As I tossed and turned in my room each night, I began to come up with a plan. I had no one, not even Player, to talk to this time, but I didn’t let that get me down.
Orientation came, and with it the arrival of new students. Just like the year before, Brunt addressed all of us in the auditorium. She talked about the importance of keeping our pasts a secret from one another and of using only our first names. This time, when she said that there would be no cellphones allowed on the island, she was looking straight at me.
I tried to stay calm. I had no idea if the faculty managed to find out about Player, and I couldn’t stop worrying that they had. I didn’t know what they would do to someone in the outside world who knew about Vile Island’s existence. Even though I’d never told Player anything specific about the island, the faculty didn’t know I had been so secretive. They would see a hacker who could get through their security as a threat. I sighed. Until I could somehow manage to find the phone—if they hadn’t already destroyed it—there was nothing I could do.
Classes started the next day, and I obediently began my year as a VILE student once again. I knew that I’d be way ahead of my new classmates, having already been through the drill. Even so, I decided I would work harder than ever on my coursework. I would be the best student on the island, but all the while, I would be waiting for the right moment to make my move.
I walked into Shadowsan’s class full of confidence. If I was going to fool VILE’s faculty, I’d have to play the part of someone who still wanted to graduate.
Just as before, Shadowsan told us about the Japanese paper-folding art known as origami and how it would help us become better thieves. He began passing out sheets of folding paper to each student. He stopped when he reached my desk. Shadowsan paused, then dumped a huge stack of origami paper in front of me.
“As you are already familiar with the art of paper folding, Black Sheep, you will fold all of these,” Shadowsan told me.
I bit my lip angrily but said nothing. I’ll show him, I thought. If Shadowsan thought I was unruly, I was going to prove him wrong. I knew that he was trying to make me mad by giving me more work to do than anyone else, but I wasn’t about to let him succeed.
I picked up the first paper and began to fold it as carefully as I could, quickly crafting a small yet beautiful swan.
I felt someone watching me and turned to see one of my new classmates staring at my work. I recognized her from orientation as a student from Japan, though I didn’t know what her skills as a criminal were. Even though she wore the same student uniform as the rest of us, she had found ways to work all sorts of bright colors into her hair and her fashionable accessories.
I quickly completed my swan. The girl was looking at me the entire time I folded.
She was starting to make me nervous, so I decided to try talking to her. “Pretty boring stuff, huh? Too bad we don’t get to use swords and things, like real ninjas.”
She quickly turned back to her own origami, which I saw she was folding into a paper lily. “Actually, I like this . . . stuff,” she answered with a toss of her hair. “Could I have some of your folding paper? Instructor Shadowsan gave me only one.”
“Sure, knock yourself out,” I said as I gave her a giant stack.
* * *
As the days went on, I studied as hard as I possibly could. Anyone who observed me at the academy would think I was more determined than ever.
Coach Brunt was pleased to see me fighting up a storm in her self-defense class, which I now knew was actually meant to teach us how to “leave no witnesses” out in the field. I picked more pockets in Shadowsan’s class and pointed out more fake paintings in Countess Cleo’s than anyone else. I was even at the top of my game in Dr. Bellum’s science class, which had never been my best subject.
Slowly but surely, my plan was working. The faculty members stopped spying on me as much, and Maelstrom stopped giving me his silly tests. I still caught Bellum’s flying cameras following me around the island, but the more I acted like I wanted to be the best VILE operative in history, the more freedom I was granted.
One afternoon, Cleo was having me sit through a pretend dinner party and she actually told me that I was becoming more ladylike by the day. I smiled and politely thanked her. It was taking all my focus to keep up the charade, but my training was helping.
I avoided my classmates, being careful not to form any new friendships. I ate meals alone and walked to and from classes by myself. Some, like the girl from Shadowsan’s class, tried to speak to me now and then, but I did my best to ignore them. I soon developed a reputation for being snooty—a know-it-all who thought she was better than everyone else. I didn’t let it get to me.
I had no doubt that my classmates would go to the “necessary extremes” after they graduated, just like Gray and the others. My old classmates had been skilled criminals, but these new students were tough and fierce in a way that surprised even me.
We sat on the mats one day in Shadowsan’s class. We were, as usual, folding origami figures. This time Shadowsan had given me a hundred pieces of paper to fold. Everyone else had just ten. I went about my work silently, determined not to give Shadowsan a reason to think I was still a troublemaker.
“Can I have some of your paper?” asked the Japanese girl again.
Once again, I slid her a stack of paper with a shrug.
The folding came as easily to me as ever, and before long, I had a set of origami animals sitting across my desk.
“That’s pretty good,” she said, examining my work.
“Thanks.” I wondered for a moment if she was looking to get help with her own paper folding. Most of the students were struggling with the task. When I looked over to her desk to see how her origami was coming along, my jaw dropped.
She had folded an entire army of Japanese soldiers. The folds were perfect—more perfect than anything I had ever been able to do. She had even given them miniature paper swords and bows with tiny quivers of arrows. I had never seen anything like it. “That’s . . . that’s amazing,” I told her, and meant it.
