The Life and Crimes of Bernetta Wallflower

An unexpected visitor

“Any luck with the job hunt, Netta?” Elsa asked.

Bernetta gave a pathetic sideways headshake and then sat up and handed Elsa her phone. “No,” she said. “Nothing. I'm doomed.”

“It'll be okay,” Elsa told her.

“No!” Bernetta cried. “It won't. It won't be okay, Elsa. How on earth am I ever going to make nine thousand dollars in one summer?”

Elsa frowned and looked at her toes. “I don't know, Netta. I'm sorry.”

And just like that, she left the room.

She shut the door behind her, and as soon as she did, Bernetta heard a noise coming from her bedroom window, a noise that sounded suspiciously like a person clearing his throat. She spun her head toward the sound, and to her horror she saw a head pop up above the windowsill. A boy's head. A head covered in unruly brown hair.

The boy looked at her, as casual as anything, and smiled.

“I know how you can make nine thousand dollars,” he said.

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First published in the United States of America by Laura Geringer Books,

an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2008

Published by Puffin Books, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group, 2015

Copyright © 2008 by Lisa Graff

Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE HARPERCOLLINS EDITION AS FOLLOWS:

Graff, Lisa (Lisa Colleen), date

The life and crimes of Bernetta Wallflower : a novel / by Lisa Graff.—1st ed.

p. cm.

Summary: After her supposed best friend implicates her in a cheating and blackmail scam, twelve-year-old Bernetta loses her private school scholarship but, with the help of a new friend, spends the summer using her knowledge of magic and sleight-of-hand both to earn the $9,000 in tuition money and to get revenge.

ISBN: 978-0-06-087592-3 (trade)

ISBN: 978-0-06-087593-0 (lib. bdg.)

[1. Swindlers and swindling—Fiction. 2. Magic tricks—Fiction. 3. Schools—Fiction.

4. Family life—Fiction. 5. Moneymaking projects—Fiction.]

I. Title.

PZ7.G751577Ber 2008 2006103470

[Fic]—dc22 CIP AC

Puffin Books 978-0-698-19691-9

To my mother, who knows a thing or two about devouring good books

P
ARLOR
MAGIC
n
: tricks performed for a small audience

The halls of Mount Olive private school were quiet that afternoon, completely deserted. The students were tucked away inside their classrooms, busy learning the lessons that would lead to successful and fulfilling futures. Calm, peaceful, serene.

That is, until a short brown-haired girl named Ashley Johansson stepped out of Mr. Borable's sixth-grade science class, a hall pass clutched at her side. Mr. Borable had, like any good teacher, given Ashley the pass because he thought she needed to use the bathroom.

He was wrong.

Among the other things Mr. Borable didn't know about Ashley Johansson were the following:

  1.   When he wasn't present, she liked to refer to him as Unbearable Mr. Borable.

  2.   She had cheated on several of her life science exams.

  3.   She was, at that very moment, smuggling several sheets of paper into the hallway underneath her blue school blazer.

After checking to make sure that the coast was completely clear, Ashley removed the papers from her blazer and studied the one on top. Although it had the words “Geometry Homework” scribbled on it, anyone who took a close look at the paper would realize that it was not, in fact, any sort of homework. It was instead a printout of the grades of one of Ashley's fellow students, a tenth grader named Gregory Pewter. Ashley had never met Greg, and she didn't care to.

What interested Ashley were Greg's grades. He had earned all A's in every subject and on every progress report, except English literature. His grade had recently plummeted to a very disappointing B- in that subject.

Technically speaking, Ashley wasn't allowed to break into the school's online grade book during her hour as office helper every other Wednesday, but that hadn't stopped her in the past.

Her second piece of paper, which she looked at next, was a list of school lockers and their owners. She quickly found Greg's locker, number 419, and slipped her remaining papers through the slats of his locker door.

When Greg opened his locker that afternoon, he would find that an extra-credit assignment entitled “Green Eggs and
Hamlet
” had mysteriously appeared on top of his books. There would be no name on the essay, and it would be exactly what he needed to bring his English grade back up to an A.

Unfortunately for Greg, that wasn't the only thing he was going to find. If he
did
use the essay, and his grade rocketed back up to an A, something else would appear in his locker a week later: a note, unsigned. Ashley Johansson had slipped dozens of them into dozens of Mount Olive lockers, and each was the same.

Cheaters never prosper.

I know what you did. Pay up or I'll tell.

On the other side of the note would be a list of simple but effective instructions. The victim was to deposit five dollars, once a week until the end of the school year, in an envelope with his name on it, in a locker in the sixth-grade section of the girls' locker room, number B37.

Ashley had been pulling this blackmail scam all year. So far, in her first year at Mount Olive private school, she'd made what she liked to call a killing.

When Ashley finished her errand, she straightened her blazer and returned to Mr. Borable's room. He smiled at her as she replaced the hall pass on the hook by the door. Then she sat at her desk and began to write a note to the one person she'd kept in touch with at her old school.

Dear Dimwad,

Miss me yet? I haven't forgotten our bet. You're going to owe me big.

