The teller was young. She freaked out.
“Help!” she screamed. “Help!”
Everyone froze, including Billy.
Then he turned and ran, pushing through the door and dumping his disguise into my shopping bag. It all happened so fast I didn’t have time to think.
As Billy disappeared around the corner, my legs went weak and I almost fell to the ground. But I took a deep breath and pulled myself together. Had anyone seen Billy ditch his disguise? Expecting to feel a heavy hand on my shoulder any second, I clutched the shopping bag to my chest and walked casually—though I was shaking like a paint-mixing machine—to the children’s toyshop where Tom waited.
Without a word, he grabbed my bag and quickly stuffed it into his backpack. Then he headed toward the SkyTrain station. I looked around. Everything was quiet. People were walking by like normal. No angry mob running out of the bank.
I headed for the train station, too frightened to look over my shoulder.
Half an hour later, we met in Billy and Tom’s room.
Billy grinned. “Was that scary or what?”
I collapsed into the orange beanbag. “That girl screaming scared me half to death. It was a bummer.”
“Friggin’ bummer!” said Tom, cracking his knuckles. He glared at Billy. “So your plan isn’t exactly foolproof, Billy.”
Billy shrugged. “I meant foolproof against getting caught. We weren’t caught, were we?”
Tom sulked. I said nothing.
Billy said, “There’s not much I can do if someone freaks out. She was a cuckoo bird, that teller.”
“You looked scary and you sounded scary, Billy,”
I said. “Maybe that was the problem. It was like a horror movie. What if you just smiled nicely and spoke in a normal voice? The girl wouldn’t have been so terrified and she wouldn’t have screamed.”
Billy laughed. “But I need to scare them a little,” he said. “Maybe I should pull a crazy face, go cross-eyed or something.”
“It’s not funny.” Tom slid off his bed and lay on the floor by the window, stretching himself out. “We didn’t make a nickel on that robbery, not one cent. In fact, if you factor in the cost of the wear and tear on our shoes, we lost money.”
Billy stared at the ceiling and said nothing. He looked relaxed and at peace with the world. Holdup number two had been a failure. But so what? I knew what he was thinking. There was always a next time.
Tom started jerking his arms and legs, as though trying to shake poison from his limbs. Then he sat up and stared out the window at the SkyTrain tracks. “This reminds me of something my dad used to say.”
“What’s that?” I asked him.
“It’s an old Japanese proverb. ‘Taste everything, but swallow only what tastes right to you.’ And I’m telling you guys, this whole thing tastes downright foul to me.” He pounded the windowsill with his fist then continued staring out the window.
I couldn’t look at Tom’s slumped, sad back another minute. I went to my own room to lie down and close my eyes. I was shivering. I crawled into bed.
And worried.
What were we doing? Where would it end?
I pulled the covers over my head, the girl’s terrified scream still echoing in my ears.
TEN
Tom admired and respected Billy. He always had, right from the beginning.
When Tom first started school, some of the other kids bullied him. Why? Who knows, but Tom had three possible strikes against him: he was small, he was a total nerd, and he was Japanese Canadian. There are always racists. You can’t get away from them. And there are always bullies. Do I sound like I’m fifty years old? Well that’s the way I feel sometimes.
My best friend at school was Liesel Fischer. Liesel noticed Tom being bullied at lunch hour one day. She pointed out Brad Stoker and Frank Drake, well-known tenth-grade morons, at the edge of the field picking on Tom Okada. I told Liesel that Tom was the new kid at my foster, and we ran over to help him.
Tom had been standing, rigid with anger, fists clenched. I yelled at them to pick on someone their own size. All that got me was an earful of insults. It seemed to affect Tom though. He threw himself at Drake, but he didn’t get far because Stoker tripped him. Tom fell to his knees.
