“But then my dad stole a garden gnome from the neighbors. He put it in the centre of the garden, next to the waterfall. Now, have you ever seen a Japanese garden with a gnome in it? Have you?”
I could tell I was supposed to be horrified. “You’ve got to be kidding!” I said.
“Right! It’s like dropping a greasy hot dog into the centre of a perfect platter of sashimi. I asked him why he was doing it. Now get this: He said, ‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, my son. I have created a harmonious marriage between North American popular culture and ancient Japanese art.’ It made no sense.
“But that wasn’t the end: my dad brought home more garden gnomes and even pink flamingoes and a jockey. Then he brought home all kinds of gardening tools—shovels and forks, electric hedge clippers, hoses, an electric lawn mower and a full set of patio furniture until the backyard could hold no more. The beautiful Japanese garden disappeared under all the junk. Then the house began to fill up with odd things like realty and election signs, garbage cans, doormats, lawn chairs, children’s bicycles, wagons, go-carts— on and on.
“Eventually, someone in the neighborhood called the police. They came and looked at everything, and they scratched their heads. They didn’t know what to do. The neighbors said they didn’t care about their stuff. The poor man had just lost his wife. He was sick and didn’t know what he was doing.”
“You had nice neighbors,” I said.
“So the police contacted Social Services. A mental health guy started visiting once a week. You want to hear the supreme irony?”
I wasn’t sure what irony was, supreme or otherwise, but I said, “Sure.”
“During one of the talks with the health worker, my dad had a heart attack and died.”
Okay, I got irony—the opposite happened to what was supposed to happen. A health worker is supposed to make you healthy. But you die. Funny. I thought Tom was trying to make it funny to cover how upset he was. You laugh to keep yourself from crying.
I said, “Sounds to me like your dad just wanted to be with your mom. He must’ve really loved her a lot.”
“Yeah.”
Billy said, “I’m sorry you had to deal with that, bud. It is pretty crazy. Nobody should have to deal with that.”
Tom gave Billy a sideways smile of thanks.
“That’s why we have to stick together,” I said. “So we don’t have to deal with the crazies anymore.”
“True enough” said Billy. “That’s why we need to get cracking.”
“I just don’t think it will work,” Tom said. “You‘ll be arrested for sure. Or even killed. Whoever heard of kids trying to rob a friggin’ bank?”
“Just because we’re kids doesn’t mean we can’t do it,” Billy argued. “I keep telling you, we’ve got this foolproof plan. We get the money, do a couple of handoffs, and we hop on the SkyTrain. What could be simpler? Worst case scenario, we’re caught. What can they do to us? We’re kids. We’re too young to be thrown in the slammer. They don’t send kids to jail. Slap on the wrist is all we’d get.”
Tom said, “Slap on the wrist? What do you mean?”
Billy grinned. “When you’re kids, they go easy on you. Pick up the garbage for a week, something simple. Or maybe a few days in juvie.”
“What’s juvie?”
“Juvenile detention center, of course. Don’t you know anything?”
Tom still wasn’t buying. His voice climbed. “Look, Billy. I like it here. But I don’t plan to spend the rest of my teens in a friggin’ detention home!”
“Thing is, if we don’t raise the ten grand, and soon,” said Billy, “living here with Janice and Joseph won’t be an option.”
“You don’t want to even think of what’s out there passing for fosters,” I told Tom, shuddering. “And out there is where we’ll end up. Don’t you see?” I stared at him hard and said slowly, “We just don’t have any other options.”
Tom was quiet for a long time, doing homework, but I could tell his mind wasn’t on it.
After a while he threw down his pen and turned to Billy. “You sure I wouldn’t have to go inside the bank?”
“I’m sure,” said Billy. He flashed his most charming smile. “You just grab the bag from Nails, then stroll to the SkyTrain station. No need to run. Everything’s cool. Simple? Yeah! The Three Musketeers! All for one and one for all.” He held up his fists. “Are you in?”
Billy knew how to generate excitement all right.
