself straining for the sounds of their voices and laughter, and a couple times I hear it, but I can't tell if they're talking about important stuff or just messing around.

Finally, a little after midnight, I can't stand it any longer. I've gotten really good at sneaking around now, and I tiptoe down the hall and onto the first landing without making a sound. I crouch there out of sight, my arms tight around my knees. At first I hear only the TV—they really are watching another one of Amy's stupid romances—but then Maddie says, “She was never like this before, you know?”

My heart starts galloping in my chest. I try to tell myself they're talking about something in the movie, but I know it's not true. They're talking about me.

“What do you mean?” Amy says.

“Like, she never cared about having fancy stuff or talking to the popular girls. Brianna's always so mean to everyone, and after she did that thing with the dresses, I thought it would be funny if AJ bragged about all the nice stuff her grandmother had and rubbed it in her face. But now it kind of seems like AJ's taking it seriously, you know? It's like she's turning into one of them or something.”

“She still seems like herself to me,” Amy says, and I want to hug her.

“But did you see the way she and the Bananas were acting at soccer the other day? All that giggling and whispering about gowns and ice sculptures and stuff? Even that thing with the cake earlier tonight, when AJ was all like, ‘Look how much better
my
dessert is than
your
low-class dessert.' Sometimes I can't even tell whether she wants to be friends with me anymore.”

“I wonder where that cake went,” Amy says. “I kind of want it now.”

“Amy, that is
so
not the point!”

“I know. Jeez. It didn't seem that way to me, though. I think she was actually just trying to give us cake.”

I hear Maddie sigh. “Do you think she'll go to Brianna's party?”

“She didn't seem like she wanted to,” Amy says. “She probably didn't know how to react when Brianna gave her the invitation. I really don't think it's a big deal.”

“Maybe you're right.”

“The whole situation was super awkward, but I bet everything will go back to normal when her parents come back and she goes home. It's only a few more weeks, right?”

“I guess,” Maddie says. “Maybe I'm being paranoid. Can I have the popcorn?”

Part of me wants to run down the stairs, throw my arms around my best friend, and tell her I don't care about expensive stuff at all and I still think the Bananas are idiots and of
course
I want to be friends with her. But I know she'd be super embarrassed and angry that I've been eavesdropping, and if this is really what she thinks of me now, she wouldn't want me to comfort her anyway. She'd probably rather talk to Amy.

So instead I creep back upstairs and curl up in a tight ball in the guest bed, cursing that stupid silver invitation in my bag. There's no
way
I'm going to that party.

I'm going to make everything right again if it kills me.

I
spend most of Friday shut up in my room, practicing my lock picking and stewing over the Maddie situation. Every half hour or so, I pull up her name in my phone and consider pressing the talk button, but I have no idea what I'd say to her. I wasn't supposed to have overheard her conversation with Amy, so it's not like I can tell her the stuff she said is wrong. Maybe I could get back on her good side if I convinced Grandma Jo to send us somewhere really cool with Stanley—Six Flags or a water park or a show or something. But that might make me seem even
more
like Brianna, flashing all my cool stuff around to make people like me. I guess I'll have to hope that staying far away from the idiotic lobster boil will be enough to show my best friend I haven't changed.

Cookie, Edna, and Betty show up late in the evening for our bear heist, and hearing their excited voices downstairs perks me up and reminds me I have a job to do. I immediately start to feel better when I put on my ninja clothes. These heists are so wonderfully clear-cut, with no gray areas or confusing feelings to deal with. You go in, you liberate your target, and if you get out without being caught, you win. It's a lot like soccer that way; either you score a goal or you don't, and either way, you know exactly where you stand.

I come down the stairs and join the grannies in the front hallway. Edna's wearing her skintight black suit from last time, and tonight, Cookie and Betty are dressed in black too—the bear is so large that this heist will require all of us. Betty has even wrapped her walker in strips of black fabric so it'll be invisible in the dark, though the tennis balls still glow bright green on the bottom. Grandma Jo will stay in the van because of her foot, but she's wearing black anyway because she's Grandma Jo.

“There's our star,” Betty says, and she reaches out to hug me. “How are you feeling, dear?”

