The Life and Crimes of Bernetta Wallflower (5 page)

“Why don't you go con people by yourself then?”

Gabe shook his head. “Nah. A con artist has to have a partner.
Nine Queens, Matchstick Men
. Even
Paper Moon
. It just doesn't work by yourself.”

“I really will scream, you know.”

“Just think about it. I'll give you a day. Meet me at the Championship Mall Tuesday morning when you change your mind.”

“Good
night
,” Bernetta told him.

“Nine
A.M
.,” he said. “Food court. See you then!” And he slipped like a serpent back into the tree.

I
MPOSSIBLE
KNOT
n
: an effect in which a magician ties a knot in a scarf or rope without ever removing either hand from the object

Elsa had said to lie low, and she was probably right. Elsa was almost always right. But Monday afternoon after their dad left for rehearsal, their mother had bustled Colin off to a dentist's appointment, and Elsa was away at a friend's house, Bernetta knew what she had to do. And it did not, unfortunately, involve lying low.

She slipped a five-dollar bill from her desk drawer into the front pocket of her shorts and headed downstairs and out the door. Then, with a quick look to the right and left for potentially snoopy neighbors, she whipped one leg over her bike and pedaled off at top speed down the street.

That Gabe kid was an idiot, Bernetta thought as the wind whistled past her ears. She was
not
going to steal. There were other ways to make nine thousand dollars.

She screeched to a halt in front of the ReadyMart and parked her bike outside. Then she strolled through the automatic doors—confident, like she owned the place—and walked right up to the counter.

“One five-dollar quick pick, please,” she told the man, slapping the bill on the countertop.

He scrutinized her from under thick tufts of gray hair. He seemed to be trying to figure out exactly how much trouble Bernetta was going to give him. “Get outa my store,” he said at last.

Bernetta stood up a little straighter. “Yes, sir,” she said. “I'd be happy to. But first I'd like one five-dollar quick pick, please.”

He drummed his fingers on the counter. “I don't sell lotto tickets to minors,” he said. Each word came slowly and clearly, as if he thought Bernetta wouldn't be able to understand him otherwise. “It's illegal.”

Bernetta had anticipated this. But she was determined to get that ticket. Tonight's jackpot was 10.5 million. Ten point five
million
dollars. If she won that, or even a teeny tiny fraction of that, she could go back to Mount Olive. If not, she'd be off to public school. It was up to the lotto gods to decide her fate.

“That's okay,” Bernetta told the man. “It's not for me. It's for my dad.” She pointed outside, where a fortyish man was filling up his pickup truck.

The old man glanced outside. “Your dad, huh?” Bernetta nodded. “Well, your pops comes in here a lot, but I've never seen
you
before.”

Bernetta cleared her throat, her brain churning. “Well, um, actually,” she said slowly, “I'm only visiting. Yeah. My parents are divorced, and I live with my mom. In a different town.” Bernetta couldn't tell if the man was buying her story or not, but she thought it sounded pretty good. “That's why I've never been in here before. Anyway, he just told me to come in here real quick, and I know he'll be awfully mad if I don't—”

“Why don't you run out there and get him?”

Bernetta stiffened, and the man smirked at her.

She glared back. “Look,” she said, her voice noticeably less sweet, “how 'bout I just get a
three
-dollar quick pick? You can keep the change.”

The man snorted. “You're some kinda weirdo, you know that? You think I'm gonna lose my job for two bucks?” He shook his head and smiled, showing off his yellow teeth. Then he turned toward the lottery machine, and Bernetta couldn't see what he was doing. “You got some nerve, coming in here like that.” He was silent for a moment, but when he turned around again, he was holding an orange-and-white piece of paper with three lines of numbers printed on it. “If this wins the jackpot, you better come back with an adult, you hear me? No way I'm handing out cash to some scrawny kid.” He snatched the five-dollar bill from Bernetta's hand and opened the cash register drawer with a clang. “Oh, and carrot top.” He closed the drawer without giving her any change. Bernetta grabbed the ticket. “Your pops just drove off without you.”

