Bank Job (2 page)

I stroked the kitten's tiny head with a finger. It shut its eyes and purred. “Where did you get him?”

“Janice got him from someone at school. You can hold him if you like.”

“Hey, you guys,” Janice yelled from below. “I said I need help down here. These groceries won't walk in from the car all by themselves you know.”

“Okay, we're coming,” I yelled back. “Look, Lisa, how about you go and show Pumpkin to Billy and Tom? And tell those guys to go help Janice.”

Lisa left. I pulled the bag from under the mound of clothes and transferred the loot from the holdup into the shoe box. Then I grabbed a pen from my desk and wrote the day's score on the lid: $1,450.00.

I burrowed under the mound of clothes again, feeling for the loose board. I pried it up and dropped the box into my secret hiding place.

There. It was safe.

I heaved a sigh of relief and threw myself onto my bed trying to relax the tension in my muscles. Let Billy and Tom go downstairs and help Janice bring in the groceries. Janice didn't need all three of us. I was exhausted. The emotional strain of the last few hours had taken a lot out of me.

I sighed. What had I done? I was a bank robber. A real bank robber! There was no way to avoid that fact. I was a criminal.

So much had changed in only one month.

TWO

MARCH 2—ONE MONTH EARLIER

The social worker's name was Rhoda Mills. She was a cheerful woman who seemed to love her work. She visited us a couple of times a year, always remembering our names. She was in her thirties maybe, with brown hair and glasses that kept sliding down her nose. She kept pushing them back up with one finger.

It was just after four o'clock. Joseph had taken time off work. It was an important meeting. We all had to be there.

Rhoda bustled in and shook hands with Joseph and hugged Janice. Then Janice led Rhoda upstairs and let her take a look at our bedrooms, especially neat and tidy for her visit. We stayed out of the way downstairs. A few minutes later, I heard them talking in the bathroom, also tidied up for the visit.

Inspection over, Rhoda quickly made herself at home. She fetched her bulging briefcase from the hallway and dropped it on the floor beside her chair as she sat at the kitchen table. Soon her papers were strewn all over the table, competing for space with Janice's tea and cookies.

“How are things with you kids?” Rhoda asked, looking mainly at me. “Nell?”

“Things are good,” I said.

“How's your mother?” asked Rhoda. “You still see her regularly?”

“Of course,” I said. “Weekends, whenever I can. She's fine.”

“Billy? Tom? Lisa? Anything new? You kids okay?”

Billy grinned. Tom nodded. “We're great,” said Billy. “Right, Tom?”

“Right,” said Tom. “We're great.”

“Great,” Lisa echoed, her face serious.

“Help yourself to more tea, Rhoda,” said Janice, nudging the pot toward her.

“Thanks, Janice.”

After a minute or two of general chatter, Rhoda looked at me. “Feel free to go, kids. Unless there's anything you want to talk about. Nell?” She raised her eyebrows at us and gave her glasses a push.

“No. Everything's good,” I said. We got up from the table.

“That's fine,” said Rhoda. “I need to talk with Janice and Joseph for a minute.”

“It's so weird hearing someone other than Janice or Joseph call you Nell,” Tom said as we headed upstairs.

Janice always called me by my proper name. “Nell is a lovely name,” she told me the first day I met her. “And that is what Joseph and I will call you.”

“How did you get the nickname Nails anyways?” Tom asked.

“How? You really want to know? You want to hear the story of my life?”

“Not really,” said Tom. “Just the Nails part.”

“Well…” I took a deep breath. “If you really want to know…I've lived in fosters all my life…”

“All your life? You've got to be kidding.”

“It's true. Ever since I was a baby. Most were okay, but the one before I came to the Hardys' was gruesome…”

“Gruesome?”

“Gruesome. Are you gonna keep repeating everything I say?”

“Sorry.”

Lisa went to our room to read while the boys and I headed into their room. I settled into the beanbag chair and Tom and Billy lounged on their beds.

“It was run by an old cow named Mrs. Osberg— the kids called her Iceberg—who beat us with a cane—”

“She beat you with—”

“With a cane, yes. If you interrupt me one more—”

“Sorry. I'll shut up. Promise.”

