Weird Girl (9 page)

Day Four: Memory and Concentration. Cleo learned about
watching the person who would be her “mark.” Which pocket did he use for his
wallet? Was it the same every time? Did he remove it with his right or left
hand? Was there Velcro, which would make noise if she opened it on the spot?
Was the wallet attached to a chain? Did he keep it in his coat pocket? If so,
which side of the chest? And most importantly: who else was paying attention?
Was there a security guard staring straight at you? Were there cameras? Did the
person have a spouse/child/friend who would possibly notice the crime?

Cleo and Santo role played all day. He even brought out a
life-size inflatable woman named Marlena (whose actual purpose he never did
explain, Cleo later realized) to be the security guard/spouse/friend who might
be a little too observant, forcing Cleo to be constantly aware of her angles
and the position of her hands. By the end of the evening, Santo admitted that
he was proud of her. It was one of the best moments of Cleo’s life.

As she walked out to her taxi, Santo called after her,
“Tomorrow’s a big day! Lesson Five is probably the most important one, so I
hope you’re ready!”

“You betcha!” yelled Cleo. She waved goodbye out the taxi
window, and Santo had to smile. Unfortunately, it would be the last time he and
Cleo would see one another for quite a while.

So, the next morning, Cleo learned a series of important
lessons (although none of them were Lesson Five). First, she learned that “a
week” is relative, and may not necessarily mean seven full days. Second, she
learned that parents, especially angry parents, rarely choose to share their
full plans in advance with the child who is to be punished with boarding
school. And third, Vera had lied to her about getting “everything bundled up”
on Cleo’s behalf—not directly, but in the underlying implication that the
majority of Cleo’s belongings would be packed and waiting for her when it was
time to leave. What Vera had failed to mention, however, was that Cleo was
allowed only one small suitcase containing underwear, pajamas, a toothbrush, a
hairbrush, and three pairs of shoes.

9

It happened while she was daydreaming in bed. With her eyes
closed and a slight smile, Cleo was imagining herself in a crowded public
place. She snatched wallet after wallet, and car keys, and finally, a gold
watch, weaving her way in and out of the throngs of people until she found
Santo beaming with pride at her haul. Without warning, the blankets were jerked
from the bed and her mother was demanding that she get dressed.

Confused, Cleo just blinked at her. “Why?” she asked.

Helen had tension lines around her mouth and shadows under
her eyes. “Because it’s almost time to go,” she said. Then, she suddenly
whirled and ran from the room. Cleo could have sworn that her mother was
crying.

Glancing at her alarm clock, she realized that she had a
half-hour window before it would be time to meet her taxi, so there would be
barely enough time to get dressed and figure out what her mother was talking
about before slipping away to meet Santo. Quickly sliding from the bed, she
decided to go with an outfit with a lot of pockets. She didn’t know what Lesson
Five was, but she hoped it involved lifting a massive number of items and then
hiding them on her person. Grinning with anticipation, she quickly got dressed,
brushed her teeth and hair, and then skipped down the stairs to see what on
Earth was bothering Helen.

The sight of the group in the foyer as she rounded the curve
in the staircase caused her to draw up short. She took the last ten steps very
slowly. Standing on the mosaic floor, shoulder to shoulder, were Helen, Darwin,
Vera (quietly crying), and a solemn man in a dark suit, sunglasses, and a green
and black houndstooth hat. There was a single black suitcase on the floor
beside him, and Cleo wondered for a moment if this man was planning to stay
with them for a few days. (It wasn’t unusual, after all, for Helen or Darwin
to invite their scientist pals over for a weekend debate.)

But, the suitcase wasn’t his. It was Cleo’s. And this is
when she learned her three lessons. Today was the day that she was to be sent
away. Her parents would not be going with her. Instead, the grim man would be
escorting her and handling paperwork at the school on her parents’ behalf.
(Helen insisted that they simply couldn’t spare the time away from their
research, but Darwin suspected that it really boiled down to a mother’s
inability to watch her daughter suffer.) Cleo tried to process what was going
on, but it was difficult to recalibrate the gears in her head, given that she
had been expecting to be home for another two days. And, to be honest, she had
been holding the secret hope that her parents were bluffing.

