by Liz Czukas
She shakes her head. “There was no one out there when I put my money in the box. Then I came here to punch in.”
“Anyone else?” I try the others. The only responses are negative.
“So, nobody saw anything,” Gabe says in a flat voice. “Great. We’ve got nothing.”
“We just need to think this through!” I exclaim. “We’ll figure it out.”
“No, we won’t. Whoever did it is going to lie about it anyway. Maybe we should just let the cops come,” Gabe says.
“Do you really think he’s going to call the police?” Micah asks.
“Why would he lie?” Zaina asks.
“What’s he going to say?” Sammi says. “‘I think someone stole some money, but I don’t know how much’?”
“But if he actually saw people putting money in on the security tapes . . .” Tyson taps his chin.
“The tapes only keep for forty-eight hours,” she reminds him. “So, he saw a few people put money in the box. There’s money in the box. Where’s the crime?”
“My money is missing,” Zaina reminds us. “My mother’s, I mean. I put more than one twenty-dollar bill in there.”
Sammi deflates. “Oh, yeah.”
“It doesn’t really matter if there was an actual crime. If he calls the police, they’ll come,” I say. “I have an aunt who calls the cops all the time. There’s never been an actual crime when they got to her house.”
Gabe laughs. “Seriously? Why does she call?”
“She always thinks people are trying to break into her house.” I shrug. “Apparently there are a lot of unsavory characters out there interested in collectible German figurines.”
“What do they do when they get there?”
“Not much. Look around for signs of a break-in. There’s never been anything missing. Mostly they just tell her to call the nonemergency number unless she thinks she’s in danger.” I realize they’re all staring at me, and my cheeks get hot again. “I guess she’s kind of weird.”
“I love it,” Sammi says.
“So, okay, he calls the cops and they come look at the box,” Gabe says. “The lock isn’t broken and there’s money inside. We all go home, right?”
“They could fingerprint us,” I say.
“You think?” Tyson asks.
“Maybe.”
“They can’t do that,” Sammi says. “Not if we’re not under arrest.”
“I think they can if we volunteer to have it done,” Micah says. “I’m not up on the law.”
“Fine. We get fingerprinted, and we get the hell out of here,” Gabe says. “Let Solomon go ahead and call. I want to get this over with.”
“No,” Sammi says. “I don’t want to get fingerprinted.”
“Why?” Gabe says. “I don’t care if they fingerprint me. I’ve got nothing to hide.”
“Well, I care,” Sammi snaps. “I don’t want the Five-Oh to have my prints on file.”
Gabe cocks an eyebrow. “Planning a life of crime we don’t know about, Samantha?”
“Don’t call me that, asshole.” She flicks a paper clip at him.
“Now, now.” He shakes his head sadly. “There’s no need to resort to violence.”
“Fine.” She sticks her middle finger up at him and he grins.
“Sticks and stones may break my bones,” he says in a high, squeaky voice. I’m pretty sure they’re making up for whatever went down before Sammi cut herself, but it’s definitely the weirdest apology I’ve ever seen.
Suddenly my watch starts chiming again and I slap my hand over it reflexively. Darn. I must have snoozed it before instead of shutting it off.
“What’s wrong with your watch?” Micah asks.
“Nothing. It just alarms sometimes.” Or, you know, every time I’m supposed to check my blood sugar.
“I can turn that off for you. I’m good with technical stuff.” Micah holds his hand out to take it from me.
“It’s fine.” My ears are hot again, but this is the old standby heat. It’ll go away if I can get them to talk about something else.
“Did anyone see anything weird today?” I ask.
Gabe barks out a humorless laugh. “You mean apart from Coupon Lady and Melon Sniffer?”
“The chick in the bathroom?” Sammi looks at me with a smirk.
“The woman with all the rice,” Zaina adds.
“What woman?” Micah asks Zaina.
“Today I had a customer with twelve bags of rice and one two-liter of Dr Pepper,” she says.
