JW01. Under Locker and Key Read online

  “That doesn’t leave you much time, either. He’ll come back as soon as he knows you’re not going to show.”

  “I don’t need much time.”

  I nodded. “It doesn’t take too long to leave your crush a token of your affection. What is Mark’s brother going to think when you don’t actually leave kiss-stained letters on Mark’s bed?”

  Becca opened a drawer and picked through it with the end of a pencil. “I’m going to find something that proves he doesn’t like me back, and leave angry.”

  “He’ll tell Mark about it later. Trust me. I have a brother. I know.”

  “It will be too late then.”

  “Why is it that when you lie and sneak around, it’s good detective work, but when I do it, it’s thieving?”

  “Are you here to help me or not?”

  “I’m here for the key. You’re after the stash.” But I nodded. “Let me just prepare my cover.”

  I went back to the hall and pushed the vacuum back and forth down the hall. That way the vacuum would leave tracks in the carpet that would cover my alibi with the brother. Hallway finished, I pulled the vacuum in front of Mark’s room and let it run.

  “Pretending to like Mark,” I muttered as I scanned the room for places Mark might have hidden the key. “You’re really sacrificing a lot for this case.”

  “I’m not the only one.” Becca stared at me. We turned away from each other at the same time. Didn’t need things to get weird.

  Okay, get to work. Phase three. Mark wouldn’t want that key hidden anywhere he couldn’t get to it in a hurry, so his was the only room in the house it could be in. Time to knock it over.

  “We’ll have to keep this short,” I told Becca. “Under five minutes.”

  “You do. I have a little more time.”

  “Whatever.” I pulled the latex gloves out of my backpack and put them on. I didn’t think Mark would search for fingerprints, but I couldn’t let anything slip out of my grasp and break.

  In hiding the key, Mark needed to think like a thief. He also needed to try to outsmart me, or the version of me he thought he knew. Too bad for him, I was a better retrieval specialist than he was a thief and I was experienced at outsmarting people smarter than him. Come to think of it, I owed Becca for that.

  The first place I checked was the drawer on the bedside table. Nope, no key there. Anyway, it was too obvious a hiding place.

  As I pulled the drawer out and held it up to check that he hadn’t taped the key to the bottom, Becca opened the closet and peeled back a layer of clothes. “Are all guys this gross?”

  I looked over. “Looks fine to me.”

  Becca sniffed and went back to work.

  The next place I searched was the bottom of Mark’s clothes drawers. I know I make my work seem glamorous, but I can tell you that rifling through layers of an eighth grader’s underwear is anything but. Mark was a little more disgusting than the average guy. And on top of that, I didn’t find the key.

  My time was running out. “Move over, Becca.” I checked inside the shoes in his closet before making sure all the books on his shelf were real and not cleverly disguised boxes. I even examined the light fixtures. Nothing.

  If I waited much longer, the brother was going to wonder why it was taking me so long. I stood there confused, looking around the room. If I were a thief, a real thief, and I needed to hide something from a better thief, where I would I put it?

  My eyes rested on the bed. No way. No way would he hide the treasured master key in the most obvious place in his room. But then again, he would guess I’d think it was too obvious to search.

  I dropped to my stomach and peered under the bed.

  Becca looked over from the closet, where she was checking the top shelf. “Really? That’s too obvious.”

  “Maybe it’s just obvious enough.” Jackpot. A black metal box sat under his bed. I reached under and pulled it out.

  “No way.” Becca abandoned the closet and knelt beside me on the floor. She crouched and checked under the bed. “I wonder if his stash could be in here too.”

  “Maybe some of it’s in this box with the key.”

  I tried to open the box.

  It, of course, was locked. Thank goodness I had my handy-dandy lockpick set with me. It might leave scratches on the lock, but Mark wouldn’t notice them until it was too late. After examining the lock, I pulled out the wires best suited for its width and complexity.

  “You brought those?” Becca had some lint in her hair. I decided my life wasn’t worth telling her that.

