The Bank Job

by Sally Gould

  The man knew what he was doing. He turned it on and looked at my photos. “Why on earth did you take a photo of that van?” He glanced up at the van on the building site and then stared right through me.

  “I like cars.” OK, I know what you’re thinking: couldn’t I have come up with a better answer than that? People who are into cars aren’t into boring white vans. People who are into cars like Ferraris, V8s, alloy wheels, neons and spoilers. But you don’t know what it’s like standing in front of a man with humungous shoulders who is probably working out the best way to make sure you never get to tell anyone why you took a photo of a white van.

  “Liar.” He huffed so loudly he sounded like a giant. He looked from Cal to me and then to Masaru. “Do you know who I am?”

  We shook our heads. He must be a famous criminal, I decided.

  “Never mind,” he said. “I’ll tell you what the warehouse is for.”

  I held my breath. If he told us, would that mean he had no choice but to kill us? Then I had another thought. He mightn’t be a bad guy, he might be an undercover police officer. Maybe he was investigating the art thefts. Maybe he knew more than us. Maybe he wanted the reward for himself. I breathed again.

  “It will be a bank, a food bank.”

  I almost whispered, “A what?”

  “The warehouse will be used to store food. Food manufacturers donate the food and then it’s distributed to charities, who give the food to people who have fallen on hard times.”

  “Poor people?” asked Cal.

  “Anyone in need. Sometimes the breadwinner of the family gets retrenched and suddenly parents need outside help to feed their own children.” He paused, as though he was letting it sink in, before he said, “Get the picture?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, yeah, we get the picture.” It might be my family who needed help from a food bank if Dad couldn’t find another job.

  “So,” he said, “I’ve told you the truth. Now you tell me why you are so interested in the warehouse.”

  The truth flashed before me. We had found the hiding place for all the stolen paintings. He was lying too. What a good liar he was. A moment ago I’d believed him. I spoke up before Cal or Masaru had a chance. “We used to ride our bikes on the site. When the warehouse was built and we got locked out, we hoped it’d be a sports centre.” I shrugged. “But a food bank is OK. Maybe we could get jobs there after school.” Inside I smiled; what a genius I was.

  Cal groaned. Obviously he hadn’t realised I had a plan.

  The man with the humungous shoulders folded his arms. “Volunteers run the food bank.”

  “Oh.” So much for earning pocket money. “That’s OK. Our school likes us to do voluntary work in the community.” I could feel Cal glaring at me.

  “Good. My name is Robert. You can tell me your names tomorrow. I’ll see you all at 4.30 pm at the side gate. There’ll be a truckload of food to unpack.” Then he strode off towards the warehouse.

  We saw him enter a side door of the warehouse with a key. He was a bad guy, I just knew it.

  Cal and Masaru faced me. They didn’t look happy. “Are you crazy?” asked Cal. “We don’t want to work after school. Our brains work hard all day – at least mine does. When are we going to have fun? You’re on your own.”

  Masaru turned away and muttered, “Yeah, you’re on your own.”

  CHAPTER 5

  The next day, on my own, I arrived at the side gate at 4.30 pm. I waited for five minutes. No-one showed. I hadn’t seen the security guard for a week, so it was unlikely he’d show up. I debated whether to climb over the wire fence or go home.

  If Cal and Masaru had been with me, I’d have scaled the fence and looked in the windows of the warehouse. But they weren’t; they were still annoyed that I’d volunteered them for unpaid work. They thought my idea that we must’ve discovered the hiding place of the stolen paintings was dumb.

  They believed Robert when he said the warehouse was a food bank. They said they could tell he was telling the truth because he looked straight at us when he told us. Whereas they said it was obvious I was the one telling the lies because I kept glancing down at the ground. I was sure I’d never looked down.

  I think they were too lazy to do voluntary work. They said they wanted to train for the cross-country because we still had a chance of beating Barton House for the house cup. They were obsessed with the house competition.

  Cal and Masaru had laughed at my theory that the food bank was merely an elaborate cover and that the stolen paintings would be hidden in boxes just like the boxes containing food. I said, “Fine. I’ll keep the whole reward for myself.” That got them worried.

  The man with the humungous shoulders suddenly appeared in front of me. “You’re here.” He sounded surprised.

