“The asparagus,” Dean Dean Deanbugle whispered loudly. He looked at her pointedly.
Strongarm’s eyes lit up. “MY LUCKY DAY!” she cried, and she skipped out of the classroom.
George looked at Tabitha and shrugged, which was his way of saying, What was that about?
She rolled her eyes, which was her way of saying, Adults are WEIRD.
With Strongarm gone, the dean paced around the front of the room, stealing glances with students one by one. And from those glances, George could instantly tell how the dean felt about his classmates. At moments, Dean Dean Deanbugle looked positively furious: his mouth pulled in a hard, tight line; his nostrils shook violently; his thick eyebrows converged on his face, making his forehead look like a giant carpet. He glared at Adam and Carrie with pure disgust, with utter loathing, with the worst scowl that anyone could ever give another human being, and George thought it was a wonder that they didn’t burst into tears. Then the dean grinned as he looked at Tabitha. He gave a grim nod to Neal and Ezra. He shook his head disappointedly at Milo. He clearly refused to even look at Tosh. And when the dean finally caught George’s eye, he actually winked.
“Keys, please,” Dean Dean Deanbugle said, at last, holding out his hand. Tabitha, Robin, Tiago, and Sunny walked to the front of the classroom and gave Dean Dean Deanbugle back their keys.
Milo did not get up from his seat.
“Mr. Hubervick,” Dean Dean Deanbugle said sternly.
Milo clutched his key, his face turning redder than a baked ham. “I . . . this is my key.”
“Not anymore,” the dean said coolly, marching over to Milo’s desk and wrenching the key from his hands.
“I’ve never lost a key before!” Milo said loudly. “It’s mine, and I deserve it more than anyone else—especially the new kids. I was number one for five months in a row. I should be moved up to second year!”
“You were number one for your first five months. But you’re not anymore. You’ve been slipping down the ranks, and if you can’t keep up with your classmates, you’ll fall further still,” Dean Dean Deanbugle said. “Now quiet! Or it’s off to the whirlyblerg with you!”
Milo didn’t say another word, but he shot a nasty glare at George.
Then, one-by-one, Dean Dean Deanbugle began to call the top five students up to receive their keys. After Tiago, Robin, and Sunny, it was George’s turn.
He walked up to the front of the room, feeling like he almost had to shield his eyes from Dean Dean Deanbugle’s dazzling smile. At last, he reached the dean, shook hands, and took his key.
“I’m very proud of you, George,” Dean Dean Deanbugle said, clapping him on the shoulder and beaming. George could feel his ears turning pink, but he was more tickled than embarrassed. In fact, as he walked back to his seat, his grin was wider than a crater. He didn’t even care that Milo was staring at him with a murderous gleam in his eye. He felt lighter than a balloon soaring up, up, up into the clouds.
George spent the whole class period—and all afternoon, really—holding the key in the palm of his hand and smiling.
After Gadgetry class, Tabitha grabbed him by wrist and dragged him down three flights of stairs. On the ground floor, she pulled him into the barren Ma Barker Wing, and George quickly realized that they were headed in the direction of the dead end on the first floor.
Tabitha stopped in the middle of the hall.
“Here we are!” Tabitha said with a squeal. “Welcome to the Robin Hood Room!”
“Where?” George said. Clearly Tabitha had gone insane—the corridor was completely empty, except for the weird cleaning supply and vegetable storage closet.
“Look at the wall, George. Pay attention.”
He examined the wall. It looked ordinary—but then he realized that there was an area that was just a shade lighter than the rest of the hall. And the lighter part was in the tall, rectangular shape of a door.
“It’s a door,” George said, tracing the edge with his fingertips. There was a tiny keyhole, smack dab in the middle. “This is amazing! It blends right in!”
“If you think that’s the amazing part,” Tabitha said, “then I can’t wait to see your face once we go in!”
