The Life and Crimes of Bernetta Wallflower (7 page)

“Thanks.” Bernetta took the ten and moved to put it in her pocket but then paused, as though something had just occurred to her.
Here's where the trick comes in
, Bernetta thought. She had to keep calm and act normal. It was just like fanning out a deck of cards before an audience member when the whole time the guy had no idea the deck contained nothing but aces.

Bernetta wondered if Gabe could see her from outside the store. She wondered if his heart was dancing the cha-cha like hers was.

“Actually,” she told Heather, scooping up the pile of bills still on the counter and placing her ten on top, “this is a lot of change. Can I just get a twenty?”

Heather hardly looked at Bernetta as she took the bills. “She did not say that. She did not! Tiffany, you
know
that's not true.” She handed Bernetta a twenty-dollar bill and closed the drawer.

Bernetta walked out of the store with a pack of gum in her left pocket and a twenty-dollar bill in her right, $9.11 richer than when she'd entered. Her heart was gradually slowing its way into more of a Viennese waltz.

“See?” Gabe said when she reached him. He was grinning. “You were great! You're practically Mel Gibson in
Maverick.
I knew you'd be a natural.”

Bernetta couldn't help returning the smile. At this rate, there was nothing in the world that could stop her from heading back to Mount Olive.

C
OIN
FOLD
n
: a trick in which a coin appears to vanish within full view of the spectator

As the morning wore on, and the wad of twenty-dollar bills grew ever larger in her backpack, Bernetta began to feel more and more confident. Gabe was a good teacher. Shortly after one o'clock they were standing outside the arcade, where Gabe had promised to show her a new trick.

“Hey, Gabe?” Bernetta was standing right next to him, but the beeps and buzzes from the arcade made it hard to have a quiet conversation. “What are we looking for, anyway?”

“Bad eyesight,” he told her. “You're gonna love this next trick. It's really cool.”

Gabe was focused on the crowd passing by, and Bernetta took the opportunity to study him. The flashing lights from the games inside bounced across his face, changing the skin on his cheek from green to red to blue.

“So,” Bernetta hollered across to him, “where do you get all those T-shirts you have anyway? Are they all movie quotes?”

Gabe kept his eyes steady on the crowd, but he nodded in Bernetta's direction. “Yeah. Aren't they great? My friend Patrick's dad owns a silk-screening shop. I make them all myself. You want one?”

Bernetta shook her head. “Nah, I think I'm okay.”

Gabe didn't say anything to that, so Bernetta tried to think of something else to fill the conversation gap. Maybe when she got home, she'd have Elsa give her a lesson in How to Talk to Boys. “So, um . . .” Bernetta said. “That one you're wearing, ‘Your car's uglier than I am.' What movie's that from?”

Gabe glanced down, as though he'd forgotten what shirt he'd put on that morning. “Really? You don't know? It's
American Graffiti.
”

“Oh,” Bernetta said. “I've never seen it.”

He turned to look at her at last, his hands in his pockets. “Are you
serious
? You've really never seen it?”

Bernetta shook her head and silently cursed herself.
Why
hadn't she ever seen that movie? If she had, then she and Gabe would be able to talk for hours probably.

“Well, I'll have to lend it to you then. I have it at my house.”

“Oh, okay,” Bernetta said. “Cool.”

Gabe went back to watching the crowd. “You've seen
The Godfather
, though, right?” he said.

“Um, isn't that rated R or something?” Bernetta asked. “I'm not allowed to watch R-rated movies.”

“Wait, really?” Gabe said. He seemed truly shocked. “Then what do you
do
?”

Bernetta rolled her eyes. “Not everyone's obsessed with movies, you know,” she said with a laugh. “There's other stuff to do too. Like reading a book or something.”

“No way,” Gabe said, but he was grinning. “No way can a book be better than a movie.”

“It's possible,” Bernetta said. It was funny, she thought, how arguing with Gabe could actually be fun. Normally she hated arguing.

“Name one,” Gabe challenged.

“
A Wrinkle in Time.
”

“I've never read it.”

“Well, you should. It's amazing.”

