The Life and Crimes of Bernetta Wallflower (11 page)

Gabe turned to go, Colin's hand in his, but then turned back around. He looked sad about something or—what was the word?—pensive.

“Hey, Bernetta?” he said.

“Yeah?” What was he going to tell her? Was it about her eyes and the stormy sea? She leaned forward on the bench. “Mm-hmm?”

He blinked and looked away quickly. “Nothing,” he said. “Never mind.” And he and Colin walked off.

Bernetta leaned back on the bench and licked her peppermint ice cream. Boys were infuriating.

They'd been gone only about two minutes, and Bernetta was still licking away at her ice cream and watching the sailboats, when from behind her she heard an angry voice.

“That's her!” someone shouted. “That's the girl right there!”

The voice, Bernetta realized, sounded hideously familiar.

She whirled around, and sure enough, storming toward her, followed by one very large boardwalk security guard, was none other than Ashley Johansson.

Bernetta dropped her ice-cream cone. It landed with a splat right on the wooden boardwalk.

She jumped up as Ashley and the guard came closer. She had no idea what was going on, but she
did
know that if it involved Ashley Johansson, it couldn't be anything good.

“That's her!” Ashley shouted again. She looked as angry as Bernetta had ever seen her, her nose scrunched up like some crazed bull, ready to charge. “Make her give it back,” Ashley told the security guard. She folded her arms across her chest. “She stole it, and it's
mine
.”

What? Bernetta's heart was pounding. She wished she knew how to respond, but she didn't even know what was going on. She looked over her shoulder for Gabe and Colin, but they were nowhere in sight.

The guard cleared his throat, and Bernetta took a good look at him. She gulped. He was at least six feet tall, and
big
. He did not have a friendly face either. It was serious, all business. “Let's just take a look, shall we?” He held a beefy hand out to Bernetta. “Would you hand it over, miss?”

Bernetta blinked several times. “Huh? Hand
what
over?”

“The backpack, miss. This girl says it's hers. I'd like to have a look.”

“My—no.” $2,602.36. That's how much money was in that backpack. There was no way she was handing that over to Ashley Johansson. But how could Ashley have known the money was in there? Had she seen her with her hands clutched tight around her backpack straps and figured it out? “No!” Bernetta hollered. She wished she could keep her cool, but this was all happening too quickly. It was so fast and terrible. “It's mine,” she said. “I've had this backpack for three years.”

Ashley shook her head. “She's lying,” she told the guard. “She stole my backpack when I was sitting down on the sand, but she ran away, and I couldn't catch her.”

Bernetta stamped her foot, like a two-year-old having a tantrum. “I did
not
!” she cried. “She's making that up. It's mine, I—”

“Please just hand me the bag, miss,” the guard said, his hand still outstretched. “Then we can have a look inside and settle this.”

Bernetta took a deep breath. “Okay,” she said slowly. She sloughed the backpack off her shoulders. She didn't want the guard to question why she had so much cash in there, but at least there was no way Ashley could prove Bernetta had stolen it. And Bernetta was innocent until proved guilty. Wasn't she?

The guard took the bag and unzipped it, examining the contents. “All right,” he said to Ashley. “Can you tell me what's inside here?”

“Well,” Ashley said, her voice sharp like a bee sting, “among other things, my
wallet
is in there. That'll prove it's mine.”

“What?” Bernetta exclaimed. “There isn't any—”

“Is this it?” the guard asked, producing a slim green wallet.

Bernetta's eyes felt ready to pop right out of her head. Where had that come from? She'd never even seen it before.

“Yeah, that's it,” Ashley said. “My school ID is in it.”

The guard flipped the wallet open and studied the picture inside. “Ashley Johansson,” he read. He took a close look at it. “That's you, all right.”

Bernetta felt suddenly dizzy. But she couldn't give up now. There was too much at stake. She wasn't going to lose everything she'd worked for. Not to Ashley Johansson.

“That doesn't prove anything,” Bernetta told the guard. “She just put that in there. I don't know how she did it, but she did. It's mine, I swear, and she's the one trying to steal it.”

