Very Rich

by Polly Horvath

  Aunt Hazelnut knocked sharply on the door of the manager’s office.

  “Mrs. Rivers!” said the bank manager, bowing and scraping. “How delightful. What can I do for you?”

  “I’m here to visit my safety deposit box,” said Aunt Hazelnut.

  “Certainly,” said the manager. “I’ll just get my key. Have you yours?”

  Aunt Hazelnut held up the key to her safety deposit box and the three of them went downstairs to a big vaulted room where both keys were used, and then the manager left Rupert and Aunt Hazelnut alone.

  “Here goes nothing,” said Aunt Hazelnut, pulling out the box and opening it. “Sit down in that chair, Rupert, with your legs held together.”

  Rupert did as ordered. Aunt Hazelnut opened her purse and took out a pillowcase which she spread neatly over his lap.

  “Now,” she said. “For the full effect.”

  And she dumped the contents of the safety deposit box onto his lap. It was, to Rupert, as if the heavens had opened up and dropped their starry skies upon him. He was certain nothing had ever glittered like this before. There were necklaces and earrings and bracelets and brooches, tiaras and rings simply dripping with rubies and emeralds and sapphires and diamonds.

  “WOW!” said Rupert. “WOW!”

  “Yes, as jewelry buying went, Joe was A-number-one,” said Aunt Hazelnut.

  They looked at the jewels in awe and silence for a moment, and then there was the sound of scuffling and shrieking coming from upstairs. Even in this vault they could hear it.

  “Good heavens, what can be going on up there? Who goes around shouting in a bank? It has been my experience that a bank inspires the same hushed reverence as a church,” said Aunt Hazelnut, opening the door and leaning out to hear better and then screaming as two masked men with guns pushed her back in.

  “Stick ’em up!” they said.

  BEFORE THEY knew it, the masked men had scooped all of Aunt Hazelnut’s jewels and even her pillowcase into a big bag, while Rupert sat trembling on the chair. Then she and Rupert were hustled upstairs. Everyone in the bank was lying face down on the bank floor. The masked men kept shooting their guns at the ceiling in a very noisy and chaotic way and this kept everyone from moving until the four of them had made it to the car and were roaring down the highway. The robber who sat in the front passenger seat kept a gun in each hand pointed at Rupert and Aunt Hazelnut, who sat in the back.

  “This is a very dirty car,” said Aunt Hazelnut conversationally. She kicked some empty Coke cans away from her expensive high heels.

  “Yeah, sorry about that,” said the masked man in the passenger seat. “We were going to clean it before we left but we didn’t have time.”

  “I had to take my cat to the vet,” said the man driving.

  “Oh?” said Aunt Hazelnut. “Poor thing. What was wrong with it?”

  “Fur ball.”

  “Now you see, that’s why you don’t want a cat,” said Aunt Hazelnut, turning to Rupert. “You must get those brothers of yours to start stealing dogs. A dog is a proper pet. A dog will love you and stay at your side and be utterly dignified in his total disregard for his personal dignity in his pursuit of your happiness. A dog has his values in place. A cat is just another animal.”

  “I don’t want my brothers stealing any animals,” said Rupert, whose voice was quavering as he, unlike Aunt Hazelnut, found it impossible to forget he had a gun pointed at his head.

  “No, you’re right,” said Aunt Hazelnut. “It’s a scandal.”

  “They always put them back,” said Rupert.

  “Yes, but people say that’s your mother’s doing. If it were up to them, your brothers would keep the cats, that’s what people say. Anyhow, my point is that everyone always talks about how cats are cleaner than dogs, but they aren’t. Cats are always getting fur balls stuck in their throats, and when they’re not doing that they’re bringing dead mice into the house and spreading their entrails over everything. Is that what those demented cat people call clean?”

  “I like my cat,” protested the driver.

  “Well, did you ever think how it’s going to feel when you end up in jail?” asked Aunt Hazelnut. “Never mind. It won’t care. Cats don’t form attachments. Another reason to prefer dogs.”

  “The cat lives with my mother. Besides, we’re not going to jail,” said the man with the guns. “We just want your jewels and then we’ll be off.”