He smiled at her for a second. But just as the butterflies let loose in Bernetta's middle, Gabe caught sight of something over her shoulder, and the moment was over.

“I found them,” Gabe said. “Perfect. That old guy looks exactly like the uncle from
American Movie.
”

“What?”

Instead of answering, Gabe ducked inside the arcade, grabbing Bernetta by the elbow so that she followed with an awkward tumble. As soon as they were inside, he led her right back out the door. An elderly couple was approaching, not ten feet away. Gabe put on a friendly smile and headed over to them. Bernetta was right on his heels.

“Oh,” Gabe declared suddenly, as though something had just occurred to him. He stopped dead in his tracks and looked at Bernetta. “Maybe we should ask them, Patty.” He pointed to the old couple.

Patty?

“Excuse me?” Gabe said to the couple just as they passed by.

The couple stopped, and the old woman smiled at them, peering out from behind tiny rectangular glasses. “Yes, dear?” she said to Gabe.

Gabe shuffled his feet, doing what Bernetta thought was a very good impersonation of someone who didn't want to be any bother. He was a pretty good actor, actually. Maybe, if someone decided to make a new movie of
A Wrinkle in Time
, he could play Calvin. Although Calvin was tall and skinny with bright blue eyes and red hair, so maybe that wouldn't entirely . . .

Bernetta shook her head and tried to focus on the scene in front of her.

“I'm sorry to bug you like this,” Gabe said, “but . . .” He shook his head. “Oh, never mind, it's stupid. Sorry.” He began to walk on again, but the old man stopped him.

“No bother, young man!” he said. His voice was thick and bellowy, like a tractor driving over gravel. “What's the trouble?”

“Well, it's just . . .” Gabe scratched his arm. “See, we're here with Patty's little sister . . .” He pointed to Bernetta. “It's her birthday tomorrow, and she really likes to play pinball and—”

“Isn't that sweet!” the old woman said.

“Anyway,” Gabe went on, “all we have is this twenty that Patty's mom gave us”—he produced the bill from his pocket—“for the games. But the change machine's busted, and the guy behind the counter says he's low on quarters, so he'll only give us change for a ten. Could you . . . oh, never mind, it's too much trouble. I'll just try over at the bookstore.”

What was he up to? Bernetta wondered. Was he going to catch the man off guard and steal his wallet? Is that how they did things in
The Godfather
?

“Now, now,” the old man shouted. “Just you hang on there. I can give you change, no need to wait in that line. Let's see now.” He reached his hand into the pocket of his perfectly creased maroon slacks and pulled out a wad of bills. “Here you go, young man,” he said. He counted out one ten and two fives. “They ought to change that for you, right?”

“I think so.”

“Give the kids some quarters too, Paul,” the old woman instructed, peering over her husband's shoulder. She looked at Bernetta and winked. “He's always carrying around so much change. Good to get rid of it. Then maybe he won't jangle so much.”

Bernetta smiled back weakly. She didn't know what Gabe was planning, but she had a sinking feeling that when it was over, this old couple wouldn't think they were quite so cute anymore.

“Yes, yes,” her husband said. He dug into his other pocket and pulled out a handful of change, then plucked out all the quarters he could find. Bernetta counted as he did. Seven. “Will dimes help you any?” he asked them.

The woman shook her head. “Oh, Paul, you know all those games only take quarters now.”

“Yes, indeed, these days!” the man hollered. “But you know”—he leaned in close to Bernetta and Gabe, as though to tell them a secret—“it wasn't that long ago skee ball cost a nickel. You remember that, Margaret? You remember when skee ball only cost a nickel?”

“I do, I do.”

“Here you go,” he told them, handing over the money. “The extra change is on me.”

Gabe took the money and handed him the twenty. Bernetta kept a careful eye on him the whole time, but he didn't slip any hundreds out of the man's pocket or rip off the woman's gold bracelet. All he did was hand over the twenty-dollar bill and take the change. Maybe his conscience had suddenly kicked in or something.

Thank goodness
, Bernetta thought. She needed money for Mount Olive, but she wasn't ready to rip off a sweet elderly couple to get there.

“Thank you very much,” Gabe said, pocketing the money.

