by David Cole
There were nine houses on Stephanie’s side of the street. Justin wrote the numbers down as we walked from one end to the other. He crossed out the house number that were not prime.
21, 23, 25, 27, 29, 31, 33, 35, 37, 39
That left only four possible choices, including Stephanie’s house.
“I think we can narrow it down even more,” Justin said. “The burglars don’t like dogs, so I think the Watsons’ Dobermans would eliminate number 29.”
“And the house near the end of the street, number 23, is empty,” said Stephanie. “It’s for sale and the family has already moved to their new house.”
Justin crossed off the two houses we had eliminated.
21, 23, 25, 27, 29, 31, 33, 35, 37, 39
“It’s going to be our house,” Stephanie said quietly, pulling on her ponytail.
“How do you know it won’t be number 37?” I asked.
“The Millers are having a family reunion this weekend,” she replied. “I talked to one of the twins, and she told me they have relatives coming in from four states. The burglars would be crazy to try to rob them with all those people around. They’d never get away with it.”
We let the truth sink in. If we were right, the burglars were coming to rob Stephanie’s house this Saturday night!
And we still didn’t have a plan.
Chapter 12
On Thursday morning we were no further ahead with a plan. And my parents were still going ahead with their dinner party for Saturday night, which meant Justin’s and Stephanie’s parents would be at my house for the evening. That meant that Stephanie’s house would be empty, with nothing to stand in the way of the burglars.
“We have to do something,” Justin whispered to me while Mrs. Gouche was writing on the board.
I glanced back at Stephanie. She was chewing on the end of her ponytail.
At recess, Justin was confronted by Robbie again.
“You better come up with a pizza party by next week or you’re toast,” Robbie said, waving his big fist in Justin’s face.
In our afternoon math group, Mrs. Gouche only made things worse by assigning us a big math project to finish by Monday. She was really piling it on. We complained about the extra work, but at least she was giving us some interesting problems to solve.
That afternoon, we snuck out the back door of the school and made a run for it before the bullies could figure out where we were. Once we were in the clear, we slowed to a walk.
“It’s not really a big deal,” I said. “All we have to do by Monday is finish a giant math project, find a way to get the class a pizza party, and stop burglars from robbing Stephanie’s house.”
“Piece of cake,” Justin said with a grin. “While we’re at it, why don’t we throw in a cure for all diseases?”
“And world peace!” Stephanie added.
We went to Stephanie’s house after school. Over cold glasses of milk and a large plate of brownies, we talked about what we could do. Food always seemed to help when we had heavy thinking to do.
“I don’t see a way we can get our class pizza party back,” I said. “So let’s concentrate on the math project and protecting Stephanie’s house.”
“That makes sense,” Stephanie replied, but I could see she was still very worried. It was her house that was going to be robbed after all.
“I’ve got a stupid baby sitter on Saturday night,” Justin complained.
“Who is it?” I asked.
“It’s Amy again.”
“What about you?” I asked Stephanie. I knew with all the adults at my house that I would be stuck in my room for the evening.
“I don’t know yet,” she said. “I think my parents were planning to ask your sister to sit for me on Saturday night.”
“But if we’re all going to be in different houses on Saturday night, there’s no way for us to stop the burglars,” I said glumly.
“Maybe there is,” Justin said, “and we have Mrs. Gouche to thank.”
Stephanie and I looked at him, waiting for him to explain.
“What if we all had to meet at Stephanie’s house on Saturday night?” he asked.
“How would we work that out?” I asked.
“The math project,” Justin said. “What if we had to work on the math project? That would give us a good excuse to all be together at Stephanie’s house.”
“Yeah, but our parents are all worried about the robbers. They’d never let us stay alone,” I said.
“But what if we weren’t alone?” he asked.
You could almost see the plan taking shape in Justin’s changing facial expressions.
“I thought Amy was babysitting you on Saturday,” I said.
“Right,” said Justin. “And who is Amy’s best friend?”
“Of course!” I said, beginning to understand. “Linda owes me for helping her out with her dinner party seating.”
“So if we get Linda and Amy to babysit for the three of us—” Justin began.
Stephanie jumped in. “—and we use our math project as an excuse to get together at my house—”
“—we might just pull it off!” I finished.
As it turned out, that part of the plan was easy. Amy and Linda said they would love to babysit together. I didn’t even have to use Linda’s IOU to get her to agree. The parents were all in agreement too, since now there would be two teenagers watching over us. And how much trouble could we get in while working on a math project?
Now we needed to come up with the important part of the plan. If the robbers were coming, how were we going to catch them?
Our first ideas were terrible. Justin wanted to hang a net from the ceiling and drop it on the burglars. Stephanie thought we could pour super glue on the doorknobs so their hands would get stuck when they tried to come in. My idea wasn’t any better. It involved digging a pit in the backyard and putting a pile of money on a trap door for bait.
