The Classy Crooks Club (8 page)

Just as I suspected, a short article pops right up, talking about how the Goldings' beloved macaw disappeared from their house a week after the benefit. The reward is listed as $2,000.

“Maddie,” I say. “What if my grandmother
stole
him?”

“Why would she do that?”

“Look at how high that reward is. Maybe she's going to pretend she found him and collect the money.”

“Your grandma's super rich. She probably doesn't need two thousand dollars, does she?”

“But maybe this is how she
got
so rich.” Another idea hits me. “What if this is what the bridge club ladies want to use me for? Maybe they want me to return the stolen bird and collect the money so nobody will connect it to my grandmother! I am
so
not doing that.”

Maddie nods slowly, but I can tell she's not totally convinced. “I guess that's possible, but it might not even be the same bird. I definitely don't think you can confront her about it or go to the police until you have more proof.”

“How am I going to get that?”

Maddie chews on her lip for a few seconds while she thinks, and then her eyes light up. “Okay, parrots are pretty smart, right? If the bird in your grandmother's storage room really is Scrooge, maybe he'd know his name. Maybe he'd know his owner's name, even. Can you break in there again tonight and talk to him a little—see if you can get him to say something incriminating?”

I don't love the idea of getting close enough to a parrot to have a personal conversation, but catching Grandma Jo in the act could mean getting out of her house and going to live with Ben for the rest of the month. Visions of playing Xbox and eating Cheetos with my brother dance through my head, and I can't help smiling.

“Wow,” I say. “You're totally brilliant.”

“Film the whole thing with your phone,” Maddie says. “That way your grandma won't be able to deny that it happened.”

I nod and smile to myself. It's the perfect plan. I can't
wait
to see a bird take down Grandma Jo.

W
hen I get home that afternoon, my grandmother is furious. I thought maybe she'd go easy on me for sneaking out because her bridge club friends are there, but no—she takes me into the kitchen and yells at me for a good twenty minutes. All I did was go swimming with my best friend, but from the way she's acting, you'd think I'd stolen all her jewelry and sold it on the black market.

“You
must
act responsible, Annemarie,” she snaps at me. “It reflects very badly on me if you get yourself into trouble. I nearly had to call the police when you disappeared, and it would've been an unparalleled disaster if people had seen squad cars in my driveway.”

The fact that Grandma Jo cares less about my safety than how she looks to the neighbors makes me insanely angry.  “I was
fine
,” I say. “You could've asked Stanley where I was. It's not like I can go anywhere without him.”

“Since you obviously have too much unoccupied time, you can do some chores for me in the mornings in addition to your afternoon etiquette lessons,” Grandma Jo continues, completely ignoring me. “You will go straight to soccer at the proper time, and you will come straight home afterward. You will not spend any more time with this Maddie character. She's clearly a bad influence on you.”

I feel the beginnings of tears pricking in my eyes, but I swallow hard and dig my nails into my palms—I refuse to let my grandmother see me cry. “Maddie's not a bad influence! Mom and Dad always let me go over there.”

“I'm not your mother, and you didn't have my permission to go,” she snaps. “You flagrantly disregarded my instructions, and that is unacceptable. While you're here, you answer to me and me alone, and if you break the rules, you will deal with the consequences.”

I think about shouting back that she has no right to talk about breaking rules, seeing as she's stealing people's pets for ransom, but I can't go there until I have the proof I need. “I tried to ask your permission, but I couldn't
find
you!” I say instead.

“Then you shouldn't have left. It is imperative that you learn patience, self-control, and responsibility.” Grandma Jo holds out her hand. “Give me your cell phone, please.”

“What? Why? What are you going to do to it?”

“For heaven's sake, Annemarie, I'm not going to do anything to it. I'm going to keep it until you've proven to me that you're responsible enough to have it back.”

“That is
so
unfair!” I'm so frustrated now that I'm positive I'm going to burst into tears.

“If you ignore my perception of what's fair, you can't expect me to abide by yours,” she says. “The device, please, Annemarie.”

I dig my phone out of my soccer bag and slap it into her palm a little harder than necessary, and it disappears into a hidden pocket in Grandma Jo's huge black skirt. Now how am I supposed to record the birds saying incriminating things so I can get myself out of here? I decide I'll break into the storage room again tonight regardless, just to see what I can find out. If the birds don't say anything I can use, maybe I can teach them some things that would make Grandma Jo look really bad. I wonder how fast parrots learn.

As if my grandmother hasn't tortured me enough for one day, she dismisses me to finish my stupid sewing sampler while she hangs out with her bridge club friends. The absolute last thing I want to do right now is nitpicky, delicate work. I'm so angry I'd like to smash the glass door of the china cabinet into a million pieces with this idiotic embroidery book. But I tell myself I only have to keep it together for a few more hours, and then I can put my plan into action and get out of here for good.

•  •  •

My grandmother goes to bed at exactly the same time she did last night. She's such a creature of habit that she probably goes to sleep at the exact same time
every
night and has the exact same dreams, all full of black dresses and old-lady card games and tea. I sit silently for half an hour after her door shuts, waiting to hear her chain-saw snoring start up. It doesn't, but I don't hear anything else, either, so I figure it's probably safe to sneak downstairs. I gather my flashlight and library card and tiptoe down to the storage room.

