The Thief (15 page)

“
I’m not from around here,”
she grins, and it’s unsettling. “That makes things complicated and
I’m in a bit of a hurry. Do you want the money or not?”

Something about her pings my creep-o-meter.
I’m not sure if it’s the weird request, the squiggly red tattoos
running down one side of her neck, or the smell of alcohol that
rolls off her. Probably all of the above.

“
Yeah sorry, we’re in a
hurry too, so uh...no thanks,” I say, and we shuffle past her into
the library.

“
Dustin Heron,” Edna Thrush
says sharply.

Destin twitches. We were trying to sneak
past the library’s front desk, but the old lady is like a hawk. A
tiny, wrinkled hawk. Or as Destin likes to call her, a troll.

“
It’s Destin, ma’am,” he say
sheepishly. Destin and I have been going to the library our whole
lives, and she always gets his name wrong.

“
Whatever unusual name your
parents decided to give you, you still owe twenty-two thirty for
that late return.”

“
I’ll um, I’ll have it next
weekend,” he offers.

“
You’ll have it now, or
you’ll not go a step further. MacAlister Dupree,” she greets me
with absolutely zero warmth. Edna the Troll has this thing where
she only addresses people by their full names.

“
Afternoon, ma’am,” I say,
on guard. I’m trying to remember if I owe the library anything. I
sure hope not.

Fun sidebar about how Destin got his name.
Usually when people ask him about it, he tells them he’s named
after a city in Florida where his family used to take vacations.
The truth is a little more...pink. See, Destin’s parents were
positive they were having twin girls. Like, 100% positive. They had
everything all decorated, a closet full of frilly matching dresses,
and names already picked out. Angela and Destiny. Their names were
embroidered and stamped on everything. Serious. So you can imagine
their distress when Destin turned out to be uh, not a girl.
Basically they scratched the ‘y’ off most of the stuff and just
decided not to waste all the baby presents – they got him some
legitimate boy clothes for going out and stuff, but most of
Destin’s baby clothes were still pink.

The pictures are hilarious.

Destin turns out his pockets. He has all of
three dollars. “Uh...” he stalls, looking at me. I shrug. I’d left
all my money at home.

“
Um...uh...just a second,”
he says, “be right back.” Swiftly, he exits the library and swiftly
he returns. He hands the Troll a rumpled twenty dollar
bill.

“
You didn’t,” I mutter under
my breath.

He colors, but says nothing.

“
Turn in your books on time,
and this won’t happen,” she says to Destin, like she’s teaching him
a lesson. The old lady takes book fines a little too seriously if
you ask me. All I want to do is get into the reference section and
dig out some answers. It’s a shame Ms. Bea isn’t working the front
desk – she’d have never even mentioned the fine. Well, she’d maybe
mention it, as a reminder, but the old lady wouldn’t treat Destin
like a felon, that’s for sure.

Once we’re finally given freedom to pass the
front desk, we make our way to the elevator. The place is dead
silent. That’s the only thing I dislike about libraries – the
oppressive quiet. Well, that, and how musty the books smell. And
the mean librarians. And how hard it is to find what you want most
of the time.

Alright, so I’m not the
world’s biggest fan of libraries. But they have their use. You can
find the craziest stuff on the shelves sometimes. That’s the one
big difference between going to the library and doing an internet
search. Yes, the library is a lot slower, but you have a much
greater chance of stumbling across stuff you’d never have thought
of otherwise. Plus it’s kind of cool how seriously
old
some of the books are
– I like thinking about who else has read them before me, and
why.

“
You shouldn’t have done
that, dude,” I say. “That tattoo lady is bad voodoo.”

“
Voodoo?” Destin frowns.
“Did you want to get into the library today or not? It’s not a big
deal, it’s just checking out a book.”

“
What book, exactly? And you
know that if she steals it, you’re going to be the one owing the
library. Again. So, vicious cycle.”

“
She asked for the Grimm on
the third floor,” he replies, confused. “So Grimm’s Fairy Tales, I
guess. Do they even keep kids’ books on the third
floor?”

