The Classy Crooks Club

by Alison Cherry

  Whatever they’re hiding, I want in. It has to be more interesting than cross-stitch.

  4

  The moment the clock chimes six, there’s a burst of rustling and creaking from the other room as the ladies push back their chairs and gather their things to go. I was hoping they’d stay for dinner so I wouldn’t have to be alone with Grandma Jo, but it looks like I’m out of luck.

  My grandmother comes in and watches me sew for a minute after they’re gone. I’m less than halfway through my name—the thread got so tangled during the E that I had to totally undo it and start again—but I think I have the hang of it now. Grandma Jo peers down at the little fabric circle, making that horrible squinty face I hate, and for a second I’m sure she’s going to tell me I have to start over. But instead she nods, and I almost fall over in a dead faint when she says, “You’re making good progress, Annemarie.”

  “Thanks,” I say. It’s not exactly the over-the-top praise Betty gave me, but at least it’s not a blatant insult.

  “Of course, your stitching could be neater here and here,” Grandma Jo says, pointing out a couple of mildly messy spots. She must catch the expression on my face, because she says, “Don’t roll your eyes at me, Annemarie. A lady strives for perfection. What’s the point of doing anything unless you do it as well as you possibly can?”

  “I’ll fix it tomorrow,” I grumble, and she nods, satisfied.

  “Go wash your hands,” she says. “Dinner will be served in ten minutes.”

  Dinner is really awkward at first. At home, our meals are super casual—my parents and I are always laughing and teasing each other and making terrible jokes, and Snickers usually runs around under our chairs with his tongue hanging out, hoping for falling scraps. Not all of our forks and spoons match, and sometimes we use paper towels as napkins. But here everything is so quiet I can hear the clock ticking on the mantel in the next room. There are a whole bunch of forks next to my plate, and when I randomly choose one to eat my salad, Grandma Jo acts like I’ve mooned the queen of England and points out the “correct” one. I really don’t see why it matters; all forks do the same thing. But I let her explain to me about salad forks and dinner forks and dessert forks, and it seems to make her happy. At least it’s better than uncomfortable silence.

  When Grandma Jo starts talking about how one of our future etiquette lessons will involve learning to set a proper table, I cut in and change the subject. “Hey, Grandma Jo, what do you like to do with your free time?” I figure if I catch her off guard, maybe she’ll slip and tell me what she and her friends are really up to.

  Grandma Jo pats the corners of her mouth with her napkin even though there’s nothing there. “I do this and that,” she says.

  “Do you and your friends play cards every day, or do you do other stuff sometimes? Do you like to watch movies? Or go to baseball games? Or . . . I don’t know, hike?”

  She looks at me like I’m insane. “I certainly do not hike,  Annemarie.”

  This is clearly going to get me nowhere. “What’s your animal rescue league working on right now?” I ask.

  My grandmother looks startled. “How do you know about the league?”

  “Stanley mentioned it,” I say, wondering if I’ve gotten my new friend into trouble. “He said you won some sort of award? That’s really cool.”

  Grandma Jo relaxes when she hears that, and she spends the whole main course (steak and mashed potatoes) and dessert (insanely delicious chocolate cake) telling me about how tons of people buy exotic snakes and lizards and birds on a whim, even though they don’t know how to care for them properly. I think about telling her I know how to kill an anaconda, but I decide against it.

  Debbie comes in to clear the table, and my grandmother gets up, leaning heavily on her cane. “That steak was quite acceptable,” she says. “I have things to attend to now, Annemarie. You are to stay out of the hallway at the back of the house so you don’t distract me.”

  On a normal summer night, I’d run straight over to Maddie’s after dinner for Xbox or bike riding or our complicated version of badminton. “Actually, I think I’ll take my skateboard out for a while and explore the neighborhood,” I tell Grandma Jo, hoping some exercise might distract me from how much I miss my best friend. “I’ll come back in before it gets dark.”

  Grandma Jo’s eyes bug out so much I think they might pop out of her head. “Absolutely not. I can’t have my granddaughter hurtling around the neighborhood on that infernal plank. What would everyone think?”