Tom looked at me. Then he looked at Billy. Then he nodded. “Okay, I’m in.”
Billy flashed him another of his sweet smiles. “That’s my buddy!”
Tom was in. Yes!
“But we can’t tell anyone,” I said.
“Right,” Billy said. “No one. Not even Lisa. It’s top secret.”
“Let’s swear an oath of secrecy,” I said. “Say ‘Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. We’re the ones that you can trust.’”
Billy said the oath loud and clear, and Tom mumbled along.
“Now say after me,” I ordered. “All for one and one for all.”
We knocked our fists together and then held them up, chanting, “All for one and one for all. All for one and one for all.”
That was how it all started.
It was history.
SEVEN
APRIL 4
So there we were after our first perfect bank robbery. Billy and Tom were sitting at the kitchen table after lugging grocery bags from Janice’s car.
“Hey, Janice, you sure snapped up a lot of stuff,” said Billy, peeking into one of the bags.
Janice rolled her eyes. “I had a shopping seizure. There were so many specials my brain had a burnout.” She started packing food into the cupboards.
It was my turn to help. I loaded milk and yogurt into the fridge. “Lisa’s kitten is cute,” I said.
“Luckily, they had a special on kitty litter so I got three bags.” Janice turned. “Tom, Billy, the kitty litter is still on the back seat, and there’s a pack of toilet paper as well.”
Tom and Billy got up and slouched back out to the car.
I frowned. “Is a kitten a good idea for Lisa? What if we have to move?”
Janice sighed. “That’s a bridge we’ll cross when we come to it.”
She looked so sad at the thought of losing her family that I felt like telling her right then and there to stop worrying. That Billy and Tom and me, we were taking care of it. But I remembered our oath to secrecy. “Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.” So I kept my mouth shut.
Tom staggered in with a huge bag of kitty litter, Billy close behind him with another, carrying it easily on his shoulder. They added the bags to the pile on the floor beside the counter. Then Tom reached up and punched Billy on the shoulder.
Billy punched back. Soon the two of them were wrestling and giggling around the kitchen table. A chair toppled over. Billy pounded Tom in the stomach. Tom squirmed and pounded him back, and they chased each other, a small and panting David and a big giggling Goliath, around the kitchen.
“Knock it off, you two! Look out for the groceries!” Janice yelled. “Someone could get hurt. Bring in the rest of the stuff from the car. Nell, you and Lisa can set the table for supper.” She looked out the window at Billy and Tom. “I don’t know what’s got into those two boys lately, especially Billy.”
“What do you mean? What’s wrong with Billy?”
“Oh, I don’t know. He’s different lately—hyper. Like somebody left him a million bucks or something.” Janice stopped packing and looked at me. “He’s not doing anything he shouldn’t, is he?”
My heart rode a plunging elevator down to my ankles. “Like what?”
“That’s it. I don’t know. He seems to be on a high. He hasn’t met a girl, has he? Anything like that?”
I laughed and threw my arms around Janice in a hug. “Billy’s fine. Don’t worry about him. I would know if there was anything wrong, and there isn’t, okay?”
“Well, Nell, if you say so.” She
pecked me on the cheek and went back to storing groceries. “You probably know him as well as anyone.”
It was Joseph’s turn to say grace, which he did with bowed head. “Thanks, Lord, for the family and the food. Amen.”
“Amen,” I said with the others.
“Okay, let’s eat.” Joseph started passing the food along the table.
I liked the way Joseph always said grace before meals. He was sincere. Not like some of the geezers and old ladies in my other fosters who prayed a lot and talked about God and hellfire and then turned around and…
The thing about Joseph and Janice was that they were completely upfront. They said what they meant and meant what they said. The Hardy home was the first place where I truly felt part of a real family. They didn’t have a whole lot of money, but they never stinted when it came to taking care of us. They would give us the shirts off their backs, as the saying goes. We all ate the same food, no favorites. But most of all they were affectionate, a new experience for me, and they treated us like we were special and important in their lives.
