The Life and Crimes of Bernetta Wallflower (15 page)

“She's a friend of my uncle's. What do you want me to do about it? I told you we shouldn't come in here.”

“Who's Tim?” Bernetta asked.

“Just some kid I used to be friends with at school,” Gabe answered. “He's Denise's son.”

“Wait a minute,” Ashley said. “Tim? Tim
Boucher
? Is that who it is?”

“Yeah,” Gabe said. “So?”

“Who's Tim Boucher?” Bernetta asked.

“He's only the biggest dork at Harding Middle School,” Ashley answered.

Bernetta fingered a chicken-shaped cookie cutter in a basket by the door. “He goes to Harding?” she asked.

Ashley snorted. “Yeah. He used to go to Kingsfield with me and Gabe, but then he moved. I heard he's captain of the chess club now. Can you believe that? Captain of the dorks is more like it. Come on. We should go before they—”

“Gabe!”

And there was Tim—well, Bernetta assumed it was Tim, by the way he was rushing out of the back room, heading full force for Gabe like he was a long-lost twin brother. Tim was tall and spindly, all arms and legs. His teeth were too big, and his eyes were too small. Ashley was right, Bernetta thought. He did sort of look like a dork. But a nice one.

“Gabe!” he called again. And when he reached him, the two boys did an awkward, highly complicated handshake that they'd probably made up when they were about nine. “Man! I haven't seen you in forever!”

“Yeah,” Gabe replied, smiling. “How's it going?”

“Oh, you know,” Tim said. He caught sight of Bernetta then and stuck out his hand, as though he wanted her to shake it. “Hi,” he said. “I'm Tim.”

“Um, Bernetta,” she replied. It seemed weird to shake hands with someone her own age. Who did that?

He turned to Ashley next. “Tim,” he told her, hand outstretched.

She scowled at him. “We've met,” she said. “Mrs. Franklin's class?” Tim looked at her blankly. “I'm
Ashley
,” she told him.

He shrugged and took his hand back. “Sorry,” he answered. “I guess I don't remember you.”

Ashley shot him a look of pure hatred. Bernetta definitely liked this Tim kid.

“Oh, man,” Tim said, turning back to Gabe, “did you see that
Star Wars
marathon on TV last week? Do you remember when we memorized
Return of the Jedi
and acted it out for my parents? And I played Han Solo and you were Jabba the Hut?”

“Uh, I'm not sure I . . .” Gabe mumbled, glancing at Bernetta.

She just grinned. “Why would you memorize
Jedi
?” she asked Tim. “Everyone knows that
Empire
is the best—”

“Jeez, are you
all
a bunch of morons?” Ashley exclaimed. “Sorry to break up the reunion, Jim, but we really should get going.”

“Um, it's Tim,” he said.

“Oh, really?” Ashley flashed her teeth. “Sorry. I didn't remember. Anyway, we just came in to get this.” She grabbed the chicken cookie cutter from the basket and thrust it at Tim. “Could you ring us up, please? Thanks.”

They paid for the cookie cutter, and Ashley dragged them out of the store after hurried good-byes to Tim and his mom. As they headed back to the shoe store, Ashley took the hair tie out of her hair and fixed her ponytail. “Well,
that
was horrible,” she said to Gabe. “Aren't you glad that loser switched schools?”

“Yeah,” Gabe answered, rolling his eyes in Bernetta's direction. “Real glad.”

Was he telling the truth? Bernetta slowed down for a moment, letting Ashley and Gabe walk a few steps ahead of her. Was it just her imagination, or were Ashley and Gabe actually stepping in sync with each other? Right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot . . .

Bernetta stopped walking.

When Gabe admitted he'd double-crossed her, had he told her the whole truth? Or was he still in cahoots with Ashley? Even now? Was he
triple
-crossing her? Was that even possible?

And how could you know who was on your side when the one person you'd decided to trust was someone you knew was completely untrustworthy?

Bernetta wondered for a moment what would have happened if she'd never met Gabe at all, if she'd never attempted to con her way back to Mount Olive. She would have ended up at Harding Middle School in September. Would she ever have run into Tim? Would they have been friends, discussing their favorite
Star Wars
movies? It was weird, thinking there was a whole alternate life out there, waiting for her. An entirely different Bernetta Wallflower she could have turned into.