We all laughed at our silly ideas, but we weren’t getting any closer to coming up with a real plan.
“What if we just call the police as soon as they try to break in?” Stephanie asked.
“That might work, but what if they get away before the police arrive?” I asked.
“And if they find out we’ve figured out their pattern, they’ll just start back up again with another pattern and we’ll be back to square one,” Justin added. “We need the police to catch them in the act.”
Stephanie and I talked about a couple of other ideas, but Justin had gone into his thinking zone again. He answered “mm-hmm” a few times when we asked him questions, but I could tell he wasn’t really listening to us.
By the time Stephanie’s parents got home from work, we still didn’t have a plan. Walking home with Justin, I could tell that he was still deep in thought. When we got to my driveway, I asked him what he was thinking about.
“I think I may have an idea that could work,” he said. “I still have some details to work out though, so give me a day or two to think it through.”
A day or two? That was all the time we had left!
Chapter 13
Friday was here. If their pattern held, it meant there was only one more day until the crooks would try to rob Stephanie’s house. Justin was quiet the whole day, not even saying much in our math group. He didn’t say a word during lunch, not even an “mm-hmm” when I asked him if he had worked out his idea.
At recess, he wandered off by himself, still deep in thought. I lost track of him while I was playing soccer with some of the third graders. I didn’t see him anywhere around when the first bell rang. I did see Stephanie though. She was at the far end of the soccer field, talking to Robbie. The other bullies weren’t around, but that didn’t really matter since Robbie was much bigger than Stephanie. I started to go over to see if I could help, but the second recess bell ra
ng, and I was herded toward the school door. When I looked back, Robbie was shaking his finger in Stephanie’s face. Uh oh, this looked like trouble.
Stephanie and Robbie were both ten minutes late getting back to class after recess. I was glad to see that she looked fine. No blood and no bruises anyway. She even had a slight smile on her face. Robbie had a big grin too. I wondered what was up. Something definitely wasn’t right.
Stephanie had a dentist appointment that afternoon, so she left class before I had a chance to talk with her about her run-in with Robbie.
I walked home with Justin.
“Any ideas for what we should do tomorrow night?” I asked.
“Not yet, but I’m sure we’ll come up with something,” he said. He didn’t sound very confident though, which was unusual for him. He was used to always having the answer.
I picked at my dinner that night, even though we were having one of my favorite meals, fried chicken with mashed potatoes and sweet corn. The chicken was cooked to perfection, but I just nibbled at the golden-brown crust.
“Is something wrong, Jordan?” my mother asked.
“Well, it’s just,” I began, then stopped before spilling everything. My mom was now looking at me intently, worry on her face. I hated to see her look so concerned, so I started again.
“You see…it’s just that…you know,” I stammered.
“Speak much English, dork?” my sister interjected.
“Linda, how many times have I told you about calling your brother names?” my mother snapped.
“About a million,” I answered, sneaking a grin at my sister.
In a way, I had my sister to thank for keeping me quiet. I wasn’t very good at keeping secrets. Without her, I probably would have told my parents everything, and I knew exactly what would happen then. My parents would call off their dinner party and go straight to the police. If that happened, I was sure the police would end up scaring the crooks away and the burglars would never be caught.
After dinner, I tried working on the math project a little but found I couldn’t concentrate. I tried reading, watching TV, and playing video games, but nothing seemed to work. In less than 24 hours, we would all be at Stephanie’s house, and outside that house, would be crooks attempting to break in. That was pretty scary stuff, and I couldn’t get it out of my head. I called Stephanie’s house, but no one answered the phone.
I went to bed around nine o’clock, but I didn’t fall asleep for a long time. When I finally did fall asleep, I was troubled by dreams where dozens of robbers were coming into my house through every door and window.
When I woke up, it was Saturday morning. I poured a bowl of cereal, but it didn’t seem to have any taste.
“Are you sure you’re feeling alright?” my mother asked.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said, quickly shoveling a big spoonful of cereal into my mouth to prove it. My full mouth also prevented me from saying any more.
She looked at me with a raised eyebrow but didn’t ask any more questions.
I called Justin but got no answer. No answer at Stephanie’s house, either. Stephanie was probably at soccer practice, but where was Justin? I looked at the clock. It was 9:15. We were scheduled to go to Stephanie’s house at five o’clock. That meant there was less than eight hours to go and we still had nothing.
I spent most of the day working on our math project so I wouldn’t drive myself crazy.
“You ready to go, Jordan?” my sister asked.
I looked up in surprise. It couldn’t be time to go already. I looked at the clock and saw it was almost five o’clock.
“Yeah, I guess I’m ready,” I said.
“Wow, you sure sound like you’re excited,” she said sarcastically.
I started to walk out of the house through the mud room.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?”
“Forgetting something?” I responded.
“Uh, yeah, aren’t you supposed to be working on some stupid math project?”