She opened and closed her mouth three times before words
came out. “But I have plans today,” she said. “We’ll have to do this another
time.”  She started to edge around the group to gain access to the front door,
but the man’s arm shot out unbelievably fast, nearly clotheslining her in the
process.

He looked down at her and cocked his head. “Now, you don’t
want to be doing that,” he said softly as he removed the dark glasses. The
combination of his accent (British) and the fact that he sounded like he gargled
gravel and glass every morning, sent chills down Cleo’s spine. And then he
smiled, and she instinctively held her breath at the implied menace in his ice
blue eyes.

Taking two large steps back, Cleo looked to her family for
help. Darwin looked at the ceiling, Helen at the floor, and Vera just teared up
again and blew her nose on the lower hem of her apron, leaving a stringy snot
trail dangling down in the folds of her dress. “Where is all of my stuff?” Cleo
asked her.

Vera just pointed at the tiny suitcase and wiped her nose on
her sleeve. Cleo looked at the suitcase, and then raised an eyebrow. “But where
is the rest of my stuff?” she asked. “I can’t go anywhere until I’m all packed,
and it looks like there are still miles to travel, and all that, so I’m just
gonna go pack some more. It’ll probably take a few days, so how about we
reconvene on Monday…say, at noon-ish?”  She began to edge back toward the
staircase.

The scary man spoke again. “One suitcase maximum. It’s done.
Let’s go.”

That stopped Cleo short. “What?” she exclaimed. “What do you
mean ‘one suitcase maximum’? I have way more stuff than that.”

“The school will provide for all of your needs while you are
enrolled,” he said. “You need only bring underwear, sleepwear, footwear, and
any necessary hygiene tools or medications, which of course will be screened by
admissions when we arrive.”

She gaped at him. “But…what about clothes? Books? Pencils?
Headphones? Candy?”

“As I said, the school will provide for all of your needs
while you are enrolled. Now, shall we depart?” he said.

A quick glance at her parents confirmed that they were
staying out of it. In fact, Darwin was a little farther away from the Hat Man
each time Cleo looked in his direction.

She stepped forward and grabbed the extendable handle of her
suitcase. The man smiled and said, “Now, there’s a good girl. Allow me to get
the door.” As soon as he walked ahead of her, arm outstretched for the
doorknob, Cleo bolted for the staircase, dragging her luggage behind her. The
journey was more difficult than she had anticipated, and the quartet of adults
in the foyer just watched in confusion as she bounced and dragged the suitcase
in short little bursts up the stairs. Unfortunately, the wheels kept getting
stuck on the edges of stairs, and she nearly dislocated her shoulder twice
while trying to un-wedge it from the vertical slats of the stair rail, after a
particularly vigorous bounce caused the bag to flip sideways and firmly embed
itself. Finally, panting and cussing, she reached the top and disappeared down
the hallway.

The Hat Man raised an eyebrow, “That’s quite a vocabulary
for such a young lady,” he said, turning to the rest of the party.

Helen actually blushed, but didn’t say anything. Darwin smirked and said, “Well, she takes after her mother, you know.”

They all looked up at the second floor landing. “Where
exactly do you suppose she is going?” asked the Hat Man.

“To her room, I guess,” said Vera. “Let’s give her some
time, and then I’ll go up and get her.”

Meanwhile, Cleo was in her bedroom, frantically trying to
force open a window. She had once read about a person escaping from kidnappers
by ripping bed sheets and tying them into a rope and climbing out the window.
Unfortunately, her arms were too sore from Santo’s training to rip her sheets
(higher thread counts are delicious to sleep on, but not the best choice for
the old rope/window escape trick). And, her windows seemed to be painted shut.
She was trying to decide which library was a safer bet for her next attempt,
when Vera knocked briefly on the door and walked in. Cleo was trapped.

“What are you doing, dear?” asked Vera, looking around at
the room, which at this point looked like a combination of natural disasters
had hit it. She picked up a hairbrush and started smoothing Cleo’s wavy brown
hair into a ponytail.

“Ummm...I’m packing?” said Cleo.

