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Now I’m having that feeling again. It would be nice to stay in this house. It’s cozy and it has a nice kitchen. And it would be cool to be able to hang out with Carmel and Thomas, and A
The idea is so ridiculous that I snort.
“What?” Thomas asks.
“There’s nobody else to do what I do,” I reply. “Even if A
Thomas looks crestfallen. Carmel clears her throat.
“So, how do we get the knife back?” she asks.
“He’s obviously in no mood to just hand it over,” Thomas says sulkily.
“You know, my parents are friends with his parents,” Carmel suggests. “I could ask them to lean on them, you know, tell them that Will stole some big family heirloom. It wouldn’t be lying.”
“I don’t want to answer that many questions about why my big family heirloom is a deadly looking knife,” I say. “Besides, I don’t think parents are enough pressure this time. We’re going to have to steal it.”
“Break in and steal it?” Thomas asks. “You’re nuts.”
“Not that nuts.” Carmel shrugs. “I’ve got a key to his house. My parents are friends with his, remember? We’ve got keys to each other’s houses in case somebody gets locked out, or a key gets lost, or somebody needs to check in while the other is out of town.”
“How quaint,” I say, and she smirks.
“My parents have keys for half the neighborhood. Everyone is just dying to exchange with us. But Will’s family is the only one with a copy of ours.” She shrugs again. “Sometimes it pays to have a whole city up your butt. Mostly it’s just a
Of course Thomas and I have no idea what she means. We’ve grown up with weird witch parents. People wouldn’t exchange keys with us in a million years.
“So when do we do it?” Thomas asks.
“ASAP,” I say. “Sometime when no one’s there. During the day. Early, right after he leaves for school.”
“But he’ll probably have the knife on him,” Thomas says.
Carmel pulls her phone out. “I’ll start a rumor that he’s been carrying a knife around school and someone should report him. He’ll hear about it before morning and play it safe.”
“Unless he decides to just stay home,” Thomas says.
I give him a look. “Have you ever heard the term ‘Doubting Thomas’?”
“Doesn’t apply,” he replies smugly. “That refers to someone being skeptical. I’m not skeptical. I’m pessimistic.”
“Thomas,” Carmel croons. “I never knew you were such a brain.” Her fingers work feverishly at her phone keypad. She’s already sent three messages and gotten two back.
“Enough, you two,” I say. “We’re going in tomorrow morning. I guess we’ll miss first and second period, probably.”
“That’s okay,” Carmel says. “Those were the two periods we made it to today.”
* * *
Morning finds me and Thomas huddled down in his Tempo, parked around the corner from Will’s house. We’ve got our heads pulled low inside of our hooded sweatshirts and our eyes are shifty. We look exactly like you’d expect someone to look if they were minutes away from committing a major crime.
Will lives in one of the wealthier, more well-preserved areas of the city. Of course he does. His parents are friends with Carmel’s. That’s how I have a copy of his house keys jangling around in my front pocket. But unfortunately that means there might be lots of busybody wives or housekeepers peeking out of windows to see what we’re up to.
“Is it time?” Thomas asks. “What time is it?”
“It isn’t time,” I say, trying to sound calm, like I’ve done this a million times. Which I haven’t. “Carmel hasn’t called yet.”
He calms down for a second and takes a deep breath. Then he tenses and ducks behind the steering wheel.
“I think I saw a gardener!” he hisses.
I haul him back up by his hood. “Not likely. The gardens have all gone brown by now. Maybe it was someone raking leaves. Either way, we’re not sitting here in ski masks and gloves. We’re not doing anything wrong.”
“Not yet.”
“Well, don’t act suspicious.”
It’s just the two of us. Between the time of the plan hatching and the time of the plan execution, we decided that Carmel would be our plant. She’d go to school and make sure that Will was there. According to her, his parents leave for work long before he leaves for school.
Carmel objected, saying we were being sexist, that she should be there in case something went wrong, because at least she’d have a reasonable excuse to be dropping by. Thomas wouldn’t hear of it. He was trying to be protective, but watching him bite his lower lip and jump at every tiny movement, I think I might’ve been better off with Carmel. When my phone starts vibrating, he jerks like a startled cat.
“It’s Carmel,” I tell him as I pick up.
“He’s not here,” she says in a panicked whisper.
“What?”
“Neither of them are. Chase is gone too.”
“What?” I ask again, but I heard what she said. Thomas is tugging on my sleeve like an eager elementary schooler. “They didn’t go to school,” I snap.
Thunder Bay must be cursed. Nothing goes right in this stupid town. And now I’ve got Carmel worrying in my ear and Thomas conjecturing in my other ear and there are just too many damn people in this car for me to think straight.
“What do we do now?” they ask at the same time.
A
“Drive,” I growl, and hang up on Carmel. We’ve got to get to A
“Where?” Thomas asks, but he’s got the car started and is pulling around the block, toward the front of Will’s house.
“A
“You don’t think…” Thomas starts. “Maybe they just stayed home. Maybe they’re going to school and they’re just late.”
He keeps on talking but my eyes notice something else as we pass by Will’s house. There’s something wrong with the curtains in a room on the second floor. It isn’t just that they’re drawn when every other window is clear and open. It’s something about the way that they’re drawn. They seem … messy, somehow. Like they were thrown together.
“Stop,” I say. “Park the car.”
“What’s going on?” Thomas asks, but I keep my eyes trained on the second-floor window. He’s in there, I know he is, and all of a sudden I’m mad as hell. Enough of this bullshit. I’m going in there and I’m getting my knife back and Will Rosenberg had better get out of my way.
I’m out before the car even stops. Thomas scrambles behind me, fumbling with his seatbelt. It sounds like he half falls out of the driver’s side door, but his familiar clumsy footfalls catch up and he starts asking a million questions.
“What are we doing? What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to get my knife back,” I reply. We haul ass up the driveway and bound up the porch steps. I shove Thomas’s hand away when he goes to knock and use the key instead. I’m in a mood, and I don’t want to give Will any more warning than I have to. Let him try to keep it from me. Let him just try. But Thomas grabs my hands.
“What?” I snap.
“Use these at least,” he says, holding out a pair of gloves. I want to tell him that we aren’t cat-burglarizing anymore, but it’s easier to just put them on than to argue. He puts on a pair himself, and I twist the key in the lock and open the door.
The only thing good about going into the house is that the need for quiet is keeping Thomas from poking me with questions. My heart is hammering away inside my ribs, silent but insistent. My muscles are tense and twitchy. It isn’t at all like stalking a ghost. I don’t feel certain or strong. I feel like a five-year-old in a hedge maze after dark.