  They’d probably think, Hey, there goes a perfectly normal kid having a good time. “Come on, Grandma Jo, please?” I say. “Nobody cares anymore if skating is ladylike or whatever. Lots of girls do it.”

  She sniffs. “The fact that it’s popular doesn’t make it okay. Lots of girls put piercings in their faces and smoke cigarettes, too. Is that the kind of person you want to be, Annemarie?”

  “That’s not the same thing at all! And how do you expect me to entertain myself if I’m not allowed to watch TV or play video games or go outside?”

  “You might consider exercising your brain,” she says. “This house has a lovely library, and you’re welcome to take all the books you want up to your room. Your parents may let you run around like a savage, but while you’re under my roof, you will learn discipline and decorum.” With that, she turns and leaves the room.

  There’s a pressure building in my chest, and for a second I’m sure I’m going to explode. I’ve been trying so hard to be polite and cooperative all day, and I’ve done everything she asked, including sewing that stupid sampler. But none of it matters at all, and she’s still treating me like I’m a wad of chewed gum on the bottom of her shoe. What is her problem? Did she seriously call me a savage? Good behavior clearly isn’t getting me anywhere, and I suddenly want to break every single one of her rules as fast as I can.

  I push my chair back so it scrapes against the nice wood floor and sprint around the dining room table a couple times. Then I open and close the china cabinet with a loud bang and watch as all the plates rattle, but that doesn’t make me feel any better. I go into the living room and move all the stupid china figurines around on the shelf my grandmother called a “credenza”; I even arrange a wolf figurine over a knocked-over shepherd girl so it looks like it’s going to eat her face. I think about smashing a vase on the floor, but Grandma Jo would probably make me clean it up, and that’s seriously all I need right now.

  There’s nothing else to mess with in the living room, so I go outside and walk through some of the flower beds, then make sure to track dirt across the floor as I stomp upstairs to my room. I grab my cell phone out of my soccer bag and send Maddie a bunch of angry texts.

  i hate it here so so so SO much.

  my grandmother is totally evil.

  im so bored.

  save me.

  But she doesn’t even reply. She’s probably off riding her bike or playing Xbox without me. I slam my door and throw the phone at the bed, hoping it’ll make me feel better, but it doesn’t.

  I don’t know what Grandma Jo does for the next two and a half hours while I stew in my room, but at 9:25 on the dot, I hear her making her slow, stately way up the stairs—clomp-click-rustle, clomp-click-rustle. “Lights out in five minutes, Annemarie,” she calls from outside my door. “I trust I won’t have to remind you again.”

  “Whatever,” I grumble.

  “What was that?”

  “I said fine.”

  She’s quiet for a minute, and I wonder if she’s going to feed me some lie about how she’s glad I’m here. But instead she sighs and says, “Good night, Annemarie.”

  “Good night.”

  I’m obviously not going to sleep this early, but in case Grandma Jo checks under my door for a stripe of light, I turn off the lamp and read one of Ben’s old comic books by flashlight for a while.  After about an hour, I tiptoe down the hall and press my ear against the door of the master bedroom. I’m not sure I’ll be
able to tell whether my grandmother is asleep, but then a snore that sounds like a chain saw rips through the air, and I have to clap my hand over my mouth to keep from laughing. My grandmother is ridiculously unladylike when she’s sleeping. I like her so much better this way.

  I go back to my room, switch my light on, and wonder what to do with my newfound freedom. I consider taking my skateboard out after all, but it doesn’t seem smart to skate around in the dark in an unfamiliar neighborhood. Then again, that doesn’t prevent me from skating inside. Thinking about how much Grandma Jo would hate that makes me smile. Maybe I can even figure out where those weird noises from earlier were coming from, now that everything’s so quiet and still.

