The Life and Crimes of Bernetta Wallflower (14 page)

They headed to the park. Bernetta couldn't take Colin home until after she was done “babysitting,” so he spent hours chasing other kids around the jungle gym with his hands in his rain boots like yellow “bug monsters,” hanging upside down from the monkey bars, and burying things in the sandbox. Gabe and Bernetta passed most of the time playing tetherball. Gabe kept trying to talk to her about some movie with a giant monster housefly in it, but Bernetta wasn't paying much attention. Her head was spinning with all the things that could possibly go wrong tomorrow with Ashley. It seemed like a whole lot of things.

“Bernie Bernie!” Colin called over to her. “Come here, 'kay? I wanna bury you in
sand
! Hank too!”

Bernetta and Gabe headed over to join Colin in the sandbox, and Colin instructed them to remove their shoes. “I'm gonna cover your whole feet in quicksand,” he told them. “Then you'll be trapped forever until it's time to go home.”

As Bernetta peeled off her socks, she caught sight of her Blueberry Bramble toenails, and she quickly stuck them deep in the sand. What would Elsa think of all this? Bernetta wondered. What would her sister say if she knew about Bernetta's new life as a con artist?

Same Old Netta was changing, all right. But Bernetta couldn't help worrying that maybe she was changing a little too much.

Gabe looked over at her as Colin began to pour buckets of sand over their legs. “You know, Bernetta,” Gabe told her, “it'll go fine tomorrow. I promise. Everything will be just fine.”

Would it?

When Bernetta got home, she dug the polish remover out of Elsa's dresser drawer, and one by one, she erased the last of the blue paint from her toenails.

T
HREE-CARD
MONTE
n
: a game in which the spectator must attempt to follow the movement of one specific card among three

The next morning Bernetta was supposed to meet Gabe and go pick up Ashley at her house so they all could head off together to start their counterfeit money scheme. But when she opened her front door to step outside, there was already one major calamity waiting for her on the lawn. Ashley Johansson was standing right beside the mailbox, with one hand on the handlebar of her bike and the other one on her hip, a black canvas purse dangling from her arm. Her bike tires were flattening the Wallflowers' grass in two ugly lines.

“Ashley!” Bernetta hissed, closing the door quickly behind her. “What are you doing here? What if my parents see you? They think I'm babysitting! We were supposed to meet at
your
house!”

“Right.” Ashley snorted. “Like I'm falling for that one.”

Bernetta let out a huff. “Fine. Let's just get going, all right?”

Ashley was going to be a handful, that was for sure.

Gabe stood beside his bike, waiting, at the corner of Zottola and Ziegler. His orange T-shirt read
COFFEE, TEA, OR DEATH?
He raised his eyebrows when he saw them approaching. “Change of plans?” he asked Bernetta.

Bernetta jerked her head in Ashley's direction. “She thought we were going to ditch her,” she said.

“Aw, Ashley, we wouldn't do
that
,” Gabe said. “We like you too much. You're always so nice to everyone.”

“Hey, dimwad, can we just get going already?”

“See?” Gabe said, with a wink to Bernetta. “Nice and polite.” He slung his leg over his bike and sat down on the seat. “Follow me,” he told them, and they pedaled into town. They passed the supermarket Bernetta's parents shopped at, passed the movie theater, passed several restaurants. When they finally reached the strip mall, Gabe stopped pedaling.

“There,” he said, planting his feet firmly on the ground. “That's it.”

Ashley screeched her bike to a stop. “What's it?” she said.

“Right there,” Gabe told her, pointing.

“The shoe store? We're going to buy counterfeit money at a
shoe
store?”

“Um, could you maybe not be so loud about it?” Bernetta said, wiping the sweat off the back of her neck.

Gabe just shrugged. “This is where the guy told us to come on the phone,” he said.

Ashley shook her head like she couldn't believe what kinds of idiots she was working with, but she parked her bike beside the door to the shoe store. “Well?” she said. “You guys coming or aren't you?”

Bernetta swung her leg over her bike. “Jeez,” she whispered to Gabe, “you'd think this whole thing was her idea.”

As they walked into the store, a bell on the door let out a loud clang. Bernetta couldn't help noticing the
BLOWOUT SALE
signs everywhere and how empty the shelves were. The store was empty too, actually. Besides the man behind the counter and the woman packing shoes into boxes in the corner, there was no one inside.

Gabe let out a low whistle and turned to the man. “Business hasn't been so good lately, huh?” he said.

The man coughed, as though noticing his customers for the first time, and lowered his chin, glaring down his nose at Gabe. He had a trim little mustache, and his gray hair was slicked back. “You kids need help with something?”

Bernetta fingered a belt loop on her khaki shorts. “Um, we're here to see Mike?”

“There's no one named Mike here,” the man said. “I think you kids got the wrong shoe store.”

Bernetta stood up straight, trying to look older, more serious. “We made some calls yesterday,” she said. “We talked to Bruce. He said to come here.”

The man scratched his mustache with three fingers. “Bruce, huh?” His gaze darted from Bernetta to Gabe to Ashley. “You here for the special shoes?”

Gabe nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “The special shoes.”

The man clicked his tongue. “Well, I keep them in the back,” he said. “Right this way. Val?” he called to the woman in the corner. “Can you keep an eye on things out here?”

He opened a door to the storeroom and motioned them inside. The air was thick with the scent of leather and new rubber, and the narrow shelves were stacked high with boxes and boxes of shoes. It was a tight squeeze, but somehow they all fitted inside. The man shut the door behind them.

He crossed his arms and stared at them for a moment, licking his bottom lip. “Shouldn't you kids be in school or something?” he said at last.

There was barely room for Gabe to shake his head. “It's
summer
,” he replied.

