The Life and Crimes of Bernetta Wallflower

by Lisa Graff

  “‘Ocean Breeze soap,’” he said. “‘It’s just like taking an ocean cruise, only there’s no boat and you don’t actually go anywhere.’ Too easy. That’s ten bucks you owe me now, Wallamina.”

  Bernetta stuck her elbows on the table and pressed her hands under her chin. “All right,” she said. “Teach me this shortchange thing before I owe you my entire tuition.”

  After running through the moves of the shortchange with Gabe for about twenty minutes, Bernetta was pretty sure she had it down. Together they left the food court and scoped out a location for Bernetta to pull her first con.

  They finally decided to try the candy store. The teenage girl behind the counter was on the phone, and she didn’t seem to be paying much attention to anything but her conversation.

  “Wish me luck,” Bernetta whispered as Gabe nudged her into the store.

  “You’ll be fine,” Gabe replied, “Don’t even worry. Just do like I told you.”

  Bernetta entered the store on wobbly legs, but she did her best to hide it.

  “Look, Tiffany,” the girl behind the counter was saying into the phone, “it’s not like that, all right? Me and Jeremy are just friends.”

  Bernetta selected a pack of gum from the rack under the counter and placed it in front of the girl. Her name tag said HEATHER.

  “Tiff, hold on a sec. I got to ring someone up.” Heather gripped the phone between her chin and her shoulder. “You want a bag for that?” she asked Bernetta.

  “No, thanks.”

  “Eighty-nine cents.” She rang up the order, and the drawer clanged open. “Tiff, that’s not what I’m saying. Cheryl told Beth that Jeremy said that you . . . hold on.”

  Bernetta handed Heather a ten-dollar bill, and she took it, then snapped the bills out of the drawer to make change. A five, four ones, and eleven cents.

  “Here you go,” she told Bernetta, handing her the change.

  But Bernetta had already pulled another one-dollar bill out of her pocket. “Sorry, I—”

  Her ear still wedged into the phone, Heather’s head shot up to look at Bernetta.

  “Sorry,” Bernetta repeated. She added her dollar to the bills already on the counter and plopped her hand on top of the pile. “Can I trade these bills for a ten?”

  Heather glanced at the pile and nodded. “Tiffany, no. That’s not what I said at all. Well, then Beth’s a liar.” She handed Bernetta a ten-dollar bill.

  “Thanks.” Bernetta took the ten and moved to put it in her pocket but then paused, as though something had just occurred to her. Here’s where the trick comes in, Bernetta thought. She had to keep calm and act normal. It was just like fanning out a deck of cards before an audience member when the whole time the guy had no idea the deck contained nothing but aces.

  Bernetta wondered if Gabe could see her from outside the store. She wondered if his heart was dancing the cha-cha like hers was.

  “Actually,” she told Heather, scooping up the pile of bills still on the counter and placing her ten on top, “this is a lot of change. Can I just get a twenty?”

  Heather hardly looked at Bernetta as she took the bills. “She did not say that. She did not! Tiffany, you know that’s not true.” She handed Bernetta a twenty-dollar bill and closed the drawer.

  Bernetta walked out of the store with a pack of gum in her left pocket and a twenty-dollar bill in her right, $9.11 richer than when she’d entered. Her heart was gradually slowing its way into more of a Viennese waltz.

  “See?” Gabe said when she reached him. He was grinning. “You were great! You’re practically Mel Gibson in Maverick. I knew you’d be a natural.”

  Bernetta couldn’t help returning the smile. At this rate, there was nothing in the world that could stop her from heading back to Mount Olive.

  10

  COIN FOLD n: a trick in which a coin appears to vanish within full view of the spectator

  As the morning wore on, and the wad of twenty-dollar bills grew ever larger in her backpack, Bernetta began to feel more and more confident. Gabe was a good teacher. Shortly after one o’clock they were standing outside the arcade, where Gabe had promised to show her a new trick.

  “Hey, Gabe?” Bernetta was standing right next to him, but the beeps and buzzes from the arcade made it hard to have a quiet conversation. “What are we looking for, anyway?”