The girl laughed. Her laugh sounded like nails dragging across a chalkboard, and I immediately got chills. “What, these? These were just for fun! Look what else I can do!” She took out a single sheet of origami paper and quickly began folding it.
Her fingers were moving too fast for me to follow. In no time at all, the girl had turned the paper into a star. Only it didn’t seem to be just any star—it was more like a ninja’s throwing star, with dangerously sharp edges.
With a flick of her wrist, she threw the paper star toward the origami soldiers. At first, nothing happened. And then, one by one, each of the soldiers fell apart. They had been cut perfectly in half by the sharp slice of the star.
“See? Pretty cool, huh?” she said.
I stared at her and laughed nervously. “That’s, uh . . . something, all right.” I didn’t want to let on that she made me wildly uncomfortable. For someone to pick up skills like that within the first few weeks of classes . . . well, it was impressive, but also a little scary.
“Call me Paperstar. It’s my code name,” she told me with a wicked smile. “You’re the only one who knows it.”
“Paperstar, huh? That’s a good one.” I made a mental note to stay as far away from her as possible.
Chapter 12
After weeks of preparation and planning, the day I had been waiting for finally came. It was December first—the day Cookie Booker’s boat arrived on the island.
Early that morning, I had told Coach Brunt that I was feeling ill and would not be able to attend classes that day. She had chicken noodle soup sent to my room, along with hot tea. For a moment, I was touched. Mama Bear still cared about me. But I knew I couldn’t let this one small gesture change anything.
The weather outside was gloomy and ominous. Storm clouds gathered overhead, and in the distance, there was a bright orange flash as lightning struck over the ocean. Rain began to come down, at fir
st in a small drizzle and then in a heavy downpour. It was almost time.
I ran from my room, through the hallways and out into the storm. I wasn’t able to see the docks from the dormitory, so in order to make sure the boat was arriving as scheduled, I made my way down to the beach. I have to be sure it’s here, I thought. Everything has to go according to plan.
I had no water balloons with me this time as I watched and waited by the rocks. My pranking days were over; this time, I was playing for real. And then I saw it—the boat! In the distance, I could see it sailing across choppy waters toward the docks. I had seen it at least a dozen times or more over the years, but never with the kind of anticipation I felt now.
Cookie Booker was right on time. Boy, she must really hate this weather, I thought, and I laughed at how someone who hated water as much as she did was now stuck on a boat in a storm.
Once I knew that the boat was arriving, I dashed back to my room to grab what few possessions I had.
At the academy, we had been taught over and over again to travel light. I could hear Maelstrom’s voice in my mind. “Carry too much with you, and it could slow you down. If you are slowed down, you cannot do your job properly. Always, always, travel light!” Maelstrom might be a crazy professor, but I knew he was right.
I carefully picked up my Russian nesting dolls. They were the only link I had to my past. I touched a hand to the dolls, tracing their red edges as I had a million times before. Travel light, I thought, and sadly set them back down.
Instead I grabbed my stealth suit. In the past, I used to daydream about wearing it while stealing for VILE. Now I would be using it to escape from them. I quickly changed into it, feeling readier by the moment. I snuck out of the room, leaving the nesting dolls behind.
Shadowsan’s stealth training was being put to good use as I silently hurried through the academy. I was almost to the front doors when the sound of Maelstrom’s voice suddenly made me stop.
“I find it strange that a device registered to our mainland Bookkeeping Department ever wound up in Black Sheep’s possession to begin with,” he said.
“And I find it strange that Black Sheep never submitted the stolen property for extra credit,” I heard Dr. Bellum reply.
I edged closer to the door, careful to remain unseen. I could see Professor Maelstrom and Dr. Bellum inside a study room. Maelstrom was pacing the room, looking closely at something in front of him. I peered carefully around the doorframe and gasped as I saw my cellphone on the desk in front of them.
Player! I almost said his name out loud in excitement. Was he all right? Had they tried to contact him? It had been months since I had talked to him, and I suddenly felt desperate to hear my friend’s voice again.
Bellum took the phone and placed it in a desk drawer, then locked it and put the key in her pocket.
“Perhaps Ms. Booker can fill us in on the details,” Maelstrom said. Bellum and Maelstrom left, and I quickly hid behind the office door. I held my breath, not daring to breathe again until I was sure they were out of sight.
Once the coast was clear, I hurried inside and raced to the desk. I took out a bobby pin and inserted it into the lock. After a few tries, the lock snapped open. For a school that teaches criminals, I thought, you would think their locks would be harder to pick.
The drawer slid open, and there it was—my phone! I grabbed it and hid out of sight beneath the desk. Then I hit autodial.
“Becky’s Bacon and Barbecue House. Can I help you?” Player was speaking in a high-pitched voice with a thick southern accent, but it was still unmistakably Player.
“Player? That you?” I asked.
“Black Sheep! You bet it’s me. I was just being careful.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. Words couldn’t describe how good it felt to hear the voice of my only real friend after months of isolation.
“Where have you been?” Player asked. “Strange people have been answering your phone!”
“It’s not my phone,” I admitted. “I stole it.”
