The Life and Crimes of Bernetta Wallflower (4 page)

C
RIMP
: to bend one part of a card to make it easily identifiable within a deck

“Nine thousand dollars,” Bernetta told Elsa. “Nine
thousand
dollars.”

“That's a lot of money,” Elsa said. “What was it Mom wanted? Paprika and what else?”

“French bread. Elsa, you're not even listening to me.”

They were sitting in Elsa's car, on the way to the grocery store to pick up some last-minute dinner items for their mother. Technically, Bernetta wasn't supposed to be
out and about
since she was still—and forever—grounded. But Elsa had convinced their parents that running errands wasn't exactly a social activity and that the two of them should try to spend as much time together as possible before Elsa left for volleyball camp that week. After all, it was Elsa's last summer before college.

Elsa turned a hard right into the grocery store parking lot and glided into a spot directly in front of the store. Then she turned off the ignition and gave Bernetta her full attention.

“You know if I had nine thousand dollars, I'd give it to you, right?”

Bernetta realized her bottom lip had been sticking out in a serious two-year-old pout, and she reeled it back in. “I know,” she said.

“Look,” Elsa told her as they climbed out of the car, “Mount Olive's great and everything, but I hear Harding Middle School is good too. They have a really excellent chess team.”

Bernetta scowled at that. “I don't play chess,” she said.

Elsa checked her door to make sure it was locked, and Bernetta did the same. “Okay, but—Oh! Remember my friend Gretchen from gymnastics? She went to Harding. She really liked it there.”

“Gretchen Weir?”

“Yeah.”

“Didn't Gretchen Weir drop out last year to live with that guy who works at the gas station?”

“Oh, yeah . . .”

Bernetta let out all her air in one huff and stormed into the grocery store. The automatic doors parted, and the air conditioning blasted her right in the face.

As Elsa perused the bread choices in the bakery section, Bernetta pulled her braid off her neck and tried to absorb as much of the cool air as possible. Nine thousand dollars was a lot of money. A
lot
of money. That afternoon Bernetta had counted all the cash she'd been hoarding in her desk drawer for ages—birthday money, leftover bits of allowance, coins she found on the street—and the grand total had added up to $35.22. Nine thousand dollars? It might as well have been nine million.

But still, there must be
some
way to make money. There were twelve more weeks of summer. That was $750 a week. A ton of money, true, but possible. Wasn't it possible?

Elsa finally found an acceptable loaf of French bread, and they made their way over to the spices. Bernetta scanned the labels lazily. Cinnamon, cumin, marjoram—what on earth was marjoram?

She had to go back to Mount Olive, where she belonged. She
had
to.

As she waited with Elsa in the checkout line, Bernetta made a vow. She'd do it. She'd do whatever it took, but she'd go back. She'd find their stupid nine thousand dollars, she'd hand it to them with a smile on her face, and she'd waltz back into their school—
her
school. She'd get her picture in the hall of honors or die trying. It would be a really great picture too. Beautiful even. Bernetta had six years to find a new haircut.

And she'd be so normal, so happy, that Ashley Johansson wouldn't even know what to do with herself. With her gorgeous new haircut and five million new friends—
real
friends—Bernetta would never be an idiot again.

That'd show Ashley Johansson.

On the way home Bernetta turned her mind to figuring out how, exactly, she would make nine thousand dollars in one summer. Lawn mowing? She'd have to charge fifty bucks a lawn. Dog walking? That was an awful lot of dogs. Maybe she could paint houses around town. And replace shingles. And wash windows.

Bernetta was busy with her mental math when she noticed Elsa turning left on Dorn Avenue.

“Um, Elsa?” she said. “What are you doing? Our house is that way.”

“Yeah, but the music store's this way. I want to pick up this new CD Danielle was telling me about.”

“What? No, come on, I need to go home. I'm grounded, remember? And you always take four hundred years in the music store.”

Elsa rolled her eyes as she turned another corner. “I do not take four hundred years,” she said. “Anyway, if Mom and Dad ask, just say I forced you to go against your will.”

