The Classy Crooks Club (16 page)

It's finicky, intricate work, and even though she has tons of practice, it still takes Edna a couple minutes to get this lock open. While she works, she stares into the middle distance, like she's watching a movie being projected on the air, and hums that same eerie little song from last night. Finally, the lock turns, and we all applaud.

“Watching you do that never gets old,” Cookie says.

Edna rewards her with a misty smile. “I'd imagine not,” she says.

She finds the right key and turns it in the lock, and the bolt pops back out. “Go ahead and try,  AJ,” she says, sliding the lock and the picks over to me.

I shove the wrench in like she showed me, ready to blow everyone away by how great I am at this, and the lock promptly slips out of my hands, slides across the table, and crashes to the floor. Grandma Jo winces at the sound, and one of the parrots screeches, “
Walk the plank, matey! 
”

“Thanks,” I grumble at him. “I really appreciate your encouragement.”

“Stupid bird,” Picasso agrees as Cookie hands the lock back to me.

“You can do it, dear,” Betty says. “Edna probably didn't get it on her first try, either.”

“I did, actually.” Edna doesn't sound like she's bragging, just stating a fact.

I try again, and this time the wrench holds, so I stick the pick in above it. “Use your third eye to see inside,” Edna suggests. “Sometimes it helps if you politely ask the lock to open for you.”

I'm pretty sure I'd feel stupid talking to a lock, so I stay quiet and jiggle the pick around, but I'm not even really sure what I'm feeling for. A couple times, it catches on something that might be a pin, but I can't figure out how to push it up. All four of the grannies are looking at me expectantly, like maybe I'll be some sort of superstar at this, and I hate that I'm going to disappoint them. The pick and the wrench grow slick as my hands start to sweat.

“I, um, I think my third eye might need glasses,” I say, and Cookie lets out a guffaw. I even catch the corner of Grandma Jo's mouth twitching a little, the ghost of a smile.

Edna comes around behind me and puts her hands over mine on the pick and the wrench. She smells like my mom's spice drawer. “Relax,” she says to me, and I loosen my grip. Edna starts moving the pick in tiny, probing motions. “Listen to what the lock is telling you. Oh, there's a pin—we've got it . . . feel for the little click it makes when it slips into place.” She makes the smallest motion, and she's right, there is a tiny click. It's barely enough to feel, but a thrill runs through me.

“I felt it!” I tell her, and she nods against my hair.

“Four more to go,” she says.

Edna stays behind me, and together we manipulate three more of the pins into place. “The last one's yours,” she says, and before I can get nervous again, she says, “Take your time. We have nowhere else to be. Keep breathing. You're a hollow reed. You can do it.”

And as it turns out, I
can
. It takes me half an hour to get the last pin, but I try to stay calm and quiet and breathe through my impatience, and finally,
finally
, I feel that telltale little click. “I did it!” I say quietly, hardly daring to move. “Edna! I got it!”

“Very good, dear,” she says mildly, and I wonder what it would take to get her really excited. “Now turn the wrench in the same direction you'd turn a key . . . slowwwwly, now. . . .”

I do, and I let out a cheer as the bolt retracts. “Yeah!” I scream, pumping my fist. “I did it! Did you guys see that?” Grandma Jo puts her hand to her heart at the sudden noise, but Cookie throws her arms around me and we hug-jump around in a circle. Betty whoops and does a little happy dance, pushing her walker from side to side, and I laugh and hug her, too. She reaches up to pat my cheek, her eyes shining with pride.

“Knock it off, Tommy,” says one of the birds.

“Well done,” Edna says. “If you do this again and again, it'll eventually become second nature. I'll bring you some picks to practice with tomorrow.”

“Thanks,” I say. “I'd love that.” When I glance over at Grandma Jo, she gives me one of those slow nods that mean
I respect what you've done
, and I smile. I'm pretty sure I've impressed her.

The grannies go back to their planning, and I spend the rest of the day at the table with my plate of forgotten pie, poking and prodding at the insides of the locks. It's funny—lock picking involves the same kinds of repetitive, small, precise motions as sewing, but this doesn't bore me at all. It's like a puzzle, and every time I make one of the tiny pins click into place, I feel a rush of joy. This is going to take a lot of practice, but I know I'll put in the work. What's the use of being a thief unless I'm the best thief I can be?

After all, a lady strives for perfection.

G
randma Jo agrees to let me sleep over at Maddie's house on Thursday night as long as I spend all my afternoons practicing my lock picking in preparation for Friday's bear heist. On Thursday morning, she sits me down and gives me a talk about how I am not to mention the heists to my friends
under
any circumstances
, no matter how tired I get, but she's not nearly as snippy about it as usual. I can't believe I've actually started to prove to Grandma Jo that I'm a responsible person, but shockingly enough, it seems like I'm on the right track.

Before I go, I cut three big pieces of the leftover chocolate cake in the kitchen, wrap them in aluminum foil, and sneak them into my bag as a peace offering for Maddie. It's only fair that my friends should get to taste Debbie's baking even though they're not allowed in my grandmother's house.

I avoid Brianna all through soccer practice, and I'm pretty sure Maddie notices, because things between us don't feel awkward at all. I wonder if maybe I imagined the weirdness between us the other day. As we run our laps, she and Amy and I talk about nothing—whether Skittles or M&M'S are better, how Maddie's sister wants to audition for a reality show, whether or not my parents have killed any anacondas in the Amazon. When Amy wants to know how to kill an anaconda, Maddie and I tag-team, explaining what my dad taught us, talking over each other and making wild hand gestures like we always used to do. Is it possible things have gone back to normal without me even having to try?