It was a squeeze with the six of us around the kitchen table. Janice’s smile went around like a lighthouse beam. “Eat up, everyone,” she said. “Enjoy!”
I slurped up some noodles. Tomato sauce dripped down my chin and onto my T-shirt. Messy me. Good thing the T-shirt was black. I mopped it up with my napkin.
“Nails,” Tom said, “the proper way to eat spaghetti is to twirl it around your fork like this.” He gave a demo.
“You can use your spoon to help if you want,” he said with one of his superior smiles.
Everyone, even Billy, stopped eating and watched Tom’s demonstration. Then they all stared at me. I felt my face turning red. I hate it when people stare at me. I felt like a freak in a circus sideshow.
Sometimes Tom was so prissy, he made me want to puke.
Seriously.
I pulled a face at him.
Janice came to my rescue. “Nell is hungry, that’s all.” She smiled at me. “Eat up, kiddo,” she said.
Somehow, I wasn’t hungry any more. My appetite had been squelched.
I was practically a failure at school, and now I couldn’t even eat spaghetti properly, according to Mr.Pain-in-the-butt-perfect Tom Okada. I glared at him and picked at a meatball.
He pissed me off sometimes. He’s so smart, straight-A student, math guru, physics genius. I’d heard him at school debating with his nerdy friends about something called string theory, not to mention particle theory, black hole theory, and quacks and quinks theory. Pain-in-the-butt theory is what he’s best at if you ask me.
When supper was over there was nothing left of the spaghetti and meatballs. As I cleared the table, I covered my plate with the salad bowl so Janice wouldn’t notice I’d eaten practically nothing.
Lisa took Pumpkin into bed with her.
I told her, “Pumpkin sleeps in his box on the floor.”
“But why can’t he sleep with me? He’s so tiny. What if he gets cold during the night?”
“There’s a warm blanket in his box, remember? He’ll be fine.”
“But what if he’s lonely all by himself?”
“He won’t be lonely. We’re right here if he needs us.”
“But…”
“Sweetie, a kitten needs to be trained. Janice says the way you start him off in life is important.”
“Is it okay if I just hold him while you read to me? I’m sure he’ll like the story of the Golden Fleece.”
“Yes, but when we’re finished he goes right back into his own bed, okay?”
I often read to Lisa at bedtime. We were working our way through a book of ancient gods and heroes. She liked reading on her own, but she liked it more if I read to her.
She was slated for an operation in a month or so. She’d had a lot of really bad sore throats all winter, so the doctor said her tonsils should come out.
She was worried. It was the idea of going to hospital. She had never stayed in a hospital before. I didn’t blame her for being worried. Hospitals can be scary.
She had been with the Hardys the longest of all of us, at least three years. After her parents died in a boating accident when she was four, she was sent to live with a foster family who made her sleep in a dark scary basement all by herself. That was probably why she hated sleeping alone. Also they had an older daughter who was mean to her. After a couple of years, the mother in the family got sick, so Lisa ended up at the Hardys’.
Janice told me that Lisa’s mom and dad had come from El Salvador as refugees. Lisa probably inherited her beautiful black curly hair from her mom. Janice said that Lisa’s grandfather in El Salvador was really old and there was no one else to look after Lisa, so she became a foster kid.
“Do you remember your mom and dad at all?” I asked her.
“Not much.” She started to shake her head, but stopped and held her head really still like she didn’t want to disturb a memory. “Sometimes in the night, I wake up and I can remember a nice warm feeling, like I’m sitting in my mom’s lap. It’s so warm and soft and she’s hugging and kissing me and I’m snuggling right in. Sometimes when I smell a certain kind of flower, I get that cozy warm feeling too. Maybe that’s how she smelled. Real sweet, like that flower maybe?”
“What about your dad? What do you remember about him?”
“He used to give me rides on his shoulders, and it felt so safe up there with him holding my legs tight. I could see everything, like I was the boss of the world, or the queen of England, or something…” Her voice trailed off and she buried her face in the kitten’s fur.