  I put on my sneakers, grab my board and my flashlight, and tiptoe downstairs, testing each step before I put my full weight down to make sure it doesn’t creak. I had thought Grandma Jo’s house was creepy during the day, but it is way creepier in the dark. As I tiptoe across the foyer, I have this eerie feeling that someone is watching me, even though Stanley and Debbie are long gone by now. It’s probably just all the portraits on the walls that are making me uneasy. About half of them are of people, but the other half are of birds, like the one in my bedroom. It figures that my grandmother would love the one animal I can’t stand. I lower my flashlight and try to keep my eyes on the cold, smooth marble floor so I won’t feel their beady little painted eyes staring at me.

  There’s a small creaking noise to my right, and I whip the flashlight in that direction, half expecting to see my grandmother lurking in the shadows, her eyes glowing yellow like a raccoon’s. But there’s nothing there, only the long, empty hallway Grandma Jo told me was off-limits.

  Perfect.

  I switch on the light in my grandmother’s study and leave the door open enough that I can see where I’m going. Then I hop onto my board, and having it under my feet makes me feel more like myself. The tension drains out of my shoulders as I glide up and down, humming softly to myself. Skating on a marble floor isn’t the same as skating on the sidewalk—there are no gritty bits to help me get traction—but I get used to it pretty quickly. It becomes a problem only when I try to do an ollie and the board shoots out from under me and hits the door to the storage room with an earth-shattering bang.

  I’m positive Grandma Jo is going to appear any second wearing a long black nightgown and toting a shotgun, but I don’t hear any footsteps, just a slow, quiet creaking sound. I’ve probably knocked the storage room door ajar. I press myself into the shadows and hold very still until I’m sure nobody’s coming, and then I tiptoe toward the room to close the door back up.

  But it’s solidly shut. When I test the knob, I find that it’s locked.

  Okay. That’s kind of weird. My heart’s beating quickly now, but there are a bunch of doors in this hallway, and any one of them could’ve creaked. Maybe it was the house settling, like my dad said earlier. But now I’ve freaked myself out, and sneaking around in the dark is starting to seem more terrifying than fun. I decide to steal another piece of cake from the kitchen, take it back upstairs, and call it a night. Maybe I’ll eat it in my bed. Grandma Jo would hate that.

  I’m reaching for my board when I hear a girl scream.

  I’ve heard lots of screams in my life. There’s the happy kind; the frustrated “We lost the game by one point” kind; the creeped-out “There’s a spider on my arm” kind. But this isn’t any of those.  This is the “There’s a stranger hiding behind the shower curtain with an ax” kind. It sounds super close, like whoever’s screaming is in this hallway. I grab the skateboard, hold it up like a weapon, and whip around. But there’s nobody here but me.

  Another scream echoes through the house, long and loud and terrified, and this time it sounds like it’s coming from inside the storage room. This must be what I was hearing earlier. I can’t believe my grandmother’s sleeping through this. Should I wake her up or investigate the situation myself?

  I still haven’t made up my mind when I hear a totally normal, conversational woman’s voice say, “Knock it off, Tommy.” As I’m trying to make sense of this, I hear that creaking door sound again, followed by a third voice shrieking, “Let me out! Let me out!”

  Oh wow, there are lots of people in there. My grandmother has multiple people locked inside her storage room. No wonder this hallway is off-limits. If this is the secret Grandma Jo told her friends I couldn’t keep, she’s 100 percent right. I’m going to do whatever I have to do to set them free.

  Even though my heart is pounding so hard I can feel it in my fingertips, I reach out and knock softly on the door. There’s no answer, so I knock again, louder this time. “Hello?” I call. “I’m here to help you. Can you open the door?”

  I hear a rustle. “Knock it off, Tommy,” a voice says again.

  “It’s not Tommy,” I tell them. “My name is AJ. Tommy’s not going to hurt you anymore.” I have no idea who Tommy is, but it seems like the right thing to say.

  “Let me introduce you to my trusty knife,” a raspy voice says, and a thrill of terror races up my spine. I jerk away from the door and stumble back a few steps. Is there a guard inside the room, watching my grandmother’s prisoners to make sure they don’t escape? Or was that one of the hostages talking? I know people in prison sometimes make knives out of things like toothbrushes if they’re desperate to protect themselves. What has Grandma Jo been doing to these people?

