Pilfer Academy

by Lauren Magaziner

  “According to Pilfer records, our oldest graduate of all-time was thirty-three years old.”

  George suddenly felt very dizzy.

  “Are you all right? You’re looking awfully beaky,” Ballyrag grumbled.

  “I—I—” he stuttered. “I can go home for summer break, right?”

  “Summer what now?”

  George staggered into a very green, plant-filled room, and he collapsed into a plush chair. The room had full-length windows that overlooked Pilfer Academy’s botanical gardens—but George couldn’t even enjoy the view. His stomach flopped, a cold sweat dribbled down the back of his neck, and everything inside his head was shouting PANIC!

  “But what about my family? They’ll be looking for me . . .”

  “Oh, don’t worry about them. Your parents have been sent this beautiful letter.” She dug deep into her pocket and handed George a scrunched-up scroll of parchment:

  Dear Parent:

  Congratulations! Your son/daughter has been accepted to the Champeaux Institute for the Extraordinarily Gifted and Talented Future Leaders of the World (CIFTEGATFLOTW for short). This is an extremely advanced, secret school, and your child has been selected to join our ranks for the next several years with a FULL PAID SCHOLARSHIP in the hopes that he/she will one day become president of the world.

  Sincerely yours,

  Sir William Mortimer Archibald

  Samuel Washington Beauregard

  Oliphant the Third

  “Champeaux Institute?”

  “That’s pronounced Shampoo!” Strongarm said brightly.

  George shook his head. “No one will ever believe that letter.”

  “They will if it’s sent from Sir William Mortimer Archibald Samuel Washington Beauregard Oliphant the Third! Anyone will believe anything from someone with seven names.”

  “But isn’t it suspicious that I just ran off to school without packing up any of my stuff? In the middle of the summer? Without saying good-bye?”

  “We’ve never had a complaint yet. Of course, our address is completely secret, so there would be nowhere to send complaints. . . .”

  “Telephone? E-mail? Cell?”

  “No phones, no computers, no service.”

  George looked over at Ballyrag, who seemed to be extremely taken with his bellybutton.

  “So what if my parents want me back?”

  “Want you back? With a full-paid scholarship to the Champeaux Institute for the Extraordinarily Gifted and Talented Future Leaders of the World? You must be joking!”

  His chest tightened. He wasn’t even that fond of home, but suddenly, more than anything, he ached for Gunther’s headlocks, Colby’s bossiness, Rosie’s whining, and Derek’s and Corman’s scowls every time he asked to join in on their fun. He missed his mom and dad. He even missed being labeled the Naughty One.

  His anger at his parents from the afternoon suddenly seemed faded and distant. He could be trapped here for up to twenty years. Forced to attend school until he was—quite possibly—thirty-three. It could be decades before he saw his family again. With a rattled breath, George leaned forward and buried his head in his hands. What do I do? he thought. His eyes burned, and his throat suddenly felt very lumpy.

  “There, there, don’t worry, I’m sure you will do extraordinarily well at Pilfer,” Strongarm said, completely misunderstanding.

  Ballyrag came over and awkwardly patted George’s elbow. “Just think, one day you will be a scream de la scream criminal—”

  “Just like our most famous alums,” Strongarm interrupted, “Dominic Sneakthief, Patricia Roughshock, Felicity Headlock, Sir Nicolas Hurtsalot—”

  “N-never heard of them.”

  Strongarm rolled her eyes. “Of course you haven’t heard of them—they’ve never been caught!”

  Ballyrag smacked his hand against his forehead, as if to say, obviously!

  “Come, come!” Strongarm pulled him up from the chair. “We still haven’t seen the Autolycus Wing, the Ma Barker Wing, or the Blackbeard Wing.”

  George’s heart was hammering as he followed Strongarm and Ballyrag through more wings of the mansion. It was confusing and overwhelming; there were so many exhibits and stolen artifacts that he felt almost dizzy.