“But, I already packed for you, and you heard what the man
said—you can’t take much with you, and they’re going to screen it all when you
get there.”

“I know, but I want to be able to pack my
favorite…underwear,” she said. “And other stuff. I should be able to pick out
which pajamas go.”

Vera looked as though she was about to protest, and Cleo
went in for the kill: “And I wanted to say goodbye to Achillea,” she said,
allowing her chocolate brown eyes to fill with tears.

It was too much for Vera. She grabbed Cleo and pulled her
close for a bear hug, and then left the room.

Cleo unzipped the suitcase and dumped out the contents.
Plain white underwear. One lightweight nightgown and one set of flannel
pajamas. Sensible shoes. Toothbrush. Hairbrush. And not one single notebook.
This just would not do.

Working quickly, she used a penknife to slice around the
perimeter of the inner lining of the bag. She slid two unused composition books
into the gap and smoothed the lining down on top of them. A safety pin in each
corner held the fabric taut enough to disguise the illicit cargo. Then, she added
her most fun underwear (the sea life series was her favorite), and switched out
one pair of brown shoes for her red low top sneakers. In a moment of
inspiration, she grabbed a lightweight trench coat from her closet. She shoved
money into the inner pocket, candy into another, and one last special item into
one of the deep side pockets. Using her vanity mirror, she figured out how to
drape the coat over her arm without showing any bulges.

Solemnly, she approached the group at the bottom of the
stairs. She looked at her parents. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I just wanted some
time with my sister’s memory.” She bowed her head in submission and added, “And
I thought that maybe I might need a coat for the trip. It’s a little bit chilly
outside.” When nobody challenged the trench coat, she looked at the Hat Man and
said, “Would you mind bringing down my luggage, sir? I left it at the top of
the stairs.” She figured they were less likely to search the bag if she acted
like she wasn’t hiding anything. She was right. Glad to be getting on with
business, the man jogged up the steps, grabbed her bag, and jogged back down.
“I’ll just put this in the car and give you a moment for the goodbyes,” he said
before walking outside.

The silence that he left behind was deafening. Finally, Vera
stepped forward and hugged Cleo as hard as she could. She started crying again
and speed-walked out of the room. Darwin crouched down and put a hand on Cleo’s
shoulder, looking straight into her eyes. “Just think of it as field work,” he
said. His nose started to turn red, and he pulled her in for a fierce hug
before quickly walking up the stairs. Then, it was just Cleo and Helen.

She had reached the conclusion that her mother wasn’t going
to say a word. Cleo sighed and turned toward the front door to meet her fate,
but a hand on her arm stopped her. She looked up into her mother’s beautiful,
tear-streaked face. “Be good,” whispered Helen. “Just
be good
, and then
you can come home.” Cleo nodded and turned to leave. She barely heard the
whispered “I love you” as she pulled open the front door. By the time she
reached the driveway, she had almost convinced herself that she had imagined
it. It was the first time Helen had ever said those words.

Cleo decided to dwell on that later. If only she had known
Santo’s phone number, a lot of heartache (for both of them) could have been
avoided. But at this point, she was only focused on survival. As she walked to
the black Jaguar, she was already working on a plan to escape from the Hat Man.
To throw him off guard, she smiled sweetly and thanked him when he opened the
rear door for her.

It was a very nice car, and so the toffee leather seats were
supple and smooth, and the child locks worked on both rear doors. Cleo’s dreams
of a dramatic tuck and roll on the highway were destroyed when she jiggled the
door handle. The man just looked at her over his shoulder and smiled, his eyes
unreadable behind black Ray Ban sunglasses, and then he turned up the radio
without comment and increased his speed. In an inexplicable twist, Cleo would
later be bizarrely attracted to men who wore fedoras and listened to Ella
Fitzgerald. But today, she was deeply angered by this sort of man. She searched
the rear passenger area for something heavy to throw at him, but there was
nothing. All she could do was scowl at the back of his head, something that did
not go unnoticed each time the man checked his rearview mirror. The fact that
he grinned only angered her more. By the time they reached the school, Cleo
would gladly have shoved the Hat Man in front of a bus. But alas, there were no
buses at the Harper Valley School for Girls.