Player was silent for a moment as he thought about what I had just said. “So you’re a shoplifter . . . and you haven’t called me all summer because you’ve been in jail?”
I sighed. I had kept everything about Vile Island hidden from Player for years. But now I was done keeping VILE’s secrets for them.
“Player, remember when you told me you use your awesome hacking skills for good?”
“The white-hat hacker’s code,” he said with pride.
“What would you say if I had awesome skills too . . . because I was raised in a school for thieves?”
There was silence on the other end of the line. I nervously bit my lip. Had I just scared off my only friend in the world?
“I would say that explains a lot!” Player almost sounded excited.
Our conversation was interrupted by the sound of approaching footsteps. “Don’t go anywhere,” I whispered to Player. The footsteps were coming straight toward me.
There was no time to escape from the room without being seen, and there were no windows, either. Instead, the answer to my problems came from above.
From where I was crouched, I could see an air vent. The screws looked loose and easy to remove. My stealth suit was already coming in handy as I jumped from the desk toward the vent, leaping through the air like an Olympic gymnast. I grasped the vent and pulled it away from its frame, then climbed up into the ceiling. I quickly put the vent back into its frame just as the shadow of a figure crossed into the room.
I moved through the ceiling, crawling through the narrow passages as quickly as the tight space would allow. As I moved past another vent, what I saw below me made me stop immediately.
Sitting on the desk below was the VILE hard drive—the one that Cookie Booker delivered by hand to the island each year on this day. The VILE logo was emblazoned on its side.
“Player, I’m staring at a hard drive containing data that could fund a criminal organization for an entire year,” I told him in a whisper. It was strange to think that something so small had such important information stored within it. Right then, I knew what I had to do. “This might be my only chance to secure it,” I told him.
“Then you have to go for it.”
I smiled, glad to have someone on my side when I was about to try to pull off the most dangerous theft of my life. Stealing the hard drive hadn’t been part of my escape plan, but I realized now that it had to be done. They would use the hard drive to plan their future criminal operations. If I took it from them, maybe I could keep them from hurting innocent people.
I dropped into the room as quietly as a ninja. The hard drive was just a few feet away. I reached out for it, my fingers almost touching it, when suddenly I heard Maelstrom’s booming voice come from the intercom sitting on the desk. “Booker, what is keeping you? We are waiting for you to upload the hard drive!” I jumped at the sound.
Then I heard stiletto shoes clicking on tiles and ducked beneath the desk, tucking my knees up toward my chest.
From a crack in the desk, I was able to see Cookie Booker walk into the room. She was wearing a stylish black pantsuit and a yellow scarf slung over her shoulders. She was also soaking wet and quite angry about it.
Booker pressed the intercom with her hand. “Have you never heard of a thunderstorm, Gunnar Maelstrom? I had to hang my wet things!” She grabbed the hard drive from the desk and stomped off.
I slammed a hand against the back of the desk. “I missed it! The hard drive is gone!”
“What are you going to do?” asked Player.
“I’m going after it,” I said. I crept out from under the desk, full of determination. The boat would have to wait.
Chapter 13
I followed Cookie Booker at a safe distance as she made her way through the academy halls. I had to work to keep my nerves in check as I carefully tracked her, making sure not to get too close.
“If anyone sees me take it, I’ll never make it off the island,”
I whispered into the phone.
“You mean the island I still can’t locate?”
“That’s the one. I need to avoid getting caught at all costs. Otherwise . . . it’s game over.”
I was walking past a darkened corridor when suddenly I felt like I was being watched. It was just like that night on the rocks when I escaped from the island. Once again, I saw a pale face in the darkness watching me, only this time I didn’t pass it off as my imagination.
I stopped and walked closer. Mime Bomb was there, leaning against the wall as though he didn’t have a care in the world. “Aw, crud,” I whispered under my breath.
“Mime Bomb!” I said with a huge smile, hiding the cellphone behind my back. “What are you up to?”
Mime Bomb waved hello and pretended to pick invisible flowers. He held the imaginary flowers up to his nose and sniffed them.
I made a guess. “Stopping to smell the roses?”
He nodded to tell me I was correct.
“Happy gardening!” I turned and started walking off again, hoping I hadn’t lost track of Cookie Booker and the hard drive.
“That was the most one-sided conversation I’ve ever heard,” Player said, confused.
“Don’t worry. It’s just some creepy mime who hangs around campus and watches everything . . . and everyone . . .” Suddenly I realized what Mime Bomb really was. “Because he’s a snitch and a spy for the faculty!”
Eyes and ears . . . just like he said during Cleo’s exam! I smacked my forehead. How had I been so stupid? It was Mime Bomb who told the faculty I snuck onto the helicopter. That was how the Cleaners knew I had stowed away! I was not going to let him tell on me a second time.
I turned back to where Mime Bomb had been just a moment before, but he was already gone. I sprinted down the corridor, catching up to him in no time. He looked behind him with an alarmed expression.
“Nobody likes a tattletale!” I yelled as I made a running slide across the tile. I slid right into Mime Bomb’s legs, knocking him off his feet.
Who in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? Page 11