  Then they climbed to the very top of the school to look at three different observatories—stolen from different science labs around the country—and through the largest telescope, Strongarm showed him a breathtaking moonlit view of the valley town in the distance. Then they trudged down a grand staircase, and George turned right at the bottom.

  Strongarm blathered on about famous alums and the prestige of the school as George followed the twisting hallways.

  “Wait!” Strongarm said suddenly, interrupting herself. “We can’t go down there. It’s a dead end.”

  “A dead end?”

  George peeked around the corner. The area was run-down and dark, and the only door had a sign that read:

  CLEANING SUPPLIES AND VEGETABLE STORAGE (ESPECIALLY ASPARAGUS)

  Blech! George thought. Cleaning supplies and vegetables. The two worst things in the world.

  “There’s really nothing down here,” Strongarm continued. “Come on back—let me escort you to our corridor of butter sculptures.”

  Strongarm showed him the Mountain of Margarine, the Butter Boat, and even the Cream-Cheese Trees—it was the weirdest room George had seen yet. And it smelled very sour, too.

  Just when George thought he couldn’t take one more breath, Strongarm steered him to a door that led to the back courtyard and botanical gardens. It was too dark to really appreciate the courtyard, but in the lamplight, George could see a series of stone sculptures, a hedge maze, and a spitting fountain. But the scenery was spoiled by a giant wall, twenty feet tall and extremely thick, that surrounded the grounds.

  George stepped outside, into the crisp summer night. “Hey, what’s that?” he asked, pointing to what looked like metal vents on the exterior wall of the school.

  “It’s a design feature of the school. Just think of it as a last resort,” Strongarm said.

  “Last resort?”

  Strongarm waved her hand dismissively. “Hopefully you will never have to see it in action. Believe me, it’s nothing you need to worry about.”

  His feet were aching and sore before too long, and his head was spinning. There were more wings and rooms than he ever would have imagined, and it would be a wonder not to get completely and totally lost. In fact, the more Strongarm and Ballyrag took him around, the more he felt like he was wandering a labyrinth of fancy halls that he’d never figure out.

  “Of course, you’ll recognize this,” Strongarm said, leading George into a warm, gold-glistening room with a velvet carpet.

  “What’s this again?”

  Strongarm sighed impatiently. “We saw this an hour ago. The Jesse James Wing. Your dorm.” She knocked twice on the handsome bronze door and shouted, “Send me Tabitha Crawford!”

  There was a scuffling of shoes and a flurry of footsteps, and the lock on the door jiggled.

  But George was hardly paying attention to that. He had something on his mind, something that had been irking him from the very moment he stepped foot in Pilfer Academy of Filching Arts.

  “Did you have to kidnap me?” he blurted out. “Why couldn’t you have just invited me to this school?”

  Strongarm sniffed. “What kind of thieving school would we be if we didn’t steal our students?”

  Orientation?

  The door swung open. A girl with dark skin, darker hair, and even darker eyes stood in the doorway, folding her arms and looking extraordinarily grim.

  The girl—Tabitha—gave George a once-over, glaring at him from head to toe. Her gaze stopped at his feet. “You know you’re missing a shoe, right?” she said.

  “I know,” George sai
d irritably. He was still feeling cranky and despairing and furious and miserable and dreadfully overwhelmed.

  Tabitha looked at Strongarm. “Is this the new kid?”

  Suddenly Strongarm gave him a forceful push, and George went tumbling forward. “See-ya-wouldn’t-wanna-be-ya!” Strongarm cried, and she and Ballyrag ran down the hall, giggling wildly like a pack of hyenas.

  Tabitha sighed. She pulled George through the door, and he stepped into a large entryway with velvet couches, crowded with kids of all different ages sitting around, chatting. At the other end of the room, a spiral staircase led upward, and Tabitha dragged him toward it.

  “Come on,” she said. She walked quickly, and George practically had to run to keep up with her. “I’ll show you the penthouse.”

