by Kate Davies
“Give uth our money back, then,” said Pete, trying and failing to sound threatening.
“All right, all right,” said Doris, counting out bills, apparently at random. She really was Blandington’s worst businesswoman, which was saying something considering the town had a funeral parlor called Depressing Send-Offs R Us. “Just promise me you’ll use this cash to buy something wholesome, like a pencil. Can’t go wrong with a pencil. How many people do you know died from dropping a pencil in the bath? None, that’s how many.”
Freddie and Pete practically skipped out of the shop, but they didn’t, because they both liked to think of themselves as extremely masculine.
“That was amazing!” said Freddie. He’d forgotten how good it felt to deceive other people and trick them out of their hard-earned money.
And then a strange boy popped up from behind a garbage can on the other side of the road and gave Pete a thumbs-up. Freddie knew he was strange right away, because he had “strange” written across his forehead in marker.
“Who’s that?” asked Freddie.
“Oh, one of my new poker palth,” said Pete, laughing a high-pitched laugh. “He’th nowhere near ath talented ath you. But then, he’th not ath violent ath you, either.”
“Hey,” said Freddie. “I never laid a finger on you. I just persuaded you to lay a lot of fingers on yourself.”
“I haven’t forgotten,” said Pete. “That’th why I’m tho keen to pay you back. Let’th go down thith alley tho I can give you the money away from prying eyeth.”
He led Freddie down a dark, narrow path—and moments later, Freddie felt an impossibly strong person pick him up and shove him into a sack.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
IMOGEN WAS EATING her breakfast the next morning when her mother bustled into the kitchen, dressed in her Burberry raincoat.
Imogen paused, a spoonful of cereal halfway to her mouth. “You’re not going out, are you?” she asked.
Josephine looked of her. “Of course I am, darling!” she said. “It’s been a week since my color was touched up. I simply must go to the salon.”
“Mom,” said Imogen, “are you crazy? Haven’t you noticed that our family has been disappearing? You shouldn’t leave the house unless it’s an absolute emergency! And even then, Big Nana told us not to go anywhere alone!”
“But it is an absolute emergency! I spotted a gray hair in the mirror this morning! A gray hair! On my head! If I don’t get my roots done, your father won’t recognize me when he comes home!” Josephine pouted. “I suppose I could take Isabella with me.”
“Isabella doesn’t count. If you do get your roots done, you’ll probably be missing by the time Dad gets home,” Imogen pointed out.
“Stop being such a goody-goody,” said Josephine. “You still leave the house to go to school.”
“I have to go to school,” said Imogen. “It’s the law.”
“I must be a terrible mother to have brought up such a law-abiding child,” muttered Josephine.
“Anyway,” said Imogen, choosing to ignore the insult. “I know how to look after myself.”
“So do I,” said Josephine. “Which of us spent months in jail without a stitch of Chanel to wear? Moi! You’ve no idea what it was like at night. . . . No aromatherapy pillows . . . no eye masks to keep the light out . . . no raccoon serum to keep my skin looking young . . .”
I have to stop her from leaving the house somehow, thought Imogen. She’d lost her cousins and her father—she couldn’t bear to lose her mother, too.
She reached into her pocket and pulled out the stolen credit card that she’d found in Isabella’s crib a few weeks’ ago. Stolen credit cards were always turning up in Isabella’s crib—or they had always turned up in the crib, until the crime drought. Now the only things Imogen found in there were used nappies and dolls with the heads chewed off. And you can’t pay for a sandwich with those, unless you go to a very strange sandwich shop indeed. “Here,” she said, holding the credit card out to her mother. “Why don’t you have an online shopping day?” That should keep her occupied. . . .
“Imogen! It’s beautiful!” said Josephine, snatching up the credit card and cradling it as if it were a newborn baby. She was still cooing “Who’s a clever girl, then? I think I’ll call you ‘Amex’!” when Imogen left the house for school.
Imogen knew she shouldn’t be going out alone, but the piano accompanist was busy walking Aunt Bets to her bridge club. What other choice did she have? She had to get to school. She had to keep an eye on Ava Gud . . . or, as she’d begun to think of her, Ava Kruk.
She turned the corner onto Blandington Secondary School Street—and there, walking to school ahead of her, was Ava, her glossy ponytail catching the light as it swung to and fro. I wonder what conditioner she uses? thought Imogen.