  “Bad eyesight,” he told her. “You’re gonna love this next trick. It’s really cool.”

  Gabe was focused on the crowd passing by, and Bernetta took the opportunity to study him. The flashing lights from the games inside bounced across his face, changing the skin on his cheek from green to red to blue.

  “So,” Bernetta hollered across to him, “where do you get all those T-shirts you have anyway? Are they all movie quotes?”

  Gabe kept his eyes steady on the crowd, but he nodded in Bernetta’s direction. “Yeah. Aren’t they great? My friend Patrick’s dad owns a silk-screening shop. I make them all myself. You want one?”

  Bernetta shook her head. “Nah, I think I’m okay.”

  Gabe didn’t say anything to that, so Bernetta tried to think of something else to fill the conversation gap. Maybe when she got home, she’d have Elsa give her a lesson in How to Talk to Boys. “So, um . . .” Bernetta said. “That one you’re wearing, ‘Your car’s uglier than I am.’ What movie’s that from?”

  Gabe glanced down, as though he’d forgotten what shirt he’d put on that morning. “Really? You don’t know? It’s American Graffiti.”

  “Oh,” Bernetta said. “I’ve never seen it.”

  He turned to look at her at last, his hands in his pockets. “Are you serious? You’ve really never seen it?”

  Bernetta shook her head and silently cursed herself. Why hadn’t she ever seen that movie? If she had, then she and Gabe would be able to talk for hours probably.

  “Well, I’ll have to lend it to you then. I have it at my house.”

  “Oh, okay,” Bernetta said. “Cool.”

  Gabe went back to watching the crowd. “You’ve seen The Godfather, though, right?” he said.

  “Um, isn’t that rated R or something?” Bernetta asked. “I’m not allowed to watch R-rated movies.”

  “Wait, really?” Gabe said. He seemed truly shocked. “Then what do you do?”

  Bernetta rolled her eyes. “Not everyone’s obsessed with movies, you know,” she said with a laugh. “There’s other stuff to do too. Like reading a book or something.”

  “No way,” Gabe said, but he was grinning. “No way can a book be better than a movie.”

  “It’s possible,” Bernetta said. It was funny, she thought, how arguing with Gabe could actually be fun. Normally she hated arguing.

  “Name one,” Gabe challenged.

  “A Wrinkle in Time.”

  “I’ve never read it.”

  “Well, you should. It’s amazing.”

  He smiled at her for a second. But just as the butterflies let loose in Bernetta’s middle, Gabe caught sight of something over her shoulder, and the moment was over.

  “I found them,” Gabe said. “Perfect. That old guy looks exactly like the uncle from American Movie.”

  “What?”

  Instead of answering, Gabe ducked inside the arcade, grabbing Bernetta by the elbow so that she followed with an awkward tumble. As soon as they were inside, he led her right back out the door. An elderly couple was approaching, not ten feet away. Gabe put on a friendly smile and headed over to them. Bernetta was right on his heels.

  “Oh,” Gabe declared suddenly, as though something had just occurred to him. He stopped dead in his tracks and looked at Bernetta. “Maybe we should ask them, Patty.” He pointed to the old couple.

  Patty?

  “Excuse me?” Gabe said to the couple just as they passed by.

  The couple stopped, and the old
woman smiled at them, peering out from behind tiny rectangular glasses. “Yes, dear?” she said to Gabe.

  Gabe shuffled his feet, doing what Bernetta thought was a very good impersonation of someone who didn’t want to be any bother. He was a pretty good actor, actually. Maybe, if someone decided to make a new movie of A Wrinkle in Time, he could play Calvin. Although Calvin was tall and skinny with bright blue eyes and red hair, so maybe that wouldn’t entirely . . .

  Bernetta shook her head and tried to focus on the scene in front of her.

  “I’m sorry to bug you like this,” Gabe said, “but . . .” He shook his head. “Oh, never mind, it’s stupid. Sorry.” He began to walk on again, but the old man stopped him.

  “No bother, young man!” he said. His voice was thick and bellowy, like a tractor driving over gravel. “What’s the trouble?”