  “The penthouse?”

  “All the first years sleep in the penthouse. The whole dorm is four stories tall, a floor for each year. Unfortunately, first years get the top floor, which is sixty-four stairs, total. I’ve counted.” She stopped in the middle of a step and turned around to face him. He almost crashed right into her. “Let’s break here for a second.”

  She plopped down in the middle of the stairs.

  “Uh, okay,” George said.

  “Okay, so welcome, welcome, and all that. I’m your ‘buddy,’ so if you have any questions about procedure or your schedule, just talk to me—”

  “Why can’t I talk to Strongarm or Ballyrag?”

  “Because they have better things to do.”

  “Like what?” George snorted. “Learning how to pronounce words correctly?”

  Tabitha rolled her eyes, but George thought he detected a little smile at the corner of her mouth. “It might not seem like it, but they really do know a lot about thieving. Like I was saying, whenever a new student comes, it’s the old new student’s responsibility to get the new new student acclimated. I arrived in May, so I’ve got three months of knowledge to give you.”

  “So you didn’t have a summer break at all? That stinks.”

  Tabitha raised an eyebrow. “Who needs a summer break when you can be at school?”

  He couldn’t tell whether or not she was being sarcastic.

  “C’mon, let’s keep going,” she said, standing up suddenly. She jumped two steps at a time, and George struggled to keep up.

  She chattered on and on about the after-school clubs that Pilfer offered, like the Disguise Club, Criminal Masterminds Club, and Advanced Technology Club—but George’s mind began to wander. He wondered if the stairs would ever end and why no one had thought to steal an elevator for the penthouse. His legs burned and ached, and he was starting to feel out of breath.

  At the top of the spiral staircase, four floors up, Tabitha pointed to a left-hand door that led into a stately room with at least a twelve-foot ceiling, a fireplace, wall moldings, and fancy green drapes—it looked like a room for a prince. Or two princes, since there were two beds against opposite walls. A boy with a pale square face, a row of freckles, and a buzz cut was lying on one of them, holding a book straight up in front of him. The book was old, dusty, and had a broken chain attached to the spine.

  “Hey,” George said.

  “Your bed’s over there,” the boy answered curtly, not even looking away from his book.

  “That’s Milo Hubervick,” Tabitha said, scrunching her nose.

  George walked over to his bed, and looked up—his last name, Beckett, was etched into a golden plaque on the wall above it.

  “Great,” George said awkwardly. “So, I guess we’re roommates.”

  “Obviously.”

  “Right . . . so maybe we should set some ground rules?”

  “Here’s a ground rule for you,” Milo sneered. “Just stay out of my way. I am the best in this school, and I won’t have you messing me up.”

  Tabitha snickered. “You’re kidding me, right? Let’s not forget who in this room is ranked number one, and who is ranked number five.”

  Milo scowled at her. “You just wait until—”

  “Come on, George! Follow me,” she interrupted, turning so fast that her braids whipped behind her with a whooshing noise.

  George followed Tabitha across the hall to her door, and when she brought him inside, his jaw dropped. It was even nicer than his room, if that were possible, with gold everywhere, lace draperies, two fireplaces, a bookshelf, a rocking chair, and an enormous walk-in closet—which was like another room entirely.

  “Wow!” George said.

  “I know.” Tabitha waved her hand, like she was unimpressed by all the nice stuff. She walked over to the bed engraved Crawford and rifled around underneath it until she held up a stack of crusty-looking papers. “Okay, got it! Now let’s go.”

  “Go? Where?”

  “I’m going to show you the best place in the whole dorm.” She walked out, and George had to run to catch up.

  Tabitha headed to a lonely door at the end of the hall and kicked it open. They scrambled up another spiral staircase and popped through another door at the top landing.

  George gasped. They were on the roof, in a beautiful garden terrace. The flowers seemed to wink in the moonlight, and the formidable hill that Pilfer Academy of Filching Arts sat on cast an enormous shadow on the valley below.

