Lola Benko, Treasure Hunter

by Beth McMullen

  “Paul was good at this stuff,” Jin says thoughtfully. “But you might be better.”

  My cheeks flush. “Thanks. But we have a problem. Power. We need more. Some kind of bigger, better battery.”

  Jin groans. “Yes! Why didn’t I think of that?” He digs frantically through a cabinet, ignoring his ice cream. To be polite, I eat it before it melts.

  Finally, he emerges, holding up something that looks like an octopus ate an old car battery. Dropping it on the table with a thud, Jin grins, like he knows a secret. “My mom was trying to boost the power for Bart’s RC Roadster. But this thing melted the whole car!” He seems pleased by the catastrophic failure that befell his little brother’s beloved roadster. “It was totally overpowered. But it might work for the pulse.”

  “We can modify it,” I say.

  We set to work, not talking much. When we’re done, the pulse device is about the length of a shoebox and looks like a plastic rolling pin on life support propped up against the battery octopus. Wires poke out everywhere. Inside the rolling pin is a small glowing crystal, made of glass, given to Jin’s mother by his father on some anniversary and subsequently repurposed by Jin. I attach the last wires, purple and yellow.

  “It’s ugly.” Jin frowns.

  “Function over form,” I say.

  “Isn’t that what they said about Frankenstein’s monster? Wait a sec.” He pulls open a drawer in one of the cabinets and produces a set of googly eyes and a handful of turquoise pipe cleaners. He sticks the eyes onto Frank 1.0’s plastic exoskeleton and, after fashioning rabbit ears from the pipe cleaners, adds those, too. Frank now resembles a demented bunny. Is this an improvement? Jin seems to think so. “Cool.”

  “Let’s test him.”

  Jin hands me a pair of safety glasses. “Better put these on. No telling what’s going to happen.” My heart thumps against my ribs. I connected the wires in the right sequence, didn’t I? I double-checked? Well, it’s too late now. Jin flips the switch to activate our STEM fair project.

  What happens next is very exciting and I don’t mean in a good way. The rolling pin begins to vibrate faster and faster. The crystal glows red-hot, melting the googly eyes while the surrounding plastic bubbles up. Sparks fly off the battery as the wires attached to the leads sizzle and spit. The bunny ears instantly fry.

  “Turn it off!” I yell. Jin flails at the switch but leaps back. It’s scorching. The melting plastic of the rolling pin begins to expand, like a balloon. “It’s gonna blow!” The wires erupt into tiny fireworks. Using my cast, I shove the device away from us and grab a fire extinguisher from the corner of the lab. The entire canister is covered with instructions for use, but I don’t have time for that. Our pulse device is set to explode and we’re going to need more than safety glasses to survive unscathed. I detach the nozzle, aim, and press all the levers and buttons. A spray of white foam gushes forth and smothers the device. It crackles and pops. It’s only then I realize Jin is hiding behind me with his eyes closed.

  “Is it over?” he whispers.

  “Yes,” I say. “Too much power.”

  Footsteps in the yard draw our attention. “My dad!” We grab a big metal bin and shovel the smoldering remains of the project inside, jamming on the lid. But there’s still smoke.

  “Your cast!” I glance down to see tendrils of smoke rising from my singed cast, dark with soot. Jin dumps the rest of his fake soda over it and it smolders like doused firewood. I tuck it behind my back just as Marco strides through the door. He stops abruptly.

  “It smells funny in here.” His forehead crinkles with concern. With my foot, I edge the fire extinguisher out of sight.

  “We spilled some stuff,” I say quickly. “It’s mostly cleaned up now.”

  “Well, you know what they say,” Marco replies with a wink. “Fail often, fail fast. Just don’t burn down the house.” He laughs as he scoops up our empty ice cream bowls. I grin, hoping he doesn’t notice the puff of smoke rising behind my back. When Marco finally leaves, we burst out laughing, hee-hawing like a couple of insane donkeys.

  “It’s still smoking,” Jin says, tears streaming down his cheeks. “And your cast! It’s falling apart!”

  “Is ‘Fail often, fail fast, don’t burn down the house’ something your dad always says?” I ask.