“She beat us if we did anything she didn't like.

She was new at fostering. It was obvious she wouldn't last long. Once the social worker found out what was going on, that would be the end for her. I was always in trouble with the old bag and got most of the canings. On the backs of my legs usually.”

Tom nodded. “So it wouldn't show.”

“Huh? Right. Anyway, I refused to do Iceberg's laundry one day. ‘Do your own filthy laundry!' I told her. She got mad, grabbed me by the arm and beat me with her cane. I didn't cry. ‘You little trollop!' she yelled at me. ‘You're hard as bloody nails.'”

“She sounds like a monster,” said Tom.

“She was. After that, the other kids started calling me Nails. Then everyone was calling me Nails. I kinda liked the name.”

“Suits you.”

I smiled. “Thanks.”

Tom nodded again. “Nails are hard, but they're sharp and they're tough, and no matter how much they get battered they always keep their heads. That's you all right—Nails. Hard as.”

Except for the interruptions, Tom was a good listener. I liked the way he analyzed stuff, especially the bit about keeping my head. Billy didn't say anything, but I could tell he was listening. He was pretending to read a comic book, but he didn't turn the page once.

“After another beating one day,” I continued, “I decided to live up to my new name. I kicked Iceberg twice—bam-bam—both shins.”

“Sounds like the old cow deserved it.”

“That's what I thought. She collapsed shrieking on the floor. I was scared, but in a way I was glad. I had proved I could be hard as nails if I wanted. No more quiet Nell Ford who took what the bullies handed out. I was Nails. I was tough. I would never let anyone boss me around, ever again. Just let them try. Iceberg was shrieking and writhing on the floor like a rubber monkey and I ran away, slamming the door behind me. The police found me in a bus shelter late that night. Social Services closed old Iceberg down and sent me here, and I've been here ever since.”

Tom said, “Wow!”

I grinned. “So that's the story.”

“That was amazing. Remind me never to tangle with you, Nails, okay?”

Janice called us downstairs for a family meeting when Rhoda had gone. She and Joseph were sitting together at the kitchen table looking totally grim.

“Kids,” Janice said, “we've got some bad news.”

“What's up?” said Tom.

I said, “Is there a problem?”

I remembered that there was a small problem way back when I first came to the Hardys', when the ministry ordered Joseph to get the old-fashioned wooden bedroom windows fixed. “Children need fresh air,” the social worker had said—this was the one we had before Rhoda. I don't remember her name. The problem was that the old wooden windows wouldn't open because they had a million coats of paint on them. So Joseph spent a whole weekend fixing them and then sent a form to the ministry showing that the work had been done.

We sat. Joseph opened a bottle of beer. I watched how the muscles in his forearm moved. Joseph wasn't a big man. Billy was a few inches taller, but Joseph looked solid and strong. What I liked most about him was that he didn't preach. He never got up on a soapbox to lecture us. Janice, sitting beside him, was a calm, motherly woman with strands of gray showing in her dark hair. She was smart too. She didn't lecture us either—well, not very often. They loved each other. Anyone could see that. “We married when we were in our teens and still wet behind the ears,” Janice always said, laughing. They wanted kids, but it never happened.

We were their kids, their family.

Joseph sighed as he looked at us. “There's new ministry regulations since the last time Rhoda was here.”

Billy groaned.

Lisa, following Billy's lead, groaned also.

Joseph said, “One of the new regulations has to do with hygiene…”

“Bathrooms,” said Janice.

“We don't have enough,” Joseph said. “With six people in the house, we need…”

“…two full bathrooms minimum,” Janice finished.

“Preferably two point five,” said Joseph.

I looked at Billy. Billy looked at me. I knew what he was thinking: The ministry was right. We really didn't have enough bathrooms. There was a full bathroom upstairs—tub, shower, sink, toilet—but only a toilet and sink in a small powder room downstairs. The house was built a zillion years ago.

But so what? I thought.

“We manage okay,” I said. “Usually, anyway.”

“Not good enough,” said Joseph. “This has come up before. We were warned last year that there were going to be new regulations. So we checked with the…”

“…Foster Parents Association,” said Janice.

