The Life and Crimes of Bernetta Wallflower (16 page)

Bernetta climbed back on her bike slowly and took a good long look at the abandoned shoe store, chewing on her lip. Then she turned to Ashley.

“Well?” Ashley cried, her hands on her hips. “Don't you even
care
? I lost ten thousand dollars! Do you know how much money that is? Aren't you going to say
anything
?”

Bernetta set her feet firmly on her bike pedals and thought about the one thing she should say to Ashley Johansson. Then, her mind made up, she said it.

“Good-bye, Ashley,” she told her. And she pedaled away.

S
WITCH
:
n
: to exchange one object for another secretly

Bernetta took a deep breath as she pulled her bike in front of 173 Fields Street, parked on the sidewalk, walked across the grass, and knocked on Gabe's door. It opened almost immediately. But it wasn't Gabe who opened it.

“Why, hello there, Carlotta!”

“Hey,
Mike
,” she said. Then she tilted her head to the side and grinned. Gabe's uncle Kevin looked a whole lot different without his mustache.

He ushered Bernetta inside. “How did it go with your friend?” he asked as they made their way into the living room.

“Who, Ashley?” Bernetta shrugged a shoulder. “Well, she's not exactly my friend anymore. But I guess it went okay.”

Uncle Kevin nodded. “Do you know she called and left a message on the store machine last night, saying that she'd be there early to pick up the money for all three of you? You believe that? The two of you put in nothing compared with her, and she still tried to cheat you out of it.”

Bernetta just shook her head.

Gabe walked into the living room then. “Hey! Bernetta!” he cried. “I thought I heard you. Uncle Kevin, why didn't you tell me Bernetta was here? So how did it go? Did she buy it? Are we in the clear?”

“Don't worry,” Bernetta said. “You probably won't have to fake your own death or anything.”

“Oh, good,” he said. And then he hugged her. He wrapped her right up. They stayed like that a moment, with Gabe's arms tight around her and Bernetta's out loosely to the side, not sure if she should hug him back or not, and then all of a sudden Gabe pulled away. He smiled at Bernetta but quickly glanced down at his sneakers, his cheeks turning red. “Uh, anyway . . .” He turned to Uncle Kevin. “So can we see it now?” he asked. “
Please?
”

“The money?” Uncle Kevin laughed. “Yeah, it's right there by the door.”

Gabe located the purple shoe box and scooped it up off the rug. He motioned to the couch, and together the three of them sat down. They stared at the box for a moment in silence, until finally, slowly, Gabe removed the lid.

“Wow,” Gabe whispered. “Ten thousand dollars.”

“Ten thousand one hundred,” Uncle Kevin corrected.

Gabe's eyes were wide. “Either way,” he said, “it's a lot of money.”

Bernetta peered into the box. It was a lot of money all right. Somehow it looked like even more money than when Ashley had taken it out of her purse. Bills upon bills, green and yellow and tan, a few with folded edges and others nice and crisp.

Gabe reached into the box and leafed through the bills. “Here,” he said, handing a stack to Uncle Kevin. “This is for you. Eleven hundred bucks. The hundred dollars you lent me for the deposit, plus the money for the trial twenties, and then a little something for your acting gig. Bernetta and I decided you should have it.”

Uncle Kevin took the money and held it in his hand for a moment, as though weighing it. “Well,” he said at last, “normally I'd say thanks but no thanks, you two are kids and all that. But today I think I'm going to take it. I need it now that my store's busted and I'm trying to reboot my life back in Hollywood.” He smiled at Bernetta. “You know,” he told her, “if you wanted to, I think you'd make a pretty good actress. You've got a lot of talent, if you ask me. Although”—he pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and wedged the money inside—“it looks like you're already doing pretty well for yourself.”

“I know, right?” Gabe said. “Man, I can't believe we made so much money. You were
good
, Bernetta. You're like the next Al Capone.”

Al Capone?
Bernetta thought. Didn't Al Capone kill people? She looked down at her rainbow toes and gave them a good wiggle.

Gabe finished counting through the bills. “Yep, nine thousand dollars. It's perfect.” He set the lid on the box and held it out to Bernetta. “Exactly what you need to go back to Mount Olive.”

“But . . .” Bernetta stared at the box in Gabe's outstretched hands. “I can't take all—I mean, it was your idea. It was your
uncle
.”

Uncle Kevin laughed at that, and Gabe set the box in Bernetta's lap. “Let's just say we're even,” he told her. He turned back to Uncle Kevin. “So, are you
really
moving back to Hollywood this time?”

“I really am,” Uncle Kevin replied, setting his hands firmly on his knees. “I'm shipping out in just a few days. Good thing you kids caught me when you did. Actually, I should probably get going. I still have a lot of loose ends to tie up before the big move.” He stood up. “Thanks for the acting gig, Gabe. I appreciate it.”