“Not a problem,” the man answered. “And you just wait. One day skee ball will cost five dollars a game, and you'll be out here in the mall telling some youngsters that you remember when it only cost a
quarter
! Ha!” And they walked away.

Bernetta turned to Gabe as he tucked the money in his pocket. “Well, they seemed nice,” she said. “I guess you decided not to pull anything on them after all, huh?”

“Are you kidding me?” Gabe replied. “That old grandpa just traded me twenty-one dollars and seventy-five cents for a two-dollar bill. I mean, I glued the corners of four different twenties to it, but you'd still have to be totally blind not to notice. Biggest profit we've made all day.”

“But . . .” Bernetta sputtered. “I can't believe you just—I mean, they were so
nice.
”

Gabe nodded. “Yeah, but completely rich. Did you see that lady's bracelet?”

“But . . .” Bernetta began again.

Gabe just smiled at her. “So this book?” he said, his head tilted to the side. “
A Wrinkle in Time
? You think I should read it?”

“Um . . .” Bernetta bit at the skin around her right thumbnail. She knew there was something she wanted to say to Gabe, something to tell him exactly how she felt about swindling old people. But for some reason the words seemed to be slowly melting together in her brain, and she was having trouble piecing them together to make a sentence.

Maybe his eyes were darker than a Hershey bar, she thought. Maybe they were more of a rich Ghirardelli's.

“Um, yeah,” she replied at last. “It's a really good book. You'd like it.”

“Cool,” Gabe said. “Let's go see if they have it in the bookstore. Oh, and there's another trick I want to show you. I think you'll be really good at it.”

Definitely Ghirardelli's
, Bernetta decided as she followed Gabe through the mall.

M
ENTALISM
n
: the apparent ability of a magician to read another's mind

As soon as they set foot inside the bookstore, they headed over to the fantasy and science fiction section. Bernetta scanned the authors until she found the
L
s, then plucked a copy of
A Wrinkle in Time
off the shelf and handed it to Gabe. He read the back of the book cover slowly, nodding every now and again, and then opened it. When it looked like he might really be into the story, Bernetta selected a book for herself,
Something Wicked This Way Comes
. She leafed through it, but she couldn't help glancing over at Gabe every few seconds to see how much he was enjoying his book. He clucked his tongue at something, and she leaned over his shoulder to see what page he was on.

“It's good, right?” she asked him.

“Pretty good, yeah. It would make a good movie.”

Bernetta rolled her eyes. “
Anyway
,” she said, “there was some trick or something you wanted to show me?”

“Oh, yeah.” Gabe slid the book back onto the shelf. “Okay, first we have to find a mark.”

“A mark?”

“Yeah, that means the victim, the guy we're going to con. Actually, you know, now that we're partners, I should probably teach you the lingo.”

“What do you mean, the lingo?”

“You know, the way con artists talk to each other.”

“Don't they just talk like everyone else?”

“No, they have all these cool words for everything. You'll like it. Okay, so there's the mark, right?”

“Right,” Bernetta said, “the victim.”

“Right. Then there's the roper. That's the guy who brings in the mark, who becomes friends with him and stuff, so he thinks the con is for real. They use ropers a lot in long cons.”

“What's a long con?”

Gabe picked another book off the shelf and flipped through it. “It's a really big con, not like the stuff we're doing. It usually takes forever to set up, and there's tons of people involved—like in
The Sting
, there are all these guys in costumes and this fake gambling place and everything. It's always kind of crazy and really hard to pull off, but you can make a whole ton of money all at once. Sometimes the guys even fake their own deaths at the end. That's called the cackle-bladder.”

“Um, ew,” Bernetta said. “That's seriously disgust—”

Gabe put a hand on her arm and pointed to the register, where a large woman was purchasing a stack of books. She handed over a gift card, and the cashier rang up her purchase. As he handed back the card, the cashier told her, “Your remaining balance is one hundred thirty-five dollars and sixty-two cents.” The woman put the card back in her wallet.

Gabe's eyes were wide as he turned to Bernetta. “Perfect,” he told her. “This is perfect. I was going to try a bill switch, but gift cards are
gold
. Come on,” he said, grabbing Bernetta's arm. “We gotta follow her.”