And then she shook herself. Her mother—unbelievably—did have a point. Anyone (like Ava Gud) who wanted to hurt her (which Ava Gud definitely did) would definitely try to reach her at school. She wasn’t going to walk right into her trap. In fact, she was going to start fighting back. She hadn’t forgotten what Big Nana had said: “You come at the king, you best not miss.” But she couldn’t just wait around for the Kruks to kidnap more of her relatives. She had to do something to warn them off. She turned and headed for home. She had a half-formed plan. . . . It might not work. But then again it might. There was only one way to find out.
Imogen went straight up to her apartment—she could hear her mother in the bedroom, singing a lullaby to the credit card—and carefully picked up the venomous tarantula she’d stolen from Blandington Zoo a few weeks ago (you never knew when they might come in handy). She put it in a plastic carrying case.
She caught the train to London Waterloo Station and walked along the river until she saw the Houses of Parliament gleaming in the autumn sunlight. Opposite Big Ben was a large, unassuming green roundabout. It looked pretty ordinary—it was ignored by Londoners rushing to work and tourists taking selfies of themselves in front of pointy buildings—but it wasn’t ordinary at all. Because hidden in the middle of it was a solid, steel trapdoor. And beneath that trapdoor was the entrance to Krukingham Palace: the Kruks’ headquarters.
Imogen stood on the pavement outside Big Ben and took a deep breath. There wasn’t a crossing that lead to the roundabout—you had to really, really want to get to it; enough to hurl yourself across four lanes of traffic. But what had Freddie told her last time they were here? “The statistical likelihood of dying in a road traffic accident in London in any given year is one in twenty thousand. . . .” She’d survived the journey once before. She’d take those odds.
She ran out in front of the traffic like a rabbit that was ready to die happy because it had achieved everything it wanted to in life, and made it to the other side with all her limbs intact.
The roundabout looked different than it had a few months ago—the trees were barer and the grass was covered in fallen leaves—but the two bushes were still there. The smaller one, she knew, hid a security guard with a Napoleon complex. And the taller one covered the secret trapdoor.
Imogen stood still for a moment. The small bush didn’t seem to have noticed her. Maybe she could sneak over to the trapdoor, throw the tarantula down the stairs into Krukingham Palace, and run back across the roundabout without being noticed.
She crept over to the tall bush as quietly as she could, silently cursing the fall leaves that crunched beneath her feet—but when she got there, she found that the heavy metal cover had been boarded over.
Imogen glanced down at the tarantula, still in its plastic case. Maybe this is a lucky escape, Imogen thought. Now that she was here, her plan seemed very half-formed indeed. Throwing a tarantula down an opened trapdoor and hoping it killed all the Kruks had about as much chance of success as Uncle Knuckles had of being cast as the lead in Sleeping Average-Looking Person, Blandington’s annual Christmas ballet (less chance, actually—Knuckles turned surprisingly elegant pirouettes).
But then she
heard a familiar, resentful-sounding voice behind her. “What do you want?” She turned—and there, all of a sudden, was the tiny bush, its twigs swaying aggressively in the breeze, the sparrows nesting in its branches eyeing her suspiciously. She stared into the leaves, trying to see the man hidden inside, but his disguise was just too good.
“Is the family home?” Imogen asked.
“Which family? The Kruks?” And then he slapped one of his branches over the place where his mouth must have been. “I’m not supposed to say their name out loud! Now I have to punish myself.”
There was a bit of rustling and a snapping noise, and one of the bush’s branches fell to the ground.
“Ow,” said the bush.
“Does that actually hurt you?” said Imogen, curious now.
“Only symbolically,” said the bush.
“Right,” said Imogen. “So—are they home?”
The bush shook again, but didn’t say anything.
“What was that? Are you still punishing yourself?”
“Sorry,” said the bush. “I always forget I’m wearing this thing. That was me shaking my head.”
“Oh.”
“The family are away on an indefinite holiday. You can record a message for them if you’d like.” There was more rustling—and then a digital recorder suddenly popped up in the middle of the sparrows’ nest. The sparrows didn’t seem that pleased about it, but Imogen was very impressed.