  “Aren’t you glad I did?” A minute later I heard a faint click. “Got it.” I threw the lid up. We both looked inside and gasped.

  “There’s too much cash in there,” Becca said as she pulled wads of money out.

  I took a stack too, just to look at it. Fives, tens, twenties . . . it made the Andrew Jackson he’d offered me look like chump change. I thought about the thug kids Mark had hired. It looked like he’d already begun to sell the stolen goods. That wasn’t good.

  Becca eyed the money in my hands. “No.”

  I dropped the cash. “Don’t worry. I’m not even tempted.”

  For the record, I wasn’t. The money was dirty, made from selling the belongings of other people. As much as I wanted Mark to hurt for his crime, I didn’t want any part of his earnings.

  Gingerly, like I was handling a live bomb, I set the bills inside and looked for any glint of metal with a big black X on it. After a thorough search I had to admit it: no master key.

  “Dang it!”

  “Not here?” Becca smirked, and opened her mouth to verbally abuse me further. But she stopped when we both heard, over the whine of the vacuum, a door open and close downstairs.

  Dang it twice. “Time’s up.” I closed the lid of the box and slid it back under the bed; there wasn’t enough time to relock it.

  Becca’s eyes widened in fear. “He can’t catch me here. He’ll know I suspect him.”

  “Never mind the poking around a room that’s not yours.”

  She paled. “Mom will kill me.”

  “I don’t want to get caught either. Hold on.”

  I opened the door and pulled the vacuum’s plug out of the wall. The sound died, letting me hear the conversation downstairs.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be vacuuming?” Mark was home!

  “Aren’t you supposed to be out with a friend?” his brother replied.

  “We’ve got to go.” I wound up the cord on the vacuum as fast as I could and quietly opened the door. Mark and his brother were downstairs, but Mark was facing away from me. I closed the door quietly.

  “Mark’s down in front of the door. His brother’s going to tell him enough to make him suspicious. We don’t have long.”

  “Got some brilliant escape plan?” Becca started to take off her gloves.

  “Leave those on. You might need them. And shouldn’t a master detective know how to get out of scrapes?”

  “Normally I can talk my way out of them. I don’t think that will work on Mark.”

  “It won’t.”

  “I know. So? Plan?”

  “Give me a minute.” I looked around the room, weighing my options. They were disappointingly light.

  Okay. I couldn’t go downstairs or Mark would see me. The room didn’t have many hiding places big enough for two people, and Mark would check those places first. We had to get out of the room. Me and Becca both. Or we’d blow the whole con.

  I went to the window. The tree I’d seen earlier wasn’t far from the glass. The nearest branch hung about ten feet away, give or take two feet. Yes. It was my only bet. Mine and Becca’s. She wasn’t going to like this.

  Becca joined me at the window. When she saw the tree, she shook her head. “No way.”

  “It’s our only chance. Mark’s probably already on his way up.” I slid off my backpack and pulled out my grappling hook and rope. I tied the rope to the hook. “Open the window.”

&nbs
p; “You’re insane. I’m not doing this. We’ll fall and break our necks.”

  “You sound like my mom.”

  My heart raced: I had never used the grappling hook before. I’d practiced with it in my yard, but when you’re in the middle of a job and jumping out of a second-story window is your only way out, no preparation is really enough.

  Becca opened the window. Now for the tricky part. I judged the angle I’d need to throw the grappling hook to snare the branch. My hook was made of the remains of a metal lamp Mom used to have before it broke. Four curlicues made up the base, and above those was a thick stalk with a hole I’d painstakingly made with Dad’s power-drill for the rope. When the knot was tied tight, the hook could hold my weight; I’d tried it. But could it also hold Becca’s?

  No time to think. I threw the hook out and over the tree branch, letting its weight wrap it around the branch. One of the curlicues caught the rope, securing it.

  “Perfect,” I whispered. “Climb on my back.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t have time to give you a lesson in grappling-hook safety. Climb on my back and hold on tight.” I put my backpack on backward, on my chest.