“No problem.”

“Bernetta, it was lovely meeting you.”

“Yeah.” Bernetta was still staring at the purple shoe box in her lap. It was surprisingly heavy.

When Uncle Kevin had gone, shutting the front door behind him, Gabe turned back to Bernetta on the couch and tucked both feet underneath him.

“So what did Ashley say when she saw the store was closed?” he asked her, grinning. “Did she go all psycho-Gollum? Like when he bites off Frodo's finger inside Mount Doom? Oh, man, and do you remember when we were looking at those twenties? And Ashley was like, ‘I can hardly tell they're counterfeit myself.' And that whole time Uncle Kevin had given us
real
twenties! And then when we were in the kitchen store and—”

“Gabe?” Bernetta said.

“Yeah?”

She tilted the purple shoe box in her lap, listening to the sound of the bills resettling themselves. “You think there's any way we could figure out who all those kids were at Mount Olive, who Ashley stole the money from? Maybe we could try to give it back.”

“Maybe,” Gabe said, shaking his head. “But wouldn't it be really hard to track down all of the—” He stopped talking and squinted at her. “Wait, why would you give it back? You need the money for school.”

Bernetta curled all her toes up under her feet and then relaxed them again. “I think—” Rainbow toes, no rainbow toes. “I don't think I'm going back.”

“
What?
” Gabe said. His chin was scrunched up in confusion. “What do you mean you're not going back? I thought that's what all this was about. That's why we were working this whole summer. And now you don't even want it?”

Bernetta sighed. She didn't know quite how to explain it. Five weeks ago she'd thought she'd give anything to go back to Mount Olive. But now that she knew exactly what that
anything
was . . . well, it just didn't seem like the best option anymore.

Gabe shook his head. “So you're going to Harding instead then?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I guess so. Yeah.”

“Oh,” Gabe replied. He was silent for a moment, staring off at his shelves full of movies. “Well, then does that mean—does that mean you're retiring too?”

“Retiring?” Bernetta asked.

“From the con artist business. Are you done for good?”

Bernetta curled her toes up again. “Yeah.” Saying the word felt surprisingly good, like letting out a breath of air she'd been holding so long that her chest ached. “Yeah, I'm retiring. You're not mad at me, are you?”

“Why would I be mad at you?”

“ 'Cause, you know, you're going to have to find a new partner now. Bonnie and Clyde and everything.”

Gabe just laughed. “A new partner?” He flopped back onto the couch, like he'd just let out a huge breath himself. “Nah,” he said. “I think I'm going to retire too.”

“Really? But I thought you loved being a con artist.”

He shrugged one shoulder. “It's not really the same as in the movies, you know?”

Bernetta nodded and clutched the shoe box tight between her hands. “Well, I guess I should get going.”

“Okay,” Gabe replied. “You wanna come over tomorrow? Now that we're retired, you can get caught up on all those films you need to see. I think I'm going to show you
The Godfather
first.”

“Actually, Gabe, I”—she stood up, and he did too—“I don't know if I can. I'm sort of supposed to be grounded for the summer.”

“Oh,” he said. “Okay. Well, maybe when school starts again? You could come over on weekends or something?” He cleared his throat. “If you want to, I mean. You don't have to.”

She laughed. Suddenly she realized that maybe Gabe didn't always know what to say to her either. “I think I'd like that,” she told him.

“You know,” Gabe said as they headed to the front door, “if you go to Harding, maybe you can hang out with Tim. You guys could be copresidents of the chess club. Then Ashley could make fun of both of you at once.” He grinned. “It would save her a lot of time.”

When they reached the door, Bernetta paused, her hand on the doorknob. Was he going to try to hug her again? Should she hug him?

“Well,” he said, “ 'bye, I guess.”

“'Bye,” Bernetta replied. She opened the door and stepped outside.

She walked down the steps and across the grass, and she had just reached her bike when Gabe called out to her.

“Bernetta?”

She whirled around. Gabe was standing in his doorway, hands in his pockets.

“Yeah?”

“I was just thinking. Maybe I could try to get kicked out of Kingsfield. Do something really awful. Then I could hang out with you and Tim at Harding.”

Bernetta placed the shoe box delicately inside the front basket of her bike and climbed up on the seat. Then she looked up at Gabe and smiled.

“Try not to live up to all my expectations,” she told him.

He smiled right back. “
The Sting
,” he said with a nod. “I told you it was a good movie. You'll like
The Godfather
even better.”

“See you, Gabe.”

“See you.”

She rode off down the street. And with each pump of her pedals, life for the new Bernetta Wallflower began to seem more and more exciting. No more cons, no more secrets, watching
The Godfather
on the weekends, even Harding Middle School didn't seem so bad anymore. Maybe she'd even join the chess club like Gabe had said.

