Butterbean squeaked her squeaky carrot. She just wished she had a bigger part.
Walt hurried back to the front door.“Then let’s go. It’s on.”
Marco and Polo peered through the grate into the Coin Man’s apartment. The Coin Man’s Number Two Guy was there, lying on the couch with his feet up on the cushions. He was looking at his phone.
“Yuck. Unsanitary,” Polo said, looking at his dirty shoes on the beige sofa.
“Shoot! I was hoping he would be gone too,” Marco said under his breath.
“Let’s hope Chad can handle him,” Polo said. She scanned the room. “He should be here any minute, right?”
“Right,” Marco said. “There! Hi, Chad!” Marco waved through the grate. Chad had just emerged from the drain in the kitchen sink and was pulling himself up onto the kitchen counter. He waved a tentacle in the direction of the grate.
The man on the sofa didn’t notice.
“Shh! Marco! We’re heisting here!” Polo said, pulling his arm down.
“Sorry,” Marco said. “SORRY, CHAD!” he yelled.
“Marco!” Polo said. “Shh. Just watch now.”
She pointed at Chad, who was making his way across the counter toward the dining room. He slid off the edge of the counter, down the cabinets, and crawled across the floor. Then he pulled himself up the curtains, stretched out one long tentacle, and quietly cranked open the window.
“He’s very good,” Polo whispered.
Marco nodded.“Professional.”
Chad slid back down the curtains onto the floor. He had just started the trek toward the kitchen when the man on the sofa put his phone aside, stretched, and stood up.
“Chad!” Polo squeaked. “Watch out!”
Chad froze, instantly changing color to match the darkness of the curtains. One minute there was a big obvious octopus lying on the carpet, and the next, he was just a dark fold in the fabric of the curtains.
“Whoa. How did he do that?” Marco breathed. “You can hardly see him.” If he hadn’t been watching, he never would’ve known Chad was there.
“Do you think he does that a lot?” Polo asked. Seeing an almost invisible Chad lying in wait made her more than a little uncomfortable.
“Shh. He’s moving.” Marco grabbed Polo by the arm.
The Number Two Man walked into the dining room and got an apple out of the bowl on the table. He looked at it for a second and then dropped it in disgust. He was less than a foot from Chad the whole time, but he never even looked down.
“He’s going to notice the window!” Polo squealed.
“Forget the window—Oscar will be here any second,” Marco said, clutching Polo by the shoulder. “He’ll see Oscar! It’ll blow the whole heist!”
“Chad! Do something!” Polo squeaked.
A long dark tentacle snaked out from the curtains where Chad was hidden. It snagged the end of Number Two’s shoelace and pulled carefully, untying it.
[Êàðòèíêà: img_31]
The man didn’t notice.
Chad’s tentacle tapped Number Two on the leg, retreating back into the folds of the curtains so quickly that Marco wasn’t even sure he’d seen it happen.
The man looked down and rubbed his ankle just as Oscar appeared in the window.
“Ack!” Oscar squawked, desperately flapping his wings to gain altitude again.
“Ack!” Marco gurgled, pointing at Oscar in the window.
“Ack,” Number Two muttered, noticing his untied shoelace for the first time. He stomped back to the couch, threw himself down, and started tying his shoe just as Oscar made a clumsy landing and ducked behind the curtains.
Polo let out a huge sigh of relief.“This is way too stressful. We should’ve gotten rid of this guy too.”
“No kidding,” Marco said. His heart was racing, and all he was doing was standing in a vent.
The elevator in the hallway dinged.
Marco and Polo looked at each other. It was time. They were all in place.
“Ready?” Marco held up his hand.
“Ready,” Polo said, high-fiving Marco.
Marco leaned out of the grate, put two fingers in his mouth, and let out a loud whistle.
“Ninth floor,” the elevator woman said as the doors opened.
Butterbean and Walt cautiously peered out into the hallway.
It was empty.
Butterbean dropped her squeaky carrot in front of the elevator-door sensor, gave it an affectionate pat, and stepped over it into the hallway. She’d always liked that carrot, and now it was going to make sure they had a clean getaway.
Walt was already by the apartment door. (She was less sentimental about the carrot.)“Everyone should be in place,” Walt said. “Now we just wait for the signal.”
“Okay,” Butterbean said. She listened as hard as she could.
From inside the apartment, they heard a thin, shrill whistle.
Butterbean and Walt looked at each other and nodded. And then they opened their mouths and started to scream.
Walt’s screech sounded like she’d gotten her tail caught in the elevator door. Butterbean decided to alternate between howling and rapid-fire barking that lifted her off her feet. But the noise was incredible. The hallway had great acoustics.
They’d only been at it a minute when the door to the apartment jerked open, and the Number Two Man inside stared at them in surprise.
“Get ready,” Walt yowled.
Butterbean braced herself. This was the part of the plan where the man ran out of the apartment and tried to grab them. She’d even come up with some fancy evasive maneuvers. Bouncing off the walls—that type of thing.
But there was one problem. The man didn’t move. He just stood in the doorway and stared at them like they were animal carolers with too much holiday spirit (and a defective calendar).
Butterbean frowned.“Now what?” she howled at Walt.
Walt shot a sidelong glance at Butterbean.“Me, head. You, feet.”
Butterbean nodded and threw herself at the man’s feet, grabbing at his pants leg and tugging him into the hallway. Walt waited until he started staggering forward, then launched herself at his face, grabbing on to his ears with both paws and twisting around his head.
“AAHHHHH!” the man screamed.
“This should do it,” Walt screeched, nipping the fleshy part of his ear. She made a face. It wasn’t clean.
Butterbean barked in approval and grabbed at his shoes. They weren’t clean either, but a little dirt never bothered Butterbean.
When he heard the commotion in the hallway, Oscar sprang into action, pushing the curtains aside and hopping onto the table.
He scanned the room, but he didn’t see Chad. That wasn’t good. Chad was his contact. Without the octopus, the whole plan would fall apart.
“Curtains! Look on the floor by the curtains!”
Oscar peered up at the grate. A tiny rat arm was waving at him, and he could see a sparkly flash. Polo. Oscar looked down just in time to see part of the curtains detach and move away toward the living room. It changed color as it walked, slowly turning from a muddy-brown piece of curtain to a lighter grayish-beige octopus. Chad.
Oscar flexed his wings. He hoped he was up to this. After all, he did have a bad back.
Chad quickly pulled himself across the living room, ignoring the commotion in the hallway. Oscar decided to ignore it too. He didn’t even want to know what Butterbean and Walt were doing out there.
Chad whipped a tentacle around the handle of the cabinet end table and jerked it open. The small duffel bag was there, just as Marco and Polo had said it would be. Oscar caught his breath. The treasure was real.
Chad dragged the duffel bag out, and Oscar tugged at the zipper. Gold coins spilled onto the floor.
“Nice haul,” Chad said.
Oscar nodded, picking up the loose coins with his beak and dropping them back into the bag. They couldn’t get sloppy. If this went well, the men wouldn’t even know they’d been robbed until the animals were long gone. They couldn’t leave a single trace of evidence behind.
Oscar zipped the bag back up and grabbed the handles with his feet. Then he braced himself. This was it.