  He sat down on a bench next to Tabitha, and she handed over the papers, which included his schedule, a clearly unopened pamphlet of rules, and a first-year syllabus.

  “Thanks!”

  She frowned, studying him again with that calculating gaze of hers.

  George awkwardly looked away. He opened the pamphlet to keep his mind off the fact that Tabitha was staring at him the way a lion stares at a gazelle.

  He thumbed to a page in the middle.

  Rule #24

  Thieving of any sort will not be tolerated.

  “What?” George said, examining the rule again. That seemed like the opposite of what the school was trying to teach. “Why?”

  “Why what?” Tabitha said.

  “Why won’t thieving be tolerated in a thieving school?”

  Tabitha shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t make the rules.”

  “Well that one seems . . . ridiculous.”

  “Well, I’ve found that anything goes, as long as you don’t get caught.”

  “That sure sounds like a great way to get the new kid in trouble,” George grumbled.

  She puffed up. “You really think I would do that?”

  “I didn’t mean it like—”

  But Tabitha turned on her heels in a huff, slamming the door behind her.

  Great, he thought bitterly. Now I’m all alone.

  He leaned on the balcony and looked down into the valley. There was so much space there, but he couldn’t explore any of it. From now on, he was confined to a mansion, stuck learning from a group of the nitwittiest adults he had ever encountered, and trapped with terrible, nasty thieves.

  He stayed up on the roof for much longer than he should have, but at least up there, no one could hear him cry.

  Quite a First Impression

  George woke up the next morning feeling like he’d swallowed a bucketful of wriggling worms. It was his first day of class, but everyone else was already in the middle of the marking period. Midterms were coming up in just a month, according to his schedule, which he had read repeatedly in the glow of a flashlight before he went to bed.

  He pulled it off his nightstand and glanced at it yet again:

  First-Year Timetable:

  6:45 a.m. to 8:15 a.m.

  Breakfast is served*

  8:30 a.m. to 9:45 a.m.

  Thieving Theory (Room: Blackbeard 204) Taught by Ballyrag

  10:00 a.m. to 11:15 a.m.

 
Stealth 101 (Room: Butch Cassidy 347) Taught by Browbeat

  11:30 a.m. to 12:45 p.m.

  Lunch is served*

  1:00 p.m. to 2:15 p.m.

  Practical Applications of Breaking and Entering (Room: Jesse James 151) Taught by Strongarm

  2:30 p.m. to 3:45 p.m.

  Intro to Gadgetry (Room: Blackbeard 206) Taught by Pickapocket

  4:00 p.m.

  Optional snack time in the dining hall

  4:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.

  Free period

  6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

  Dinner is served*

  8:45 p.m.

  Library closes

  9:00 p.m.

  Curfew (until 6:00 a.m. tomorrow)

  *Mealtimes can be taken within this window. Come and go as you please.

  Midterms: September 15th and March 15th, 10:00 p.m.

  Final Exams: June 15th and December 15th, 10:00 p.m.

  Mischief Night: October 30th (No curfew)

  Reminder: Absence from class will be met with severe punishment unless you have a note from Nurse Embezzle in the infirmary.

  George folded the wrinkled paper back up again and stuck it in his pocket. It already seemed like there was a lot to memorize, and he hadn’t even started classes yet. He had, of course, been thinking about skipping class in favor of looking for an escape route—until he saw the words severe punishment, which was underlined several times and had two frowny faces. He gulped, wondering what severe punishment frowny-face frowny-face could possibly mean in a school with no scruples.

  He rolled out of bed and walked over to his chest of drawers, where he found stacks of collared shirts, sweaters, vests, nice slacks, many different colored and patterned ties, sweatpants, gym shorts, T-shirts, sweatshirts, underwear, socks, and one pair of jeans. He also found a drawer full of toiletries marked with his initials: GB.