That night after dinner, at precisely eight o'clock, Bernetta sat on the top step of the staircase, where she'd be able to hear the news unnoticed. That was the only way to do things now, since her grounding included the Great TV Banishment. The lotto ticket was gripped tightly between her fingertips. She'd been too afraid to look at it, to learn the numbers that were going to decide her fate.

As the news reporter began announcing the lotto numbers on the TV, Bernetta took in a quick gasp of air. Her fingers tensed around the paper, and she finally allowed herself to look.

“Fourteen,” the man on the television called out. “Twelve. Twenty-nine. Six . . .”

When all the numbers had been announced, Bernetta flung herself back on the carpet and crumpled the lotto ticket into a ball.
Loser
. No 10.5 million for her. Not even a single dime. The lotto gods had spoken. Good-bye, Mount Olive, hello, public school.

She could hear footsteps climbing the stairs, and soon her mother was stepping over her. She was holding a basket of laundry.

“Hey, Bernetta,” her mom said, “you all right there?”

Bernetta draped her arm over her eyes dramatically. “Peachy,” she replied.

“Well, after we put Colin to bed in an hour or so, your father and I thought you and Elsa might like to play a game of Scrabble with us. How does that sound?”

Scrabble?
Scrabble
? Her life was over, and her mom was asking her about
Scrabble
?

“I'll think about it,” Bernetta said, and her mom continued down the hall.

There had to be something good about going to Harding Middle School. Maybe they served really good mashed potatoes at lunch or something. And she wouldn't have to wear a uniform anymore. Although Bernetta actually
liked
wearing a uniform. It made morning clothing choices so much easier.

She could hear her father on the couch downstairs demonstrating a magic trick to Colin. She sat up and slid a few steps farther down the staircase to watch.

Her father tugged at each of his sleeves in turn. “Nothing but my arms up there, right?” he said. And then he snapped and produced a banana.

He held it out for Colin to inspect. “An ordinary banana, Col, wouldn't you agree?”

“Yep,” Colin said. “As normal as toothpaste.”

“Take a good look at it, why don't you? Make sure it hasn't been tampered with.”

Bernetta had seen this trick before. It used to be one of her favorites. An ordinary banana that, once peeled, turned out to be somehow—magically—presliced. It had taken her years to figure out how her father did it. And once she'd finally solved the mystery, she almost wished she hadn't. Because all it involved, really, was a straight pin, stuck inside the banana at one-inch intervals and flicked through the fruit horizontally, until the banana was sliced. No magic words, no incantations. Just a straight pin and a little wrist flicking.

Downstairs Colin peeled the banana and squealed as he discovered the perfect one-inch slices inside.
Magic
.

Bernetta leaned back on her hands, the lotto ticket still clutched in her fist.

What was that word Gabe had used? “Trickster”? It was weird, but all of a sudden what Gabe had been saying didn't sound so different from what her dad did every day, trick people. Convincing people that a trunk was completely empty when really his daughter was crouching inside it, just underneath the drop-away bottom. What was honest about that?

What if—Bernetta allowed herself to think those words, just for a second—what if she really did it, really joined that Gabe kid? Was tricking people into handing you their money so very different from convincing people that your father could produce birds from thin air? At least Gabe's way she'd be making a profit.

But no, she knew she couldn't do it. She smoothed out the lotto ticket in her hand and inspected it again. The lotto gods had been very clear. The ticket was a loser, so she was meant to go to Harding.

Wait a minute.

Bernetta held the slip of paper closer to her face.

The ticket wasn't the only loser.

It was as plain as day, right at the top of the paper. The date. It was for last Friday's lottery. The Ready-Mart man had sold Bernetta an old lotto ticket, and she hadn't even noticed. Cheated again.

She took in a deep breath of air, then another one, and another, thinking things over. In the past three days she'd been grounded, kicked out of school, and treated like a leper, and she hadn't even done anything. And Bernetta knew that everyone would continue to treat her like that indefinitely, no matter what she did. She could be a saint her entire life, and they'd still think she was a criminal.

