“By all means,” Dean Dean Deanbugle said, “take it then.”
George marched in front, and he could hear the dean cluck his tongue. “Very good. And by good, I mean bad. And by bad, I mean it’s good that you’re bad. Very bad, indeed.”
The Midterm Exam
On the evening of the exam, George headed down to the Robin Hood Room, which was thankfully empty. He took a dip in the hot tub to relax. Then he doused himself in fancy lotions and oils, jumped on the trampoline to relieve stress, and ate four fluffs of cotton candy just for the fun of it.
He showed up in the foyer just in time to hear the ring of a gong and a chorus of teachers shouting, “ATTENTION! ATTENTION!”
Dean Dean Deanbugle stood by the big double doors—he held up a hand for silence, and the whole hall fell hush. Strongarm and Ballyrag were even holding their hands on their mouths to keep from speaking.
“I will be accompanying you on your midterms!” Dean Dean Deanbugle said. “Now if you would please follow me . . .” He put the big brass key into the keyhole and turned.
George was practically pushed out of the foyer, down the path, and into a yellow school bus. He very quickly regretted eating all that cotton candy, as his stomach was tumbling more than an Olympic gymnast. He wiped his sweaty palms on his pants and tried to think of things that would soothe his nerves. Kittens! Puppies! Dean Dean Deanbugle’s eyebrows!
“We’re ready for this!” Tabitha said, plopping right down next to him. She looked very serious. “We’re ready. Hey,” she added, squinting at George, “are you okay? You look like you’re going to be sick.”
George grimaced.
“You’re not still thinking about what those fourth-years said, right?” Tabitha said. “I’m sure no one actually dies . . . those fourth-years looked far too happy telling us about it. Plus, none of the older first-years are phased at all.”
“I know,” he said, feeling a little better.
The bus sputtered and rolled down the hill, and George turned around to look at Pilfer. Sometimes he forgot how beautiful and majestic it was. Especially tonight, where the moonlight was glinting off the exterior vents, making Pilfer Academy look like it was actually sparkling.
When Pilfer disappeared behind them, George faced front. Don’t think of tonight as a test, he told himself. Think of tonight as an adventure! When he thought about it like that, he began to grow excited. He was hitting the open road and ready for a long drive.
But to George’s surprise, the bus rolled to a stop just outside a neighborhood twenty minutes away from school.
“Listen up!” said a third-year teacher that George didn’t know. “This mission is called: Operation Home Invasion.”
“You are to steal a very spatial item!” Ballyrag said. “We’ve spent months spying on these people with our bunnunculars, and we have discovered each person’s most volatile item.”
Tabitha cringed. “He means special, not spatial! And valuable, not volatile.”
“You missed bunnunculars,” George whispered to her, and she elbowed him in response.
“A true thief will show no mercy and no fear!” Browbeat said. “I once stole my own grandfather’s gold tooth from his mouth in the middle of the night. If I can do that, you can do this.”
Ballyrag grunted in agreement.
“And as a special treat, we are going to be your Partners in Crime!” Dean Dean Deanbugle said.
Everyone murmured.
“We?” George said. “Who’s we?”
Tabitha’s jaw dropped. “It’s the teachers, George! We’re partnering with the teachers!”
All the students began to buzz about the news.
“Excellent,” Milo said loudly, leaning over to George and Tabitha’s seat. “Tonight’s the night everyone is finally going to see how much better I am than you.”
Tabitha looked like she could punch Milo.
“You’ll never be able to beat our scores,” George said to him, beneath the sound of Pickapocket trying to shut everyone up. “Not even if we were blindfolded and had our hands tied behind our backs.”
“Oh yeah? Where’s the rope?” Milo growled.
“Oh, go away, Milo!” Tabitha snapped.
Milo sat back down, but he continued to glower at them during Dean Dean Deanbugle’s explanation of the midterm. George ignored him and tried to listen closely to the dean.
The first rule was that they were only allowed off the bus when they were thieving. Otherwise, they were to be guarded by Pickapocket in the front and an upperclassmen teacher in the back.
The thieving, Dean Dean Deanbugle explained, was split into three different shifts. The first round of thieving started at eleven, the second at midnight, and the third at one in the morning. George was part of the second round, assigned to thieve with Strongarm; Tabitha was in the third round with Dean Dean Deanbugle, which—George could tell—made her very nervous, though, to her credit, she wore her nerves with only a grim expression.
“Don’t be nervous,” George said, though it was probably just as much for his own benefit as Tabitha’s.
“I must impress Dean Dean Deanbugle,” she said, with that hungry, blazing look in her dark eyes. “By the end of this night, he’s going to like me even more than he likes you.”
George laughed, not quite sure whether she was fully joking, half joking, or not joking at all.
George kept swinging back and forth between fear and excitement. This was his first real test to prove himself. After what the upperclassmen had told him about the midterms, he couldn’t help but feel terrified. But a bigger part of him thought that this night would be exhilarating.
He kept impatiently checking his watch every thirty seconds, and it seemed as though time wasn’t passing at all. But at long last, at five minutes until midnight, Strongarm came back with Robin, who was waving a gold necklace in the air proudly.
“Killed it!” she said, climbing back onto the bus. “Robin Gold is robbin’ gold!”
“Mr. Beckett!” Strongarm beckoned him toward her with a curling finger.
“Good luck!” Tabitha whispered, giving him a quick hug. “See you after!”
“You too,” George said, just as Strongarm grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him off the bus.
