by Ellen Potter
“I don’t believe that belongs to you,” she said.
“It’s going to be thrown out anyway,” Clara protested. “You said this is the garbage pile.”
“The garbage pile, not the free-to-a-good-home pile,” Ms. Piff replied tartly. She pinched her fingers into Clara’s shoulder until Clara stood, and then all but shoved Clara out the door. But before she left, Clara whirled around.
“Dr. Piff was not a slob!” she cried, making Ms. Piff’s auburn eyebrows rise nearly to her hairline. “He stacked his plates for the busboys. And his hair was always neatly combed!” It was a weak defense of Dr. Piff, and she knew it. So did Ms. Piff, who dismissed her outburst by shutting the office door in Clara’s face.
Clara turned and walked back down the hall, feeling furious with Ms. Piff but even more furious with herself. She’d had her hand right on the envelope, which contained—she was certain—the answer to Audrey’s secret. Now the envelope would be thrown out. Audrey the soup cook had won.
Suddenly, a thought occurred to her, one that she had not bothered wondering about before. Why had Dr. Piff mentioned the “most peculiar and mysterious thing” if he had not wanted her to figure out what it was? Surely he knew that she would insist upon finding out what it was. Had he deliberately sent her on a quest? Yes, now that she thought of it, she was almost certain that he had.
She felt her muscles tighten and her spine draw up. Lifting her glasses off the top of her head, she replaced them on her nose. The world dimmed through the dark lenses, and as she nibbled on the ends of her hair, her brain began to churn. She was determined that she would not let Dr. Piff down again. And when she was determined to do a certain thing, that thing was as good as done.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It took Clara exactly three and a half minutes to figure out what she needed to do next. Outside Dr. Piff’s office, she fetched a cab, and a few minutes later she was on Annabelle’s doorstep, pressing the doorbell.
It was Annabelle’s father, Mr. Arbutnot, who came to the door. His pleasant face looked distressed, but when he saw it was Clara, his expression brightened instantly.
“Annabelle’s friend, isn’t it?” He ushered her in immediately and beckoned her to follow him upstairs, explaining as they went, “Annabelle locked herself in her room yesterday, and she won’t speak to me at all, or even open her door.”
“What’s wrong with her?” Clara asked.
“Oh, let’s just say she’s never handled change very well. ”
At the top of the stairs, he turned down a short hallway, and knocked on the first door to the left. There was no answer.
“Annabelle? Honey? Your friend—” He paused here and whispered to Clara, “I don’t think I know your name.” She told him, and he called through the door, “—your friend Clara is here to see you.”
There was silence at first, then, “Tell her I’m sick.”
“You don’t sound sick, ” Clara shot back. Silence again. Then, in another minute, the door opened a crack. Mr. Arbutnot gave Clara a soft, encouraging pat on her back and left her.
“I’m not in the mood for company,” Annabelle said squarely, then started to close the door. But Clara wedged her foot in the opening.
“I didn’t come here to give you any,” Clara said.
“I already returned your pearls,” Annabelle said glumly. “What more do you want?”
“I’ll tell you if you let me in.” With a quick shove, Clara pushed open the door, sending Annabelle backward a few steps. Annabelle’s room was a mess, with crumpled clothing strewn across the floor and a spill of magazines beside her bed. But Annabelle herself was in even worse shape. She was dressed in a pair of wrinkled flannel pajamas, and her hair was sticking out every which way.
“When’s the last time you combed your hair?” Clara asked. Annabelle scowled and hastily ran a hand through her disheveled hair. Then she turned her back to Clara and sat down on her bed.
“What’s the matter with you, anyway?” Clara asked, folding her arms across her chest.
Annabelle turned around, and Clara noticed that her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, as though she’d been crying.
“Everything. ”
If anyone else had said this, Clara would have dismissed them as being overdramatic, but there was a truly desperate tone to Annabelle’s voice.
“What happened?” Clara asked.