  Jin can barely answer, doubled over with laughter. “It is! Oh man, right now I am so happy that you screwed up your robbery and got banished to Redwood. We make a great team.”

  Despite my possibly singed eyebrows, I feel lighter somehow. I know we are not real friends, but my smile sure doesn’t.

  CHAPTER 11 MY RIGHT-HAND MAN

  GREAT-AUNT IRMA MISTAKENLY ASSUMES I’VE made a friend and is positively thrilled. “I am positively thrilled,” she says when I get home. “But why do you smell like burnt plastic? And what happened to your cast?”

  Explaining that Frank 1.0 blew up seems a bad way to keep a low profile, so I concoct a story about Jin and me building a baking soda volcano and the magma getting all over my cast. Parts of my story are true, anyway.

  “I should have paid more attention to what we were doing,” I say. “And not ruined my cast.”

  But Irma doesn’t care about the cast. She’s so happy about the new friend part that I don’t have the heart to tell her it’s more of a business arrangement. I help Jin. Jin helps me. Eventually, I slink away to my room under the guise of having tons of homework. From my backpack, I pull out the still-smoldering remains of Frank 1.0 and plunk him down on my desk. His remaining bunny ear turns to cinder in my hands. I have work to do to make Frank 2.0 a reality. He’ll need a sleeker design and a more reliable battery, and I’ll have to get control of the wiring. No big deal. I begin to sketch out my initial ideas on a piece of notebook paper. I’m so lost in planning that when my phone squawks for attention, I jump. I actually gave Jin my number because that seemed like a normal thing to do, so I have no business being surprised he’s using it.

  Jin: You need to set up EmoJabber! It’s so much more fun than regular text! I have a handle for you and everything. What do you think? Do you like it?

  I stare at the emojis. The book part is okay, I guess, although I’m a little offended by the stick of dynamite.

  Jin: Well?

  Me: It’s great. Shouldn’t Jin be elbow-deep in his math set or something? Shouldn’t I be too?

  Jin: So how do we get into this storage locker? And is it definitely easier than the albino penguin?

  Seriously. Did I have to tell him about the penguin?

  Me: Storage locker definitely easier than penguin. But I haven’t figured out how to get in yet.

  Jin: Take two minutes and brainstorm. Report back.

  Who is this kid? I go back to tinkering with Frank but don’t make much progress before Jin texts me again.

  Jin: My ideas aren’t great, but I have one.

  Me: Can you stop saying that?

  Jin: What?

  Me: About your ideas being bad. How do you know?

  Jin: Believe me. I know. Paul told me all the time.

  I have a problem with this Paul person and I don’t even know him. Aren’t best friends supposed to make you feel good about yourself? Paul sure wasn’t doing much for Jin’s confidence.

  Me: Who cares what Paul thinks? He’s not here.

  There’s a pause during which I can’t tell if I have offended Jin or not.

  Jin: Ok. Fine. Here’s what we do. Cut through the fence. Go in. Search the storage unit. What do you think? I’ll be your right-hand man. Literally. LOL

  Me: I need a left hand.

  Jin: Whatever. What do you think of my plan?

  It’s not a bad plan exactly. And I don’t have an alternative to offer up.

  Jin: Well??!?!??!

  Me: Great plan.

  Jin: I can’t tell if you’re kidding or not.

  Neither can I.

  * * *

  The next morning in the cafeteria, over Redwood pancakes, which are as g
ood as advertised, Jin attempts to convince me that we are not actually breaking into the storage locker.

  “The way I see it,” he explains, tucking into his second helping, “your legal guardian owns the storage unit. And you can’t get arrested for breaking into your own house.”

  “What?” I’m too busy swooning over breakfast to really pay attention.

  “Irma. She’s like family,” he repeats.

  “She is family,” I point out. “She’s my father’s aunt.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “But remember, Irma hasn’t paid the bills in four months, so it’s possible Bay Area Mini Storage actually owns everything inside the locker. Like, repossession.” In which case, we will be stealing. But Jin waves me off. He’s completely rationalized this entire venture. He even thinks it will be fun. Like doing a puzzle or playing Uno. I don’t have time to dissuade him of this notion because Hannah plunks her tray down on the table, orange juice sloshing out of the glass and all over everything.