Imogen reached over, assumed the evil monologue position, and said in her most serious voice: “This is Imogen Crim. And I’m going to take you down.”
“Don’t you want to say anything else?” asked the bush. “‘Lots of love’? ‘See you soon’? ‘Hope you’re enjoying the sunshine’?”
“Why? Are they somewhere sunny?”
“Darn! Did it again!” said the bush, snapping off another twig.
“I do have one more message for them,” said Imogen. She picked up the tarantula carefully—and threw it, not very carefully, at the bush.
“Arrrrgghghghgh!” screamed the bush, running away, even though the tarantula was still in its plastic case. “A furry guinea pig!”
“It’s a tarantula, actually. A venomous one.”
“Arrrrghghhghg!” screamed the bush, even more loudly.
“That’s right,” said Imogen, nodding. “There’s more where that came from.” Which wasn’t strictly true, but it sounded better than “That was the last venomous animal I had and I’m not sure when I’ll be able to steal another one.”
It was dark by the time Imogen got home. The house was dark too. The only light was coming from Big Nana’s bedroom. As Imogen walked up the front path, dodging Freddie’s booby traps, she saw her grandmother silhouetted in the window, practicing her maniacal laughter. Imogen felt a lump in her throat—she had just swallowed a cough drop—and sighed. The Crims hadn’t had a reason to use their maniacal laughter for weeks.
And then it occurred to her—why were all the lights in the apartment off? Why wasn’t her mother home?
There was a note on the kitchen table.
Made an online appointment for the salon, darling! Isabella’s been practicing her kung fu all morning, so she’ll make excellent protection! Back in a flash! It’s nine a.m. now. Will be home for dinner. Maybe I’ll cook. (Ha! As if!)
Imogen checked her watch. It was after nine p.m. Way past dinnertime. Her mother must have been taken—and Isabella too. Imogen waited for the panic—and the sadness and the anger—to hit her. But she felt nothing. She was so used to her family members going missing, she realized, that she had almost expected this.
Imogen went downstairs and turned on the dishwasher, and the vent fan, and the vacuum cleaner—to confuse any bugs—and the ice cream maker, to keep her spirits up. And then she knocked on Big Nana’s bedroom door. It took a while for Big Nana to answer—that’s what happens when you drown out all the noise in your house with electrical goods.
Eventually, Big Nana opened her door a crack. “Ah. You’re home,” she said, opening the door wider.
“But Mum and Isabella aren’t,” said Imogen. “I think they’ve been taken too. Which means there’s just us, Uncle Clyde, Aunt Bets, and Uncle Knuckles left.”
As soon as Josephine left Crim House, Isabella started scrybiting. Scrybiting was Isabella’s signature combination of screaming, crying, and biting. Josephine had teamed Isabella with a beautiful pink leather handbag that perfectly matched her skin tone, but Isabella had chewed her way out of it before they reached the end of the road, and then started crawling, as fast as her short but surprisingly powerful legs would carry her, back to Crim House. It was almost as though she thought going to the salon was a bad idea. Josephine tutted. The child had a lot to learn. Going to a salon was never a bad idea. Unless it was a literary salon. Imogen had dragged her to one of those once. Just a lot of boring people with gray hair and moth-eaten cardigans reading books! Not a hair dryer in sight!
Josephine chased after Isabella, scooped her up, and marched back toward the main street. But just before she reached the salon, she noticed a sign, pointing down a dark alley. And written on the sign, in large red letters, were the words “Free Fancy Shoes.”
Aha! thought Josephine. I like shoes! I like fancy things! And most of all, I like things that are free! She turned to walk down the alley, ignoring Isabella, who was chewing Josephine’s arm by this point—but then she stopped. Hang on a minute, Josephine said to herself. “Fancy” isn’t a name brand. This is probably some sort of scam. So she turned back and carried on toward the salon.
But then she stopped again. Hang on another minute, she thought again. What if the sign says “Fancy” because the brands in question are so fancy that they can’t be named for fear of starting a riot? Maybe this is like the circulars from Boring Shop, Exciting Prices that just say “Famous Brands”! Josephine was even more thrilled with herself than usual for figuring this out (and she was always quite a high level of thrilled with herself). So she turned around again (she was quite dizzy by this point) and marched back into the alley.