So why not actually
be
a criminal?

The thought was sour, like lemon rind almost, but she chewed on it anyway, and to her surprise it got a little sweeter.

If Bernetta could find a way to go back to Mount Olive and not do anything worse than what everyone thought she'd done already, would that really be so terrible?

Maybe she
would
join that Gabe kid. They'd be Bonnie and Clyde without the bank robbing. Couldn't hurt to try it, anyway.

Could it?

The more Bernetta thought the idea over, the more she liked it. She'd need a good alibi, though, somewhere she could tell her parents she was going every morning. She sat on the staircase, folding and refolding the lotto ticket into fourths. And before she knew it, she'd come up with the perfect solution.

Maybe Bernetta really was born for this Bonnie and Clyde stuff after all.

She went to her room, dug yesterday's newspaper out of the trash can, and scoured the help-wanted section until she found it.

NEEDED. SUMMER BABYSITTER. 2 KIDS. GOOD PAY.

It was just vague enough to work. Bernetta ripped out the ad carefully and crossed the hall to Elsa's room. Her toes curled into the carpet as she walked, every fiber tickling her bare feet. She raised her hand to knock on her sister's door but then stopped and let her hand hang there for a moment.

Did she really want to lie to Elsa? The one person who truly trusted her? Should she do that?
Could
she? Bernetta lowered her arm.

On the one hand, Bernetta had never lied to Elsa, not ever, not even when she'd had a crush on Doug Himmelbach in third grade—and Doug Himmelbach had picked his nose.

On the other hand, there was no way her parents were going to agree to let Bernetta babysit for an entire summer without Elsa's approval. Elsa was the queen of sweet-talking, and Bernetta needed her help.

Bernetta raised her other hand and knocked.

M
ISDIRECTION
n
: the act of diverting the spectator's attention away from a secret move

A half hour later Bernetta was setting up the Scrabble board with Elsa and their mother, while her father dished up ice cream.

“Pistachio for you, right, Bernie?” he asked.

“Huh?” Bernetta said. “Oh, yeah. Pistachio. Yeah. Thanks.”

Frankly, Bernetta's mind was elsewhere. Mostly it was concentrating on the way her legs were shaking underneath the table and on wondering if her parents were going to notice and realize she was panicked. But a little bit of her mind was focused on Elsa, calmly selecting a letter tile from the bag, not looking in the slightest like a girl who was about to tell a whopper of a lie to her loving parents.

She
was
going to do it, right? She had said she was going to. She'd promised. But what if she chickened out? What if she—

“Bernetta?”

“Hmm?” Bernetta turned to her mother, who was eyeing her curiously.

“Do you want to pick a letter, sweetie? We're drawing to see who goes first.”

“Oh, yeah. Sure thing.”

Bernetta selected a tile from the table and turned it over to show everyone. She got an L.
L for liar
, she thought.

Elsa drew a G. “Looks like I'm going first,” she announced.

As Elsa pondered her first move, Bernetta rearranged her tiles and tried to concentrate on forming words.
It will all be okay
, she told herself. But she didn't really believe it.

Elsa played “waiter” on the first move, and Bernetta marked down her twenty-six points. “Nice job!” their father declared as he took a slurp of his ice cream.

Their mother had just scored seven points for “love” off Elsa's
e
when Elsa spoke up.

“So, Mom, Dad, I wanted to ask you guys something.”

“What's that?” their father asked, studying his tiles carefully.

“Well,” she said, “I was just talking to Danielle”—
Here it comes
, Bernetta thought, biting her bottom lip—“and she was telling me that one of her mom's friends just moved to the area, and they need a babysitter for the summer.”

