The Classy Crooks Club (28 page)

By the time the doctors give me a clean bill of health, I'm completely exhausted. But instead of letting me sleep, a pale, skinny police officer with freckles sprinkled across his nose takes me into a little room and makes a video recording of me telling the whole story of the kidnapping. He keeps asking the same questions over and over and over: Why was I with Betty in the car? Where did she say she was taking me? How did I manage to pick the lock on the convenience store door? It's hard to answer his questions without getting my grandmother, Cookie, and Edna in trouble. I'm not sure if you can be punished for
planning
to steal something, but I feel like it's safest to pretend I don't know anything about a heist. Instead, I tell him Brianna's family owns one of Edna's paintings and that she wanted to see its new home, just from the outside. I say I learned to pick locks by watching videos on the Internet and that I'd been practicing in my grandmother's house earlier that day, which is why I had my picks with me. The officer looks skeptical, but he doesn't push me. Sometimes it pays to be twelve.

“That's all we need from you tonight, Annemarie,” he finally says when I've told the story about five times. “You've been very brave.”

“Did you find Betty?” I ask.

He nods. “She's in custody. You did an excellent job immobilizing her.”

“What will happen to her now?” I ask. I wish I didn't care, that I could think of Betty as purely evil, but part of me can't help feeling bad for her. Like I told Grandma Jo a few days ago, you can't ever really know what's going on in someone else's head.

“She'll likely go back to prison,” he says. “Kidnapping is a serious offense, especially since she transported you across state lines.”

“Wait,” I say. “
Back
to prison?”

“She served three years for kidnapping a seven-year-old girl in 1991,” says the officer, and I remember all the comments Edna and Cookie made about what Betty was up to that year. The trial they all followed so closely must've been hers. Man, my head is spinning.

“We'll need to speak with your parents as soon as they get home,” the officer continues. He slides a business card across the table. “Please don't hesitate to call me if you remember any other details about tonight, no matter how small they seem.”

I make my way back out into the waiting room, so tired I'm basically asleep on my feet, and find Maddie's mom waiting for me in the ugly orange chair next to Stanley's. Her sandy hair is a tangled mess, and she's wearing a gray hoodie over the ratty old American Cancer Society shirt she sleeps in. I guess she was so eager to come get me that she didn't even bother to change. It's exactly how my own mom would act, and I have to swallow hard around the lump that rises in my throat.

When she sees me, Mrs. Kolhein springs to her feet like a jack-in-the-box and pulls me into a tight hug. “AJ, honey,” she whispers into my hair. “Are you all right? I can't believe what you've been through tonight.”

I bury my face in her shoulder and breathe in the familiar smell of Maddie's detergent. “I'm okay,” I say. “Just really tired.”

“She's a tough girl,” says Stanley's voice, and I suddenly realize he's right next to us. I picture him telling Talia about all of this tomorrow, emphasizing how brave and cool I am, and I smile up at him, suddenly shy.

“How'd it go with the cops?” he asks.

“All right, I think? I don't really know.” I turn back to Mrs. Kolhein. “Is Maddie here?”

“No, honey, she's sleeping. It's four in the morning. But you two will have plenty of time to talk tomorrow—I've worked everything out with the police so you can stay with us until your parents get home. Is that all right with you?”

A few hours ago I was sure things were over forever between Maddie and me, but now all I want to do is climb into the second twin bed in her room and fall asleep to the sound of her breathing. Next to everything else that's happened, our fight seems so petty and stupid.

“Yes, that's perfect,” I say. “Let's go home.”

•  •  •

The doctors at the hospital give Mrs. Kolhein medicine to help me sleep, which is totally ridiculous—I'm out cold the second I'm buckled into the car. When we get to their house, Maddie's mom has to half carry me up the stairs. I don't even manage to change into pajamas before I fall facedown into bed.

My night is filled with dreams of running from various things: a swarm of wasps, a taxidermy bear that has come back to life, all four of the grannies dressed in swan feathers and threatening me with giant lock picks. Sometimes my feet feel so heavy I can barely move them. Sometimes I can't open my eyes all the way, so I can't see where I'm going. Sometimes my wrists and ankles are tied. I can feel wings and claws and fingers grazing the back of my neck, and I know that if I slow down even for a minute, they're going to—

I wake up with a gasp. My legs are tangled in the sheets, the comforter's on the floor, and my arms are trapped under me. Every single one of my muscles hurts, but I can't tell if it's from being tied up or from thrashing in my sleep. My heart starts to slow down as I look at Maddie's cheery butter-yellow walls glowing in the sunlight that streams through the windows. Then I notice my friend standing by the foot of my bed, staring at me with wide eyes.

“Mom sent me up here to check on you, and you were, like, wrestling with the mattress in your sleep,” she says. “I didn't know what to do. Are you okay?”

I sit up and push my tangled hair out of my face. “Yeah. I was having a nightmare.”

“Okay. Good. I mean, not good. But good that you're okay.”

“Yeah.”

The two of us stare at each other for a few endless seconds. Maddie's only about five feet from me, but she feels incredibly far away. When I can't take the silence any longer, I blurt out, “Maddie, listen, I don't want—”

At the exact same time, she says, “My mom told me what happened, and I'm so—”

We both burst out laughing, and spiderweb cracks appear in the barrier of awkwardness between us. I feel like if I give it a couple good kicks, it'll shatter. “You first,” I say.

“I just can't believe you got
kidnapped
.”

“Me neither.” I feel kind of removed from the whole thing, like it's something that happened to another girl I don't know very well.

“My mom said it was a friend of your grandma's?”

“She was this sweet little old lady. She always seemed super nice. Honestly, she was the least weird of my grandmother's friends. I didn't see it coming at all.”