Liesel and I jumped in. She aimed a blow at Stoker from behind and it connected with the back of his neck. Stoker spun around and punched Liesel’s shoulder. She reeled backwards. I tried to kick Drake, but I missed as he stepped away, sneering at my incompetence. Tom tried to stand, but Drake pushed him over with his foot. Tom scrambled to his feet and threw himself once again at Drake, but Drake punched him hard in the stomach. Tom doubled over, gasping.
That was it. They were too big and too strong for us. Their punches and slaps were more than we could handle. I grabbed Tom, and the three of us ran off as Drake and Stoker hollered insults at us.
That night I told Billy what had happened.
He listened. We never saw much of one another at school, me and Billy, because we had our own friends. “Leave it to me,” said Billy quietly. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Tom and I did the dishes after supper the next night. Tom had this thing about scrubbing pans. He hated it more than anything. I didn’t care, so I washed and he dried and put away.
Once the clatter of dishes, pots and pans made it hard for anyone to overhear, Tom said, “Our friend Billy is some piece of work.”
“What do you mean?”
“You should’ve seen the way he scared the crap out of those two guys who picked on me yesterday.”
“Drake and Stoker?’
“Who else?”
“What did he say to them?”
Tom grinned. “It was great. They were calling me names again—you know, the usual kind of stuff— when Billy comes over and grabs them by their jacket collars.
“By their…?”
“I was stunned. He had them in a real tight grip, up round their necks, choking them almost, one in each hand. It was like King Kong coming out of the jungle and catching a couple of noisy monkeys. Billy lifts both of them up at the same time. So they’re dancing on their toes, and he says real quiet like, ‘Don’t like to see you messing with my pal, see.’”
“Wow!”
“He lets them go and they…”
“You’re slowing down. Keep drying. Then what happened?”
“They fall to the ground, and then they stagger around trying to suck air into their lungs. When they’re finally able to speak, Drake yells, ‘You gonna be sorry you did that, mountain man.’ Stoker goes, ‘I’m telling the vice-principal you almost killed us, fag.’ Billy goes, still real quiet and calm, ‘Get lost, jerks.
You bother my friend one more time and I’ll rip your stupid heads off.’”
“That’s what he said? He’d rip their stupid…?”
“That’s exactly what he said.”
“Wow. That Billy! What did they do?”
“Nothing. They were too scared. You should’ve seen their faces.”
“I bet.”
“Then we just walk off and leave them there, spitting and gasping. It was unbelievable. You should’ve been there, Nails. You would’ve fractured your ribs from laughing so hard.”
As far as I knew, Brad Stoker and Frank Drake left Tom alone after that, which was one of the reasons we loved Billy so much.
And why Tom decided to go along with robbery number three.
ELEVEN
APRIL 11
“We haven’t hit a Royal yet, have we?” Tom asked Billy nervously. Crack-crack with the knuckles. We were sitting in a half-empty SkyTrain carriage, traveling from Burnaby to New Westminster.
Only a week had gone by since our first holdup, and already this was our third.
Billy had a hit planned on the Royal Bank close to the Columbia Street SkyTrain station.
“I wish you wouldn’t do that, Tom,” Billy complained mildly.
“Do what?” asked Tom.
“Play with your bones,” said Billy. “Every time you crack your knuckles it reminds me of what we’ve got inside us. Bones. Blood. Guts. Yuck.” He shuddered.
“Sorry,” said Tom.
Billy answered his question. “No Royal Bank. Not yet. We’ve hit a Montreal and a Toronto Dominion. This will be our first Royal, right, Nails?”
I nodded. “Right.”
“Equal opportunity bank robbers, that’s us,” said Billy, flashing his buccaneer grin.
Tom cracked a knuckle. Billy groaned.
“Sorry.”
We followed our usual plan.
I was worried. What if a teller screamed again, and we had to make a run for it? I didn’t think I could take another scare like that.
There was the usual rain.
Tom waited in a doorway about twenty paces from the bank on the same side of the street.
Billy and I headed for the bank. It was a small bank, recently updated to include a vestibule with two ATMS. Billy pulled on the handle of the heavy glass door. An automatic opener took over and the door swung outward.