“Come on, Carlotta!” Gabe called back to her. “We have to give Mike our deposit money!”

Bernetta shook her head and hustled toward the store. The alternate Bernetta was just a wisp of a thought in her brain. The real-life Bernetta had a job to do.

F
LOURISH
:
n
: a bold or extravagant gesture, performed in order to impress an audience

When they reached the shoe store, Ashley opened the door, and the bell clanged again.

“Why, hello there.” Mike greeted them. “Did you decide to”—his eyes darted to Val, who was stacking shoe boxes in the corner—“buy the shoes?”

“We'll take them,” Ashley said as Bernetta squeezed through the door behind her.

“Great,” Mike said. “Hey, Val? Can you run and get me a coffee? Large, no sugar. Thanks.”

She eyed him suspiciously but left the store. “So,” Mike said when the door was completely closed, “how much you in for?”

Gabe spoke up. “Two hundred.”

Bernetta nodded slowly. “That's two hundred for the both of us,” she told Mike. “We're going in together.”

Mike ran a finger over his mustache. “I'm going to all this trouble for two hundred
bucks
? Listen, kids.” He lingered on that last word for a moment and then went on, “I usually deal with bigger numbers, if you catch my drift.”

“Yeah, but, um,” Bernetta said, “well, it would be more, but I don't have any money right now, 'cause it got, um, stolen. So Ga—
Alan
is lending me some, and then we're going to split the profit. And then we'll come back next week, and we'll be able to invest even
more
, and then . . .” She trailed off. She'd said it just right, exactly what she and Gabe had decided to tell Mike when he got fidgety with the deal. But suddenly Bernetta couldn't remember if it had been her idea to say those things or Gabe's. Had she been letting someone else put words in her mouth? What if none of this worked? Had this all been the stupidest idea she'd ever—“Oh.” She realized Mike was staring at her, stroking his mustache, waiting for her to finish. “And um, then eventually I'll have enough to go back to school.”

“That's a cute little story,” Mike said. “But I'm afraid I—”

“I'm in for more,” Ashley said. She flicked the tip of her ponytail over one shoulder.

“Yeah?” Mike said, leaning in across the counter. “How much more?”

Bernetta and Gabe leaned in too.

“Twenty,” Ashley said.

Bernetta made an involuntary noise in her throat, a sound somewhere between a jet taking off and a raccoon drowning. “Twenty?” she asked.

“You heard me,” Ashley replied, eyes fixed on Mike.

But Bernetta still couldn't believe it. “Twenty
thousand
dollars?”

Ashley rolled her eyes. “Yes.”

“Oh.” Bernetta turned to Gabe. His eyes were wide with shock too. “Oh, okay, yeah.” She stuck her hands in her pockets, trying to act for all the world like twenty thousand dollars was a completely normal amount of money to hand over to a guy in a shoe store.

Mike drummed his fingers on the countertop. “You done gaping?” he asked Bernetta.

“Um, yeah.”

“Good.” He turned back to Ashley. “Now, I need your deposit today, in cash, and then you can come back tomorrow morning to pick up the bills.”

Ashley squared her jaw. “Why can't you give it to us right now?”

“You think I have that kind of stash lying around?” Mike said with a laugh. “No. I work according to the laws of supply and demand.”

“Good thing, too,” Gabe put in, “ 'cause you're obviously not very good at selling shoes.” Bernetta poked him in the ribs, and Mike shot him a stony glare, but Ashley ignored them all.

“Fine,” she said. “Then we'll come back tomorrow to get the counterfeit cash. But no deposit.”

Mike leaned down low, his hands gripping the counter and his shoulders bent at sharp angles. “Look,
girlie
,” he told Ashley. “I don't make the bills, all right? That's Bruce's department. I just dole 'em out. So I don't think
Bruce
is gonna give me twenty thousand dollars' worth of merchandise if I don't have something to give him in exchange. You give me half today or it's off.”