Bernetta sighed as they pulled into the parking lot. Really, she was anxious to get home so she could work on Operation Return to Mount Olive. It was too hard to come up with strategies and calculate figures with hip-hop music blaring at you from ten different speakers.

“I'll just be five minutes,” Elsa said as she opened her door. “I promise.”

“All right. Five minutes.”

They headed over to the new-release section, and Elsa riffled through the CDs. Bernetta picked up a CD she'd never heard of from the bargain bin and tried to read the tracks on the back, but her eyes kept darting to the clock on the wall, the one made from an old Elvis record. She tapped her foot on the gray carpet, keeping pace with each second that ticked by.

She was just putting the CD back in the bin when something caught her eye. To her right, not fifty feet from her, someone was loitering in the DVD section.

And that someone looked familiar.

Bernetta squinted her eyes. She knew she'd seen the boy before, but she couldn't quite place him. He didn't go to her school, she was certain of that. And yet she was
sure
she knew him.

Across the store the boy picked up a DVD and studied the back. Bernetta squinted her eyes to get a better look at him. He looked
so
familiar. Shaggy brown hair, deep brown eyes you could almost sink into . . . She inched closer to him to get a better look . . . and rammed right into a rack of gospel CDs, sending an entire shelf crashing to the floor.

As heads shot her way, Bernetta scrambled to pick up the CDs. Her cheeks were burning. She hoped she hadn't broken anything. The last thing she needed right now was to have to buy sixteen cracked Mahalia Jackson albums.

She felt a tap on her shoulder. “You need some help with those?” a voice asked.

Bernetta looked up slowly, praying it wasn't . . . but it was. Of course. Smiling down at her was none other than the brown-haired boy with the Hershey bar eyes. He was wearing a blue T-shirt that read
STRANGE THINGS ARE AFOOT AT THE CIRCLE-K.
And at last she placed him. It was Gabe, from Trunk Number Eight.

“Um, thanks,” she said as he knelt to help her. He placed the
Star Wars
DVD he'd been holding on the floor and began tidying. Bernetta kept her chin tucked close to her chest in the hopes he wouldn't recognize her. As if she hadn't made a big enough idiot out of herself already.

Gabe straightened out a stack of CDs on the bottom shelf. “So,” he said, “how's your tailbone?”

Bernetta dropped the CD she'd just picked up. “What?” she asked, scooping the CD up again.

“Your tailbone,” Gabe repeated. He blinked at her. “You're—I mean, you're that girl, right? From the magic club last night? You fell from that giant birdcage?” Bernetta was sure she was choking, but Gabe kept talking. “Patrick told me he heard you broke your tailbone. That's why the ambulance came and everything and the guys had to carry you off on the . . .” He paused. “You okay? Your face is sort of turning blue.”

Bernetta cleared her throat. “Um, I think I have to go.” She pushed herself off the floor and searched frantically for Elsa. She finally spotted her waiting in line at the cash register, and she scurried over.

“Wait!” Gabe called behind her. “Wait, I wanted to ask you something!”

But Bernetta had had enough embarrassment for one day. She reached the checkout line just as Elsa was handing over her CD.

“Hey, Netta,” Elsa said. She dug inside her purse and pulled out her wallet. “Something the matter?”

Bernetta shook her head and tried to regain control of her breathing. She looked around for Gabe but didn't see him anywhere. “Nah,” she said. “I'm fine.”

“Good.”

There was a tap on Bernetta's shoulder.

She tried to ignore it, but three seconds later there was another one.

“Netta?” Elsa said as she pulled out her money. “I think that boy behind you is trying to get your attention.”

Bernetta bit her bottom lip and turned around.

“Hey,” Gabe said. He stuck one hand in his pocket. “I wanted to ask you something.”

“My tailbone's
fine
,” Bernetta hissed. She glanced sideways at her sister, but Elsa didn't seem to have heard her.

Gabe grimaced. “Yeah, sorry about that. Anyway, what I wanted to ask you—”

Bernetta did
not
want to talk about her accident. She searched for something, anything, else to talk about. “You going to buy that?” she asked, pointing to the DVD in Gabe's hands.