Ashley shook her head. “The backpack's mine,” she said. She sounded calm now, confident. “My name's on it,” she told the guard. “Underneath the flap, by the zipper. Right at the top.”

Bernetta snorted. “No, it's not. What are you—”

She never finished her sentence. Because the guard lifted up the zipper flap, and there, as plain as anything, was a name in large capital letters:

ASHLEY JOHANSSON

I
LLUSION
:
n
: a magical effect that appears impossible but that is in fact accomplished through real-world means; often refers to larger stage tricks

As they rode home on the bus, Bernetta and Gabe seated just behind Colin and his whale, Bernetta did her best to hold back her tears. She'd never been so miserable. Not when she'd been framed for the cheating ring, not even when she'd lost her scholarship. How did Ashley always manage to beat her? Bernetta never even stood a chance. She wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. She might as well cry, she decided. There was nothing else to do now. Her life was over.

“Are you okay, Bernetta?” Gabe asked.

“No,” she said. The word came out as three separate syllables.

Gabe bit his bottom lip. “Oh. Sorry.”

Was she
okay
? How could she possibly be
okay
? Bernetta was pretty sure she'd never be okay again. Not only had she lost $2,602.36, the money she'd worked an entire month to get, but sooner or later her mother was going to figure out that she hadn't deposited a single dime in her checking account. And when she figured that out, there were going to be questions. Lots and lots of questions. With a third of her summer already gone, Bernetta was suddenly penniless, and Ashley Johansson was richer than ever. She'd never go back to Mount Olive, and her parents would figure out the truth.

“So what happened, anyway?” Gabe said, picking at the edge of a Superman sticker that was stuck to the back of Colin's seat. “I mean, I know she took your backpack, but how did she—”

“I don't know
how
she did it,” Bernetta said with a sniff. “There's no way she could've—but her
name
was on it. I just—I don't know what I'm going to do.”

Gabe ripped off a corner of the sticker. “I'm sorry,” he said, but softer this time. “That's awful. I can't believe she did that.”

“That's because you don't know her,” Bernetta said, wrapping her arms around her stomach. She kept her voice low, so Colin wouldn't hear her. “I should've seen it coming.”

“But you couldn't have known—”

“I should've known she'd try
something
! Of course she would. She's
Ashley
. I should have known she'd try to mess with me again.”

“I'm sorry.”

“And she thinks I'm just some idiot, this huge moron she can stomp all over. And you know what? I
am
. I am a moron.”

“You're not a moron.”

“Of course I am. She's used me twice, and I didn't see it coming at all! I just let her do it. I even used to think she was my friend. Can you believe that? I actually
trusted
her.”

“Look, Bernetta,” Gabe said, “it's not your fault. You're a good person, you know? And she's not. And no matter how much money she has, you'll always be better than her.”

Bernetta watched the houses speeding by outside. “But it's not just the money. She was so
nice
when I first met her. She was my best friend. She really was. We'd do everything together. And then, one day, she just switched, like, like—”

“Like Gollum,” Gabe said, nodding seriously.

“Gollum?” Bernetta asked.

“Yeah. You know. From
The Lord of the Rings
? Frodo thinks he can trust him, that he's going to lead him and Sam straight to Mordor, and then the next thing he knows, he's in the middle of Shelob's lair. Remember? That giant spider who tries to eat him?”

Bernetta couldn't help laughing, although she'd been crying so hard, half of it came out as a cough. “Okay,” she said, “you're right. She's Gollum.”

“See? And at the end Gollum falls into Mount Doom and Frodo and Sam make it home okay. So you'll be fine too. I promise.”

Bernetta sighed. “I guess.”

“Look,” Gabe said, “I know you lost all that money, but don't worry, okay? We still have almost two whole months. We can do it.”

“Nine thousand dollars,” Bernetta said. The number sounded bigger than it ever had before. “I need nine
thousand
dollars, Gabe. And I don't have anything.”

“I know it's a lot, but there are all sorts of—”

“What's the point?” Bernetta said. “I mean, really. What if Ashley just takes it again? What's the point of even trying?”