For a few moments it seemed like Ashley was thoroughly interested in her fingernails, examining each one in turn. Finally she took a deep breath and looked up again. “Fine,” she told Mike. Then she unzipped her purse, and Bernetta watched as she pulled out a thick roll of bills, a rubber band wrapped tightly around it. She took off the rubber band and counted out the money. They were mostly twenties and some fifties and tens, but there were a lot of ones and fives and several hundreds sprinkled in there too. Ashley set every bill on the counter as she counted, and when she was done, Mike picked up the whole stack and counted again. It was exactly ten thousand dollars.

Gabe smacked one hundred dollars down on the counter, and Bernetta couldn't help noticing how piddly their pile looked next to Ashley's. “Our half,” Gabe said.

Mike pulled a purple shoe box from underneath the counter and whisked all the money inside. “I'll see you kids tomorrow then,” he said, dismissing them with a wave of his hand. “Store opens at nine.”

They were just stepping out the door when Mike called to them again. “Hey, you, kid! What's your name, Alan?”

They turned.

“Yeah?” Gabe asked.

“What it says on your shirt,
COFFEE, TEA, OR DEATH?
That from a movie or something?”

Gabe raised an eyebrow. “Yeah.
Bait and Switch
.”

“Huh,” Mike replied. “Thought so. That was a pretty good one. I like the part where the waiter kills the guy in the restaurant.”

When they were safely outside, with the door closed behind them, Ashley climbed on her bike, but Bernetta stopped her before she could pedal away, hands firm on Ashley's handlebars.

“What's your problem?” Ashley asked her, yanking her bike backward.

“Where did you get twenty thousand dollars?”

Ashley glared at her. “None of your business. Now, if you two morons don't have any more field trips planned, I'm going home.” She placed her feet on her bike pedals and lunged forward. Bernetta leaped out of the way just in time.

Gabe rolled his eyes as Ashley rounded the corner. “Tell me again why we were friends with that girl?” he said to Bernetta.

Bernetta just shook her head. It was funny, she thought. Her life had changed in at least a hundred ways in the past month, but she somehow was
still
hanging out with Ashley Johansson.

Something about that just didn't add up.

S
IMPLE
VANISH
n
: an easy-to-perform sleight of hand used to vanish a coin

That night Bernetta couldn't sleep. It was too hot in her room. Much too hot. She kicked all the blankets and sheets off the bed, rolled her purple pajama bottoms up over her knees, and turned her pillow over so the cooler side would be against her cheek. But she was still wide-awake.

As the red numbers on her alarm clock switched from 12:36 to 12:37, Bernetta thought she heard a car pulling into the driveway. She padded across her room in her bare feet, pulled back her curtain, and checked outside.

Elsa's blue bug! She was back from camp.

Bernetta crept down the stairs as quietly as she could, trying not to wake anyone up. She made it to the front door just as Elsa pushed it open.

“Elsa!” Bernetta cried, hugging her sister so hard that Elsa dropped her duffel bag. “I'm so glad you're home!”

Elsa laughed. “You didn't wait up for me, did you, Netta? It's so late.”

Bernetta shook her head, nose still buried in her sister's shoulder. “I couldn't sleep.” She let out an involuntary sniffle. “I missed you, Elsa.”

“I missed you too.” Elsa hugged her tight. “Netta, is everything okay?”

Bernetta took a deep breath and thought about how best to answer that question. The truth was, everything was
not
okay. She'd made a mess of things this summer, she knew she had. Counterfeit money? Running scams with a boy she hardly knew? Getting involved with Ashley again? Ashley
Johansson
?

“No,” Bernetta said, shaking her head again. “No, it's not.”

“Oh, Netta.” Elsa pulled her back to get a good look at her. “What's wrong?”

“It's—it's just—” She noticed the duffel bag on the floor. The front door was still open. “It's nothing. You just got home. You probably want to go to sleep. Sorry. I don't even know what's wrong with me. I'm tired, I guess.”

Elsa tucked a strand of her silky black hair behind her ear, still perfectly curled, even after midnight. “You're probably right; you just need some sleep.” She leaned down and picked up her bag.

“How was camp?” Bernetta asked.

“It was good,” Elsa replied. “Only . . .”

“Only what?”

“Only my feet are disgusting. Five weeks out in the forest, you know? I could really use a good toenail polish.” She glanced at Bernetta. “Too bad you're so tired.”