  “Well, you can’t have them. They’re part of my escape plan,” said Aunt Hazelnut, settling back into the seat and apparently relaxing. Whereas Rupert was fidgeting his hands like crazy and had the increasing desire to pee himself.

  “Escape from what? What’ve you got to escape from, you’re rich!” said the man with the guns.

  “Not really,” said Aunt Hazelnut. “These jewels are really all I own. The rest belongs to the Riverses and I live with them on sufferance. Have you ever lived anywhere on sufferance?”

  “I guess not.”

  “You guess not,” said Aunt Hazelnut, making a face. “Just as I thought. So don’t speak of what you don’t know. Besides, you probably wouldn’t know where to sell them. You wouldn’t get a good price. Now turn around and take us back.” Aunt Hazelnut looked to Rupert. “Once again, I really don’t think I can do it, Rupert. I thought this might be the year I’d go west and become a fisherman…But no, I saw Joe’s face the instant I’d emptied the jewels into your lap and they lay there glittering. There he was on our first anniversary, handing me the diamond tennis bracelet. There he was on Washington’s birthday, handing me the cherry tree necklace with its little ruby apples.” Aunt Hazelnut wiped a tear from her eye.

  “Good grief, Nutty, you still can’t let go?” exploded the gunman. “It’s been thirty years at least since Joe kicked it. What the heck’s the matter with you?”

  Aunt Hazelnut, who had taken a handkerchief out of her purse and was weeping quietly into it with bowed head, snapped her head back up at this. Then she peered very hard at the gunman as if trying to see through his mask. Her face hardened and her tone became brisk. “I should have known. I should have known! No one has called me Nutty since my salad days. It’s Charlie Tanner and Chas Mackenzie, isn’t it? Don’t tell me it’s not. The two of you have had nothing but stupid ideas as long as I’ve known you, but this has to be the stupidest. Didn’t you think I would recognize you?”

  “Aw, Nutty…” whined Charlie, lowering his guns as Chas drove on. “We didn’t think we’d get someone we knew. We certainly didn’t think we’d get you. Aw, jeez. The plan was to burst into the bank and scoop up whoever was in the safety deposit vault as a hostage along with whatever loot they had opened it for. We weren’t going to actually hurt anyone. The guns were just for show. We were going to let the hostage go once we got away.”

  “How did you know someone would be in there?” asked Aunt Hazelnut. “You might have gotten down there and found the vault empty.”

  “We had an inside man, or rather woman. One of the tellers. Chas is dating her. Or was. I think probably this heist is gonna put a damper on that romance. We told her we were going to be in the café across the street and she should take a bathroom break and wave to us from the front window of the bank if anyone went down to the safety deposit vault.”

  “Well, I don’t think much of that,” said Aunt Hazelnut. “Do you think it’s nice to get that girl in trouble like that, because someone is surely going to find out that she waved to you.”

  “Well, jeez, Nutty, we didn’t tell her WHY we wanted her to do this and she didn’t ask. She wasn’t what you’d call the brightest lightbulb in the box. We figured, you know, she couldn’t give us away if she didn’t know why she did it.”

  “I didn’t like her so much anyhow,” said Chas.

  “Well, that’s just peachy, isn’t it?” said Aunt Hazelnut. “You know, you boys were never geniuses, but you were never mean. You never pulled mean tricks like this.”

  “Well, you’re one to talk,” sai
d Charlie. “Tell what’s-his-face here what you did to me.”

  “Charlie and I dated,” Aunt Hazelnut said primly to Rupert. “Briefly.”

  “But I thought you married your childhood sweetheart,” said Rupert, beginning to relax too. This was turning into a much more casual kidnapping than he’d anticipated.

  “Yes, well, but Joe took a little persuading after high school to actually pop the question. I had to threaten him with something. Men are so often like that, Rupert. It’s women who want to nest, men just want to fly around and make bird noises. Anyhow, I threatened him with Charlie.”

  “It wasn’t nice either,” said Charlie.

  “Oh, grow up and get a life,” said Aunt Hazelnut. “That was all in the dim and distant past. And why haven’t you turned the car around as I ordered you to, Mr. Chas Mackenzie?”