I followed him inside and we stood at the ATMS like we were about to use them. I took a look around. No security stiffs. But we already knew that from checking out the place a few days ago.
There was only one customer. No lineup. Three tellers, two of them available, a youngish man and a woman. I hoped Billy would choose the woman even if there was a chance she might scream like the last one. Men played violent video games and believed in Superman. Men were aggressive wannabe heroes. Men could be dangerous. The woman had a friendly face.
I hated this part, the seconds before the robbery. My stomach ground like a cement mixer, and I wanted to throw up. Not Billy though. He loved it. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Billy peel away from my side. He didn’t say anything before he left. The rule was silence.
Billy walked up to the young teller with the pleasant face. The sign on her counter said, Customer Service Representative. I felt bad that we had to scare her. I had to remind myself that I was Nails. Hard as. Plus, we were doing this for an excellent cause— keeping the family together.
A woman with a baby and a toddler was fussing with the hood of the baby’s stroller, preparing to go out in the rain. The toddler looked up at me with enormous brown eyes. I held the door open for them, then left the vestibule and waited outside, shopping bag ready, heart pistons hammering like an engine in a five-ton truck.
Seconds later, the job was done. Billy, relieved of his money and disguise took off toward the SkyTrain station. He was clean. There was nothing to connect him with the robbery.
As I moved away from the bank with my shopping bag, I was guessing that the blood pumping through Billy’s pirate veins and arteries was a Niagara of happiness.
I wished I could feel the same.
I made my silent handoff to Tom, cramming my bulging bag into his backpack.
I was clean. I took a deep breath of relief.
Tom headed to the Columbia SkyTrain station, taking his time.
I waited a few minutes, listening for the wail of the police siren, before strolling toward home in the rain.
I had a pounding headache.
When I got home, I flicked off my shoes and coat and headed straight upstairs to the boys’ room. It was warm in there and smelled like dirty socks. Billy was sitting cross-legged on his bed. He took a big bite out of an apple.
“Show us the money,” he said, grinning and munching his apple at the same time.
Tom pulled the bag out of his backpack and emptied it onto Billy’s bed. Flutter of bills.
I counted it.
“How much?” Tom cracked his knuckles.
“Four hundreds, eight fifties, fifteen twenties and two tens.”
I tried to do the math in my head.
“The total is eleven hundred and twenty dollars,” genius Tom said.
“Not bad,” Billy said, eyes gleaming.
“Not bad,” I said.
“Friggin’ right!” Tom said. Crack-crack.
There was no celebration this time. We’d become seasoned professionals. But we bumped fists. “All for one and one for all!” we chanted.
“Great job, team,” said Billy.
I went to my room, lifted the floorboard, dropped the bills into the shoe box, and wrote the amount on the lid.
The Three Musketeers had scored another victory.
So why did I feel so rotten?
TWELVE
APRIL 12
The next day after school, Billy, Tom and I were shooting hoops at the park with Larry, a short grade-eight kid from school. It was Tom and me against Billy and Larry, two on two.
The ball was cold and gritty in my hands. I bounced it a few times and aimed for the basket.
Tom had another idea. “Pass it,” he yelled at me. “Come on, Nails. Pass it over here.”
Larry came at me waving his skinny arms in my face.
I lobbed it over his head in Tom’s direction. It went way wide.
Tom missed and frowned. I knew he was swearing at me under his breath.
Billy grabbed the ball and lobbed it toward the basket. It swished right in.
“Ten!” Billy shouted, raising his arms, a grin stretched across his face. He and Larry high-fived and danced around the court.
“If Nails would learn to friggin’ pass…,” Tom grumbled.
“You think you’re so great? You missed more shots than you got in,” I yelled back at him.
“Well at least I shoot at the basket sometimes,” he yelled at me.
Tangling with Tom yet again.
“What do you think I was trying to do before you started yelling at me?” I said.