  “What are you talking about?” Hannah asks. She dumps a liter of syrup on her pancakes. It cascades down the sides like lava from an active volcano. “Who’s breaking in where?”

  Jin gags on his sausage patty. “Huh?” Hannah was on the other side of the room when Jin mentioned breaking and entering. There is no way she overheard us unless she has superpowers. Which is something I do not want to consider.

  “Who is breaking and entering?” she says again, enunciating each word, to be sure we get it.

  “No one,” Jin says. But his lopsided grin is all wrong and Hannah focuses on him with laserlike intensity. Now we have problems.

  “I heard you say breaking and entering,” she says curtly. “And you are sitting with a known criminal.”

  Jin turns to me. “Hannah has no filter,” he explains sweetly. “Whatever comes into her brain comes out her mouth. It’s tragic.”

  “Don’t make me go tell the Jelly,” she says.

  “But we haven’t done anything!” Jin protests.

  “It’s only a matter of time,” she replies. “Confess or the Jelly.”

  Neither of those are good choices. It’s a moment for the time-honored tactic of misdirection. Look this way while I do something that way that I don’t want you to see. “Do you guys have any idea how scary it is to fall out a second-story window?” I blurt, holding up my arm and twirling it around. Hannah spins in her chair, glancing at the disintegrating green cast. Works every time.

  “Rumor has it that you almost made a clean getaway,” she says. “But took a header into a fountain and got caught.”

  While fountains are more glamorous than rosemary hedges, this is not exactly the turn in conversation I was hoping for. All eyes on me, expectant. Are they waiting on the real story? Uh-oh. “The judge asked me not to disclose the details.”

  “Like a gag order?” Hannah presses. Why won’t she just eat her pancakes and leave me alone? “Are you a spy? A government agent? CIA? NSA? Undercover FBI?”

  “What? No!”

  “Oh look!” Jin leaps to his feet, tapping his watch. “We’re supposed to see Mr. Miller before class, Lola. Remember? Come on!” His misdirection is way better than mine.

  “But you don’t have Mr. Miller this year.” Hannah narrows her gaze, suspicious.

  “Minor details!” Before I can even finish my food, Jin drags me away from the table and out of the cafeteria. But I’m fully aware of Hannah’s eyes boring into my retreating back. When we are safely behind the library, Jin stops and wipes his sweaty forehead on his sleeve.

  “That was close.” We backtrack around the library and head for our lockers, keeping an eye out in case we have to dodge Hannah. “But let’s talk about the plan for tonight. I’ve added some details. After we cut the fence, we use Frank to blast our way into the unit. We can blow the door right off the place! What do you think?”

  I’m glad he didn’t mention Paul and being bad at ideas. That feels like progress. However, the plan stinks. “No. And… just no.”

  “Well, I’m just brainstorming here,” Jin says defensively, a flash of hurt visible in his dark eyes.

  The bell rings for class, giving me a jolt. I hoist my math text into my backpack and dig through the locker debris for a decent pencil with a point. Stuff starts falling out. How can my locker be such a mess in less than a week? I cram everything in and shoulder it closed. It takes a few tries, which is why I don’t really notice Hannah, mere feet away, jotting something down in her notebook and grinning wildly.

  CHAPTER 12 BREAK-IN BEFORE BREAKFAST

  AFTER SCHOOL EMILY PICKS ME up to take me to the doctor to get a new cast. She has been fully briefed on my volcano mishap. But while Irma did not ask a lot of follow-up questions, Emily’s job is to be suspicious of my behavior.

  “Just how did you ruin the cast?” she asks, clutching the steering wheel so tightly I can see her knuckle bones. “I’d like you to walk me through it, step by step.”

  I explain exactly what would have happened had we been building a baking soda volcano, taking care to emphasize how this was for school and would not have happened if I weren’t trying to be a good student.

  “Isn’t that what you want?” I ask. “The STEM fair is important and I want to be a part of it. I have a partner and everything.”