Gabe looked down, as though he'd forgotten what he was holding. “Oh, this?
The Empire Strikes Back
? Yeah. I mean, no. I mean, maybe. I mean—”

She grabbed it right out of his hands. “Haven't you seen it already? It's only the best
Star Wars
movie there is.”

Bernetta could have smacked herself. Why did she have to sound so obnoxious? Why couldn't she just have a normal conversation with a boy?

But Gabe smiled. “Maybe only a million times,” he said. “But anyway, do you have a second, 'cause really there's something I wanted to—”

Elsa turned around then. “Netta?” she said. “Oh, sorry to interrupt.” She glanced at Gabe. “Are you one of Bernetta's friends from Mount Olive?”

Bernetta shook her head before Gabe could respond. “Um, not exactly.”

“Oh,” Elsa said, slipping her wallet back into her purse. She studied Gabe for a moment. “Well, Netta, I think we'd better go. It's been fifteen minutes, and Mom might send out the dogs soon. But if you and your friend want to—”

“No.” Bernetta cut her off. “No, that's okay. You're right, we should probably get going.” She handed Gabe back his DVD. “ 'Bye,” she said.

“But—” Gabe began.

“Sorry, gotta go. May the force be with you.” And she turned and followed Elsa out of the store.

It was official. Bernetta
stank
at talking to boys.

They were five feet from the doorway when Bernetta felt a foot on the back of her heel. She turned around and found Gabe grinning at her.

That was weird.

“I really have to go,” Bernetta told him.

Gabe just shrugged. “All right,” he said. “I guess I'll talk to you later then.”

Bernetta shook her head as she and Elsa walked out of the store. If that kid thought he was going to run into her at any more music stores that summer, he was sorely mistaken. If her mom ever found out she'd broken her grounding again, Bernetta would be on lockdown until she was forty.

“Who was that?” Elsa asked as they made their way to the car.

Bernetta shrugged. “I have no idea.”

“Well, I think he likes you.”

“No way,” Bernetta replied as she climbed into the car. “Anyway, he's obviously crazy.”

“Crazy in
lo-ove.
”

Bernetta smacked Elsa on the arm and snorted. “He is
not
,” she said, but she couldn't help smiling.

As the car pulled out of the parking lot, Bernetta thought she heard the squeal of an alarm coming from the music store. But she was too busy trying to push thoughts of brown-haired boys out of her head to focus instead on nine thousand dollars, and she really didn't think much about it.

A
PPARITION
: the appearance of something remarkable or unexpected, such as a ghost

Bernetta sat on the floor of her bedroom, legs crossed, and scanned the help-wanted section of the newspaper. A soft breeze drifted in from her open window, flicking the end of her braid as she searched.

COMPUTER PROGRAMMER.

No.

WAITRESS.

No.

CHILD CARE.

Excellent! She could do that. As long as she made at least $13.39 an hour and could work eight hours a day every day for the rest of the summer.

BABYSITTER WANTED. $6/HR.

NEEDED—CHILD CARE. CPR CERT'D.
4
KIDS.

T
ODDLERS + INFANTS.

NANNY WANTED. $8/HR. HOUSEWORK INCLUDED.

No, no, and no. Bernetta huffed with frustration. This was ridiculous. CPR certification? Housework? And was six dollars an hour even minimum wage?

Even if she found a job that paid enough money to get her back to school, there was still the teensy problem of convincing her parents to let her out long enough for her to go to work. But the first hurdle was finding something she could actually
do.
And that hurdle was proving to be pretty difficult.

She was just wondering if she could possibly, feasibly,
somehow
, pass for sixteen and get a waitressing job when her eye caught sight of the last ad in the child care section.

NEEDED. SUMMER BABYSITTER. 2 KIDS.
GOOD PAY.

Now that sounded promising. Bernetta picked up the receiver of the phone that she'd snagged from Elsa's room and dialed the number at the bottom of the ad.

One ring. Two.

“Hello?” a woman answered.

“Um, hi.” Bernetta was trying to sound professional, but she wasn't sure how that was going. “I'm calling about the ad in the paper. The babysitting job?”

“Yes?”

There was a pause, and Bernetta realized it was her turn to speak again. Her hand was sweaty on the receiver. “Um”—
professional people don't say um
—“I was wondering if you could tell me about the job.”

