Closing my eyes, I let the magic book fall open randomly.
A family was driving down the street in their car. The car was a baby-blue T-bird and the parents in the front seat looked a lot like Stan and Linwood. June was leaning forward, wearing that dumb gray coat. Out the car window you could see the sign on a shop window: MARIE LAVEAU’S HOUSE OF VOODOO.
The picture looked okay. So what? We were all in the car together, even though I was huddled in the backseat, looking alone.
Then I noticed the reflection in the store window.
An enormous truck, seemingly out of control, was hurtling directly toward us.
Slamming the book shut, I threw it against the wall. My throat felt all raw and terrible. This was the danger Sammy was trying to protect us from! Deane was going to let us be killed!
“Pet!” Linwood called through the connecting door. “Are you all right in there?”
“Fine!” I called out. What a lie.
“Okay, honey, sleep tight. Save your three good deeds until tomorrow. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Good night!”
Boy, was I mad. I was too mad to be scared. It was one thing to interfere with me, and another thing to hurt them.
I was lying on my back, staring at the ceiling and wondering how I was going to do what I had to do, when June walked in. All my stuff was safely stowed away.
“Well, Fats,” she said, “you missed a good dinner.” She began to change into her nightgown. Her body was big, but she didn’t look bad, the way adults do when they’re overweight. She was all pink and solid. Sometimes I envied her size: it gave her the authority of an adult, but she still got the privileges of a child.
“What’d you have?”
“Fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and two pieces of coconut cake.”
Coconut cake! “Was it fresh?”
“Still warm.”
I let out a sigh worthy of Stan, and then something plopped onto my stomach. A tinfoil-wrapped slice of coconut cake.
“Thanks, June.” I was humbled.
She shrugged, her flannel tent falling around her. “Didn’t want you waking up in the night whining about how hungry you were.”
“Want a bite?”
“Sure.”
I gave her a big chunk, and we both smacked the cake right down. It had that thick, white, sugary icing that made the back of your tongue shiver.
“Want to start a game of Monopoly?”
I felt I owed her, because of the cake. On the other hand, how could you concentrate and play Monopoly at the same time? “Look.” I stood up and paced a little, for drama. “I need to get my hands on some money.”
Pushing her glasses up her nose, June sat down on her lumpy bed. “How come?”
“I can’t tell you, but it’s important.”
Her mouth had that grown-up set of annoyance.
“Cross my heart and hope to die. It’s very, very, very important.”
She just looked at me.
“It’s bad. And if I tell you, it’ll be your fault too. This way, it’s all my fault.”
At that, she relaxed. “First, I get a consulting fee. And second, how much do you want?”
Well, I didn’t exactly know. I knew what I had to do: find Sammy again, trade him the book for protection, at least. But what if he never showed up? What if I looked out the window one day and there it was: Marie Laveau’s House of Voodoo? Money was what passed for power with adults. Maybe if you had money, you had power. Maybe if Sammy never showed up again, I could buy protection. Or maybe if he did, the book plus money would buy extra protection. Frankly, I was only nine years old, and money seemed like the first step, to be ready just in case. “A thousand dollars?”
“Get serious!”
“Okay. A hundred dollars.”
June thought a moment. “Okay,” she said. “I think I know where you can get at least a hundred dollars. But you better pick up an extra fifty for me, as the consulting fee.”
“Legally, that makes you liable.”
She thought again. “Okay,” she said. “We’ll call it a bribe.”
June’s idea, it turned out, was the cash register downstairs. And it wasn’t even a real cash register—it was only a drawer that the guy kept his money in. She’d seen the whole thing when Stan paid for their dinner.
“But isn’t that too obvious?” I asked. “Won’t they know who did it?”
June grunted. “That’s your problem,” she said. “But frankly I think there’s a few hundred dollars in there. By the time they notice something’s missing, we’ll be history.”
I went into the bathroom to change. I didn’t want June to see the poodle-toy necklace, but I knew I had to wear it under the dark sweater I’d selected as my burglar outfit. Dark sweater, dark pants, and my navy blue watch cap.
“What about gloves?” June asked when I emerged.
“I thought children didn’t have fingerprints.” Didn’t you get them the same time you got your social security number?
“What a jerk! Just look at your hand why don’t you.”
I looked. Okay, so there were fingerprints. “But I don’t have any gloves.”
“Come on, Pet!” June was exasperated. “You’ve read Nancy Drew. What would she do?”
If the queasiness in my stomach would go away, maybe I could think. Nancy Drew… “She’d take a cloth and wipe everything off.”
“You bet she would.”
Moments later, I found myself alone on the staircase, heading for a life of crime. God, forgive me, I prayed. You too, Jesus. You had to be careful to mention them both or someone might get annoyed.
The house-hotel was quiet, dark, and felt safe. The small lights on the stairway allowed me to see my way along the soft carpet runner. No noise. Not from me, not from anybody. The building itself seemed to be breathing in slumber.
At the base of the stairs I turned to my right and eased through the door, just as June had instructed. Inside the darkened dining room, I flicked on my flashlight.
The room was mine.
Even my queasiness subsided, now that I was committed. I opened the drawer, my last fear being a burglar alarm.
But no. The open drawer, with its cash box, was mine as well.
I selected a random sample: some bills, some rolls of coins, a little bit of everything. I piled it in my extra sweater, which I carried like a bundle. When you looked in the drawer, nothing in particular seemed to be missing. Being deceitful, cunning, tricky: how easy to learn these things. Only one step away, really, from sneaking ice cream out of the carton so no one can tell it’s gone. The way you scoop a little from the edges, a tad from the center…
I closed the drawer. Then I opened it back up and wiped the cash box and the drawer itself clean, with my handkerchief.
Then I stood there. Almost as if something else needed to happen.
Under my clothing, the poodle necklace was warm and sharp.
Then, I thought I heard a laugh: a long, low, man’s laugh, not amused. But when I scanned the room with my flashlight, I was alone. I was alone.
Chapter Seven
“One hundred seventy-nine dollars and thirty-four cents,” June announced. “Not bad.”
I shrugged. It hadn’t sunk in yet.
“One hundred for you. And I’ll take the rest.”
“No,” I said.
We were both surprised.
“Fifty for you. And I’ll take the rest.”
“Okay,” June agreed, impressed. “After all, you’re the criminal.”
Funny thing was, I sure didn’t feel like one. I knew that I’d done what I had to do. I had a good reason. Even when I closed my eyes and tried hard, I couldn’t work up a case of shame.