“And there was nothing they could do to help,” said Joseph. “The new rules are…”

“…here to stay,” said Janice. “We're not the only ones. We've been given six months to comply.”

“What's comply?” asked Lisa.

Janice said, “Right now, darling, it means we need an extra bathroom.”

I said, “What happens if we don't get it?”

Janice looked at Joseph.

Joseph shrugged. “The ministry will reduce the number of kids allowed here…”

“…to one or two,” Janice finished for him.

“What!” said Tom. “You mean at least two of us would have to friggin' leave?”

“Break up the family!” I cried.

“I'm afraid so, Nell,” Janice said.

We all groaned, Billy, Tom, Lisa and me.

Not another foster, I thought. Not another move. Not when it was so perfect here. Not when I'd finally found a family where I belonged.

I was shattered.

“Friggin' ministry!” said Tom.

“No good blaming the ministry,” said Janice. “They only want what's best for kids.”

Joseph said, “Janice and I already looked—a few months ago—into the possibility of having…”

“…the downstairs toilet remodeled,” said Janice.

We brightened up.

“That's it,” said Tom. “Remodel the downstairs bathroom. No problem.” He looked at Billy eagerly. “Right, Billy?” Then he looked at me. “Nails?”

Joseph said. “We'd need to make room for a tub and shower.”

“How could you do that?” I asked.

“We figured to knock out the wall of the hall closet and put up a new wall where the closet doors are,” said Joseph. “Only problem is the expense—building materials, plumbing supplies and so on. Brent Murphy is a local contractor. He came and took a look. He reckoned it would cost us about…”

“…ten thousand dollars,” said Janice, “including the new tub and shower and all the fittings.”

Tom said, “Ten friggin'…You're kidding!”

Joseph shook his head.

Janice said, “It's ten thousand dollars that we don't have right now.”

“So what you're saying,” said Tom, “is that at least two of us will have to leave and get sent somewhere else, and we'll be split up for sure.”

Silence.

I looked at Billy and he looked at me. Tom was busy cracking his knuckles, and Lisa was about to cry—I could tell from the way she was wrinkling her nose. I squeezed her arm and she leaned into my shoulder.

Janice said, “We've got six months to come up with a solution.” She shrugged.

We stared at each other.

Leave Janice and Joseph?

Deadly.

I knew how I felt, and I knew how the others felt. Our whole world was about to fall down around us.

No one wanted to leave the Hardys'.

No way.

I would do just about anything to stay.

Anything.

Janice looked at all of us. I could tell she was crushed. “Now kids,” she said, “I don't want you to worry too much. Joseph and I…”

“We're going to do everything we can,” said Joseph.

“We didn't tell you to make you worry,” said Janice. “We just don't…”

“…want any secrets in this family,” said Joseph. That night, Janice came upstairs to tuck Lisa into bed as she usually does. She looked tired. There were wrinkles between her eyes that I hadn't noticed before.

She sat on the edge of Lisa's bed smiling at both of us. “I don't want you two to worry,” she said. “I'm sure everything will work out.”

“But what if it doesn't work out?” Lisa asked, sniffing, trying not to cry.

“Let's worry about that if it comes. We've got six months to think of something.”

“I don't want to leave here,” said Lisa. “Not ever. I don't want to leave you and Joseph, or Nails and the boys. You're my family.” Her face crumpled and tears glistened in her dark eyes.

“I know, Sweetie Pie,” said Janice, rubbing her back. “And we don't want to lose you either. You talk to her, Nell,” she said as she was leaving. “Try to make her see that things will work out—one way or the other.”

Lisa cried.

I felt like crying too. Our family was about to be annihilated.

There had to be something we could do. There just had to be.

We had to stay together.

THREE

MARCH 3

I got the idea for the Musketeers the next night while we were watching an old movie from Joseph's video collection. It was our usual Friday family night, with chips, popcorn and root beer—the works. The Three Musketeers, loyal seventeenth century swordsmen, fought for the king of France. I remembered reading the book and loving it. The movie wasn't as good as the book, but it was good—especially all those hot guys in capes swishing their swords around. It was a change from our favorite gangster stories, old black-and-white films starring Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney.