The Life and Crimes of Bernetta Wallflower (6 page)

P
ATTER
n
: the continuous talking of a magician during the performance of an illusion; a popular form of misdirection

The next morning Bernetta gulped down her cereal as quickly as possible. She wanted to be out the door and on her way to the mall before her parents came back into the kitchen and decided to ask her more questions about babysitting. After she'd inhaled the last spoonful, she lurched her chair back across the tiled floor with a screech and dumped her bowl in the sink. “ 'Bye, everyone!” she called into the living room, slinging her backpack over her shoulder. “I'm off to babysit!”

Her mother hurried into the kitchen before Bernetta made it out the door. “Are you positive you don't want a ride over there?” she asked for the fifteenth time.

“It's fine, Mom,” Bernetta told her. “I'll just take my bike. It's not that far. Besides, I don't want to make Colin late for his swim lesson.”

“All right, then,” her mom replied. She gave Bernetta a kiss on the forehead. “Have a good time with the kids. And call me if you need anything. Or if the parents get sick, or if you'll be home late.”

“Or if there's a fire. Okay, Mom.”

“ 'Bye, sweetie. I love you!”

She gave her mother a quick hug. “Love you too,” she said, and hustled out the door.

Bernetta worked up quite a sweat pedaling her way to the mall, but she arrived at the food court at precisely nine o'clock. Gabe was waiting by the pretzel stand, his hands in the pockets of his jeans. Today his T-shirt was red, and scrolled across it were the words
YOUR CAR'S UGLIER THAN I AM
. He saw her coming and waved her over.

“Hey!” he greeted her, his eyes sparkling. “You came!”

“Yeah.”

“You ready for your first lesson?”

“Um, lesson?”

“Yeah. I thought I could teach you some moves, and then we'll get started right away. Don't worry, you'll be a natural. Oh, and before we start, I think we should agree to a fifty-fifty split of all profits. Deal?”

Bernetta raised an eyebrow as Gabe led her over to a table with two chairs. “Are you some kind of professional thief or something?” They sat.

“Nah.” Gabe grinned. “I guess I've just done a lot of research.”

“What do you mean, research?” Bernetta cocked her head to the side and studied him. “You mean watching movies, don't you? Con artist ones, like what you were talking about the other day. Is that how you
researched
everything, watching movies?”

Gabe shrugged. “Yeah, so?”

“You some kind of film buff or something?”

He placed his hands flat on the table. “Name a movie, one you think I've never seen. I'll bet you five bucks I can say at least one line from it.”

Bernetta wrinkled her nose. Granted, back at Mount Olive, she hadn't talked to a whole lot of boys, but she'd never had any idea they were this weird. “Um . . .” She named the first movie that popped into her head. “
Apollo
13?
” Her parents had rented that one last week.

“You're kidding, right?” Gabe asked, eyebrows raised high.

“Look, if you don't know it, it's fine, we can just—”

“‘Houston, we have a problem.' That'll be five bucks, please.”

Gabe held out his hand, but Bernetta just rolled her eyes at him. “I don't have five bucks,” she said. “That's why I'm here.”

“All right, you can owe me,” Gabe said. He shook his head and laughed. “Man, I can't believe you picked
Apollo
13
! Anyway, you ready to learn the shortchange?”

“Shortchange?”

“Yeah. It's probably the most basic con there is. But you still have to be a pretty good talker to make it work. Otherwise people start to get suspicious. Here.” He took his wallet out of the front pocket of his jeans and began riffling through the bills inside. There were a lot of bills. He pulled out a couple. “Say you're the cashier and I'm the customer, and—”

“Wait,” Bernetta said. This was all going so fast. “Just hold on a second.”

“What?” Gabe asked. “What is it?”

“It's just . . .” Bernetta traced her finger over a crack in the table. “I mean, okay, I get it, you've seen a lot of movies. But have you ever actually”—she lowered her voice—“
stolen
anything before? Because it's probably a lot different from in the movies.”

Gabe leaned forward. “I already told you,” he said. “We're not gonna be stealing. It's
conning.
And anyway, yes, I have stolen stuff before.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

Bernetta gulped.

Gabe set the bills from his wallet carefully on the table. “Okay, so with the shortchange,” he said, “what happens is you pay for something with a ten-dollar bill and get a twenty back as change.”

Bernetta tried to wrap her head around that. “Wait. You mean, I can buy something and get more money back than I paid in the first place?”

“Sure. You have to know how to read people, though. The best way is to try it on someone who's new at their job or really busy or something.”

Bernetta nodded slowly. It was a lot like working at the magic club. You wanted to catch people off guard. Make them check up your sleeves for the ace when really you had three hidden in your coat pocket. “Got it,” she said. And then she paused. “Wait.”

Gabe frowned. “Yeah?”