I hit my fist into my forehead. Of course. The math project-our cover story. I scooped my papers up and shoved them into my backpack.
“Thanks,” I muttered.
“Well, you’re sure in a lousy mood.”
She was right, but at least I had a good excuse. Once we got to Stephanie’s house, we might all be in danger.
Chapter 14
There we were. Saturday night. Six o’clock. According to the weather report, the sun would set at 7:30 pm. According to Detective Ponnath, the burglars always hit after dark, so we still had a little time, but that time was running out quickly.
Amy and Linda were in the other room, deep in conversation about the big break-up between Brad and Beth. I wondered if that meant we would have to help her with another seating chart, but we had other things to worry about right now.
“Did anyone come up with anything?” I asked.
Stephanie and Justin shook their heads no, but I noticed that they exchanged a small smile. I felt a little left out of something, but I wasn’t quite sure what that something was. I decided not to ask. I was just happy they were getting along. We ate some mac and cheese for dinner and tried to play a board game, but we mostly watched the clock.
Outside, the sky darkened. It would be fully dark in twenty minutes. I looked out of the back window nervously. Justin was trying to look calm as he played with his cell phone. Stephanie nibbled at her pinky finger as the light faded.
Amy and Linda had gone downstairs. We were hiding in the pantry, where we could clearly see through the kitchen to the back door. The house was mostly dark, with only a lamp from the living room around the corner providing a small sliver of light. In our minds, every sound or moving shadow was a burglar. I was sure the small shed in the back yard held nothing more than a lawn mower and some random garden tools, but to me, it was just another hiding place for a crook.
The clock hit 8:30. My parents’ dinner party would be over at 10:00. That only left us an hour and a half. After that, we would have to give up and tell our parents what was going on. I could hear music playing softly in the basement, but my heart was pounding out its own beat.
There was a sound at the back door. At first, I thought it was my imagination playing tricks on me, but then I heard it again. It was a scratch and then what sounded like a whisper. It was happening, just like we had predicted. We had solved the problem, but for once, I wished we had been wrong. The doorknob wiggled a little, and the whisper became words as they drifted through the open window over the sink.
“It’s unlocked,” said the first voice.
“Okay, let’s make quick work of this. Grab anything you see that is worth anything. Cash, jewelry, electronics, whatever you can find,” came a second voice.
The police were right. There were two of them.
The doorknob slowly turned, and the door inched open with a quiet creak. A hand, covered in a black glove, reached into the opening, widening it until a face peered into the room. At least, I think it was a face. It was hard to tell because, like the hand, it was covered in black.
Stephanie put her hand over her mouth to hold in a gasp. She was tugging nervously at her ponytail with the other hand, but I was too scared to even move. We were deep in shadow, but they would surely see us when they came in. The door was now opened wide enough for the first crook to squeeze into the room. The second followed closely behind.
“Okay, we’re in,” said one robber. “Looks like no one is home. Ouch!” there was a loud bump as he stumbled into the corner of the kitchen counter. “I think it’s safe to use the flashlight.”
This was it! When he turned on the flashlight, there was no way they were going to miss the three of us crouched against the pantry wall. I felt Justin squirm a little. A beam of light came on. In seconds, we would be seen.
Suddenly there was the sound of a lou
d dog barking. I let out a little yelp, but not nearly as loud as that of the burglar with the flashlight. He backed quickly away, tripped over a chair, and hit the ground with a loud thud and a cry of pain. The other burglar was already on his way out the door.
“FREEZE! POLICE!” came a loud yell from outside. The escaping burglar was framed in the brilliance of a powerful spotlight.
The first burglar was still scrambling backwards trying to get away from the barking. The second burglar was pushing his way back in to get away from the police. They collided in the doorway and crashed to the floor. Stephanie turned on the lights, and I was finally able to see what was going on.
The two crooks were down on the floor. Standing over them in the back door was a large policeman holding a gun. Next to me, Justin was grinning and holding up his phone, which was still blasting the sound of a large dog barking. He pushed a button to silence it.
Justin and Stephanie high fived each other. I just looked on in amazement as the policeman handcuffed the two burglars.
“Perfect timing, Mr. Colson,” said Stephanie to the policeman.
Mr. Colson? Robbie’s dad?
“Mr. Colson?” I asked her. “I don’t get it.”
Stephanie explained. “It’s simple, really. We had two problems to solve. We needed to catch the burglars—”
“—and, more importantly, we needed to make sure Robbie wasn’t going to rearrange my face,” Justin finished with a smile.
“So, we found a way to solve both problems at one time,” Stephanie said. Like Justin, she had a huge grin on her face.
“So your conversation with Robbie on the playground…?” I was beginning to understand.
“I was telling him that we had come up with a way for his dad to catch the burglars in the act,” Stephanie said. “Since we couldn’t dig your money pit, Jordan, we needed a policeman.”