  “Because we’re not going back,” said Chas. “Sorry, Nutty. Can’t now. We’d end up in jail.”

  “I see,” said Aunt Hazelnut, considering. “Then where are you taking us, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble to tell me?”

  “Our lair!” said Chas.

  And they drove on.

  Aunt Hazelnut and Rupert didn’t speak after that.

  Rupert returned to being frightened. He did not like the sound of a lair. It brought to mind the image of lions dragging their dinner to a big cave and storing it there. Aunt Hazelnut, meanwhile, sat sulkily leaning back in her seat, her arms crossed over her chest, and stared angrily out the window.

  An hour later they reached the lair and drove into an old barn.

  “What is this?” asked Aunt Hazelnut as they climbed out of the car.

  “It’s an old farm Charlie and I bought,” said Chas. “We were renovating the barn.”

  “Turning it into townhouses,” said Charlie. “You know, in the existing real estate market we figured we could triple our money.”

  “That’s very nice,” said Aunt Hazelnut. “But who would you find to live all the way out here? We’re an hour out of Steelville and over an hour from Cincinnati. Unless you’re raising chickens, I don’t see the value in it.”

  “Yeah, well,” said Charlie, scuffing his shoe in the dirt, “that’s what we found out. And we kind of got in a bind moneywise.”

  “That’s the problem with you boys,” said Aunt Hazelnut. “That’s always been the problem with you boys. You have an idea but you DON’T THINK IT THROUGH! Now, for instance, what are you going to do with Rupert and me? I mean, it’s all very well to go around kidnapping people, but you can’t keep them in mason jars. We’re not preserves, you know. We’re not jellies. Are you a jelly, Rupert?”

  “No,” said Rupert quietly.

  “Exactly. Rupert is not a jelly. And I am not tomato relish. You should have just taken the jewels. Then you would have been plain old bank robbers. Now your charges will be compounded to kidnapping. And that’s a very serious offense.”

  “Aw, you wouldn’t press charges, would you, Nutty?” asked Charlie.

  “Well, no, personally, I wouldn’t,” said Aunt Hazelnut. “And not for old time’s sake either, but rather because I’m not that kind of vindictive person. Nevertheless, you’ve got the boy to think of. Now his people might press charges. Or more likely sue. In civil court for trauma, et cetera.”

  “He doesn’t look traumatized to me,” said Chas, studying Rupert.

  “He looks a little traumatized,” said Aunt Hazelnut. “That’s not a happy expression he’s wearing. Of course, he’s the type who always looks a little traumatized. But that’s not the point. The Browns are short of cash. They might see this as their ticket out.”

  “Ticket out!” scoffed Charlie. “You had a ticket out, didn’t you, Nutty? Much good it did you.”

  “I never wanted a ticket out per se,” said Aunt Hazelnut. “I only wanted Joe. And the right choice it was too. He wouldn’t steal my jewels!”

  “Oh, plunge a dagger through my heart, why don’tcha?” said Charlie, taking his mask off, tilting his head back, closing his eyes, and looking pained. “Aw, Nutty, did you really think I planned to keep your little all? I mean, I may have thought about it at first because of the way you dumped me, but in the end you should’ve known I could never do it. But we couldn’t just leave you in the bank. We still needed hostages to get out. Here,” he said, beginning to hand Aunt Hazelnut the bag of jewels when he suddenly startled and dropped it. The four of them were standing above a big hole in the barn floor and the jewels went right down a large pipe that was being put in for the plumbing.

  “Oh JEEZ!” screamed Aunt Hazelnut, looking frantically down the pipe. “Look what you did, you butterfingers!”

  But everyone else was too busy suddenly hearing what had made Charlie drop the jewels. Police sirens.

  “You boys stay here,” said Aunt Hazelnut, going out the barn door and around the corner of the barn to spy four police cars, lights flashing, sirens blaring, heading down the long farm driveway.

  “Cheese it, it’s the cops!” said Chas as Aunt Hazelnut scurried back into the barn.

  “I told you, I told you this wasn’t a good idea,” said Aunt Hazelnut.

  “Quick, get in the car!” yelled Charlie.