Ten minutes later they were stretched out on Elsa's floor. Elsa had changed into her pajamas, and she was painting her toes Georgia Peach. Bernetta rummaged through the dresser drawer, searching for the perfect color. She wasn't in the mood for Blueberry Bramble, it definitely wasn't a Tangerine Delicious evening, and she'd chucked the Rustic Red in the garbage.

“So?” Elsa asked. “What's going on?”

Bernetta took a deep breath and held it. She was practically bursting with all the things she wanted to tell her sister. Everything. All of it. All the lies and deceits and cons and Gabe and Ashley and every last detail. But she couldn't. For a second she wished she were still Same Old Netta, so she'd know exactly how to tell Elsa what she was feeling. So she wouldn't have any of these problems in the first place.

But she was a very different Bernetta Wallflower now. She let out all the air in her lungs and took a bottle of polish out of Elsa's drawer. Ruby Slipper. She examined it closely. Was the new Bernetta a Ruby Slipper kind of girl? She didn't know. Maybe. She placed the bottle on the floor and picked up another one. Perfect Plum Purple? Was that what she was feeling? Or was she more of a Midnight Frost?

“Netta?” Elsa asked, her voice soft. “You okay? What's wrong?”

Silver Bells? Easy Being Green? Twirly Girlie Grapefruit?

Bernetta grabbed all the bottles from the dresser and dumped them on the floor.

“Netta?”

Then, all at once, Bernetta gulped and sputtered, and the tears flooded out.

“I . . .” Bernetta said, her face in her hands. “I don't know what color I want!” She couldn't help the tears.

Elsa rushed over to her and scooped her up in a hug. She held on tight for a long time. “Shh. Shh, Netta, it's okay. It's all right.”

And Bernetta let her say those things, whisper them in her ear as if they were true. But really, were they?

It was several minutes before Elsa let her go. She rubbed Bernetta's arm softly. “Can you tell me what's wrong, Netta?”

Bernetta shook her head slowly, swallowing hard. How could she explain to Elsa that she'd spent the whole summer trying to be someone different, and now she didn't much like the person she'd turned into?

Elsa handed her a tissue, and Bernetta wiped her face. When she thought she had the sobbing under control, she attempted a smile, although it came out more as a sniffle than anything else. “Sorry,” she said.

“That's okay,” Elsa replied. “It's been a tough summer, huh?”

Bernetta rolled her wet tissue into a ball. “Yeah. I guess—I guess I missed you.” She tossed the tissue toward Elsa's trash can, but she was short by two feet. “Sorry I'm such a mess. I should probably go to bed or something.” But she stayed on the floor, staring blankly at the wall.

Elsa didn't say anything. She just got up slowly and crossed the room to her desk. When she came back, she was holding three sheets of paper, stapled together and creased into fourths. “I was going to give this to you when I left for college, but here.” She handed the pages to Bernetta. “I think you need it now.”

“What is this?”

“My valedictorian speech,” Elsa said. “Go ahead. Read it. I'm going to paint your toenails. No peeking now.”

Bernetta took the papers and read the first sentence while Elsa grabbed her left foot.
Good afternoon, friends and family, teachers, and fellow graduates
.

“What color are you painting them?” Bernetta asked from behind the speech.

“It's a surprise. Keep reading.”

Thank you for sharing this occasion with us
.

Bernetta skimmed ahead, doing her best not to look at Elsa or her own toes.

People say that these are the best days of our lives, but I know we all have many exciting adventures in front of us. Who knows what our futures hold
?

Bernetta could feel the tears pinching at her eyes again. Why was her sister making her read this? So she'd know exactly how thrilled Elsa was about leaving for all her
exciting adventures
?

“Are you reading?” Elsa asked.

“Yes,” Bernetta grumbled.

But as amazing as our futures will be, I think it's important to remember the things that shaped our past. I know I wouldn't be the person I am today—I wouldn't be up here right now—if it weren't for the people in my life who cared about me. The people who will stay with me no matter where life may take me
.

Bernetta continued reading for a few more lines but then stopped. “Elsa,” she said. “This is about me.”

“Yeah, I know. I wrote it.”

“Why would you write your valedictorian speech about
me
?”