“Well, you shouldn't be here,” the man told them. “I never worked with kids before. I don't like it. How old are all of you, anyway?”

For the first time Ashley spoke. “None of your business,” she said. “You know why we're here. That's all that matters.”

The man turned his mouth into the smallest of smiles. “So you're the leader of the bunch, huh?” he said to Ashley. “Fine then. But you didn't get this counterfeit dough from me, all right? For all you kids know, my name really is Mike, we clear?”

Gabe nodded. “Nice to meet you, Mike,” he said. “I'm Alan Smithee. This right here”—he pointed to Bernetta—“is Carlotta Gauss, and that's Carlotta's cousin, Lizzie. Lizzie Borden.”

“How's this work exactly?” Ashley asked Mike.

“Well, Lizzie,” he said, “it works like this. You give me cash, and I give you the counterfeit dough. Each fake twenty costs five dollars. Pretty simple. Some people like to try out a sample first, so if you want, you lay down fifty and I'll give you a small amount of the stuff. You try it out on the local vendors, see how it goes over, and then you come back and tell me how much you want. I guarantee, it's next to perfect. Even a banker would swear up and down it was real. If you like it, you come back and give me a deposit for your order. Half the money in cash today, and I'll bring you the goods tomorrow.”

Ashley squinted. “I don't like the sound of that last bit, about the deposit.”

“We
told
you yesterday,” Bernetta said, but Gabe coughed in her direction, and she stopped talking.

“I still don't like it,” Ashley said.

“I don't care if you don't like it,” Mike told her, squaring his shoulders. “I've been doing business since you were in diapers, and that's the way it works.”

Ashley glared at him. “Okay,
fine
,” she said. “We'll try it out.” She turned to Bernetta. “
Carlotta
, why don't you give Mike here fifty bucks?”

“Actually,
Lizzie
,” Bernetta said, “I don't have fifty bucks. Someone decided to steal my—”

Gabe jabbed an elbow into her side. “I have fifty,” he told Mike, digging into his pocket. “Lizzie, you can pay me back later.”

“Sure thing,” Ashley replied with a sugar-sweet smile. Bernetta wondered about that smile for a moment. How many times had Ashley smiled at Gabe before? And how many of those smiles had been real?

Mike took Gabe's money, counting it slowly, and then he slid the bills into his pocket. He reached over Bernetta's head and pulled a plain gray shoe box marked “Men's Brown Dress Shoe—Quality Leather” off one of the shelves. Inside was a stack of twenty-dollar bills. Mike plucked out ten and handed them to Gabe. “Here's your trial,” he said. “Two hundred dollars counterfeit. If it works out for you, come back and you can place your order.”

“And if it doesn't work out?” Bernetta asked.

Mike reached for the doorknob. “Then you never met me, and good luck in juvenile detention.”

Bernetta looked at Gabe, and he raised his eyebrows at her.

As they filed out of the storeroom and left the store, ten of Mike's special twenties buried in Gabe's pocket, Val eyed them curiously. The bell clanged once again, and the door closed.

As soon as they were outside, Ashley pulled them behind the store, next to a Dumpster. “Hey, dimwad,” she said to Gabe, “I want to get a good look at this money. Hand it over.”

Gabe glanced at Bernetta, and she shrugged, so he handed Ashley the cash.

“It looks good, right?” Bernetta said, peering over Ashley's shoulder. “Pretty real.”

“I'm
looking
,” Ashley said. She held each one of the bills close to her eyes to inspect, and Gabe and Bernetta waited for her verdict, taking tense breaths. “Seems good,” Ashley announced at last. “I can barely tell the difference myself, and I've had some experience with the stuff.” Gabe snorted, but Ashley didn't seem to notice. She folded the wad in half and stuck it in her purse. “Let's try it out.”

The plan was to hit up several different stores, find something cheap, preferably under a dollar, and pay for it with one of Mike's twenties. Then they'd collect the change and have made a very nice profit.

The choice of shops in the strip mall was limited, but within a half hour they'd managed to do pretty well for themselves. They bought a spool of thread in a crafts store, a soda in the doughnut shop, a “stone of healing” in a new age bookstore, and a yellow ballerina hair clip in a store that sold dance shoes and leotards. In each shop they handed the cashier one of the special bills, and other than the woman who sniffed at them when they began to examine tap shoes for toddlers, no one seemed to suspect anything out of the ordinary at all. Bernetta could feel herself breathing more calmly with every store they stepped into. It looked like everything was really going the way she and Gabe had planned.

Down to their last twenty, Bernetta, Gabe, and Ashley headed toward a kitchen supply store.

“Wait,” Gabe said as they stepped toward the entrance. “I don't think we should go in that one.”

“Why not?” Ashley said. “It's the only store left.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Come on.”

Ashley waltzed into the store, and Bernetta followed, with Gabe dragging behind them.

“Hello, kids,” a woman in a blue apron greeted them. “Can I help you find anything today?”

“No, thanks,” Ashley told her with a smile.

“Well, I'll be right over here if you—” She paused. “Why, hello, Gabe! I didn't even see you over there, behind all those pots and pans.”

Gabe stepped out of hiding and cleared his throat. “Oh, hey, Denise. How's it going?”

“Pretty good. How's your uncle doing?” Gabe shrugged, hands in his pockets. “I'm a little worried about him lately. I hear he's thinking of getting back into show business.”

“That's what he says.”

“Well, we wish him the best. You know, Tim's in the back helping out today. I'm sure he'd love to say hi. Just a minute, I'll get him. Tim! Tim! Guess who's here!”

Ashley's face was slowly turning red. “What's
wrong
with you?” she hissed at Gabe. “You
know
that woman? How are we supposed to pull this off now?”