“My father has decided to go legit. No more burglarizing. No more jewelry heists. He’s going to be a full-time hypnotherapist! And I’m supposed to be a full-time normal kid. I’ll have to do things like join the school chorus and have slumber parties and worry about which lip gloss to wear... oh, cripes, can you even picture it?” she wailed. In truth, Clara could not picture it. Then she remembered why she had come in the first place... and suddenly she felt just as rotten as Annabelle.
“That’s bad. Bad for both of us.”
“Why for both of us?” Annabelle asked.
“Because I came here to hire you and your father to steal something for me. ”
“Really?” Annabelle perked up at this, and her eyes suddenly looked a little less mournful. “Steal what?”
“Nothing valuable,” Clara said a little cagily, suddenly aware that she didn’t want to tell Annabelle everything. “Just a manila envelope from a doctor’s office.”
“A doctor’s office, huh? Okay, okay...” Annabelle was out of bed now, heading for her desk and looking, miraculously, fully recovered. “What’s the address?”
“What does it matter?” Clara shrugged. “Your father won’t do it.”
“That doesn’t mean I can’t. ”
Clara toyed with this new idea. Could Annabelle do it on her own?
“Your father would kill you,” Clara suggested.
“Not if he doesn’t know. Now come on, what’s the address?”
Clara told her, and Annabelle immediately sat down at her desk and booted up her computer.
“What are you doing?” Clara asked.
“Pull up a chair. I’ll show you.”
Annabelle logged on to the Internet and plunked in a Web site address. On the screen, a Web site popped up: The American Association of Burglars, Crooks, and Ne’er-Do-Wells. In the corner of the screen was an animation of a man with dark beard stubble and a black mask across his eyes, who kept putting one finger to his lips and saying, “Shhhhhh.”
“You have to be a member, ” Annabelle explained as she entered a password. “It costs a heap of money, but they have a great database. ”
Annabelle’s password was accepted, and the screen changed to a search engine. This time the animation of the grizzled burglar winked through his mask. Annabelle typed in the address of Dr. Piff’s office, and immediately a photo of a high-rise building appeared on-screen.
“That’s Dr. Piff’s office building!” Clara exclaimed, and no sooner had she spoken than the image changed to a three-dimensional drawing of the high-rise, which turned around and around, so that you could see every angle, with all the floors visible. Little coins of different colors flashed in different parts of the building—green, silver, and gold.
“What do the coins mean?” Clara asked.
“Oh, they just tell you which offices have anything worth stealing. Green means there’s some stuff worth taking, but nothing to write home about. Silver is better, and gold means you’ve hit the jackpot. But see what’s inside some of the coins?”
Clara leaned in closer to the computer screen. In some of the coins was a pair of tiny handcuffs.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked Annabelle.
“That means the office has high security... you know, laser beams, high-tech alarm systems-a real nightmare for burglars.”
“Well, what about Dr. Piff’s office?”
“What floor is he on?”
“The sixteenth. Office number sixteen seventy-one.”
Annabelle typed in this information, and the sixteenth floor appeared on the screen, with all
its flashing coins.
“We’re in luck.” Annabelle pointed to the door marked 1671, where a green coin was flashing steadily. “Light security.” Annabelle clicked on the green coin, and then clicked the burglar’s nose for more information.
“Easy pickings,” the masked burglar icon growled, “if youse got a thing for stethoscopes and tongue depressors. ”
“There’s a single alarm,” Annabelle said, “which I can disarm, no problem. ”
“Good.” Clara sat back in the chair, satisfied. “Then this will be easy. ”
“Hardly.” Annabelle bit at her lower lip, then clicked back to the floor plan of the entire building. “You see, we have to get into the building first, and that’s going to be the challenge. We’ll have to enter through the front door, and there’s a security guard stationed there twenty-four hours a day. ”
“Oh.” Clara slumped back in her chair and sighed. “Then it’s hopeless. ”
“Cripes, you give up easily,” Annabelle said.