  Becca muttered angrily, but she climbed on. She gripped me so tight I thought I’d lose feeling in my arms in ten seconds and pass out in twenty, but at least it made her easier to carry.

  “So, uh . . .” I let my hands hover in the air. I wanted to shift her higher but couldn’t think of a way to do it that wasn’t awkward. “How about we don’t tell anyone about this, okay?”

  “I’ve already forgotten what we’re doing.”

  “Okay. Me too.” She smelled good, like raspberries and something else. Chocolate, maybe?

  I heard Mark’s voice and steps on the stairs. My heart jumped. Time to get out of there, or everything would be ruined.

  Focus. I tied the other end of the rope around my waist. I sat on the windowsill, sighing as I looked at the twenty-foot drop below me, a drop that would break my legs if the grappling hook failed.

  Don’t look down, I told myself, but my knees went weak anyway. Then, eyes closed and face turned in against my shoulder, I slid down and out the window.

  My hands burned with pain as the rope tried to slip from my grip. The latex gloves helped, but they tore quickly. Becca’s weight fizzled my calculations and dragged me down to the grass below. Gritting my teeth, I tightened my hold, and the burn turned to a joyful thrill in my stomach as I swung through the air toward the tree.

  Becca gasped, and I opened my eyes to the trunk rushing at me. I kicked out, stopping my swing with my feet. Using the rope, I pulled Becca and myself into the tree’s branches on the side of the tree away from the house. Then I pulled the rope up so that no one would suspect anyone was hiding in the branches.

  The tree was leafy, an adequate hiding place until the coast was clear. I looked up at the open window and decided not to worry about it; as long as Mark couldn’t prove we’d been in his room, it didn’t hurt to remind him he wasn’t clear yet.

  Mark came to the window and looked outside. Becca and I shrank back into the shadows. Mark frowned and closed the window. After he didn’t return, I breathed easier.

  “I did it!” I gasped. “It worked, it really worked.”

  “You mean you weren’t sure?” Becca sounded annoyed.

  “Your presence on Flight One-Twenty from Mark’s bedroom wasn’t expected.”

  Becca pushed me, hard enough to unbalance me but not knock me out of the tree. “That was stupid and dangerous.”

  “And you loved it.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  But she had. Her eyes shone, and although she kept trying to frown at me, a wild smile twisted the corners of her mouth. I recognized that smile: I’d gotten it the first time I did a risky job. The thrill of the heist had gotten to her.

  I grinned. “It’s not all bad, what I do, right?”

  Becca was quiet. She looked at Mark’s window and let the smile slide out. “The things you can do . . . maybe they are needed. Sometimes. That’s all I’m saying.”

  Before I could ask her to please discuss that response a little more, Becca took off her gloves and waved them at the ground. “Elevator or stairs?”

  “Give it a minute. Wait for Mark to—” Mark ran out of his house, looked around his yard, and then tore off through the neighborhood. “See, that wasn’t so bad.”

  “Get chased often?”

  “You’d be surprised.” I untied the rope from my waist and handed it to Becca. “Ladies first.”

  Phase three was complete. I held the rope steady while Becca climbed down—which hurt a lot; my hands were still raw from the swing, and I found myself supporting her weight more than I expected. But I kept it together, and she made it safely down. She smiled and saluted me, and then left.

  I gripped the rope and swung from the tree to the ground. I had to escape before Mark realized I was there. The landing wasn’t too rough, and it only took a little maneuvering to loosen the hook free from the tree branch.

  Then I raced back home. After Monday the job would be done, and after that . . . so would I. At least I’d gotten to use my grappling hook. Even with Becca choking me, it had been a blast.

  THE NEXT MORNING I GOT ready and left for school early with my mom, feeling nervous like I hadn’t felt in months. Even though the job was almost done and Mark’s crime spree was in its endgame, I was still in danger. Mark knew that I had been inside his house, and he wouldn’t be happy. They say that a trapped animal is the most dangerous, and I had trapped him. He’d be looking for me.