“Well”—the woman's voice softened a little—“Hank and Yolanda are five and seven. They're very well behaved. We'd need someone for just a couple hours every Monday and Wednesday, while I'm at my pottery class.”

“Oh, okay,” Bernetta said. A couple of hours wasn't eight hours a day, which was what she needed, but if the pay was high enough, she figured she could spend the rest of her time walking dogs and fixing shingles. It was a start at least. “Well, that sounds good.”

“Great,” the lady replied. “I'll need references, of course.” References? “From your previous jobs.” Did watching your little brother make peanut butter and whipped cream sandwiches count as a job? “And can you tell me how much you usually charge an hour?” the woman asked.

“Uh . . .” “Uh” was better than “um” anyway. Bernetta cleared her throat. “Twenty dollars?”

There was another pause. A long one.

“Well,” the woman said at last, “I was thinking more along the lines of seven, but I could maybe go as high as nine.”

“Okay,” Bernetta said.

“Great,” the woman answered. “Can I ask what college you go to? Is it one around here, or are you home for the summer?”

“Um . . .” Bernetta had been trying to sound old, but she didn't know she'd been doing
that
good a job. “I'm not in college yet actually.”

“Oh. What high school then?”

“I'm not in high school either.”

Bernetta could almost hear the woman raising her eyebrows on the other end of the line. “Well, how old
are
you?”

She could have lied. She could have just said she was sixteen. But Bernetta didn't look sixteen, and once she showed up, the woman was bound to figure it out, and then where would she be? Yes, the truth was definitely the best option.

“Um, I'm twelve.”

“
Twelve?
”

Okay, clearly that hadn't worked so well.

“I'm sorry, sweetie,” the woman said, and she made the word “sweetie” sound like an insult. “I'm looking for someone a little older to take care of my children.”

“That's okay,” Bernetta said with a sigh. “I underst—”

But the woman had already hung up the phone.

Bernetta searched the paper for another two hours, reading and rereading every single ad and calling at least half of them. She called about jobs she knew she wouldn't get in a million years. Nanny, housekeeper, refrigerator repairman, youth minister, paralegal . . . she called them all.

Nothing.

It seemed that earning nine thousand dollars in twelve weeks was simply an impossible task for a twelve-year-old.

She flopped back on the floor, legs still crossed, and heaved the sigh of a girl defeated.

Her bedroom door began to creak open, and Bernetta worried for a frantic second that it was one of her parents, and she'd be busted for using the phone. But it was only Elsa.

“Any luck with the job hunt, Netta?” Elsa asked.

Bernetta gave a pathetic sideways headshake and then sat up and handed Elsa her phone. “No,” she said. “Nothing. I'm doomed.”

“It'll be okay,” Elsa told her.

“No!” Bernetta cried. “It won't. It won't be okay, Elsa. How on earth am I
ever
going to make nine thousand dollars in one summer?”

Elsa frowned and looked at her toes. “I don't know, Netta. I'm sorry.”

And just like that, she left the room.

She shut the door behind her, and as soon as she did, Bernetta heard a noise coming from her bedroom window, a noise that sounded suspiciously like a person clearing his throat. She spun her head toward the sound, and to her horror she saw a head pop up above the windowsill. A boy's head. A head covered in unruly brown hair.

The boy looked at her, as casual as anything, and smiled.

“I know how you can make nine thousand dollars,” he said.

Bernetta stood up quickly and backed against the far wall. She didn't care if Gabe's eyes were the exact brown of a Hershey's chocolate bar. This was
weird.
She rushed through her options in her head. If she screamed, her parents would be in her room in a flash, and Gabe would be banished forever. On the other hand, if they found a
boy in her room
—a cute boy—while she was grounded beyond all groundings ever recorded in history . . . well, that could spell trouble. They hadn't believed her about the Ashley thing, so why would they ever believe that some crazy kid had just showed up uninvited?

Bernetta didn't scream.

“What are you doing here?” she asked Gabe. She tried to sound commanding, as if she weren't scared one bit that a boy she hardly knew was leaning into her second-story window, his legs draped over a tree branch. “What do you want?”