  “Yeah, I said I would be.”

  “Got a name?”

  “David Bennett, or DB is OK.”

  He unlocked the gate and let me in. “So, David, where are your friends?”

  “They’re training for the cross-country.”

  “Two members of the team are here. They’ll show you what to do.” He gave me a funny look. “Do you really want to help?”

  “Yeah. My dad got retrenched.”

  He nodded as though he understood. “Well, sorry if I was harsh on you last night. I thought you kids might be checking out the place. Some kids think a new warehouse is a good place to practice artwork with spray cans. We’ve had problems with other warehouses. I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions. Sometimes my imagination goes into overdrive.”

  I swallowed. Maybe this place was nothing more than a food bank. Maybe they had a security guard to ensure the building wasn’t wrecked by bored kids. Maybe there wasn’t a sign on the building because it wasn’t a business and it didn’t need to advertise. Maybe the men in the blue jeans and dark jackets in the white van weren’t actually thieves. Maybe they were just nice people who wanted to help out other people who had fallen on hard times. Maybe I was the biggest idiot of all time. Then I realised that if the stolen paintings weren’t hidden in the warehouse, then I had no hope of getting the reward. Did that matter? Maybe not. I knew Dad had a job interview next week. Maybe we wouldn’t even need the food bank. But other people would.

  Robert took me into the warehouse and introduced me to Stan and Kim. Stan was dressed like Pop, so I guessed he was retired. And I recognised Kim because her kids went to my old primary school. They gushed over me and told me how grateful they were for the help. I took in everything I could see. Stacks and stacks of shelves with stacks and stacks of boxes. And the boxes weren’t huge. A painting would have to be small to fit inside. The truth really hit me. I’d been jumping to conclusions from the beginning. Inside I laughed at myself. Tomorrow it would be Cal and Masaru laughing at me.

  For an hour and a half I opened box after box. I checked use-by dates. I sorted boxes into piles. Different piles were going to different charities. And food wasn’t shared equally, because the people at different places had different tastes. One place went through more bread than other places, and another place went through more muesli. At the end, I felt like I’d spent an hour and a half at the gym, lifting weights. I couldn’t wait to have a shower and crash on the couch.

  Robert, Stan and Kim were so grateful for the help that I said I’d help out three afternoons after school until they got the workload under control. Kim called me an angel. Luckily for me she didn’t know the truth.

  CHAPTER 6

  Mas and Cal agreed to help me at the food bank after I’d bribed them with Mum’s chocolate cake. We got through the work quickly with five of us. The time went fast because we talked the whole time and we rotated jobs, so we shared the lifting. When Robert told us it was time to put certain items aside for Christmas hampers, I had an idea. A brilliant idea.

  A group of singers from Barton House had gone to a senior citizens home to sing songs and provide cheer for the oldies, probably while daydreaming about the house cup. As they no do
ubt expected, they were awarded points. If more students had been involved they would’ve earned more points. But the principal had to approve every fundraising activity and every community service.

  If Mas, Cal and I organised an event on behalf of Flinders House and we involved the whole school, we should earn more points than Barton had earned. The school’s policy had always been that the people who organised the fundraiser got the points. It didn’t matter that people from every house helped out. Our school was always raising money for this cause and that cause, why not the food bank?

  I put my brilliant idea to Mas and Cal. At first, they didn’t want anyone to know they’d been helping out at the food bank. They thought it was OK to have a job at the supermarket, because you got paid. They were embarrassed to be working for nothing, I could tell. I ignored them and went to the principal with my idea.

  At first, Mr Ferguson was sceptical. I heard a hint of sarcasm in his voice. “And why do you have a sudden interest in helping disadvantaged families?”

  “My dad was retrenched,” I replied, knowing full well that this was a winning comeback line. And it was true. OK, I know what you’re thinking. It wasn’t my total motivation for wanting to help the food bank with making Christmas hampers. As Mr Ferguson suspected, it had more to do with the house cup. As expected, Flinders House had cleaned up in the cross-country. But, unexpectedly, Phillip House had beaten Barton House in debating. That was probably the only competition Phillip House would win all year. They’d done us the biggest favour ever. At assembly, when the result was announced, everyone in Flinders House cheered like crazy. We were closer to Barton House in points than we’d been all year. And I had a plan. An ambitious plan, I’ll admit. And, as I thought, our esteemed principal had guessed my motivation. Too bad. I didn’t care, as long as we got the points.