Bernetta barely had time to squeeze her book back onto the shelf before they hustled their way out of the store, right on the heels of the woman with the large bag of books.

They scurried after her, trying to remain inconspicuous but still stepping on a few toes and nudging a few passersby here or there. Finally the woman came to a stop in the food court, heading to the back of the line at Salads and Ballads. Gabe led Bernetta to the pizza line at the next stand over.

“So, what are we doing exactly?” Bernetta asked Gabe as they inched forward in line.

“Buying lunch,” Gabe replied. He scanned the tables. “Good,” he said. “It's crowded.”

They paid for their pizza, and Gabe short-changed himself a small profit. Then they wormed their way through the crowd, gripping their orange lunch trays. “Over there,” Gabe said, pointing the way with his chin. He headed directly for the middle of the dining area, where the lady from the bookstore sat by herself at a table for four. Her bag of books was perched on one of the chairs. When they were about twenty feet from the table, Gabe yanked Bernetta behind a row of garbage cans and crouched down low. Bernetta followed suit. She didn't know what else to do.

“Okay, so here's the plan,” Gabe whispered to her. “I'll do most of the talking. You just play along. And when the time comes, you snag her gift card. Sound good?”

“Um, what?” Bernetta almost upended her tray, and she grabbed her soda just in time. Gabe's plan did
not
sound good. “No way. I'm not going to steal her card. It's in her wallet. You saw her put it in there yourself. No way I could get it out of there even if I wanted to.”

“You stole my watch right off my wrist without me even noticing,” Gabe said. “Of course you can do it.”

Bernetta shook her head. “You said people would be
handing
us stuff.”

Gabe paused. “Okay,” he said. “How about we make another bet?” Bernetta squinted an eye at him, but he continued. “You owe me ten dollars, right? Well, if I can't get that woman to hand you her wallet, then I owe
you
ten dollars. But if I
can
get her to give it to you, then you have to take that gift card. Just slip it out without her noticing. You can totally do it. You have lightning hands. And if you do that, then we'll be even. You won't owe me anything.”

Bernetta raised her eyebrows. “You think you can get her to
give
me her wallet?” Gabe nodded. “She's going to put it right in my hands?” He nodded again.

Bernetta thought about it for a moment. There was absolutely no way Gabe could pull that off. And if he could, she definitely wanted to know how.

“Deal,” she said at last.

Gabe just smiled and grabbed Bernetta's soda off her tray. “Excellent,” he replied, and took a good long gulp.

They reached the table, and Gabe smiled at the lady, warm and convincing, just like Bernetta's father when he worked his close-up magic. “Hi,” Gabe said to the woman, in an I'm-just-an-innocent-kid-so-don't-worry voice. “Mind if we share this table with you? It's pretty crowded.”

A quick look around informed Bernetta that there were at least two other tables they could have sat at, but the woman didn't seem to notice.

“No problem,” she said, shifting her bag of books to the floor. She glanced at them briefly, then went back to her salad, stabbing a tomato with her plastic fork.

Gabe plopped himself down right next to the lady, so Bernetta sat too, directly across from him. Gabe took a bite of his pizza, and so did Bernetta. He was acting pretty normal, Bernetta thought. He wasn't even paying attention to the woman. There was no way he was going to get her to hand Bernetta her wallet at this rate. Bernetta took a bite of her pizza and smiled at him across the table.

He smiled right back. “So,” Gabe said to Bernetta. His voice was calm and easy. “Did you find out when your cousin is going to have the baby yet?”

“Um . . .” Bernetta raised an eyebrow. She only had two cousins, and they were both under ten. But she'd promised to play along, so she did her best. “Um, yeah, I don't know. Soon, though. Real soon. Any minute maybe. She could be having it right now.”

“Oh, yeah?” He took a bite of his pizza. “Is it a boy or a girl?”

“Um, it's a girl, I think.”

Gabe was opening his mouth to say something else when the woman next to him cut him off. “You know, my daughter just had a baby,” she said. Her face was beaming with pride. “A little girl too.” The lady turned to Bernetta. “Does your cousin have a name picked out yet?”