Hugs & kisses (you wish),
Ashley

While Ashley was writing her letter, a girl with a thick orange-blond braid and the unusual name of Bernetta Wallflower was busy taking notes about amphibians. If she had known what was going to happen to her in just a few short months, Bernetta might have paid less attention to the teacher's lecture and a lot more to Ashley's note. But at the time Bernetta Wallflower thought that Ashley was her very best friend in the world.

She was, of course, wrong about that.

S
LEIGHT OF HAND
n
: an effect performed by manipulating the objects in one's hand; requires impressive manual dexterity

Bernetta pedaled her bike furiously, her long, frizzy braid whipping out behind her, strands sticking out at every twist. The second Saturday in June, she decided, was far too late in the year to be wearing a trench coat while riding a bicycle. She'd have to keep that in mind for the future.

Bernetta dumped her bike outside the Trunk Number Eight dinner club and hurried into the lobby. She raced past the trick guillotine in the corner, the wax statue that waved as she passed, and the box that appeared to hold a coin until someone stuck a hand inside to grab it, only to come back with a fistful of air. The photos that lined the walls sped by in a blur, but Bernetta had seen them so many times, she could have drawn them from memory. There was Harry Houdini hanging upside down from a skyscraper and wearing a straitjacket, the great Alexander Hermann floating a five of hearts in midair, and Harry Blackstone slicing a lady in half with a buzz saw. Right in the center, just below the sign that read
TRUNK NUMBER EIGHT'S VERY OWN
, was Bernetta's favorite photo of all. The man with the flop of brown hair and the thick-rimmed glasses, holding a tiny yellow canary, was Bernetta's father, Herbert Wallflower.

At the door to the dining room Bernetta reached into the pocket of her coat and pulled out a glittery pink headband, complete with a neon pink feather, and slipped it over her forehead. She cocked the feather at what she could only hope was a jaunty angle, took a deep breath, and turned the doorknob.

The room was bursting with diners, but Bernetta quickly spotted her father performing his famous napkin-into-feathers trick at table eighteen against the far left wall. She made a sharp right and hoped her father wouldn't notice her as she crossed to the stage.

She leaped up the stage steps and slid behind the thick red curtain. The clock on the wall read six forty-one. Nineteen minutes until show time. With any luck, her father wouldn't notice her until she was already onstage, holding out an empty birdcage for his very first trick. Once the show had started, a magician couldn't just tell his assistant to go home, could he? Even if she did happen to be grounded.

Bernetta slumped out of her trench coat and adjusted her bright pink sequined dress, tugging it at the hips. Maybe when her grounding was over and she was back on everyone's good side, she'd suggest that her father's assistant wear a less hideous dress.

“Kiddo!”

Bernetta whirled around and found herself face-to-face with Bram Mitchell, Trunk Number Eight's oldest and friendliest waiter. He wrapped her in a giant bear hug.

“Hey there!” Bram greeted her. “I thought your dad said you weren't coming tonight.”

Bernetta shrugged. “I decided to make a surprise appearance,” she told him.

“How was Elsabelle's graduation this afternoon? Valedictorian of her class, huh? That's big stuff!”

“Yeah,” Bernetta said. “Big.” Bernetta didn't feel like explaining that she hadn't actually gone to her sister's graduation. That when a person gets suspended on the last day of school—even if she doesn't
deserve
to be suspended—she is barred from attending
any and all school events
.

“Well, I'm glad you made it. Otherwise Todd was going to fill in as assistant, and frankly I don't think he looks half as pretty in the dress. I'll let him know you're here. Also, I've been working on my latest trick, and I wanted you to be the first to see it.”

“Oh, yeah? How's it coming?”

Bram snapped his fingers by Bernetta's right ear and produced a small red rubber ball.

“Pretty good,” she told him.

“Not really. It was supposed to be a live alligator.” Bram's smiling face quickly melted into grandfather seriousness, all concern and wrinkles. “But really, kiddo, is everything okay? You look troubled. Any problems I can help with?”

Problems? Bernetta almost laughed. How about a backstabbing ex-best friend, an unjust school suspension, and an unearned summer-long grounding? She'd like to see how
troubled
Bram would look with problems like those.

“I don't think you can help,” she said.

“No?” Bram replied, rolling the ball between his fingers. “I'm pretty good at fixing things.”

Bernetta thought about it for a moment. “Actually,” she said, “maybe you can help.”

“What do you need me to do, kiddo?”

Bernetta pulled back the stage curtain an inch and peered out into the dining room. Her father was still at table eighteen, but the other side of the room was clear. She turned around and looked at Bram.

“I need a basket of bread,” she told him. “Table seven.”

Bram's thick eyebrows shot up, like two furry gray caterpillars arching their backs. But all he said was, “Pumpernickel or sourdough?”

“Sourdough.”

Bram tossed the red rubber ball to Bernetta, and she caught it. “Good luck,” he said.

Bernetta waited a full minute, running through the steps in her head, but when the clock read six forty-six, she knew it was now or never. Making sure her father was still occupied, she ducked out from behind the curtain and scurried down the stage steps, clutching a deck of cards in her right hand.