  “You’re making friends?” Emily asks tentatively, as if afraid of the answer.

  “Yes.” No reason she needs to know the specifics of my arrangement with Jin. Why upset her?

  “So this damaged cast was really an accident?”

  “I was at Jin’s house,” I point out. “Look, I understand this is my last chance to go straight and I take that very seriously.”

  Emily throws me a sideways glance. I may have laid it on a bit too thick with the “last chance” part. But Emily relaxes her grip on the wheel. She stretches her neck side to side, releasing the buildup of tension. She believes me. I have averted plunging through the very thin ice. For now.

  * * *

  That night, admiring my brand-new shocking pink cast, I form a real plan with Jin. We do this entirely on EmoJabber, which means I don’t actually know what the plan is. I think we are supposed to show up at the bus stop midway between our houses at five o’clock in the morning; however, I might have agreed to ride a dragon to the outer rim for all I know.

  But right on time the next morning, Jin runs up to the bus stop like his hair is on fire, eyes blazing. “It was all going so well,” he says, breathless, “until Bart almost caught me! Do you know what my life would be like if Bart had a secret on me?” I’ve only met Bart once, but I imagine the answer to this question is completely intolerable. “Anyway, I want to go on record as saying I’m super excited and sick to my stomach at the same time. Can that even happen?”

  Yes. I know this from experience. The bus glides into the stop, rumbling and backfiring, and the driver doesn’t even raise an eyebrow when we board. It is very easy to be invisible in a city. We take a seat toward the front, lugging enormous backpacks stuffed with uniforms and schoolwork for later. It is not ideal for a break-in, but timing is important here. We cannot be late for first period.

  Bay Area Mini Storage is nestled among a series of waterfront warehouses. No one lives in this neighborhood. A drift of morning fog hangs low, upping the creepiness factor. Jin looks queasy, gulping at the chilly air.

  “Relax,” I urge. “If we get caught, just let me do the talking.”

  “Absolutely,” Jin says quickly. “Good idea.”

  I pick a spot along the fence far from the small security-guard shed near the entrance and between two surveillance cameras. Here’s what I’ve learned about surveillance cameras in my short life of crime—they are only as good as the people watching them, and most of the time, those people are asleep.

  Squatting by the fence, I pull a pair of wire cutters from my backpack. Jin yelps at the sight of them. “Be quiet,” I hiss.

  “Sorry,” he mumbles. “Just, you kn
ow, we’re really doing this. Are you afraid of anything, Lola?”

  “Some stuff.”

  “You don’t seem like you are.”

  Honestly? Rats. I really don’t like them. “How about you close your eyes? And I will tell you when it’s over.”

  “Good idea.” Jin squeezes his eyes shut, which makes him a poor candidate for lookout, although there is not much to see in the foggy darkness. He keeps his eyes shut even as he helps me awkwardly squeeze the wire cutters. This cast is a huge drag.

  Finally, we manage to cut a square in the fence big enough for us to wiggle through. It’s remarkable no one loses a finger. I elbow Jin to open his eyes and beckon him to follow me through the hole. On the other side, we scurry to the first building for cover and wait breathlessly to see if sirens begin to blare. My heart flutters like a panicky chicken in my chest. Jin, huddled behind me, shakes.

  But nothing happens. No one is paying attention. How great is that? We huddle against unit number twenty-seven, meaning seventeen should be on the other side.

  “Ready?” I whisper. Jin nods silently. I’ve never heard him so quiet. I hope he hasn’t lost the capacity for speech due to abject fear. I’d feel bad about that. Quickly, we hustle around to the other side of the building and there is unit number seventeen. The garage-style door is secured with a big shiny padlock. It looks brand-new, like someone just recently put it on the door. I pull on it just to make sure it’s not somehow magically unlocked. Nope.

  I couldn’t find a crowbar in Irma’s backyard toolshed and, besides, it would definitely look suspicious hanging out of my backpack. Instead, I pull out a large flathead screwdriver. Standing before that heavy lock, I have my doubts that even with three good hands we can bust it open.