She slid her key into the hole and turned it to the left; the wall opened up to reveal a turnstile. She strode through and disappeared into the darkness beyond. The door automatically locked behind her. Then it was George’s turn. He put his key into the slot, turned, and stepped through the turnstile.
The barrier moved, pushing him forward into a pitch-black hallway.
WHUMP. The door closed behind him.
He couldn’t see or hear anything. “Tabitha?”
Silence pounded in his ears, and he could feel his heart thumping in his throat. He blinked hard, but there was nothing to see except darkness.
“Tabitha?! Where are you?”
“George,” she said, and she was right next to him. “Walk forward.”
He tentatively took a step forward, and the hallway suddenly lit up with a ring of fire that extended down the hall as far as he could see. The floor twinkled with a golden glow, illuminating a path to follow.
“Wow!” he whispered.
He leaped forward, and Tabitha ran behind him, laughing like he’d never heard her laugh before.
At the end of the hallway of encircling fire, there was a door. And through the door was a room with a trampoline floor.
“AWESOME!” George shouted as he jumped into the room and sprung back up. He and Tabitha bounced all the way across the room; on the other side, they bounced off the trampoline into a foam pit. They wiggled through the foam pit, which led to a slide, and the slide slithered down into a swimming pool and hot tub.
Each room was better than the last. There was an Unlimited Junk Food Room, with vending machines that were twelve feet tall and cabinets stocked with all sorts of sugary treats. There was a graffiti room, where kids were allowed to write whatever they wanted (even inappropriate words!) all over the walls in markers and spray paint. Then they popped into a space with a swing set and a floor piled with cushions—so students could jump off the swings and land in a pile of soft, fluffy goodness. There was even a room just for laser tag.
George’s eyes grew wider and wider at the sight of it all. The Robin Hood Room was more wonderful than he’d ever imagined. It was better than recess, better than roller coasters, better than anything he’d ever experienced in his whole life. Because there were no rules—only play.
Pilfer Academy had always felt grand and cold, like a stodgy museum. But the Robin Hood Room—this was a room built just for fun!
“No wonder everyone wants to be in the top five,” George said. “This is amazing!”
“Welcome to paradise,” Tabitha said with a grin, and they ran giggling back to the candy room to stuff their faces with sweets.
Dastardly Plans! Muahahaha!
“I just want to be jumping on that trampoline,” George said with a sigh in Strongarm’s class the next day. He jiggled the combination lock on a small safe, which he was expected to break into by the end of the class period.
“Concentrate on cracking your safe,” Tabitha said. “You have to stay on top, or you’ll lose your key, and then you’ll never be able to jump on that trampoline.”
George smirked. “You’re too intense.”
“You’re not intense enough,” she muttered, then she let out a frustrated growl. “This stupid safe won’t crack.”
“You’re too impatient,” George said. On the other side of the room, Strongarm was breathing down Neal’s neck as he spun his lock around. “You have to listen for the click, Tabitha . . . then it’s two numbers to the right.”
“I know that. I just don’t hear a click!”
“Are you pushing up on the clamp?”
“Yes,” she said through gritted teeth. “Oka
y, let’s try this again.” She pushed up on her lock and began to twist gingerly, her ear right up against the safe.
Strongarm stood up again and began to hawk the room, swooping down upon students unexpectedly. She kept standing uncomfortably close to people, shrieking “TICK! TICK! TICK! TICK! TICK! BOOM!” just to see how people would perform under pressure.
So far, the answer was not very well. Everyone she had attacked had started sweating log flumes, and Adam even burst into tears.
Tabitha groaned. “It’s so hard to hear with Strongarm screaming like that. How are you doing?”
“I keep losing it by the third number,” George said. “Now I have to start all over.” He shook his box violently, and something very loud rattled around inside. From two tables over, Milo scowled at them, then turned back to his own safe with a sulky expression.
“It’s not our fault he’s number six,” Tabitha said, rolling her eyes. “Ah—wait! I got the second one!” She scribbled down the second number to the combination lock. “One more to go!”