“Nice.” Gabe’s face lights up with interest. “All right, who can beat it?” He reaches in his pocket and comes out with some change. “I got . . . eighty-three cents for the weirdest purchase today.” He slams his hand down on the table, making it shiver and quiver with fear. Poor table is not up to this kind of abuse. The coins stay in a small, linty pile when Gabe lifts his hand.
No one speaks up.
“Anyone? Come on. Who can beat twelve bags of rice and Dr Pepper? There’s money on the line here, people!”
“All right, I got one,” I say. “Diapers, a bottle of gin, cat litter, and three dozen eggs.”
“Not bad, not bad . . .” Gabe nods slowly. “Who else?”
“Umm . . .” Micah opens his mouth, but then shakes his head.
“What?” Gabe asks.
“No. Never mind.”
“What is it?” I ask.
“I don’t know. I feel like I’m making fun of people if I play.”
“You are,” Sammi says, the “so what?” implied.
“But they don’t know it,” Gabe reasons. “Who are you hurting?”
“And we’re not saying they’re bad people,” I say. “It’s just that sometimes people buy weird combinations of things.”
“I guess so.”
Gabe is watching Micah. “You got something, don’t you?”
“Maybe.”
“Come on. Tell us,” he urges.
“Are you sure?”
“Tell us,” Gabe repeats in a low voice.
“I was bagging on Agnes’s lane”—Micah’s voice rises at the end like a question—“and there was a customer”—another questioning tone—“and he bought chicken nuggets, whipped cream, a five-pound bag of onions, and two packs of ex-lax.”
“Winner!” Gabe declares, pushing the money across the table to Micah. Micah doesn’t touch it, but he smiles a little.
“You guys, this isn’t helping,” I say. “We’re supposed to be figuring out who stole the money.”
“Chloe, give it a rest,” Gabe says. “Nobody saw anything, and no one here is going to admit it, even if they took it. I say we wait for the cops, get fingerprinted, and get out of here.”
“My fingerprints will be on the box,” Zaina says. “I put money in every time I work.”
“What’s the deal with that anyway?” Gabe asks.
“My mother gives it to me.”
“But isn’t your family . . . ?” I start to ask, but immediately wish I could suck the words back in. My busted filter is at it again.
Zaina fixes her eyes on me until my cheeks are on fire. Even my ears ache from the rush of blood. I’m probably the same color as my hair at this point.
“Zaina’s Muslim, Chloe.” Micah gives the answer.
“That’s right,” Zaina confirms. “Do you suppose that makes me less charitable than you?” The calm tone and the formal speech are dead giveaways that she’s angry; I’m sure of it.
“No, I . . .” I look down at my lap, wanting to die. Oh God, oh God, now everyone is going to think I’m racist. Oh God.
“She didn’t mean anything by it,” Tyson says.
“Didn’t she?” Zaina shifts her gaze to Tyson. “Are you sure?” This might be the most I’ve ever heard her speak, and it is all directed at me, but not in a good way.
“I—” My voice breaks when I try to speak up. “I just meant that it’s a collection for Christmas dinner. . . .”
“And?” Zaina prom
pts.
“Nothing. I’m sorry.” My eyes sting and my nose is burning deep inside. T minus ten seconds to tears! my brain warns with sirens and blaring horns.
Tyson pats me on the shoulder.
“My family believes in taking care of the people of Islam and those of other faiths,” Zaina says slowly.
“Infidels,” Micah pipes up in his usual enthusiastic tone.
I gasp. I can’t help it.
“Nice, Micah.” Gabe groans.
“What? That’s the right word.”
Zaina narrows her eyes at him. “Why do you know so much about my religion?”
Micah blinks. “I know a lot about a lot of religions.”
“Why?”
“I know a lot about a lot of things,” he says.
Sammi bangs on the table, making Micah’s eighty-three cents in prize money jump. “All right, all right. We’re all so much more culturally sensitive now, blah blah blah. Can we please figure out who stole the frickin’ money so I can get out of this place sometime before midnight?”