  “Please put your knife away,” I say, trying to sound calm. “I’m unarmed. I’m just a kid. Can you tell me what’s going on? Are you tied up? How many of you are there? Should I call the police?”

  For a few seconds there’s no answer. Then I hear the desperate woman’s voice again. “Let me out, let me out!”

  I wonder if I should call the cops right now and let them deal with this situation, but I doubt they’ll take me seriously if I don’t have any proof. “Okay,” I say. “You don’t have to tell me anything. I know you’re scared. I’m going to get my phone and something to open the door, and then I’ll come right back and get you out of there.”

  I fly upstairs, careful to avoid the creaky spots I discovered earlier, and grab my phone off the table next to my bed. Then I dig through my backpack until I find my library card—Maddie and I found an online video about how to open a locked door with one. I’ve only managed to do it once before, on her upstairs bathroom door (to the great annoyance of her oldest sister, Lindsay, who was getting out of the shower). Let’s hope I can do it again, now that it really matters.

  Back in the forbidden hallway, I knock gently on the door again. “I’m here,” I say. “I’m going to try to open the door now, okay? Please stand back.” Nobody argues with me, so I figure I’m welcome.

  Just like in the video, I slip the library card between the doorjamb and the door, then slide it down so it’s resting right on top of the bolt. Then—this is the tricky part—I tilt the edge of it toward the doorknob and jiggle it. It takes a little while, and my sweaty hands aren’t helping, but I finally feel the card slide in a little farther. When I force it back the opposite way, the bolt pops open. I turn the knob and push against the door, and it gives.

  I’m in.

  I leave the door mostly closed for a second so I can grab my flashlight and skateboard from the floor; if someone in there really does have a knife, I don’t want to face him without a weapon of my own. Then I call, “I’m coming in, okay? Please don’t attack. I am on your side.”

  I take a deep breath, brace myself, and push the door open.

  The first thing that hits me is the weird smell—sort of like wet cardboard and sawdust and rotting fruit. I feel around for a light switch, but I can’t find it, so I do a quick sweep of the room with my flashlight to see what I’m dealing with. I’m expecting a cage full of terrified prisoners or maybe some ankle shackles like they used to have in medieval dungeons, but the only thing my light hits is a bunch of boxes, some stacks of newspapers, and a half-upholstered armchair. There are also some tall wood
en stands with branches sticking out in all directions. Are those torture devices? And where are all the people?

  “Hello?” I call quietly. “Can you say something so I know where you are? Don’t be afraid.”

  And then a voice very, very close to my head says, “Ahoy, matey! Walk the plank!”

  I gasp and flinch, whacking my elbow against the wall and dropping my flashlight, which winks out. I’m so startled by the nearness of the voice that it takes me a minute to register what it said. Did he just tell me to walk the plank? Was that the same voice that was talking about the knife? Is there more than one guard in here?

  “Hang on,” I say. My voice is trembling, but I try to keep it away from total hysteria. “Let me find the light switch, okay? Then we can talk this out.”

  “Walk the plank! Walk the plank!” the voice screeches again, followed by another irritated “Knock it off, Tommy,” and a shrill, earsplitting scream.

  I fumble desperately along the wall next to the doorframe with both hands, so scared and confused now that I feel like screaming myself. Finally my fingers land on a switch, hidden underneath some sort of wall hanging, and the room explodes into light. I blink quickly to help my eyes adjust to the brightness, and wheel around.

  And then I blink a bunch more times, because what’s in front of me makes absolutely no sense.

  Scattered around the room, perched on the wooden stands and the backs of chairs, are about fifteen parrots. The light and the screaming must’ve disturbed them, because they’re all rustling around, shaking out their feathers and looking at me with their glassy, unblinking eyes. They’re all different colors—red and green and blue and gray and white—and they’d be superpretty if they were in a picture. But close up, they all have razor-sharp beaks and scaly dinosaur feet with claws that could easily gouge out my eyes. None of them are in cages. I stumble back until I’m pressed flat against the wall, and knowing there aren’t any birds behind me makes me feel a little better, but not a lot. I hold my skateboard up in front of me so I can swat them away if they try to fly at my face.