Bernetta took a spoonful of green ice cream. So far so good. This was the story she and Elsa had worked out just fifteen minutes ago. Elsa had been so excited when Bernetta told her she'd actually found a job that would earn her enough for tuition—“
NEEDED
.
SUMMER
BABYSITTER
. 2
KIDS
.
GOOD
PAY
”—that she'd agreed to fib to their parents to help convince them that Bernetta should take it. It was a big fib, the one they'd cooked up, and Bernetta didn't know if it would work. She wasn't even positive she
wanted
it to work. If it did, if her parents said okay, she could babysit for the summer, then she'd be off to the mall the very next day to meet up with Gabe and start being Bonnie. If it didn't work—if her parents didn't buy Elsa's story or flat out said no—Bernetta would be stuck at home all summer, getting mentally prepared for
public school
, her Mount Olive dreams over for good. She wasn't quite sure which was worse.

“Oh?” Bernetta's mom said. “So she wanted you to sit for them then?”

“Well,” Elsa replied, “not quite. I mean, I
can't
sit, because I'm leaving for volleyball camp, and I'll be gone half the summer practically. And Danielle can't do it because she's working at the grocery store. They really want someone reliable, though, who's not a total stranger. They don't want to hire just
anyone
, but they're new to the area and everything. So anyway, Danielle was wondering if maybe Bernetta wanted the job.”

Bernetta's mother set her spoon back in her bowl with a full scoop of ice cream on it. “Bernetta?” she said. “But Bernetta's grounded for the summer.”

“I know,” Elsa said, and Bernetta's head snapped back in her direction. She felt like she was watching a play, not a serious conversation that concerned her future. “But they're really strapped for someone, and Netta's got the whole summer free.”

Their mother cleared her throat. “Elsabelle, I know you're just trying to help out here, but even if Bernetta weren't grounded, she's only twelve after all, and that's a lot of responsibility, to be in charge of children for an entire summer. How old are these kids?”

“They're about Colin's age, I think,” Elsa responded without a beat. “Danielle said they're really great. And anyway, it wouldn't be so terrible. The parents both work at home, so they're just looking for someone to keep the kids out of their hair all day so they can get stuff done. You know, make them sandwiches for lunch, maybe take them to the park or have them run through the sprinklers, that sort of thing. But they'd be there if anything came up.”

“I don't know . . .” Bernetta's mom said with a sigh. She stirred her ice cream for a moment. “Herbert, what do you think about all this?”

Bernetta's dad was still puzzling over his tiles. “I think,” he began, without looking up, “I think”—he picked up four tiles and placed them on the board—“I think I just earned thirty-eight points for ‘kazoo.' Bernetta, write that down. Not too shabby, right? Oh, and yes,” he said when he noticed his wife's scowl, “I think Bernetta would make an excellent summer babysitter. Running the sandwiches through the sprinklers. She'll be great.”

Under the table, Bernetta's left leg stopped shaking. But the right one was still twitchy.

“So, Mom?” Elsa asked. “What do you think? They really need someone.”

“I just don't know about this, Elsabelle. I haven't had any time to think about it, and Bernetta
is
technically grounded, and—”

Her father broke in then. “We also don't even know if she
wants
the job,” he said. “Bernetta, you're awfully quiet over there. What do you think? Also, it's your turn, and thirty-eight is the current score to beat.”

“Um,” Bernetta said. She glanced at her tiles. She could spell
scam
or
sham
or
scum
. She picked up the
s
and took two points for “is.” “I think it sounds good,” she said.

“It would be a good way for her to spend the summer, I think,” Elsa said as Bernetta wrote down her points. “And it's not like she'd be going out with her friends or anything. She'd be working. Doing something responsible.”

Their mother still didn't seem won over. “I know, but—”

“Do you think,” Bernetta asked as Elsa spelled out “radios,” “do you think maybe if I earned some money babysitting this summer, I could use it to pay for my tuition next year? Then I could go back to Mount Olive.”

“That's actually not such a bad idea,” Bernetta's father said. “Earning your own tuition.” He tapped his spoon on the edge of his bowl. “Not a bad idea at all.”

“True,” her mom agreed. “But how much money can you really make babysitting, sweetie?” She laid down the word “measly” for twelve points. “I doubt you can make even close to enough to pay for school.”