She hated to admit it, but she was just the slightest bit nervous. She'd been working the Saturday-night show as her father's assistant for over a year now, but she'd never done any close-up work before. Maybe if she dazzled everyone at the club—showed them all what she was made of—her parents would forget about the whole stupid grounding thing. At least as far as Saturday nights were concerned. She couldn't imagine a whole summer without Trunk Number Eight.

Bernetta was steps away from table seven when she finally took a good look at it. She'd chosen that table because it was as far away from her father as possible, but as soon as she reached it, she wished she'd gone anywhere else. There were eight boys, all around her age, laughing and talking and looking much too cool to care about someone like Bernetta. A slew of blue plastic cups reading “Happy Birthday, Patrick!” had been stacked up to form a teetering tower. At a smaller table nearby, a quartet of adults were clearly doing their best to ignore the boys' ruckus.

Great
, Bernetta thought. Her only chance to be dazzling, and there she was, looking like a bottle of sparkling stomach medicine, at a table full of boys. She was just about to turn around and give up when Bram set down a basket of sourdough bread in the center of the table, with a barely perceptible wink in her direction. He left the table, and Bernetta cleared her throat.

“Um, hello?” she said to no one in particular. The boys continued to ignore her.

Directly across the table from her, one boy wearing a green T-shirt, with the words
ANYBODY WANT A PEANUT?
scrawled across it, reached for a sourdough roll and nudged the kid next to him with his elbow.

“Hey, Patrick,” he said. “Watch this.” Then he ripped off a piece of his roll, tossed it into the air, and caught it in his mouth. He smiled proudly but then seemed to notice Bernetta for the first time and suddenly began coughing.

“Hello?” Bernetta tried again. “Guys?” She was running out of time.

Beside the boy with the green shirt, Patrick inched his glasses up on his nose with his index finger. “Aw, that was nothing, Gabe,” he said. “Watch this. Hey, Dan!” he called across the table. “Do that thing we practiced, 'member?” And he plucked a yellow pepper from his salad and launched it across the table.

Patrick had terrible aim. The pepper was headed directly for Bernetta's face.

“Hey, look out!” Gabe called to her.

But Bernetta didn't need his help. She snatched the pepper right out of the air, squeezed it into her palm, and slammed her fist on the table. When she opened it, the pepper was gone, and in its place was a small red rubber ball. She bounced it on the table twice for effect, then lobbed it over to Gabe. He caught it, his eyes wide.

The table was suddenly silent. She definitely had their attention. It was now or never.

All eyes followed Bernetta as she walked around to the other side of the table and stood directly in front of the boy with the green shirt. Quickly, and with practiced ease, she took the playing cards out of their box and held them in her right hand. It was times like these, when her nerves caused her stomach to turn cartwheels, that she was glad she'd rehearsed her tricks a thousand times over. In one fluid motion she lifted a few of the cards from the top of the deck and placed them on the bottom—the Hindu Shuffle. She mixed the cards several times, and when she was done, she fanned them out in front of him, facedown.

“Pick one,” she said.

He opened his mouth as though to say something but then closed it. His unruly brown hair fell in front of his eyes as he studied the backs of the cards. At last he picked one, and Bernetta gathered the rest of the cards into her right hand and began shuffling again. He watched her every move, waiting for something to happen. The rest of the table watched too.

“Look at your card,” Bernetta told him as she shuffled.

He looked.

“And show it to your friends. Okay, now put it back in the deck.”

When the card had been returned to the stack, Bernetta handed the entire deck to Patrick. “You can shuffle it as many times as you want,” she told him.

Now came the tricky part. Bernetta had practiced, of course. But dazzling your little brother while he sat on the couch picking the lint from between his toes suddenly seemed a lot easier than performing in front of a tableful of strangers at a dinner club.

She stood up a little straighter and composed herself. “All right,” she told Gabe. “I need you to hold my hand.” And then she realized what she'd just said. To a
boy
. Why, oh, why hadn't she picked the table with the senior citizens?

But Gabe didn't even flinch. He stuck his arm straight out and smiled at her.

Bernetta gulped. Why was he smiling at her? Boys never smiled at her.

“Um, okay, thanks,” she said. She grabbed hold of his hand then and squeezed tight, ignoring the snickers around her. “Okay. I need you to concentrate on your card. Think about the card you picked, and I'll be able to figure out which one it is, telepathically.” She recited the words as though it were someone else saying them, Bernetta the Great, perhaps, instead of plain old frizzy-haired Bernetta Wallflower. “You have to hold on as tight as you can,” she said, “or the telepathic link becomes fuzzy.”

Gabe looked directly at her as she spoke, without blinking at all, and Bernetta did her best not to lose focus. His eyes were a very lovely shade of brown, she noticed. Not blah brown like most people's, but deeper. Like chocolate. Hershey bar chocolate, maybe.

Next to her, Patrick lost his grip on the cards. Three spilled out onto the table, and Bernetta lost her concentration for a split second. Patrick tucked the cards back into the deck. “Can I stop shuffling now?” he asked.