Clara looked at Annabelle, beginning to get irritated. “All I want to know is whether you can do it or not. ”
“And all I’m saying is there’s always a loophole. Well, almost always. See the ice-cream cone? ” She moved the cursor to a tiny icon of a chocolate ice-cream cone in the upper left-hand corner of the screen. “That’s a feature called the Inside Scoop. Frankly, it’s why most of us burglars are willing to pay so much money to become a member of the American Association of Burglars, Crooks, and Ne’er-Do-Wells. Watch this.” Annabelle clicked on the ice-cream cone, and on the monitor a movie started to play. The movie showed a pale man with a thin, hard face and massive shoulders sitting behind a desk in the lobby of Dr. Piff’s office building. The man’s body was very, very still, but his eyes were constantly moving between several security monitors that sat on his desk. He put out a finger and touched a button on one of the monitors. Then he reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a small rectangular packet, which he quickly tore open. He pulled something out of the packet and began to rub it on his hands.
“Dis here is Stan Heckle, da nighttime security guard. ” The masked bandit icon was narrating the film—you could see his lips moving. “Don’t let his pasty-faced mug fool youse. He’s a tough customer—smart and mean as sin. In fact, da guy used to be a burglar hisself, in London, till he reformed and became a security guard. He knows all da tricks, and dat makes him dangerous. Also, when Stan catches a burglar, he don’t call the police. He takes da matter into his own hands. Like what he did to da burglar last month, for instance ... ”
There was a pause, while the icon’s thick black eyebrows rose with significance.
“Well?” Clara turned to Annabelle. “Isn’t he going to tell us what happened?”
Annabelle whispered back. “He wants us to ask him what happened. Go ahead. Type it in. But sound like you’re very interested. ”
“I am very interested!” Clara replied.
What did he do to the burglar last month? Clara typed the question into the little question box on the upper right-hand corner of the screen. Annabelle stuck her elbow into Clara’s side, and Clara added, I’m dying to know. She pressed ENTER.
“Are youse sure you want to hear?” the masked burglar asked coyly.
“He’s milking this one... it must be good,” Annabelle said. She leaned across Clara and typed, We’re on pins and needles! We’re frothing at the mouth with anticipation!!! then pressed ENTER.
“Calm down, will youse! Okay, here’s what happened. Last month Stan caught a burglar in da building. Stan tied da poor guy up, put a gag over his mouth, shoved him in da building’s mail pouch, and took him home. Da guy ain’t been seen since den. But I’ll tell youse what. One month later a body washed up on da banks of da Hudson River, and da burglar’s wife said she was eighty-eight percent sure it was her husband. She couldn’t be a hundred percent certain, see, since he didn’t have a head no more. ”
Clara blanched and looked at Annabelle, but Annabelle’s eyes were focused on Stan.
“Stan’s got one weakness, though,” the burglar continued. “He’s terrified of germs. Hates to touch t’ings dat other people touch. Dat’s why he washes his hands constantly wit dem Handi Wipes in his pocket.” Even now, on-screen, Stan Heckle had pulled out another packet of Handi Wipes from his jacket.
The screen changed again, and a tall, well-built woman with a gigantic floppy hat walked into the lobby.
“Da dame is Alexandra Von Bolsterboggin. Vavavavoom!” the masked burglar exclaimed. “Now, here’s where t‘ings get inneresting. Dere’s a doctor in dis building-Dr. Muster on da tenth floor. He fixes up ladies’ faces—you know, injecting gunk into dere wrinkles, changing da shape of dere noses or lips. Sometimes he changes dere faces so much, ya can’t even recognize dem afterward... crazy dames! But here’s da t’ing: he works only on rich and famous dames, da kind youse read about in da papers. And because dey don’t want people to know who dey are, dey come in da evening, so’s da tabloids don’t get wind of it. ”
The screen showed Alexandra Von Bolsterboggin walking up to Stan at the security desk. She said something to Stan, and he picked up a phone while Alexandra drummed her manicured fingers nervously on his desk.
“Stan’s dialing Dr. Muster on da office intercom, just to check and see if da dame is really expected in his office,” the masked burglar explained. “If da doctor says she ain’t, Stan will have no problem with tossing her over his shoulder and giving her da heave-ho, headfirst, right onto da sidewalk.”