“Yeah, um . . .” Bernetta glanced at Gabe, but he just wiped his mouth with his napkin. No help at all. “I think they might name it Wallamina?”

“Oh.” The lady's eyebrows shot up. “Well, that's certainly interesting.”

Bernetta smiled, all teeth. “It's a family name,” she explained.

“I see.” The woman speared a cucumber and popped it into her mouth.

“When did your daughter have her baby?” Gabe asked. Bernetta couldn't help wondering where this weird baby obsession of Gabe's had come from or how on earth it was going to help them get that gift card. Maybe Gabe just really liked babies.

The lady held her hand in front of her mouth to let them know she was still chewing. Once she had swallowed, she replied, “Just two weeks ago.” She smiled wide. “It's her first. Angela Grace, isn't that a beautiful name? I'm flying out to see them all tomorrow.”

Gabe smiled back. “I bet she's just adorable,” he said.

“She is,” the woman said. “Would you like to see a picture?”

“I'd love to!” Gabe replied. Bernetta squinted at him from behind her pizza. None of the boys at Mount Olive ever wanted to look at pictures of babies, she was pretty sure of that.

The woman pulled her wallet out of her purse and flipped through the pictures in the middle. “Here,” she said, showing Gabe the photo on top. “That's Angela on the day she was born. She's something, isn't she?”

Gabe took the wallet for a closer look, and to Bernetta's surprise the woman let him without blinking an eye. He studied the photo for several seconds and then handed it back. “She's really cute,” he told the woman.

She held the photo close to her nose and sighed, still staring at it. “Isn't she, though?” She turned to Bernetta. “Would you like to see too?” she asked.

Bernetta sucked in a quick breath of air. “Oh, I—” she said, eyes darting in Gabe's direction. No way he pulled it off. No
way
. “I don't know, my hands are all greasy.”

“Here, Jenny,” Gabe said, his chocolate brown eyes sparkling. “Use my napkin.”

“You really have to see her,” the woman said, thrusting her wallet at Bernetta. “I may be biased, but I think she's simply the prettiest thing there is.”

Bernetta cleared her throat and wiped her greasy fingers on Gabe's napkin. Then she took the wallet.

This was it, Bernetta thought, the wallet clenched in her hands. Gabe had done his part, and she'd promised she'd take the gift card, so she had to do it. Bernetta Wallflower was no welsher. And she did have lightning fingers. But the woman still had her eyes firmly planted on the wallet, smiling down at the photo inside.

Until Gabe dropped his fork. It flipped right off his tray, landing on the floor with a soft clank, and the woman's gaze went with it.

In the split second that the woman looked away, Bernetta slid her thumb into the slit of the wallet and slipped out the bookstore gift card. It was stowed safely in her pocket before the woman even turned back around.

“She's beautiful,” Bernetta told the woman as she returned the wallet.

“I think so anyway,” the lady replied. She took one last glance at the photo and then put the wallet back in her purse. “I guess I'm just a doting grandmother.”

After the woman had finished her salad and was safely out of view, Bernetta handed the gift card over to Gabe.

“See?” he told her. “I told you you could do it! You're like the Artful Dodger in
Oliver Twist
.”

Bernetta shrugged. “I guess. How did you know she'd show us her baby photos?”

“I saw her at the bookstore,” Gabe replied. “She was buying a whole stack of baby books.
Goodnight Moon, Pat the Bunny
, everything. New grandmas always have pictures. And they
always
want to show them to you.” He put the card in his pocket. “I'm good at reading people, and you have killer hands. We're the perfect team. I told you, right?”

Well, Bernetta thought, Gabe certainly was good at reading people, that was true enough. He'd figured out that new grandmother in a heartbeat. More than that, he'd figured Bernetta out too. Hadn't he been convinced all along that she'd become his partner? And Bernetta had simply thought he was crazy. But Gabe, it turned out, had read her like a book. Was Bernetta really the type of girl who stole things from innocent people? Gabe seemed to think she was. And Bernetta had to admit that she was having much more fun being the girl Gabe thought she was than she'd been having as the falsely accused grounded-for-the-summer cheater. Maybe Gabe was right about her. Maybe this was who she'd been all along.