“
Kids’ stuff is all on
first,” I confirm, frowning. “Third is all the stuff nobody
touches, and librarian offices.”

“
Stuff nobody
touches?”

“
Rare books and public
records,” I say, punching the button for the elevator. “Which is
where we were going anyway. So how’s that for more
coincidences?”

“
Take a look at this,” I
say, showing him an old register of land deeds and titles. “Most of
the property in the area before 1920 belonged to the
Etheridges.”

“
Never heard of them,”
Destin says, not looking up.

“
Yeah, it’s weird, right?
But there’s this whole list at the turn of the century, and it’s
Etheridge, Etheridge, Etheridge, oh hey Graham, that must be Jul’s
house, Etheridge, Etheridge...but then...” I reach over and open a
second ledger and lay it on top of his. He looks up, annoyed at
being interrupted.

“
Twenty years later, no more
Etheridges,” I point out, running a finger down the list. “All
gone. Oh hey, MacAlister,” I say, spotting my name. “And...another
MacAlister. And...”

Destin’s annoyance fades as he read the
list.

“
Mac,” he says, in that
voice that means I’ve found something enormous.

I can’t believe it. The 1920 list is
peppered with my name. It looked like all the Etheridge properties
had been replaced with MacAlister.

“
Mac,” Destin says. “Who
were you named after?”

“
My...my mom’s maiden name
is MacAlister,” I say carefully.

Suddenly he snatches a book out of the stack
he’d been looking over. “I didn’t think...it didn’t seem like
anything, but...” He flips through pages ‘til he makes a sound of
recognition and stabs his finger onto the page.

“
MacAlister,” he says. “Five
years ago, a property off of Stonewall Road was turned over to the
city in someone’s will. The original owner was an...” his eyes meet
mine. “Etheridge MacAlister.”

“
Seriously?” I exclaim, then
clap my hand over my mouth when I receive several dirty looks from
the other people around us.

“
Seriously?” I repeat in a
shocked whisper.

“
Dude, I’d bet my comic
money that’s the exact same property the school was built
on.”

I grin. “Let’s see what else this guy’s
got.”

“
Here it is,” Destin says,
turning his computer screen towards mine.

We’ve relocated to the library’s computer
lab, since our research has taken a different turn. One thing the
internet really excels at - you know, besides cats - is
genealogies.

“
The Etheridge family tree
officially dies out in 1918,” Destin says. “No more Etheridges. Or
so it seems. Really what happened is that 1918 is when the last
male heir died, leaving everything to a daughter, Marianne, who had
married a dude named Thomas MacAlister.” He sits back, looking
pleased with himself. “All the property fell to her, and then her
son, Etheridge MacAlister. That’s when the names on the deeds
changed. And since then, it’s been divvied up amongst their
numerous progeny.”

“
Then how come I don’t know
about any of this? I ought to know if I’m the heir to some huge
fortune, dude.”

“
I didn’t say you were,”
Destin points out. “There are a lot of MacAlisters. Look.” He
gestures at the large branching swath of MacAlisters leading into
current times. “And people don’t adhere to the ‘everything to the
firstborn son’ mentality anymore, it’s not like you’re in line for
a crown. This is just a bunch of land. Or it used to be. A lot of
it’s been sold by now. It’s been divided and re-divided among
families. And if you think about it, you probably do have some sort
of inheritance from all of this.”

“
How do you
mean?”

He looks uncomfortable. “How much do you
think your dad really makes?”

I shrug. “A lot.”

“
Look, don’t take this the
wrong way...but my dad is higher in the company than yours. I’m
pretty sure he’s making more money. So how come your mom goes
shopping every weekend?”

“
Magic,” I say. “And by
magic, I mean credit cards.”

“
I’d bet my original Venture
Bros. line art that your mom is a trust fund baby,” Destin
says.

“
You’re really in a betting
mood today,” I say.

He grins sheepishly.