Yes, Bernetta thought as she turned the corner. She'd probably be awfully good at chess.

C
ENTER
Tear
n
: a trick in which a magician communicates a message written on a piece of paper that has been previously folded, ripped, and burned

After Bernetta had deposited her money in the bank, she wandered around town for a while, pedaling in lazy zigzags across the street. She went to the park and bought an ice-cream bar from the truck on the corner and sat on a bench in the playground while she ate, her rainbow toes stretched out far in front of her. All around her kids were playing, skidding down the slide headfirst or turning flips on the parallel bars or whispering to each other under the shade of a tree. A group of girls her age was playing soccer on a wide stretch of grass, and some teenagers were having a makeshift picnic of sodas and potato chips, stretched out on their stomachs reading magazines.

This
was summer, Bernetta realized. And she'd missed it. She'd been too busy trying to get somewhere else.

Bernetta pulled the change from her ice-cream bar out of her pocket and plucked out one quarter, holding it in her left hand. She raised it to chest level, as though demonstrating the coin to a captive audience. And as the sun stretched its way across the sky and the warm afternoon drifted into breezy early evening, Bernetta practiced the French Drop.

Colin was bouncing a ball against the garage door when she pulled into the driveway.

“Hey, Bernie Bernie!” he called to her as she set her feet on the ground to stop herself. “I get to go to Zack's for a sleepover. He has a guinea pig. Also, Elsa says I can't own my own planet until I'm eighteen. Is that true?”

Bernetta parked her bike against the garage and scooped Colin up into a hug, lifting his feet right off the ground.

“What was that for, Bernie Bernie?”

She set him back down and shrugged. “Nothing,” she said. “I like you, that's all. Plus I wanted to say thanks. For being such a good roper with Ashley.”

“Oh,” Colin said. “You're welcome. What's a roper?”

“The person who brings in the mark,” Bernetta told him.

“What's a mark?”

She laughed. “I'll tell you when you're older.”

“When I own my own planet?”

“Yes,” she said, tousling his hair. Then she walked inside and upstairs to her room, feeling better than she had in a long time.

That night, when Bernetta's mother got back from dropping Colin off at his sleepover, Bernetta sat down for dinner with her parents and Elsa. Once everyone had ample amounts of food on their plates, Bernetta cleared her throat.

Her dad looked up.

“I want to show you guys something,” she said.

She pulled a quarter from her pocket and, just as she'd practiced, held it up in her left hand and brought her right hand over, pretending to make the switch. She followed her right hand with her eyes the whole time, careful not to give anything away, and then opened her right hand to reveal that it was empty.

Her family began to applaud but stopped when Bernetta opened her left hand: empty as well. She could tell by the look on her dad's face that he hadn't been expecting that. No one else had either.

Slowly, Bernetta reached over her head, and from the depths of her massive braid of frizzy orange-yellow hair, she produced a quarter.

Her father dropped his napkin on the table and clapped his hands. “Bernie!” he cried. “That was amazing!”

“It really was,” Elsa agreed.

“Truly excellent, Bernetta,” her mother declared.

“Thanks,” she said. Then she took a deep breath. A very deep breath. She set the quarter down on the table and stared at it for a moment. “Um . . .” She slid the quarter back and forth a fraction of an inch with her index finger. “Um . . .”

“Bernetta?” her mom said. “Is everything okay?”

She looked up. There was her mother, and her father, and Elsa. Waiting.

What would happen to the money, she wondered, the nine thousand dollars in stolen cash she'd deposited in the bank that afternoon? Maybe it could be donated to charity, to help kids with cancer or something, or to help train dogs find people buried under avalanches.

“Bernetta?”

She didn't know what they would do when she told them. When she explained all the way back to the begining, about Ashley and the cheating ring. When she talked about Gabe, and the stealing, and all about the fake babysitting job and how she'd tricked Colin into helping her, and the long con they'd pulled, with Ashley as the perfect mark. There'd be yelling, that was for sure. Shouting too and crying—lots of crying. Lectures. Even more grounding. She'd probably have to see some kind of therapist or something, and they'd watch her like hawks, and maybe they wouldn't ever trust her again.

“Netta? What's going on?”

But when she told them, they'd
know.
No more secrets. No more lying. No more Bonnie, or Al Capone. Just Bernetta. Bernetta Wallflower. She had lots of choices, and she was determined to make the right one.

“Bernie?” her father said. “You all right?”

Bernetta nodded, and in one swift rush she let out the breath she'd been holding. “Yeah,” she said. “I'm all right. But there's something I need to tell you guys.”

It was time to lay her cards on the table.