“Did you really pick a lock on a convenience store?”

“Yeah.” I smile. “Want me to teach you?”

“
Obviously
. How did you even know how to do that?”

I consider repeating the story I told the police last night. But if I want things to go back to normal between Maddie and me, I have to tell her the truth. It's not up to me to protect Grandma Jo and her friends anymore.

“There's a lot of stuff I haven't told you since I went to my grandma's,” I say.

“Yeah, 'cause you've been telling it all to the freaking
Bananas
.” Maddie's clearly trying to be gentle with me because of what I've been through, but I can tell she's still really angry, too. She looks down at her toes, which she's burrowing into the rug so hard it's like she's trying to dig to China.

“No, Maddie, I haven't told this stuff to
anyone
. Definitely not the Bananas. It's, like,
seriously
secret.” She finally looks up at me, and I lower my voice. “If I tell you what really happened, do you promise not to tell anyone? Not even Amy or your parents?”

Her eyes get bigger. “Of course.”

“Close the door, okay?”

Maddie shuts the door, then climbs onto the bed next to me, and I scoot over to make room for her. I start with the night my grandmother caught me breaking into the storage room, and I plow right through the bird heist, the lock-picking lessons, the bear heist, my scouting mission at Brianna's party, my attempts to convince my grandmother's friends not to steal the painting, and the kidnapping. Maddie listens to the whole thing, her mouth hanging slightly open. I can tell she's soaking everything up, and best of all, I can tell she believes me.

When I'm finished, I expect her to ask a ton of questions, but instead she just says, “Wow. I mean . . .
wow
.”

“Yeah.”

“Wow.”
She shoves me with her shoulder so hard I tip over. “I can't believe you didn't
tell
me any of this! I thought we told each other everything!”

“My grandmother said I had to keep it a secret or she'd make my life miserable. I was afraid she'd bugged all my stuff, so I never knew when it was safe to talk.”

“Wow,” Maddie says yet again. “Are you going to be traumatized for life?”

I shrug. “Actually, the whole thing was kind of fun for a while. I got to sneak around and, like, serve justice or whatever, you know? I really thought it was for a good cause at the beginning. Even when it got complicated, part of me didn't really want it to end.”

“Well, it's over now, anyway.”

“Yeah.”

Maddie shifts around and crosses her legs. “Do you think your grandma's going to get in trouble?”

“I don't know. I mean, she's already in trouble for driving into Brianna's garage, but I tried to keep her out of the whole thing when I talked to the policeman last night. I'm not sure he believed my lame story, though. It looks pretty suspicious that she was at Brianna's house in the middle of the night.”

Maddie toys with the edge of the sheet. “So . . . you're really not friends with her?”

“With Brianna?
No
, Maddie, I swear. I only started talking to her 'cause you told me to, remember? You said I should make her jealous and put her in her place.”

“That's what I thought you were doing at first, but then it seemed like you started to mean it,” Maddie says. “It seemed like you'd actually started caring about . . . that stuff. Money and expensive clothes and things. And then, when you went to her party even though you said you weren't going to, I just thought . . . I don't know, it kind of seemed like you were too good for me now or something.” She abandons the sheet and starts picking at a tiny hole in the cuff of her pajama pants.

“I don't care about any of that. And that party was totally ridiculous. You should've seen the way the Bananas were drooling over the makeup ladies, like they were movie stars or something. All I could think about the whole time was how I'd rather be eating Zappetto's and playing
Mega Ninja Explosion
with you. I can't wait to move back home and have everything go back to normal.”

“I bet you'll miss
Stanley
, though.” Maddie makes a stupid goo-goo-eyed expression.

My cheeks grow warmer as I think about the way I cried all over his shirt last night. “Maybe a little,” I admit. “But it's not like he feels the same way about me. Anyway, he has a girlfriend.”

“Hey, that kind of thing never stops Brianna. That's what she
says
, anyway.” Maddie rolls her eyes. “What a liar. She's such a spoiled little brat.”

I've just gotten my best friend back, and I don't want to do anything to ruin it, but I feel like I should get absolutely everything out in the open. “I actually feel kind of bad for her,” I say.

Maddie snorts. “For Brianna?
Why?
She gets everything she wants!”

“She doesn't, though. She has nice stuff, but her parents are horrible. Have you ever seen them at a soccer game, even once? And her mom skipped her birthday party because she wanted to go to the gym.”

“
What?
For real?”

“Yeah. Brianna was super upset.”

Maddie's quiet for a second. “Okay, I guess I feel a little sorry for her,” she finally says. “But I still basically hate her.”

“Girls?” Mrs. Kolhein calls upstairs. “I made pancakes. You hungry?”

I hadn't realized I was until that moment, but my stomach growls loudly in response, and Maddie and I both laugh. “Be right down,” I call back.

Maddie clambers off the bed. “So, you're going to stay with us until your parents get home?”

“I think so . . . if that's okay with you?”

She looks at me like I'm crazy. “Of course it's okay with me. Hey, do you want to watch
Tentacle
later? Jordan said I could borrow it.”

“Yeah, sure. Is Amy coming too?”

“She wouldn't like it—too much screaming and not enough kissing, remember?”

I laugh. “Yeah, you're probably right.”

“I mean, I can invite her if you want. But I thought maybe . . .”

I look at my best friend in her wrinkled T-shirt and her stretched-out pink-and-green-striped pajama pants, her hair totally flat on one side and standing up in all different directions on the other. I'm so grateful to have her back that I feel a weird pressure in my chest, like my heart's going to explode if it gets any bigger.

“No,” I say. “You're right. It should just be us.”