As a group, we look at the clock mounted on the wall above the printer. It reads two forty-five p.m.
“I’m supposed to go home in fifteen minutes . . . ,” I say softly. My mom is going to kill me if I’m late.
“Me too,” Gabe agrees.
“We all are,” Sammi says.
“He’s not going to keep us after the store is closed,” Zaina says. “Is he?”
“No way.” Sammi gets up and crosses to the Manager’s Office. She knocks on the door and doesn’t wait before opening it. “Mr. Solomon, none of us did it. How long do you expect us to sit here?”
I can’t see inside the office from this angle, but I can see when Sammi has to jog backward as Solomon strides out to speak to us.
“The police are on their way. I’m asking that you remain here until they arrive.”
“Sir, the store is going to close in fifteen minutes,” Micah says. “Are you asking us to stay after closing?”
“My mom will freak out if I’m late,” I say.
“Isn’t it, like, kidnapping if you keep us here against our will?” Gabe asks with an impressive look of innocence.
For the first time, Solomon looks alarmed. Not much, but I can see he hasn’t thought this through. He runs his tie between two fingers and straightens the already-straight knot. “You may call your families. Tell them you’ve been asked to stay late. I can speak to them if you wish.”
“Are you going to tell them we’ve been accused of stealing?” Micah asks.
“Now, now. No one’s saying you did it—”
“That’s exactly what you said,” Sammi interrupts.
He gives her a hard look. “I’m simply asking you to stay while we wait for the police. It should be a simple matter to eliminate your fingerprints. The more cooperative you are, the faster this will go. If any of you need to use the office phone to call home, you may do so.”
As if on cue, we all pull cell phones from various pockets. Gabe and Sammi start thumb-typing, going with the safe texting route. So much easier to get away with stuff when you can’t hear your mother’s reaction. I consider it myself, but my mom doesn’t usually carry her cell around with her. The text could sit unread for hours. She’ll have already called the police to report me missing by then.
Nope, I have to do this old-school.
I can practically hear a funeral dirge as I head to a quiet corner to make the call.
Chapter 12
TOP TEN WORST MOM PHRASES
10. “Young lady . . .”
9. Anything that includes your middle name
8. “I thought you were dead! Or worse!”
7. “I worry about you!”
6. “You know, when I was your age . . .”
5. “You’re not going out like that, are you?”
4. “Look me in the eyes and tell me that again.”
3. “If all your friends jumped off a cliff, would you?”
2. “I’m not mad. I’m just disappointed.”
1. “Do what you think is right. I’m sure you’ll make the right choice.”
The phone call goes about as well as I expected. There’s a lot of sighing and audible fretting. She’s not happy. That’s putting it mildly. But since it’s work-related, she can’t complain. Especially once I offer to put Mr. Solomon on the phone. I’m really glad she doesn’t take me up on that, though. I could just picture him telling her exactly why I’m being kept late. Alleged theft would not sit well with the mom.
As the minute hand passes the twelve, other employees start coming in to grab their coats and punch out. It takes a while, as people finish side jobs and the last straggling customers are finally seen out of the store. Everyone stares at us.
I can’t blame them. If I came into the Break Room and found six people sitting around a table at closing time, I’d wonder what was going on, too.
The first time someone asks what we’re doing, Sammi answers honestly, “Waiting for the police. Apparently we’re now a ring of criminal masterminds.”
The asker, who is a stocker named Dave, laughs like he’s not sure if she’s joking.
The second time, Tyson refers them to Mr. Solomon for an explanation.
The third time, Mr. Solomon has apparently had enough, because he tells us all to go into the Manager’s Office and wait for the rest of the employees to go home. He doesn’t lock us in, but it’s pretty clear we’re not supposed to leave. Particularly since he stations himself outside the door wishing everyone happy holidays and generally sounding like the fakest festive holiday kind of guy in three counties.
“This is such bullshit,” Sammi says, sliding her back down the wall to sit between a filing cabinet and a garbage can.