But when I think about what he said, it
sounds logical. If Mr. Heron isn’t making a whole lot, and my dad
is lower in the company, he can’t be making much more. But Destin
is right, my mom still takes Hayley to fancy salons, gets her
top-of-the-line SUV detailed weekly, and comes home with a bag of
shoes more nights than not.

“
You could ask her about
it,” Destin says.

“
Ask my mom about money?” I
recoil. “If you won’t talk to your dad about...you know...there’s
no way in hell I’m talking to my mom about money. Last time I asked
for a pair of movie tickets she told me how she fought off a
mountain lion with a can opener.”

“
That sounds like an
exaggeration,” Destin says.

“
For twenty bucks there
never is happiness.”

“
That reminds me...I need to
find that book before the tattoo lady comes in and yells at me or
something,” Destin says.

I notice Ms. Bea coming out of her office
and stand up. “She’ll know where it is for sure,” I say, crossing
over to her.

“
Mac!” he hisses after me.
“I don’t think this is - ”

But I’m already standing in front of her,
saying “Hey Ms. Bea!”

“
Mac,” she smiles at me.
“What can I do for you?”

I know she’s our best bet for finding this
thing quickly. Grey hair or not, Ms. Bea’s memory is insane. “So, I
know this is kind of a weird question, but bear with me because
Destin stupidly made a deal with someone...do you guys have a copy
of Grimm’s Fairy Tales up here?”

Confusion bends her eyebrows. “We have two
or three downstairs.”

“
No, up here, on this
floor.”

“
She was very specific,”
Destin says.

“
She?”

I want to smack him. “A woman outside told
us there was a special copy of it on this floor. We were just
wondering if it was true,” I say quickly. No sense in getting Dez
in trouble if the book doesn’t even exist.

Suddenly, Ms. Bea’s gaze sharpens. “What
woman? What did she look like?”

I’m taken aback by her intensity. “Really
messy, all in leather, tattoos – ”

Then the old lady swears, and Destin and I
rock back. I didn’t think little old ladies did that. “You didn’t
take anything from her, did you?”

“
No, why would we steal from
a random creepy lady?”

Destin swallows. “She gave me a twenty.”

Bea grabs him by the shoulder and gives him
a little shake. “Did you bring it in the building?”

“
I – I – I paid my book
fines with it,” he stammers.

She speeds away and down the stairs with the
pace of someone much younger. We blink at each other for a beat,
and then rush after her. What the hell is going on?

By the time we get to the front desk, Bea is
breaking into the cash register with a manager’s key. As she opens
it, one of the bills on top starts to sizzle. She swears again,
snatching it out of the drawer and stomping it out on the ground.
Cinders waft around her shoe and die.

“
Beatrix?” Edna the Troll
gasps.

Ms. Bea lifts her shoe with apprehension.
Nothing remains but a small amount of ash on the tile. She lets out
a big sigh, seeming to collapse back into herself. “It’s fine. For
now, it’s fine. I got her mark before it spread. I don’t think
she’s serious, yet.”

Destin and I trade a look. Something is
totally going on around here, and it’s starting to feel like all
the adults are in on it.

Ms. Bea picks up the telephone on the desk
and dials. “Hello Abbey? Bea Graham. Did you leave the boys at the
library? I’d like you to come back and pick them up. No, they
haven’t done anything,” she says into the phone to my mother, but
her expression facing us says the opposite. “There’s just been a
small security incident here and I’d feel better if they were
elsewhere for the time being. Yes. Yes, of course. Thank you.” She
hangs up the phone and glares at us directly. She points at the
chairs behind the front desk. “Sit. There,” she says, “Until your
mother comes to get you.”

“
What did we do wrong?” I
ask. “I don’t understand.”

“
You listen to me boys,” she
says gravely. “For God’s sake, don’t ever talk to that woman again.
Don’t take anything from her, and don’t let her touch anything of
yours. Mothers tell their children not to talk to strangers for a
reason,” she states. With an order to the Troll to not let us move
until claimed, she begins her slow, arthritic climb back up the
stairs, an old lady once more.