“It kind of is our fault, though,” said George. “If we were gone—”
“If we were gone, he still wouldn’t be top of the class,” Tabitha whispered firmly.
“Yeah, but he’d be closer.”
Tabitha snorted. “Does he really think he’s going to graduate to year two? He’s not ready.”
“Is anyone?”
“Actually, rumor has it that Sunny’s on the verge of moving up . . . if she aces her midterm. And Ezra, too.”
That surprised George. “Ezra? But he’s not even in the top five.”
“It doesn’t matter. Ezra’s not so great at the practical stuff, but he’s killing it in Thieving Theory. They’ll probably groom him to be a mastermind behind the scenes, or something.” She shook her safe in frustration, like it would magically open for her if she just gave it a good throttle.
“You can’t move up yet, could you?” George asked.
“I think it’s still too soon for me. But maybe by the final exam I’ll be ready, if I can ever open this safe.”
George sighed one enormous breath of relief. It was so nice to have a friend in all his classes. And he was grateful to have someone to study with, especially with the midterm right around the corner.
In fact, Tabitha had already drafted up a study guide for each class, which she’d showed him proudly during breakfast. He knew Tabitha wanted to start studying a little bit each day in the library, where the lighting was so bright it could shrivel eyeballs, but George was hoping to change her mind.
“Hey, what do you think about taking our books into the Robin Hood Room and studying there tonight?”
“With all those fun distractions?” she choked. “Are you cra—”
Strongarm zoomed over to their table and hunched over Tabitha, her back like a boomerang. “TICK!” she shrieked. George put his hands over his ears, but Tabitha didn’t blink. She spun to the first number. “TICK!” She reverse-rotated to the second number. “TICK!” She pushed up hard, and spun the lock, looking for the third number. “TICK! TICK!”
CLICK.
The safe opened. Tabitha reached inside eagerly and pulled out—
“Another safe?”
The whole class groaned.
“A safe inside a safe inside a safe! Inside a safe, of course!” Strongarm said gleefully. “And whatever you don’t finish in class today, you’ll do for homework.”
The whole class groaned again.
After class, Tabitha dashed off to a Crook Club meeting, and George went straight to the gardens. It was one of those precious September weeks of warm, sunny weather. It seemed like everyone was spending time on the grounds before the inevitable cold settled in.
George had taken to sitting under the shade of a brilliantly colored orange tree that faced the gardens, which were still surprisingly in bloom. He’d just pulled out his notebook when Tabitha came running up.
“What are you doing here?” George said, shielding his eyes from the sun as he looked up at her.
She threw down her book bag and plopped next to him. “Crook Club got canceled for today because Ballyrag ate some soured sour cream.”
“Ew,” George said. “Well, should we do homework, then? We still have those safes to crack.”
Surprisingly, Tabitha shook her head.
“Okay, well, should we study for the midterm?” George said. “They’re only a week away.” Every time George thought about the midterm, his stomach filled with collywobbles.
Many of the older students loved to tell the first-years about the horrors of their own midterms—arrests, broken limbs, dismemberment, and even death. Some fourth-years had told George and Tabitha that only half of their classmates made it back intact—before laughing as they walked away.
Even the teachers tried to scare the first-years. A few of them shouted in the hallways that they always flunked a few students every term for good measure.
George couldn’t tell how much was scare tactics, and how much was real. But it frightened him regardless. He and Tabitha now spent almost every evening preparing by poring over books and running practice obstacle courses in the gym. But the worst part about the midterm was that there was no way to prepare because it changed every semester. It could be anywhere, stealing anything.
And he wasn’t the only one running scared. Robin, Neal, Beth, and Becca didn’t do anything but study anymore. Whenever he ate lunch with them, it was like being in a quiz bowl. Even Milo stayed up into the dead of night, studying silently next to George. But even when they were ten feet away from each other, they still didn’t acknowledge the other’s existence.
“No midterms, no homework,” Tabitha finally said. “Let’s just take an hour off!” Using her backpack as a pillow, she lay down and stared up at the clouds.