“I feel like I’m in detention,” Gabe says.
“More like jail,” I say. “At least in detention there are enough chairs for everyone.” There are only two chairs in here—the one behind the desk, which Gabe took, and the hard plastic chair. Zaina’s sitting there. I’ve managed to hitch one hip onto the edge of a short filing cabinet. Micah and Tyson are still standing, though they’ve each found a spot to lean on the wall. It’s crowded to the point of making me feel a little claustrophobic. My thermal shirt is way too warm with six bodies crammed into this small space.
Overhead, the PA shuts up with an abrupt click and the Christmas music is gone. I feel tension uncoil from my shoulders that I didn’t even know I was holding there. Zaina and Tyson sigh with relief, too.
“About effin’ time!” Sammi says in a voice loud enough to be heard in the Break Room.
“Don’t you worry that you’re going to get in trouble for talking like that?” Micah asks her.
“All I said was effing.” She looks through her bangs at him. “Don’t want to offend your virgin ears and all.”
“I didn’t mean the swearing,” Micah says.
“He means you have a bad attitude,” Gabe says.
“Kiss my ass, Gabe,” she says. “You don’t have to, Micah.”
Gabe laughs and makes a big kissy sound in the air. Micah’s expression is one I would call Confused Puppy.
“Besides, someone’s got to have some attitude around here. We’re being held against our will in a windowless room!” she shouts, again for Solomon’s benefit. “This is definitely in violation of fire codes! How are we supposed to get out of here if there’s a fire?!”
No one from the outside answers.
“See?” Sammi continues. “If we don’t make some noise, they’ll probably leave us in here all night. We’ll all suffocate and they’ll find our corpses on Christmas morning. How festive!”
“Store’s closed tomorrow,” I remind her.
“Even better! We’ll have time to start rotting. Stinking corpses on the day after Christmas!”
“All right, Sam! Jeez. Give it a fricking rest.” Gabe rolls his eyes, earning a nasty look from her. “You’re going to give us all hearing damage.”
&nbs
p; She opens her mouth for a retort, but I cut her off. “Zaina, did you tell Mr. Solomon how much money you put in today?”
“Of course,” she says.
“And did you tell him you do it every time you work?” I’m trying to remember Micah’s earlier calculations.
“I answered his questions,” she nonanswers.
“Sounds kind of shady, if you ask me, Z,” Sammi declares, grinning. “You sure you were putting money in the box?”
Zaina’s head whips up, her eyes cold. “Are you accusing me of stealing?”
Sammi puts her hands up. “Relax. It was a joke.”
“I don’t think it’s very funny.”
“Oh, for God’s sake.”
“Why are you picking on her?” Tyson says.
“It was a joke.” She shoves herself up from the floor and walks to the far corner of the room, which is all of three steps away. “Christ. What is the big deal?”
“You should apologize,” Tyson insists.
Sammi stares at him, but Tyson meets her gaze without hesitation. Finally, she lets out a short bark of laughter. “Oh my God, you’re serious.”
“Let it go, Tyce,” Gabe says. “She was just joking around.”
“No, no. He’s right, Gabe. I mean, God forbid anyone should be offended around here, right?” Sammi clasps her hands under her chin. “Gee, Zaina, I’m awful sorry I made a joke that hurt your widdle feewings. I’m sure you’ve never stolen anything in your sweet, pure life!”
Zaina’s jaw clenches and she looks down.
“Why do you have to be such a bitch?” Tyson says.
“Why do you have to defend her? She giving you a little action when no one’s around?”
“Sammi!” Gabe says at the same time that Zaina starts to say, “You can’t talk about—”
Just then the office door opens and Solomon stares at us. Everyone goes silent.
“The rest of the employees have gone home,” he says. “Thank you for your cooperation.”
“So we get to come out now?” Micah asks.
“Please.” He gestures like he’s an usher at a fancy theater.
“Finally.” Sammi glares at everyone before storming past Solomon into the Break Room.