Isabella was scrybiting so loudly and violently that Josephine didn’t notice the person coming up behind her. But she did notice, as anyone would, when someone behind shouted, “Ich habe dich!” and shoved her into a sack.
CHAPTER TWELVE
IMOGEN GOT UP with the larks the next day. The larks were really annoying—too chirpy considering how early it was—so Imogen got dressed and left the house to get away from them. She went to the only place she’d ever felt truly comfortable, no matter how many people there hated her or ignored her or were actively trying to kidnap her: school. She wasn’t going to go to classes—she couldn’t risk it; maybe this was the day Ava would decide to strike. She would go undercover and spy on Ava instead. If she followed her to the Kruks’ base in Blandington, maybe she would find her family. . . .
Imogen thought back to the comment Big Nana had written on her last crime essay, “Why Disguising Yourself as a Crosswalk Is Never a Good Idea”: “When going undercover, find somewhere that no one else would want to hide. There’s nothing worse than ducking behind a parked car and finding that someone’s down there already.” Imogen knew exactly where she didn’t want to hide—the huge Dumpster just inside the entrance gate, which was full of the slimy remains of school lunches. So she held her breath and dived in. She drilled a peephole with the amateur dentistry kit Aunt Bets had given her for Imogen’s last birthday, and waited.
By eight thirty, Imogen’s back was in quite a lot of pain, and her feet were in a lot of orange peels and empty milk cartons. Just as she was cursing herself for getting in so early, a large, beige Cadillac pulled up at the entrance gate. (All the cars in Blandington were beige, apart from the Crims car, which was ARGHNO!, a color invented by a lexicographer who’d had the misfortune of seeing the Crims’ car and invented a new word to describe its revolting combination of red and gold and brown and green and silver and glitter and black and why?) A woman with
curly blond hair stepped out of the Cadillac—hair so blond and curly and stiff-looking that Imogen imagined it might be able to resist bullets—followed by Ava.
Ava and the blond woman were having an argument. Imogen wasn’t close enough to hear what they were saying, but she knew the international mime action for “I’m going to slit your throat” and the slightly less international sign for “I’m going to rip your bowels out when you get home. Good luck digesting your dinner.”
The blond woman got back into the car and drove away, and Ava made the universal sign for “Please go away, I don’t like you very much.” The license plate on the car read NICELADY. But the blond woman didn’t look very nice. Probably because she was a Kruk, too.
Imogen stayed in the Dumpster all day. She learned a lot about what flies like to eat for breakfast. She also learned a lot about why people kept cream in a refrigerator. She didn’t learn a lot about Ava Gud.
After a few hours, Imogen worked up the courage to wheel the Dumpster toward a classroom window. She could see her fellow pupils in action. They were using Bunsen burners, which meant they were doing chemistry. Imogen loved chemistry. Last year, at Lilyworth, she’d managed to create a very effective new poison during lab. . . . She gazed into the flames, and suddenly felt very sleepy. Maybe if she just rested her head on this empty potato sack. . . .
BRIIIIINNNG! Imogen was woken with a start by the final bell. Just in time, she managed to climb out of the Dumpster, peel the chocolate wrappers from her shoes, and hide behind it. She was going to wait for Ava to appear. She would follow her home again—but this time, she wasn’t going to let herself be outmaneuvered.
Keeping her distance—she didn’t want Ava to turn around to find out where the revolting smell was coming from—Imogen tailed Ava through the streets. Ava took sharp turns down hidden alleys. Imogen followed her. Ava jumped over fences. Imogen vaulted over them after her. Ava ran down Blandington Secondary School Street, then skipped, then did a strange crab walk for a bit. Imogen didn’t bother doing any of that—she still had her dignity. She kept Ava in sight, and her persistence paid off: This time, when Ava turned into the side street where Imogen had lost her the first time, Imogen saw her disappearing into a Chinese restaurant that no one ever went into because it had a hygiene rating of one out of ten proudly displayed in the window. Imogen waited for a few moments and pushed the door to the restaurant open—and realized it wasn’t a restaurant at all. Behind the door was a narrow alley, a shortcut to Straight Crescent, a very ordinary Blandington street—and there, on the other side of the road, was Ava, walking up to a very nice, clean, normal-looking house with a white picket fence and a garden gno (like a garden gnome but more depressing).