“What's your deal anyway?”

“My deal?” Gabe asked.

“Yeah. I mean, I'm here because I lost my scholarship, but what about you? Why do
you
want to be a con artist so bad?”

“Okay,” Gabe said. “I guess that's a good question.” He shuffled the bills around on the table as he spoke. “See, my family's rich. Completely loaded. I'm like Veruca Salt in
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
But well, when I was little, I hardly ever got to see my parents. I just had to hang out with the nanny all the time. So
now
”—he looked up at her—“now I steal stuff because no one ever loved me.”

Bernetta took a good look into his chocolate brown eyes. “Is that true?” she asked.

He grinned. “Maybe.”

“All right, fine,” Bernetta said with a laugh. “Show me this shortchange thing. I'm the cashier and you're—”

“Wait,” Gabe said. “I have to ask
you
a question now.”

Bernetta was pretty sure a smile was creeping its way onto her face. There was nothing she could do about it, really. “You do?”

“Yes, I do. Two of them actually.”

“Well,” Bernetta said, folding her arms in front of her in mock annoyance, “what are they then?”

“One. What's your name?”

“My name?”

“Yeah, you never told me.”

“Bernetta.”

“Ber what?”

“Bernetta. That's my name.”

Gabe stared at her for a moment, and Bernetta couldn't tell what he was thinking. “
Bernetta?
” he repeated.

“Yeah.”

“Wow,” Gabe said.

“What?”

“Nothing,” he replied, but then he laughed, a quick chortle that started in his throat and came out his nose.

“
What?
”

Gabe shook his head. “It's just the most terrible name I've ever heard, that's all.
Bernetta?
Man, that's rough.”

Bernetta probably should have been offended by that. But she wasn't. She'd hated her name her whole life. Most people tried to tell Bernetta her name was “unusual” or “dignified,” but that didn't fool her. At least Gabe was honest.

“My great-uncle Bernard died three weeks before I was born,” she explained.

“Good thing his name wasn't Mortimer,” Gabe replied.

Bernetta thought about that. “Or Wally.
That
would've been awful.”

“I don't know,” Gabe said. “I think you'd make a really nice Wallamina.”

Bernetta laughed again. “All right, all right,” she said. “What was your second question?”

“Want to bet me double or nothing I can't guess another movie quote?”

Bernetta thought about it. “That's your question?” He nodded. “All right, fine.” She tried to come up with one he probably hadn't seen. “
The Muppets Take Manhattan
,” she said at last. She and Elsa used to watch that movie all the time when they were little. It had been their favorite for years. It was probably too goofy for some sophisticated film addict like Gabe.

“‘Ocean Breeze soap,'” he said. “‘It's just like taking an ocean cruise, only there's no boat and you don't actually go anywhere.' Too easy. That's ten bucks you owe me now, Wallamina.”

Bernetta stuck her elbows on the table and pressed her hands under her chin. “All right,” she said. “Teach me this shortchange thing before I owe you my entire tuition.”

After running through the moves of the shortchange with Gabe for about twenty minutes, Bernetta was pretty sure she had it down. Together they left the food court and scoped out a location for Bernetta to pull her first con.

They finally decided to try the candy store. The teenage girl behind the counter was on the phone, and she didn't seem to be paying much attention to anything but her conversation.

“Wish me luck,” Bernetta whispered as Gabe nudged her into the store.

“You'll be fine,” Gabe replied, “Don't even worry. Just do like I told you.”

Bernetta entered the store on wobbly legs, but she did her best to hide it.

“Look, Tiffany,” the girl behind the counter was saying into the phone, “it's not like that, all right? Me and Jeremy are just friends.”

Bernetta selected a pack of gum from the rack under the counter and placed it in front of the girl. Her name tag said
HEATHER
.

“Tiff, hold on a sec. I got to ring someone up.” Heather gripped the phone between her chin and her shoulder. “You want a bag for that?” she asked Bernetta.

“No, thanks.”

“Eighty-nine cents.” She rang up the order, and the drawer clanged open. “Tiff, that's not what I'm saying. Cheryl told Beth that Jeremy said that
you
 . . . hold on.”

Bernetta handed Heather a ten-dollar bill, and she took it, then snapped the bills out of the drawer to make change. A five, four ones, and eleven cents.

“Here you go,” she told Bernetta, handing her the change.

But Bernetta had already pulled another one-dollar bill out of her pocket. “Sorry, I—”

Her ear still wedged into the phone, Heather's head shot up to look at Bernetta.

“Sorry,” Bernetta repeated. She added her dollar to the bills already on the counter and plopped her hand on top of the pile. “Can I trade these bills for a ten?”

Heather glanced at the pile and nodded. “Tiffany,
no.
That's not what I said at all. Well, then Beth's a liar.” She handed Bernetta a ten-dollar bill.