  “Well, it’s just . . .” Gabe scratched his arm. “See, we’re here with Patty’s little sister . . .” He pointed to Bernetta. “It’s her birthday tomorrow, and she really likes to play pinball and—”

  “Isn’t that sweet!” the old woman said.

  “Anyway,” Gabe went on, “all we have is this twenty that Patty’s mom gave us”—he produced the bill from his pocket—“for the games. But the change machine’s busted, and the guy behind the counter says he’s low on quarters, so he’ll only give us change for a ten. Could you . . . oh, never mind, it’s too much trouble. I’ll just try over at the bookstore.”

  What was he up to? Bernetta wondered. Was he going to catch the man off guard and steal his wallet? Is that how they did things in The Godfather?

  “Now, now,” the old man shouted. “Just you hang on there. I can give you change, no need to wait in that line. Let’s see now.” He reached his hand into the pocket of his perfectly creased maroon slacks and pulled out a wad of bills. “Here you go, young man,” he said. He counted out one ten and two fives. “They ought to change that for you, right?”

  “I think so.”

  “Give the kids some quarters too, Paul,” the old woman instructed, peering over her husband’s shoulder. She looked at Bernetta and winked. “He’s always carrying around so much change. Good to get rid of it. Then maybe he won’t jangle so much.”

  Bernetta smiled back weakly. She didn’t know what Gabe was planning, but she had a sinking feeling that when it was over, this old couple wouldn’t think they were quite so cute anymore.

  “Yes, yes,” her husband said. He dug into his other pocket and pulled out a handful of change, then plucked out all the quarters he could find. Bernetta counted as he did. Seven. “Will dimes help you any?” he asked them.

  The woman shook her head. “Oh, Paul, you know all those games only take quarters now.”

  “Yes, indeed, these days!” the man hollered. “But you know”—he leaned in close to Bernetta and Gabe, as though to tell them a secret—“it wasn’t that long ago skee ball cost a nickel. You remember that, Margaret? You remember when skee ball only cost a nickel?”

  “I do, I do.”

  “Here you go,” he told them, handing over the money. “The extra change is on me.”

  Gabe took the money and handed him the twenty. Bernetta kept a careful eye on him the whole time, but he didn’t slip any hundreds out of the man’s pocket or rip off the woman’s gold bracelet. All he did was hand over the twenty-dollar bill and take the change. Maybe his conscience had suddenly kicked in or something.

  Thank goodness, Bernetta thought. She needed money for Mount Olive, but she wasn’t ready to rip off a sweet elderly couple to get there.

  “Thank you very much,” Gabe said, pocketing the money.

  “Not a problem,” the man answered. “And you just wait. One day skee ball will cost five dollars a game, and you’ll be out here in the mall telling some youngsters that you remember when it only cost a quarter! Ha!” And they walked away.

  Bernetta turned to Gabe as he tucked the money in his pocket. “Well, they seemed nice,” she said. “I guess you decided not to pull anything on them after all, huh?”

  “Are you kidding me?” Gabe replied. “That old grandpa just traded me twenty-one dollars and seventy-five cents for a two-dollar bill. I mean, I glued the corners of four different twenties to it, but you’d still have to be totally blind not to notice. Biggest profit we’ve made all day.”

  “But . . .” Bernetta sputtered. “I can’t believe you just—I mean, they were so nice.”

  Gabe nodded. “Yeah, but completely rich. Did you see that lady’s bracelet?”

  “But . . .” Bernetta began again.

  Gabe just smiled at her. “So this book?” he said, his head tilted to the side. “A Wrinkle in Time? You think I should read it?”

  “Um . . .” Bernetta bit at the skin around her right thumbnail. She knew there was something she wanted to say to Gabe, something to tell him exactly how she felt about swindling old people. But for some reason the words seemed to be slowly melting together in her brain, and she was having trouble piecing them together to make a sentence.

  Maybe his eyes were darker than a Hershey bar, she thought. Maybe they were more of a rich Ghirardelli’s.

  “Um, yeah,” she replied at last. “It’s a really good book. You’d like it.”