Stan put the phone down and nodded shortly to Alexandra, who rushed to the elevators. The second she left, Stan took out a spray bottle of cleaning solution and a rag, and began to spray and scrub at the spot on his desk where Alexandra’s fingers had been tapping.
“Okay, so the security guard has a phobia about germs and some lady is going to get rid of her wrinkles.” Clara shook her head, perplexed. “So what?”
“Shaa!” Annabelle snapped back. “I’m thinking.” She slumped down in her chair and stared hard at the monitor, gnawing at the edge of her thumb. She sat like that for so long that Clara had to resist the urge to nudge her. Finally, she sat up straight and began to type, Can you give me Dr. Muster’s patient schedule for tonight?
“Now you’re t‘inking!” the masked burglar said. “Tonight, Dr. Muster has a patient due in for major face surgery at eight o’clock. I mean major! She’s having her nose bobbed, her lips poufed, her cheekbones cheekier. Her own mudder won’t recognize her after da doc is finished wit her. She must be pretty important, ’cause I can’t get her real name. Da doctor’s database lists this dame only as Patient X. Now, you want my opinion on how to do dis job?”
Yes, please, Annabelle typed in.
“Youse show up at seven forty-five, dressed like some dame who don’t want to be recognized—you know, big hat, large sunglasses, a scarf. And youse tell Stan dat you are Patient X, come for your appointment. If youse come any earlier than dat, Stan might get suspicious. Dat means youse got only fifteen minutes to do da job, because once da real Patient X shows up, Stan is going to flip on every stinkin’ alarm in da building and da cops will be there in five minutes. Got it? Any questions? ”
Annabelle typed in, What if Patient X is early for her appointment?
It took a moment, and then the masked burglar said, “Youse have a second person waiting outside. If a car pulls up and a dame gets out, dat second person will have to find a way to persuade her not to go into da building—for example, a good knock on the noggin usually does da job. Any other questions?”
Clara leaned forward and typed in, What are the chances that this will work?
In a minute, the masked burglar said, “Slim to none. ”
Clara’s face fell. “Slim to none?” she said to Annabelle. “That doesn’t sound very promising.”
“That’s because you’re not a burglar,” Annabelle replied.
CHAPTER-TWELVE
Ann
abelle sat at the computer, scrolling through all sorts of information—lists of people, a map of the surrounding neighborhood, parties and conventions and concerts that were happening that evening, and all kinds of other stuff.
“Is this all necessary?” Clara groaned after an hour of watching Annabelle tap away at the mouse.
“Oh, no, not at all. In fact, if you ask most burglars, they’ll tell you that they don’t do any research at all. Oh—but you can’t ask them, can you... because the burglars who don’t do any research are all in JAIL! ” She glared at Clara and went back to work.
Annabelle sat at the computer for so long that Clara’s stomach started growling.
“Oh, go downstairs and eat something, will you?” Annabelle snapped. “I can’t think with your internal organs rattling away like maracas!”
Clara was too embarrassed to be angry, but she did mutter something about foul moods and anal-retentive burglars before she left the room.
After searching through the Arbutnots’ refrigerator and cupboards for tomato juice or tuna fish and finding only odd, unidentifiable foods that were either brown or green, she settled on a package of mossy brownish-green cubes of something called Spirulina Treats. The package said they were a delicious phytonutrient-rich snack, sweetened with a touch of honey. At least they were sweet. Clara took the package and returned to Annabelle’s room.
“Finished?” Clara asked hopefully as she ripped open the package of Spirulina Treats.
“With the research,” Annabelle said. “Next is the equipment.” She seemed more relaxed now, however.
“Oh, Spirulina Treats!” she said, noticing the package in Clara’s hand. “Toss one over here.”
Clara did, and then bit into hers. It tasted like the gunk you’d scrape off the bottom of a pond. Sweetened with a touch of honey.
“They’re really good for your immune system,” Annabelle said encouragingly, seeing the face Clara was making.
“They taste like they’re good for your immune system.”