I'm changing out of my cleats at the end of practice, feeling pretty relaxed about the evening ahead, when Brianna jogs over. She doesn't say hi to Amy or Maddie; it's like she doesn't even see them. “Here,” she says as she holds out a thick silver envelope to me.

On the front, my name is written in calligraphy—not
AJ
, but full-blown
Annemarie
. The paper is thick and expensive, and I feel bad for touching it with my sweaty hand. “What is this?” I ask.

“It's for my birthday party next week,” Brianna says. I can feel Maddie and Amy exchanging a look behind my back, but I say, “Okay, cool,” because what else am I supposed to do? It's not like I can refuse to take the invitation.

“Let me know if you can come as soon as possible, okay? We need to know how many cosmetologists to hire and how many lobsters to order.” Brianna spins around and stalks off, and Maddie shoots her a look of such pure hatred that I'm surprised Brianna's head doesn't explode, showering brains and diamond earrings and clumps of perfect hair everywhere.

“That was really rude of her,” I say; maybe the damage won't be so bad if I get that out in the open right away. “I'm sorry she did that in front of you guys.”

Maddie snorts. “As if I'd actually
want
to go to her party. Lobsters are disgusting; they're like giant underwater bugs. And what the heck is a cosmetologist? Is that like a Russian astronaut?”

“I think that's a cosmonaut,” Amy says. I try to stuff the silver envelope into my bag, where we can all forget about it, but she snatches it right out of my hand. “Let me see that.”

I want to tell her to give it back, but that'll make it sound like I actually want it, so I sit quietly while she rips it open. “Oh my
God
,” she says, holding it out so Maddie can see it too. “Can you even
believe
this? ‘Please join Brianna Westlake for a celebratory makeover and lobster boil on the occasion of her thirteenth birthday.' ” She reads it in a snooty British accent that doesn't sound anything like Brianna, but it makes Maddie laugh.

“I mean, I'm not going to go,” I say. I take the envelope back and stuff it out of sight.

Maddie shrugs. “You should go if you want to.” It almost sounds like a dare.

“I
don't
want to. Why would I want to?” I throw my cleats on top of the envelope to show her how much I don't care about it, and they make a dent in one of the pieces of cake. I'll be sure to take that one for myself.

“Okaaay,” Maddie says. “All I'm saying is that if you—”

“Let's just go home, okay?” It comes out a little sharper than I intended, and Maddie gives me a look like,
What is your problem
? Why am I screwing everything up?

“Fine,” she says. “Let's go.”

We head toward Maddie's house, and I start chattering on about nothing again on the way, trying to get them back into a silly, lighthearted mood, but it doesn't seem to be working. Even when I tell them about Edna's weird clothes and her crazy comments about auras, only Amy giggles, and Maddie barely cracks a smile. This sleepover was such a bad idea. How am I going to make it through an entire evening of this?

Mrs. Kolhein meets us at the door, and she, for one, looks genuinely happy to see me. She pulls me in for a hug even though I'm all sweaty from practice. “AJ! We've missed you! Are your parents back?”

“No, not for another couple weeks,” I say.

“Everything going okay over at your grandma's?”

I shrug. “I guess. She's really strict. She doesn't let me go anywhere except for soccer. That's why I haven't been over.”

“Well, it's good to have you here now,” Maddie's mom says. “Hi, Amy. You left your hoodie over here on Tuesday—I put it in Maddie's room for you.”

“Thanks, Mrs. K,” Amy says. I didn't even know she was over here on Tuesday. It kind of seems like she's over here all the time now.

Amy suggests we play
Mega Ninja Explosion
, and I breathe a sigh of relief—blowing up bad guys will probably cheer Maddie up, and maybe she'll forget about Brianna's party. We lug our stuff up to her room, and Amy pulls a package of Oreos out of her bag. “Look what I brought,” she says, dangling them in front of Maddie's face.

“Ooh, Double Stuf.” Maddie grabs them and rips them open.

“Oh, hey, I just remembered,” I say. “I brought this superfancy chocolate cake my grandmother's cook made the other night. Do you guys want some? I could run downstairs and grab forks. It's seriously so, so good.” I dig around in my bag until I find one of the pieces of cake and hold the aluminum foil package under Maddie's nose. “Here, smell.”

She sniffs. “Mm,” she says, but she doesn't sound very enthusiastic. “Maybe later. I think we're good with the Oreos for now.” When Amy offers me the package of cookies, I take one, but it doesn't really taste like anything.

We spend the rest of the afternoon staring at our little ninja avatars on the screen, blowing up walls and bad guys and collecting lucky swords and jewels. When Maddie's dad gets home, he tells us he's ordering pizza from Zappetto's, and I perk up a little—the food at Grandma Jo's has been amazing, but there's something about a super cheesy slice with extra pepperoni that no fancy rich-people food can ever touch. There must not be an expensive way to make grease. Mr. Kolhein delivers the pizza to us upstairs when it arrives. Usually, Maddie and I are thrilled when her parents don't make us eat with the rest of the family, since we always have an endless list of things to discuss privately. But tonight it seems like everything we have to say to each other has been tied up in a big, tangled, confusing knot. I'm afraid to pull on any individual thread, because I can't tell what it's attached to or what it might unravel, so I mostly stay quiet.

When we finish dinner, nobody mentions the cake, so I don't bring it up again. Amy digs through her backpack, pulls out a bunch of DVDs—
The
Wild Winds of Love
,
The Rose's Kiss
, and
Sweetness and Sorrow
—and holds them up with a hopeful smile. The covers are overwhelmingly pink, and all feature swooning ladies and brooding men.

I make some exaggerated gagging sounds. “No
way
. Let's borrow one of Jordan's alien movies. I really want to see
Tentacle
.”