  “Cool,” Gabe said. “Let’s go see if they have it in the bookstore. Oh, and there’s another trick I want to show you. I think you’ll be really good at it.”

  Definitely Ghirardelli’s, Bernetta decided as she followed Gabe through the mall.

  11

  MENTALISM n: the apparent ability of a magician to read another’s mind

  As soon as they set foot inside the bookstore, they headed over to the fantasy and science fiction section. Bernetta scanned the authors until she found the Ls, then plucked a copy of A Wrinkle in Time off the shelf and handed it to Gabe. He read the back of the book cover slowly, nodding every now and again, and then opened it. When it looked like he might really be into the story, Bernetta selected a book for herself, Something Wicked This Way Comes. She leafed through it, but she couldn’t help glancing over at Gabe every few seconds to see how much he was enjoying his book. He clucked his tongue at something, and she leaned over his shoulder to see what page he was on.

  “It’s good, right?” she asked him.

  “Pretty good, yeah. It would make a good movie.”

  Bernetta rolled her eyes. “Anyway,” she said, “there was some trick or something you wanted to show me?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Gabe slid the book back onto the shelf. “Okay, first we have to find a mark.”

  “A mark?”

  “Yeah, that means the victim, the guy we’re going to con. Actually, you know, now that we’re partners, I should probably teach you the lingo.”

  “What do you mean, the lingo?”

  “You know, the way con artists talk to each other.”

  “Don’t they just talk like everyone else?”

  “No, they have all these cool words for everything. You’ll like it. Okay, so there’s the mark, right?”

  “Right,” Bernetta said, “the victim.”

  “Right. Then there’s the roper. That’s the guy who brings in the mark, who becomes friends with him and stuff, so he thinks the con is for real. They use ropers a lot in long cons.”

  “What’s a long con?”

  Gabe picked another book off the shelf and flipped through it. “It’s a really big con, not like the stuff we’re doing. It usually takes forever to set up, and there’s tons of people involved—like in The Sting, there are all these guys in costumes and this fake gambling place and everything. It’s always kind of crazy and really hard to pull off, but you can make a whole ton of money all at once. Sometimes the guys even fake their own deaths at the end. That’s called the cackle-bladder.”

  “Um, ew,” Bernetta said. “That’s seriously disgust—” />
  Gabe put a hand on her arm and pointed to the register, where a large woman was purchasing a stack of books. She handed over a gift card, and the cashier rang up her purchase. As he handed back the card, the cashier told her, “Your remaining balance is one hundred thirty-five dollars and sixty-two cents.” The woman put the card back in her wallet.

  Gabe’s eyes were wide as he turned to Bernetta. “Perfect,” he told her. “This is perfect. I was going to try a bill switch, but gift cards are gold. Come on,” he said, grabbing Bernetta’s arm. “We gotta follow her.”

  Bernetta barely had time to squeeze her book back onto the shelf before they hustled their way out of the store, right on the heels of the woman with the large bag of books.

  They scurried after her, trying to remain inconspicuous but still stepping on a few toes and nudging a few passersby here or there. Finally the woman came to a stop in the food court, heading to the back of the line at Salads and Ballads. Gabe led Bernetta to the pizza line at the next stand over.

  “So, what are we doing exactly?” Bernetta asked Gabe as they inched forward in line.

  “Buying lunch,” Gabe replied. He scanned the tables. “Good,” he said. “It’s crowded.”

  They paid for their pizza, and Gabe short-changed himself a small profit. Then they wormed their way through the crowd, gripping their orange lunch trays. “Over there,” Gabe said, pointing the way with his chin. He headed directly for the middle of the dining area, where the lady from the bookstore sat by herself at a table for four. Her bag of books was perched on one of the chairs. When they were about twenty feet from the table, Gabe yanked Bernetta behind a row of garbage cans and crouched down low. Bernetta followed suit. She didn’t know what else to do.

  “Okay, so here’s the plan,” Gabe whispered to her. “I’ll do most of the talking. You just play along. And when the time comes, you snag her gift card. Sound good?”