She looked so sad. I wanted to cheer her up.
“Let’s see if Jason will ever find that golden fleece,” I said, opening the thick book and patting a spot on the bed next to me.
Lisa cuddled close to me as I started reading.
“I don’t ever want any of us to move from here,” she whispered to me after I finished the story. She tucked the sleeping kitten into his bed, and then she tunneled under her quilt.
“Don’t worry, Sweetie,” I told her as I went to turn off the lights. “None of us will ever have to move. Not if I can help it.”
EIGHT
APRIL 5
The next day, we were still riding high on the roller coaster of success after our first robbery. We were ready for our next triumph. But first we had a meeting in the boys’ room.
“Everything worked perfectly,” said Billy. “And we took almost fifteen hundred big ones.”
He was on his bed, leaning against the headboard, hands behind his head.
Tom was sitting on the floor near the window working on a Sudoku puzzle. “Hey!” he said. “Fifteen hundred bucks means we’ll need to do seven robberies to meet our goal.”
“No problem,” said Billy, with a shrug.
I stared at him. “It’s an awful lot of robberies, Billy. I don’t know if I can keep it up. I thought my heart… Weren’t you scared?”
He laughed. “Not a bit. I knew I had you two backing me up. What could go wrong? There was no danger to me. No security guard, nothing. It was a piece of cake. A yummy slice of mocha chocolate layer. I enjoyed it.”
“Enjoyed it? You’re crazy!” I didn’t believe him.
Billy laughed again.
I couldn’t decide how much of his enjoyment was real and how much was put on for our benefit.
“What about you, Tom?” I asked. “Weren’t you scared?”
Tom’s initial delight had disappeared. “Not really. By the time I got the bag the thing was just about over and done. But I still don’t like the idea of going to jail.”
Billy looked at him. “Look, the banks we pick are going to be small ones, right? No big banks with crowds of people. And it’s not like we’re breaking into the vault to steal a million bucks. We take small bites only. We’re minnows, not sharks. They don’t know there’s been a robbery until it’s over. You won’t be seeing the inside of a jail, trust me. It’s perfectly safe
. Two handoffs. Two different bags. Everyone on the move. Foolproof. Look, you did a great job, Tom. Be proud of yourself.”
Billy turned to me, sprawled on an orange beanbag near the door. “You too, Nails. You did a fantastic job.”
I blushed with pleasure.
I fought that night with Tom—tangled with Tom.
He’d said he didn’t want to tangle with me ever, but it seemed to me he needed a reminder.
It wasn’t the boys’ turn to use the bathroom first; it was mine and Lisa’s. But Tom pretended to forget. He did that sometimes. Once he was in there with the door locked, there was nothing Lisa and I could do but wait. And wait.
His excuse was that he didn’t like going in after me because I left a mess, hairs and toothpaste and a wet floor. So he said. But he exaggerated. I wasn’t any worse than anyone else.
The house’s one-and-a-half bathrooms for six people often led to temper tantrums—shouting and yelling, thumping, door-slamming.
Joseph and Janice had rules. Rule number one: maximum time in bathroom at bedtime—ten minutes. There was a digital clock beside the mirror. Rule number two: everyone left the room tidy for the next person. Rule number three: we took turns for who went in first. Girls’ night, boys’ night.
But tell Mr. Tom Okada that.
When Tom came out and saw me glaring at him, he went all innocent. “Wasn’t it our turn? I could’ve sworn you guys were first last night.”
We yelled at each other for a while. We tangled.
I was the first to quit.
What was the use? Tom would never change.
He wasn’t courteous, like me. Or amiable. Sometimes he was quite despicable.
NINE
APRIL 6
Holdup number two was the Toronto Dominion Bank. There were only a few people in the bank— three customers and maybe four bank staff.
It was raining. I was standing outside the bank entrance, heart hammering same as last time. I had my foot in the door as Billy slouched up to the counter in his disguise. I could hear his harsh, scary voice but couldn’t make out the words.
Bank Job Page 4