Elsa swatted at Bernetta's leg. “No peeking, Netta! I told you! And I wrote the speech about you because you're my sister, and I'm going to miss you. And I wanted you to know how much you mean to me.”

“How much
I
mean to
you
?”

“Yeah. Of course it would have been more dramatic and meaningful at graduation, if you'd heard me say it in front of everyone, but . . .”

Bernetta smiled. “This way works too,” she said.

When she finished reading, she waited until Elsa painted the last of her toes, and then she asked, “Are you really going to miss me, Elsa?”

“Are you kidding? How many sisters do you think I have? You can look at your feet now, by the way.”

Bernetta looked.

Elsa had painted each of her toes a different color—baby blue, yellow, cranberry, violet—ten different colors, one for each toe.

Elsa grinned at her. “I wanted to give you options,” she told Bernetta.

Bernetta felt her tears melting away. “Thanks,” she said. And she meant it.

Bernetta helped Elsa put the polish bottles back in the drawer, and when they were done, Elsa gave her another hug. But this one felt less squeezy big sistery and more comforting and understanding. “I don't know what's going on with you,” Elsa told her, “but I'm sure you'll figure it out.”

Bernetta looked down at her rainbow toes. “Maybe,” she said.

“You will,” Elsa replied. “You're the smartest person I know.”

Bernetta thought about that as she snuggled into bed.

You're the smartest person I know
.

Coming from Elsabelle Wallflower, school valedictorian, it was quite a compliment.

Somehow Bernetta overslept the next morning. When she woke up and saw the red numbers on her clock glaring at her, she jumped out of bed and raced to her dresser, yanking a T-shirt and shorts out of her drawer without even bothering to check if they matched. She slid her feet into a pair of flip-flops and raced out the door as she hollered good-bye to her parents. Then she pedaled into town as quickly as she could, her braid whipping out a rhythm against her back.

Ashley was already there, sitting on the stoop in front of the shoe store when Bernetta dumped her bike on the sidewalk. Gabe was nowhere in sight.

Ashley leaped to her feet. “Look!” she shouted. She did not sound happy. “Look at that!”

Bernetta looked to where Ashley was pointing. The sign in the window of the shoe store.
THIS SPACE FOR SALE BY OWNER
.

All the windows were covered in thick white paper.

Ashley's face was red and seemed to be swelling like a balloon. Bernetta wiped her sweaty palms on her shorts and tried to think of something to say. “Um, I guess this means Mike—”

“He left!” Ashley hollered at her. “He's gone, and he's
stolen
our money!” She spat out the word “stolen” like it left a rotten taste in her mouth.

“Yeah,” Bernetta said. She blinked. “Yeah, I guess he did.”

Ashley threw her hands in the air. “Oh, what do you care anyway? You didn't even put in any money. I put in everything I had!
Everything
!
” Ashley was screaming now, pacing back and forth.

“But you . . .” Bernetta said slowly. “That wasn't everything you had. You still have ten thousand dollars. The other half of your deposit.”

Ashley came up close to Bernetta and stopped right in front of her, her face just inches away. “There wasn't any more money. I lied.”

“Oh,” Bernetta said. “I—I didn't know that.”

Ashley began pacing again. “This is all your fault,” she said.

“What?” Bernetta hollered. She could feel her face getting hot now. “How is this my fault?”

“I wouldn't be here if it weren't for you! I wouldn't have lost all my money!”

“Well,
I
wouldn't be here if it weren't for
you
!” Bernetta screeched back.

There was more she could have said, much more, about friendship, and school, and trust, and . . . everything, really. All the mean, terrible, awful things that had been boiling inside her head for weeks now. But she didn't say it, not any of it.

Because at that moment she glanced down at her feet and caught sight of her toes—ten different colors.
I wanted to give you options
, Elsa had said.

And all of a sudden Bernetta realized that she
did
have options—dozens of them, maybe even hundreds. A whole rainbow of options. Maybe she couldn't control if her sister moved away. Maybe she couldn't control if someone stole from her or if the people she thought were her friends turned out to be con artists and backstabbers. But there were some things she
could
control. There were a million alternate Bernettas she could become, and she wasn't going to get roped into becoming one she didn't like.