“Girls can’t jump!”
“And nerdy boys can’t either!”
“You know what you can do? You can go and…”
I bounced the ball and ignored to him, trying not to hate him. That pain-in-the-butt Tom Okada complained way too much. He was always on my case. According to him, I couldn’t do one single thing right—couldn’t play basketball. Couldn’t even eat spaghetti right. All according to fancy Mister Tom Okada’s fancy rules.
Larry said he had to go. “Me too,” I said. I grabbed my bag off the bench. “See you guys later.”
“Good game,” said Larry, smiling as he fell in beside me.
“Yeah,” I muttered. “Good game.”
I said goodbye to Larry at the park gates and headed for home. White petals from the cherry blossoms whirled around my feet like snowflakes. I kicked them up into a cherry blossom blizzard.
The front door was not locked. I let myself in.
I heard Janice and Joseph talking in kitchen.
I sat on the bottom step in the front hall and untied my running shoes.
“Look at this, Joe,” Janice said. “The Bay is looking for fulltime workers. I could apply. I’m sure I’d make more than I do at the school.”
“Then you wouldn’t be here for the kids. They need you here when they get home,” Joseph’s voice rumbled. “They’ve had enough neglect in their life. Being here for them after school is the least we can do.”
I heard the rustle of newspaper. “You’re right,” Janice said. “Of course, you’re right. What about the bank? Have you heard anything on the mortgage?”
“They said no. As we thought they would. We don’t qualify for a second mortgage…”
“What about your brother? Ron is rolling in it. I bet if you asked him, he’d help us out.”
“I called him last week. He’s going through a hard time himself right now. No extra cash. Everything’s tied up in some deal. I hated asking him.”
“Oh, Joe, what are we going to do?”
“I don’t know, Hon. I just don’t know.”
They both sounded so sad. I wished I could bounce in there and tell them they didn’t need to worry. That Billy and Tom and me were getting the money. It wouldn’t be long before we would have the whole ten thousand. But I couldn’t s
ay a thing.
Lisa’s kitten bobbed out of the living room and danced toward me, tiny claws clicking on the hardwood.
“Hey, Pumpkin,” I whispered, scooping him up and nuzzling his furry back.
“Is that you, Nell?” Janice came from the kitchen, her usual bright and cheerful self. “You’re back.”
“Got tired of shooting hoops,” I told her. “Going up to my room to read for a while.”
I carried the kitten up to my room. It was extra tidy, even my side. Janice had supervised bedroom cleanup that morning. She even made me make my bed. She had become a lot fussier about tidiness since Rhoda’s visit. Maybe she thought if everything else was perfect, they’d let her and Joseph keep us all here, in spite of the bathroom problems. Fat chance.
Lisa was at a friend’s for the afternoon, so I had our bedroom to myself. I shut the door, dropped Pumpkin onto my bed and patted his head. I went to the closet and dug around for the loose board. I pried it up and reached inside for the shoe box. There were three entries on the lid so far.
Bank 1—$1450.
Bank 2—$0
Bank 3—$1120
There was a total of $2570 so far.
We still a long way to go.
I slowly counted the money, smoothing out the bills, stacking them into a neat pile, hoping the total would be higher. It wasn’t. It was too far away from the ten thousand dollars we needed. This robbing banks deal was not working very fast. At the rate we were going it would take a whole year before we had enough.
We didn’t have a year. We had only a few months.
THIRTEEN
APRIL 13
Billy chose the small Scotiabank in Surrey Place Mall, only a block from the SkyTrain station.
The mall was busy with shoppers. “Should work in our favor,” Billy explained. “It’ll be easier to make our getaway in the crowd.”
I was standing in the doorway of the Boston Pizza, opposite the bank.
Tom was waiting over at the ice-cream shop further along the mall. I figured he’d probably be cracking his knuckles as usual. He never said much about being anxious or scared, but I knew he was.
Bank Job Page 5