Gabe opened his mouth like he was going to say something but then closed it again. They were silent until the bus stopped at Fields Street.

“That's my house right there,” Gabe said, pointing out the window as he stood up. “Come by on Monday, all right? I'll figure something out.”

Bernetta shrugged. “I'll think about it.”

When the bus started moving again, Colin plopped down into the seat next to her. “Hey, Bernie Bernie, why are you crying? You want my whale to tell you a joke and cheer you up? He's really good at knock-knock ones. Except you have to do the ending part yourself, because sometimes he forgets how it goes.”

Bernetta and Colin got home long before their mother, and Bernetta spent most of that time panicking. First she called the bank to find out when she could expect her bank statement. They told her not to worry, that it should be there in a little less than a month.

“And don't forget,” the woman on the phone told her, “you can always check your balance online anytime you want.”

“Wonderful,” Bernetta said. “Thanks so much.”

Then she worried about what to tell her mom about babysitting. “Mom”—she practiced in front of the mirror—“Hank got sick at the last minute, so Mrs. Norton told me not to babysit. He had a fever and everything. So I took Colin to the pier. He had a great time. We got ice cream, and he won a whale.”

That sounded convincing, right?

She went downstairs and found Colin sitting on the living-room floor, tying her old shoelaces into giant knots. “Hey, um, Colin?” she said.

He put his hands on his head and looked up at her. “Geeble gabble?”

“Yeah . . .” She took in a deep breath. “So, you know . . . today at the pier . . . you had fun, right?”

Colin nodded. “Yep. You wanna see my ninja shoelaces? This is how they work. You hold on right here, and then you swing it at the bad guys and—”

“Colin, come on, I'm trying to tell you something important.”

He closed his eyes and began to spin the shoelaces in wild circles around his head.

“Colin, I really have to—”

“
Ninja attack!
” he shouted.

“Colin!”

The front door opened. “Hey, you two!” their mother called. “You're home already!” She set her keys on the table by the door. “How did everything go today?”

Before Bernetta could even remember the first line of the lie she'd practiced in the mirror, Colin lunged into their mother's arms. “Hank's sick!” he shouted. “He's cool, but he's really, really big for a six-year-old. And Mom? We had a really good time. I wanna go with Bernie again next week.”

“Oh,” their mother replied, “well, that's wonderful. Bernetta, can you help me unload the groceries from the car?”

“Um . . .” Bernetta looked at Colin, and he smiled back at her. “Sure.”

Well, that was one less thing to worry about, at least.

Sunday evening Bernetta lay backward on her bed, her feet up on the wall and her grip tight around an old copy of
Ender's Game
. But she wasn't really reading. She was chewing and thinking.

All weekend long Bernetta had tried to come up with a way to solve her problems, but it was impossible. There was no way to fix things. She couldn't make nine thousand dollars in two months. Even if she could, her mother was bound to check her bank balance soon and realize something was wrong. Really, there was no other option but to turn herself in and get it over with. Bernetta was going to go downstairs and tell her parents exactly what she had been up to. As soon as she finished chapter seven.

Bernetta hadn't turned a page in twenty minutes.

It just didn't make sense, Bernetta thought.
How
had Ashley pulled it off? The way that name had just appeared on her backpack like that, like magic. How on earth could she have—

Wait a minute.

Magic?
Bernetta turned around and sat up straight in her bed, tucking her legs underneath her. She chewed on her book page a little harder, gears turning in her head.

If there was one thing Bernetta Wallflower, magician's assistant, knew for a fact, it was that there was no such thing as magic. Illusions, sure. But real magic simply didn't exist. Maybe it
looked
like magic when you ripped a jack of diamonds out of a sourdough bread roll, but the trick lost some of its sparkle once you knew that a gray-haired waiter had placed a special basket of bread with a card already inside it right in front of you. The card didn't
appear
. It had been planted there all along.

Bernetta stopped chewing. She took in a deep breath of air, then let it out very slowly.

Suddenly she got the feeling that she'd spent the past four weeks staring at Gabe's right hand, when all along he'd been hiding a quarter in his left.