“I'm a little nervous,” I admit.

Betty pats my hand. “You're going to show that lock who's boss.”

“Darn tootin',” Cookie says, and Edna raises both hands and does her wiggly fingered applause thing at me. Just having them all around me, knowing how much they believe in me, calms me down a lot. I squeeze Betty's hand and smile. When Grandma Jo asks if I'm ready to go, I say yes, and I mean it.

When we pull up in front of Bill's place in Grandma Jo's black van, that delicious nervous-excited feeling starts bubbling up in my center and fizzing outward into my arms and legs. I'm surprised by how tiny the house is; it's low and squat and made of dark brick, and Bill hasn't made much of an effort to make it look like a home. One of the porch lights is burned out, and the other illuminates a bunch of dead potted plants, a broken vacuum cleaner, and a sagging wicker chair with one arm. Cookie takes it all in with a snort. “I bought those drapes in 1990,” she scoffs. “I can't
believe
he hasn't replaced them. He probably hasn't even
cleaned
them.”

“Nineteen ninety,” Betty muses. “Is that when we lifted the Fabergé egg, or was that the year with the lion cub?”

“I'm not surprised you don't remember,” Cookie snorts. “You had
other things
going on in 1990, didn't you, Betty?”

“Wasn't that 1991?” Edna says. “I remember the trial wasn't front-page news because the USSR dissolved.”

“What trial?” I ask.

“Oh, just a trial we were all following closely,” she says.

“Betty was following closest of all,” Cookie says.

“Cookie,
don't
.” Even in the dark, I can tell Betty looks a little scared. I don't know why it's such a big deal that she was interested in a trial, though.

“My mom really likes true crime stuff, too,” I say to make her feel better. “There was this one time—”

“Focus,”
Grandma Jo snaps. “Is everyone ready?”

“Ready,” the ladies say, stacking their hands up in the middle of the van, and I add my hand to the pile. She's right, I really do need to focus. This time, I remember to whisper
“Heist!”
instead of shouting.

“Operation Teddybear, commence!” Grandma Jo announces.

The four of us slip out of the van, and Edna and I make our way around to the back of the house while Betty and Cookie guard the front. We cross a small yard that's more dirt than grass, pass a ramshackle toolshed, and tiptoe up to the back door. There's one of those motion-sensor floodlights over the patio to our left, and we're careful to stay out of range.

“Swan attempting to breach first barrier,” I whisper into my earpiece. “Do you copy?”

“Copy that,” says Edna. “Go ahead, Swan.”

“Go, Swan, go! Do your thing!” Cookie whisper-cheers, and Betty's sweet voice says, “I know you can do it, dear.”

Grandma Jo doesn't say anything, and my temper flares. She's the only one here who's actually related to me, and she still can't bring herself to support me, even when I'm being a huge help to her. “Agent Condor, do you copy?” I whisper.

“Condor copies,” Grandma Jo says. “Good luck, Swan.”

It's not exactly warm and fuzzy, but it's better than nothing.

I pull the screen door open and inspect the lock in the dim light from the neighbor's house. It looks exactly like the ones I've been practicing with, and I breathe a sigh of relief. I wonder if I should stroke the lock and whisper to it, like Edna did during the Picasso heist, but that would probably look stupid and fake, so I go straight for my tools. I pull out the medium-size tension wrench, but my hands are trembling, and I gasp as it clatters to the porch.

“Steady, Swan,” whispers Edna gently. “Keep breathing. You're a hollow reed, remember?”

“Right. A hollow reed.” I retrieve the wrench, take a couple of deep, centering breaths, and try again to insert it into the lock. This time it holds, and I pull out my first pick, the one with the squiggly end. I tell myself this is no different from what I've been doing all week in Grandma Jo's spare bedroom.

“Good,” Edna whispers. “Now rake the pins very gently.”

I do, thinking how cool it would be if I could make all the pins pop up on the first try. But only a couple of them bounce into place, so I reach for a different pick to do the rest of them individually. The neighborhood is dead quiet, and the only sounds I hear as I poke around inside the lock are cicadas whirring away in the trees and the shushing sound of four old ladies breathing in my ear.