  “Oh…well…I hope he finds another job soon.” He shifted in his chair as though he suddenly felt uncomfortable. “That’s fine. I’ll need to approve the note you’ll be sending home with all the students, and we’ll put something in the school newsletter too.” He nodded. “Commendable idea. Most commendable.”

  “Thanks, Sir.” I smiled inside. Old Fergo was a pretty good bloke, really – so long as he never knew this was what all the kids called him behind his back.

  Organising the students to bring in food for Christmas hampers was easy. I wrote a note to be sent home with every student, and the staff in the office did the rest. One corner of the art room was set aside to store the food, and within a week we needed more space. It was raining food – good food too, like boxes of shortbread and Christmas puddings. Robert came round after school one day with the white van and he, Masaru, Cal and I loaded it up with the food.

  The following afternoon we were at the warehouse. Kim asked us to make up hampers with half boxes, shredded paper, food and cellophane. I could tell by the way she looked at my attempts at arranging the food items that I was a hopeless case. She let Masaru continue and asked Cal and me to go back to sorting the everyday food.

  Cal found a large thin box. He held it up to show me and grinned. “Just the right size for a famous painting.”

  I laughed; I’d almost forgotten. “Have you heard if any more paintings have been stolen?”

  Stan poked his head round from behind a stack of boxes and said, “They caught the chap behind all those art thefts. It was in the newspaper a couple of days ago.”

  Cal and I looked at each other and laughed. “So there was a mastermind?” I said. “I knew it.”

  “Yeah,” said Stan. He disappeared and returned with a newspaper.

  We got Masaru and all gathered round the paper as Stan found the article. I read it aloud.

  Stolen paintings discovered in barn

  Yesterday, after a tip-off, police

  discovered 12 stolen paintings in a

  barn at a dairy farm. The police stated

  they were convinced the farmer

  didn’t know about the stolen artwork.

  The nephew of the farmer is a well-

  respected art curator. He has been

  arrested and charged with multiple

  counts of theft. The police have not

  revealed if they have other suspects

  in relation to the robberies.

  The police had been tipped off by

  Mr Mills, a janitor at the art gallery

  where the art curator had worked

  for five years. Mr Mills wondered why

  packing materials for the paintings kept

  disappearing. When he saw the art

  curator hunting through empty boxes,

  he became suspicious. He contacted

  the police and the police kept the art

  curator under surveillance.

  Mr Mills will receive an undisclosed

  reward. He said he’d use the money

  to take his wife back to Malta to see

  her family. She hasn’t seen them for

  seven years.

  “Good story,” said Stan. “A happy ending for everyone except the thief.”

  “Yeah, yeah, a great story,” I said. Mas, Cal and I smiled at each other knowingly.

  The next week, at school assembly, the winner of the house cup was about to be announced. Mr Ferguson informed us that the Christmas hamper fundraiser had been an enormous success and that points had been awarded to Flinders House. He went on and on about community members looking after each other. Eventually he said, “The final result of the house competition is closer than it has been for many, many years.”

  I could barely breathe. Old Fergo loved dragging out the suspense. He loved it that the waiting was nearly killing us. He gave the whole assembly a massive smile as if to say, I’m the only person in the whole school who knows the winner.

  “As you know, Flinders House seems to have a large proportion of super sportspeople within the school. However, in recent years Flinders House has only managed to be the runner-up. Barton House, on the other hand, has been the house of all-rounders. And Barton has won the house cup so many times that there is a theory the competition is rigged.”

  He paused while everyone laughed. Then the assembly held its breath.

  “The winner of the house cup this year, by seven points, is Flinders House.”

  The assembly erupted. Cal, Mas and I jumped up and down. The students from Barton House looked stunned. For most of the year they had thought the cup belonged to them.

  When the excitement had died down, Jess squeezed into the line beside me. “You got lucky,” she said with a smile.

  Sometimes everything in life just falls into place. I couldn’t decide if I was happier about Dad getting another job, us winning the house cup or Jess smiling at me for just a moment too long.