Elsa swallowed a spoonful of strawberry ice cream. “They'll pay sixteen fifty an hour,” she said.

Bernetta's father whistled. “Sixteen fifty, huh? I should quit my job and take up day care.”

“Still, though,” their mother said, “in one summer, that can't be nearly enough to—”

“What are the hours?” Bernetta asked innocently.

“Nine to six, I think,” Elsa told her, as though Bernetta hadn't told her that herself just a few minutes ago. “Nine to six, Monday through Friday. While the parents are working.”

“So,” Bernetta said, drawing a line in her ice-cream mountain with her spoon, “if I worked nine hours a day, five days a week, for twelve weeks—” She stopped herself, realizing Elsa hadn't told them that part yet. “It's for the whole summer, right?” she asked. Elsa nodded. “At sixteen dollars and fifty cents an hour, I'd make . . .” Bernetta had already done the calculations several times, but she paused anyway, to complete her fake mental math. “That'd be eight thousand, nine hundred, and ten dollars.”

Her father cleared his throat. “That's a lot of money, all right.”

Bernetta nodded.

“Almost exactly what you need to pay your tuition,” he said, picking a pistachio piece out of his ice cream.

“Almost exactly,” Bernetta agreed.

“Well,” her mother said slowly, “I suppose if you're really that committed to going back to Mount Olive, and if you can show us that you can truly be responsible and work very hard all summer . . .” She took a long, deep breath, and Bernetta's leg shook harder than ever. “I guess in that case it's all right with me if you want to take the job. If you can really make that kind of money babysitting, I think it would be an excellent idea to put it toward your education.”

Bernetta clapped her hands. “Oh, Mom! Thank you
so
much! It's okay with you too, right, Dad?”

But her father didn't seem to be paying any attention. He was leaning across the table, studying Bernetta's scoring.

“Dad?” Bernetta tried again.

Elsa set down her ice-cream spoon. “Something wrong, Dad?” she asked.

He pushed his glasses up on his nose with his index finger. “I'm just wondering where my points went, that's all.”

“What do you mean?” Bernetta asked. “Your points are right here. Thirty-eight—I wrote it down.”

“No, not those,” he said. “My other points. For my second move.”

“Um, Dad?” Elsa said. “You've only gone once.”

“No,” he said, looking genuinely puzzled. “No, I could have sworn I went again. I even got the fifty-point bonus for using all my letters. I'd bet my life on it.”

Bernetta's mother shook her head, but she was smiling just the same. “There are no new words on the board, dear. I think you're losing your senses a little early.”

“Or trying to cheat,” Elsa said with a snort.

“Well, if I didn't play a word,” their father replied, “then where did all my letters go?” He pointed to his tray, where not one tile remained. “See?” he told them. “Not crazy. My letters must have vanished.”

Elsa laughed. “Right,” she said. “They just flew off the table.”

“Nah,” he said, rubbing his chin. “I bet Bernetta stole them. To make up for her lousy two points. I bet she's hiding them. Lift up your ice-cream bowl, please, missy. I bet you've stowed them under there.”

“
Dad
,” Bernetta said with a laugh, “I did not—”

“Up, please!”

Bernetta lifted her ice-cream bowl. No letters.

“Hmm,” her father said. “Well, that's funny, I could have sworn . . .” He searched the table, looking under the box top, under his wife's elbow, inside Elsa's dictionary.

“What's the missing word, dear?” her mother asked. “Maybe that would help.”

“It was . . .” He reached across the table and swooped up Bernetta's crumpled napkin. “Well, there it is, right there.”

And sure enough, underneath the napkin, spelled out crookedly across the table, lay the word “cunning.”

“I'd like my eighty-nine points, please,” Bernetta's father said with the slightest of smiles. And as he set his tiles carefully on the board, turning “love” into “clove,” he added, “And, Bernie, of course you can take that job. I think it's a wonderful idea.”

She grinned and wrote down his score, secretly adding an extra five points for a trick well done.