  “Don’t be silly, you can’t win a high-speed car chase against four cop cars. Haven’t you ever been to the movies? Stay in the barn. Rupert and I will go out and cover for you. Charlie, put your mask back on just in case. I’ll tell them you never took off your masks and you abandoned us here and drove off with accomplices. That you got no loot, there was nothing but old love letters in my safety deposit box, but you wanted us as hostages in case you had a hard time getting out of the bank. And that I think you were heading for Cincinnati.”

  Rupert and Aunt Hazelnut left the barn, closing the door behind them. They walked around the corner to where the cop cars were almost upon them, and Aunt Hazelnut turned quickly to Rupert and said, “Listen, we’ll tell the cops that you’re friends with Turgid and I picked you up for tea and was going to just grab my love letters—I wanted to read them to you and Turgid on Valentine’s Day or some such twaddle—and then we were going to surprise Turgid by picking him up. But we got kidnapped before we got a chance to go back to school to collect him.”

  “Why did you get me first?”

  “Because you asked me to get you out of class early. You hate making valentines.”

  “Well, that’s true,” said Rupert. “What if the cops don’t believe you and want to go into the barn?”

  “Not believe me?” said Aunt Hazelnut, straightening her shoulders and lifting her head high and putting on her best socialite smile as the cops stopped their cars and got out. “Why wouldn’t they believe me? I’m a RIVERS. Now come on, let’s get a ride home.”

  But that was not that. The cops seemed to believe everything Aunt Hazelnut told them unquestioningly. Two cars took off for Cincinnati, one went back on patrol, and another gave Aunt Hazelnut and Rupert a ride to the police station, where they had to make statements about what had happened, and then the police gave them a ride back to Aunt Hazelnut’s car, and finally Aunt Hazelnut dropped Rupert at home.

  When Rupert walked into their living room his father was watching television.

  “Just watched the news,” said Rupert’s father. He turned and stared at Rupert for a few minutes. Neither of them said anything. Rupert didn’t know what was up. Finally his father barked, “Any word on how your kidnapping came out? HA!”

  “Oh,” said Rupert as light dawned. “It was on the news? I didn’t see any cameras or reporters or anything.”

  “Well, someone got hold of the story. Did you think you could keep it a secret? What were you doing with that Rivers broad anyhow?”

  “She wanted to read us her love letters because it was Valentine’s Day,” said Rupert, floundering. “I think she was going to bring both me and Turgid for tea because I’m kind of friends with Turgid anyway although not really but Mrs. Rivers thought we were but she probably got me mixed up with
someone else but then before we could get Turgid we got kidnapped so it was just me and Mrs. Rivers and then—”

  Mr. Brown turned back to the TV, waving Rupert away. “All right, kid, I’ve already lost interest.”

  Rupert started upstairs when his father called, “You didn’t have to actually listen to her reading her old love letters then?”

  “No,” said Rupert, stopping.

  “Well, you dodged a bullet that time!” hooted Mr. Brown, and turned up the volume on the TV.

  THE NEXT day at school Rupert was the center of attention. Everyone wanted to know what it had been like to be kidnapped, but Rupert didn’t really want to talk about it.

  “Oh, about average,” he said when asked.

  Finally, everyone let it go except Malcolm, the school bully.

  “I asked what was it like,” he said. “You want me to clobber your head?”

  Rupert paused as if considering whether this would be a pleasant pastime in an otherwise dull day, and while he was thinking of an answer, Turgid charged up.

  “Leave him alone,” he said, stepping between Rupert and Malcolm.

  “Leave him alone,” mimicked Malcolm in a singsong voice. “Leave him alone. Rich kid!” He spat provocatively on the ground in front of Turgid, but the bell rang and everyone had to go off to class.

  “Thanks,” said Rupert as they filed inside.

  “No problem. I had to deliver a message from Aunt Hazelnut anyway. She wants to meet you after school on the corner of Elm Street and Maple.”

  “Okay, thanks,” said Rupert.

  All day he wondered what Aunt Hazelnut could possibly want with him. He had thought their adventure was over. He ran to Elm Street as soon as the final bell rang and there sat her car. Rupert jumped in and Aunt Hazelnut burned rubber pulling away from the curb.