“I told you, I want to ask you a question,” he replied. He gripped the windowsill with his right hand and began hoisting himself inside the room.

“If you move one inch closer,” Bernetta said, “I'm going to scream.”

“No, you won't,” Gabe told her, slinging a leg over the sill. “If you were going to scream, you would have done it already.”

“How do you know?”

He shrugged as he slid the other leg into the room. “I'm good at reading people. I'm like Bill Pullman in
Zero Effect
.”

Bernetta squinted her eyes at him. “What do you want?”

He was all the way in her room now, sitting on the edge of the windowsill. Bernetta had her hand on her doorknob, ready to bolt if he came any closer.

“I was thinking about that night at the dinner club,” he said. “When you took my watch? You were good. Real good. You must have lightning hands or something.”

“That's not a question,” Bernetta said.

He scratched his head. “Yeah, well, anyway, I wanted to talk to you after the show, but then you fell and everything, and—”

Bernetta was not going to give him another chance to talk about her tailbone. “Did you follow me here? Have you been sitting in that tree since I got home?” Bernetta's mind raced, trying to remember everything she'd done in the past few hours. Had she done anything horribly embarrassing, like talk to herself or pick at her sunburn?

Gabe shook his head. “Nah, I just got here a few minutes ago.”

“But then how did you know where I—”

Gabe produced a wallet from his back pocket and grinned. He was obviously very proud of himself. “The address is on your sister's driver's license,” he said. He tossed the wallet across the room, right at Bernetta's feet.

“You stole my sister's
wallet
?” Bernetta didn't make a move to retrieve it. Her hand was still firmly gripping the doorknob. “What's wrong with you?”

Gabe shook his head. “No, don't worry! I didn't take anything. I didn't . . . I just wanted to see where you lived, that's all.” He shrugged. “She probably hasn't even noticed it's missing yet.”

“But why did you want my address?”

“ 'Cause I have a business proposition for you.”

“A what?”

“See, I had this idea. . . .” He dug the toe of his sneaker into Bernetta's carpet as he spoke. “I think we should be partners. Actually, I
know
we should. I saw you at that club, and I just knew it.”

“Partners?”

“Yeah, you know, like Bonnie and Clyde? It'd be perfect! Anyway, I wanted to talk to you after the show, but I didn't ever get to, so I thought maybe that was that. But then I saw you today at the music store, and it was, you know, a
sign
. Just like in
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
when Richard Dreyfuss makes that mountain out of mashed potatoes, and then later he figures out he has to go to Wyoming.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Look, I need a partner, and you need nine thousand dollars. It's totally a sign.”

“A partner?” Bernetta squinted at him. “Bonnie and Clyde? Didn't Bonnie and Clyde rob banks?”

He rolled his eyes. “We're not gonna
rob banks
. Jeez, you think I'm crazy?”

“Yeah. I do.”

“Just let me explain what I—”

“I'm not going to steal anything, all right? So you should just go home right now.” Chocolate bar eyes or not, this kid was bonkers.

Gabe shook his head. “But we won't be stealing.”

“Oh, yeah? What's your great plan then? Worm farming?”

“No,” he said. “We'll be confidence men.”

“What men?”

“You know, grifters.”

“
What?
”

“Con artists,” he said. “You know, like in
The Sting
.”

“
The Sting?
”

“Yeah. Have you seen it? It's probably one of the top ten best movies of all—”

“What is
wrong
with you?” Bernetta said again. “I know what con artists are, okay? They steal money. And I told you already, I'm not stealing anything.”

Gabe's brown eyes lit up with excitement. “But that's just it,” he said. “It's not stealing. Not really. It's their job.”

“What's their job?”

“They're tricksters. Hustlers, right? But they're not thieves.”

“Oh, yeah? Then what's the difference?”

“See, thieves take money. But con artists, they get people to
hand
it to them.”

Bernetta narrowed her eyes at him. “I think I'll pass.”

“Oh, come on,” Gabe said. “We'd be perfect together. I want to get into the confidence business, and you need a ton of cash by the end of the summer. I don't know why you need it, but nine thousand dollars for a con artist is practically nothing. We could make double that in two months.”