  Not to mention, Monday was my last morning of freedom. After Mark got a desk in detention, it was my turn. Tate would go free and my conscience would be clear, but that meant no more retrieving. Ever.

  I sighed. And, for this last day of my last job, I didn’t have any of my gear with me. Not even my lockpick set. Becca had been very clear about that.

  “If you bring any of your thieving tools, it will be worse for you,” she’d told me over the phone the night before as we finalized our plan. “That’s a promise.”

  Like I didn’t know how she felt about me. But seriously, after all we’d been through, she didn’t trust me? I’d done everything right while she kept throwing me under the bus. My quick band-room retrieval and fire-alarm pull were beside the point. We had a professional relationship now. I’d fix my mistake and save Tate, and she’d take down the two thieves responsible for all the trouble.

  Well, it was nice while it lasted.

  Mom dropped me off in front of the school before going to park in the teachers’ lot, and as soon as she pulled away, Mark’s thugs materialized. They didn’t move, but I felt their eyes follow me into school.

  Act natural, I told myself. Easier said than done. I missed the weight of my lockpick set in my pocket. Not having it severely limited my escape avenues. I had to rely on Becca to show up with the teachers. Otherwise I was doomed.

  Hugo and Sean followed me, not too subtly, as I wandered the empty halls. I had to buy some time for Becca to get to school and round up the teachers. How long would I be able to go before the guys behind me got impatient?

  I passed the cafeteria, and then I circled around and passed it again. The clocks displayed the minutes changing, so slowly that I wondered if they were broken. Sean and Hugo were still behind me.

  The empty hallways echoed with our steps. For a while, as I turned down the sixth-grade hall for the third time, the steps behind me were slow, measured. Then I heard them speed up, sneakers slapping against the hard floor as Mark’s thugs decided they were done chasing me in circles.

  “Oh, great!” I started running. It was too early for Becca to have arrived at school! I needed to keep stalling.

  I looked behind me. Sean and Hugo pounded the linoleum, getting closer and closer.

  But sprinters they were not. Their huge bulk weighed them down, while my small size and training let me move with efficiency and agili
ty. The distance between us grew, and I turned corner after corner, trying to get more of a lead. I couldn’t shake them, not with the way our steps echoed in the halls. But if I could get far enough away, I could hide.

  In the next hall there’d be the library. It was where I always went when I arrived early with Mom and didn’t have a job. I’d read or mess around on a computer until other kids started showing up. Ms. Gimbel, the librarian, was always there early, and Sean and Hugo wouldn’t dare try anything while she was there. I could wait for Becca to arrive in safety.

  Slowing just enough to avoid making a scene, I rushed through the library doors. The place was empty. Ms. Gimbel must have been taking coffee in the teachers’ lounge, because the library was a graveyard, each book a tombstone. Or maybe it just seemed that way to me.

  Standing out in the open wasn’t doing me any favors. I crossed the room into the shelves, getting cover just as Sean and Hugo entered the library. As I watched through a narrow gap between two dictionaries, the thugs sat down in worn wooden chairs right next to the door. My only escape, under surveillance. I shrank back into the shelves.

  I wandered into the mystery section and tried to guess which fictional detectives Becca most admired. Which ones liked hanging suspects upside down from balconies? That sounded right up her alley.

  I looked back out at Hugo and Sean. Hugo had pulled out a cell phone, and his thumbs flew over the keys. Mark would be here soon. How long had it been? Had Becca made it to school yet? Had she gotten the teachers? Where was Ms. Gimbel? And, for that matter, where was Mark?

  The library door creaked open and shut with a whoosh of air. The silence felt like wet concrete, wrapping around me, squeezing the air out of my lungs. I wandered back down the length of the mystery novels, running my finger along the spines. If Becca didn’t show up . . .

  “Hello, Wilderson,” a smug voice said.

  I turned away from the shelf and stared into Mark’s icy eyes. “Hey, Mark. How was your weekend? Mine was great. Got a nice tour of your room.”

  Mark smirked. “Coming to my house was a big mistake. You didn’t get the key, did you?”