It takes me much less time than it did yesterday to open the door, and I think of how proud Maddie will be when I tell her how much I've improved.  My heart starts racing when I hear the birds rustling around on their perches, but I know I have to keep it together if I want to execute my plan. “Hi, guys,” I croon softly to them as I reach for the light switch, careful to keep my back to the wall and one arm up to protect my face from attacks. “It's me. Don't freak out.”

The light goes on, and then
I'm
the one who freaks out. Because sitting on a chair in the middle of the room is my grandmother, fully dressed and wide awake.

“Just as I thought,” she says.

“I . . . um . . . I was . . . ,” I start, but there's absolutely no explanation that makes sense. I mean, she
saw
me break into the storage room. I can't exactly pretend I came downstairs for a glass of water and got lost.

There are several empty chairs arranged in a semicircle, and she pats the one closest to her. “Come here,” she says, and bizarrely, she doesn't sound mad. “It's time we had a little chat.”

I inch toward the chair, glancing behind me every few seconds to make sure there's no parrot flying silently behind my head, and Grandma Jo raises an eyebrow at me. “Annemarie, why are you walking like that? Are you injured?”

“No, I . . . um. I don't want the birds to, like, fly up and attack me from behind?”

My grandmother sighs heavily. “That's not going to happen. Their wings are clipped.”

I'm not sure what that means, but she makes it sound like it's something to prevent attacks. Maybe it's like declawing a cat, though all the parrots' claws look totally intact. I perch on the very edge of the chair, my spine not even touching the back. My heart is pounding even harder than it was last night when I first found the birds.

“Grandma Jo, I'm so,
so
sorry,” I say. “I wasn't—”

“Quiet,” my grandmother snaps. “We'll wait for the others to arrive. In the meantime, I'll make us some tea.” And then she gets up and
clomp-click-rustle
s out of the room with her cane, shutting the door behind her and leaving me alone with the birds. If this is supposed to be my punishment, it's a really, really good one.

I sit rigid in my chair in the bird-filled storage room for what feels like forever, wondering who “the others” are and what will happen to me when they get here. Did Grandma Jo call the police? Is it illegal to break into a room in the house where you're living? I can't go to jail for this, can I? I twist my bracelet around and around on my wrist.

The white bird with the Mohawk-style head feathers is sitting closest to me, and when I look at it, it shrieks, “Let me out, let me out!”

“Trust me,” I tell it. “I know exactly how you feel.”

But when the doorbell finally rings, it's not the police—it's Cookie and Edna and Betty. None of them have taken the time to get dressed, and they tromp into the storage room in their pajamas like this is some sort of bizarre sleepover party. Cookie's in a red silk kimono with droopy sleeves and a dragon on the back. Edna's wearing a long, shapeless dress that doesn't look much different from what she wore during the day, but her hair is up in some sort of turban. Betty has on a flowered nightgown with ruffles around the neck and wrists, a blue terry cloth robe, and slippers shaped like rabbits, and her hair is in pink plastic curlers. If I'm on trial, this isn't exactly the scariest jury I've ever seen.

“This is so
exciting
!” Cookie gushes as she takes the chair next to mine. She gives my leg such a hard squeeze that I flinch. “I've always wanted to be called out of bed for a secret meeting! Something to check off the ol' bucket list.”

“Definitely,” I say, though I have no idea what she's talking about. What the heck is a bucket list?

Betty beams in my direction. “I'm so thrilled you're going to join us, dear. I knew Jo would come around about you.”

“I don't . . . what?” I ask. “Join you?”

Grandma Jo comes in with a tray of tea things before they can say anything else. Even though it's the middle of the night, she's brought all the proper serving things: saucers, little silver sugar tongs, a separate plate of lemon slices. “Be quiet,” she snaps at Betty. “She doesn't know anything yet.” Everyone's silent as she pours tea into five matching china cups, and then she settles down in her chair and looks at me expectantly. “Go on, Annemarie, show them what you did.”

I feel like 90 percent of this conversation is happening over my head. “What I did with what?”

She rolls her eyes. “What you did with the
door
.”

“You want me to open the lock again?”

“Have you done something else to the door of which I'm not aware?”

“No, I . . . no.”

“Out you go, then.” She shoos me out of the room, shuts the door between us, and clicks the lock into place. At least I'm separated from the birds now. And the tea.

I can hear Cookie's excited murmurs on the other side as I do my trick with the library card. When the bolt pops open a few seconds later and I step back into the room, she and Betty break into riotous applause. Edna holds her hands above her head and wiggles her fingers, which seems to be her weird way of clapping.

“AJ, darling, that was amazing!” raves Cookie. “Such finesse! Where did you learn to do that?”

“The Internet?” I say.

“Amazing device.” Cookie shakes her head. “My granddaughter told me you can learn to build explosives on the Internet! Can you believe it? I must try it sometime.”

Grandma Jo is not to be distracted. “I've changed my mind,” she says to the other ladies. “I think we should use Annemarie. Let's put it to a vote. All in favor?”

Three gnarled hands shoot into the air. “Aye,” all the ladies chorus.

“Then it's decided.”

Cookie springs out of her chair and hugs me, her kimono sleeve flying up to hit me in the face. “I'm so glad to have you in our society,” she says, planting an enthusiastic kiss on my cheek. “It's going to be wonderful!”

I twist away. “Could someone
please
tell me what's going on here?” I say. “It's the middle of the night, and you guys are making me demonstrate my lock picking and talking about secret societies, and we're in a storage room full of stolen birds, and everyone's acting like this is completely normal, and none of this is even
remotely
normal!”