George did the same.
“Besides,” she said, and George could almost hear the grin in her voice, “we have some secret, dastardly plans to concoct. Muahahahahaha!”
“What are you talking about?”
“The biggest holiday is right around the corner!”
“Uh . . . Halloween?” George asked.
Tabitha shook her head. “Close. Mischief Night! It’s a thief’s Christmas.”
“Mischief Night . . . that’s where people throw toilet paper onto trees and smash pumpkins, right?”
Tabitha snorted. “That’s amateur work. We have to come up with something bigger, better, and badder. On Mischief Night, curfew actually gets canceled for one night only. We have to do something amaz—”
A rustling noise came from a bush across the garden, and Tabitha cut off mid-word.
George looked over to the sound. “What was—”
“Shhhhh!” she hissed. She slowly began to crawl toward the bush.
WHOOSH!
A stocky boy leaped out from behind the bush and began to sprint toward the school building.
“MILO!” Tabitha shouted after him. “GET BACK HERE! WE SAW YOU! WE SAW YOU SPYING ON US!”
“YOU DIDN’T HEAR ANYTHING IMPORTANT, ANYWAY!” George hollered.
When Milo ran through the double doors that led back inside, George and Tabitha sat back down on the grass. It was the second time George had caught Milo spying on him, and he couldn’t help but think that Milo really needed to find a better hobby.
“Milo,” Tabitha breathed, her nostrils flaring, “is the worst.”
Suddenly, George began to laugh and wheeze and snort.
“What?” Tabitha said. “What’s so funny?”
“Milo, trying to be all sneaky but getting caught,” he snickered.
“Well, it’s a good thing I caught him before we started talking about our Mischief Night prank. So about that . . .”
They spent the hour brainstorming possible plans, from stealing exhibits
to flying Dean Dean Deanbugle’s underwear from the ceiling. “Stealing noodles from the kitchen and dropping them all over the stairs!” George proposed. “Eating all of the Triple-dipple Ultra-deluxe Melty Creamy Creamer Rainbow Swizzle Milk Munch ice cream!” Tabitha suggested in reply. They didn’t settle on anything, but they had a great list of ideas.
When the sun went down, they packed up and headed to dinner. Rumor was that gourmet mac and cheese was on the menu, and George wanted to be first in line.
But just as they stepped inside the mansion, they ran into Strongarm, wrestling about five chickens in her arms that looked quite intent on flying away from her. In fact, one did, flapping across the hall to Tabitha and pecking her braids, like they were some sort of delicious snack.
“Get off me!” Tabitha shrieked, slapping the chicken away.
“Oh, you get back here!” Strongarm hollered at the chicken, as one chicken dug its feet into her hair, and another one nibbled on her ear. “C’mere, chicky chicky chicky! Squawk! Squawk! Squawwwwwwkkkk!” she squawked.
Tabitha wrestled the chicken and handed it back to Strongarm, though it resisted furiously. “What are the chickens for?” Tabitha asked.
“MIND YOUR OWN BEESWAX!” Strongarm shouted as she scampered off, passing three second-year girls who cowered away from the yawping chickens.
Tabitha tugged on his sleeve. “Mac and cheese, George, remember?”
That got him moving again.
When they got to the dining hall, Tabitha went to get a table, but George ran up to the buffet line so quickly that he accidentally knocked someone face-first into a tray of lobster mac.
It was only when the person stood up again and licked his face with a long tongue did George realize what he’d done. He froze in horror. “Dean Dean Deanbugle!”
“Cutting the line, I presume?” the dean said, wiping his finger across his face and sticking it in his mouth. His eyebrows were positively caked with cheese. “Well, I can’t say that it’s even remotely stealthy of you, but I’ll give you credit for the theory.”
“I’m sorr—” George started, but the disdainful look on the dean’s macaronied face stopped him. That’s right—I shouldn’t ever apologize. “I mean, I want what I want, sir, and that mac and cheese is calling my name.”
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