As he trailed behind Strongarm, a cool wind nipped at his face. George shivered and rubbed his hands together, hoping that the friction would make his hands feel a bit warmer. In the dark, the houses looked nearly identical—with perhaps a small deviation here or there in the style of window shutters or type of front door or placement of shrubberies.
They stopped at a house near the edge of the street, close enough to the bus that he could still see it, but far enough away that he couldn’t hear his classmates anymore.
“All right,” Strongarm said, “here’s your mission: You must steal the brown teddy bear from the two-year-old.” She nudged him toward the door. “Go on. Lead the way.”
George made his way toward the side door.
“Why not the front door?” Strongarm asked.
“Well, we learned in Thieving Theory that your chance of the side door being unlocked is about seventy percent more likely than the front door.”
Strongarm nodded, her gaunt face looking severe in the moonlight. “Indeed, indeed. Ballyrag has taught you well.”
George tiptoed up three wooden steps, and—sure enough—the side door was unlocked. He let himself and Strongarm into the house and shut the door without making so much as a peep.
He found himself in the kitchen of a very dark and gloomy house. Either the family wasn’t home or they were asleep, and he paused for a moment to listen for sounds, as he had learned in Browbeat’s class. The key to stealth is patience, George thought, and he could almost hear it in Browbeat’s hoarse voice.
In five minutes of standing there, the only thi
ngs he heard were the groans of the house, so he finally decided to move forward with the mission. The first thing he noticed was that the wooden floor looked old and creaky, and his footsteps would make much less of a sound if he could muffle them somehow. George looked around the room to see if there was an everyday object he could use as a gadget, and—aha! He grabbed two dish towels, put them under his feet, and slid across the hall effortlessly. Anything can be a gadget, Pickapocket had said. At last, he reached the carpeted stairs in the foyer. He turned around and tossed the dish towels to Strongarm, who mimicked his every move and caught up to him. George snatched the dish towels and stuffed them in his pocket, just in case he needed to use them later.
He climbed the stairs, and Strongarm silently followed his lead. At the top, George recognized the master bedroom by its double doors, so George turned to the other three bedroom doors. Two were ajar, one was shut—he sneaked closer and popped a head into the two open rooms—one was clearly a guest room, and the other was a half-completed nursery.
That left the closed door.
George gripped the handle, turned, and silently eased the door open. He slid into the room as quietly and slyly as a snake through tall grass. The room was decorated with teddy-bear wallpaper, illuminated by a bear-shaped night-light. He edged to the corner of a large crib and peered in at a toddler, curled up fast asleep. And there—wrapped tightly in the toddler’s arms—was the brown teddy bear he needed to steal.
He paused for a moment. He needed to extract the teddy bear from her grip, but first, he needed to think out his escape plan. Stay three steps in front of the situation, Ballyrag had said. (Well, really he’d said to stay “affront” of the “salutation,” but George knew what he meant.)
Well, there’s the window, thought George, or there’s the stairs. Neither of which made for a completely foolproof exit: windows had a drop and stairs sometimes creaked at unpredictable moments. He knew what he was facing with the stairs, so he slunk to the window and peered out, hoping that there would be a tree he could climb onto or a giant bush that would break his fall.
What he saw was even better—the rooftop sloped underneath the window. He could crawl right onto the roof ledge from that very room—then make his escape by climbing down the drainpipe. He unlatched the windows. Ready. Prepare before you act, Strongarm had taught them.
Just in case, he pulled a hand-knit baby blanket off the rocking chair and put it over his head to obscure his face. He peeked out through the holes.
He inched over to the crib, reached in, and gingerly weaseled the teddy bear out of the toddler’s grip. She snorted in her sleep, but she didn’t wake up, and George breathed a sigh of relief. He went to the window, holding it open as Strongarm squeezed out, then he turned around to climb out feetfirst—
The toddler was standing up in her crib, blinking. Though she was much younger, this toddler instantly reminded him of his little sister, Rosie.
George froze.
“Bear?” she whimpered. “Bear?”
“Shhhhhhhh,” George said through the blanket on his head.
“Bear?” she sniffled. She blinked again, and a fat tear rolled down her cheek. She screwed up her face, and George looked behind him. He had to get out of here—fast!
He was one foot out the window when the girl began to wail.
“I WANT BEAR BEAR! MY BEAR BEAR!” she sobbed.
George tightened his grip around the bear. The girl sobbed and blubbered and burbled and hiccupped and screeched.
Guilt twisted his gut. The bear meant so much to the girl, and it meant nothing to him. But he was supposed to steal it, right? It was what his teachers wanted him to do. It was even what his own family thought he’d do, as the Naughty One. This was who he was—who he was supposed to be. A thief. Right?
George bolted with the bear. He snuck out of the window, crawled across the roof, wiggled to the edge, and crawled down using the drainpipe.
Strongarm was waiting for him at the bottom with a wide, dippy grin.
“Excellent, Mr. Beckett. Top form! Exceptional use of gadgets, stealth, theory, and practical applications. With impeccable flair, might I add! And fifteen minutes under the time limit, bravo! But I’ll have to deduct a few points for waking up your victim, of course. Now, hand over the bear.”
Dazed, George held out the bear, and Strongarm plucked it out of his hands. She led him away from the house’s backyard, and as George looked behind him, he saw a light flick on in the toddler’s room. He turned back to Strongarm and kept walking, feeling odd.
“You know, if you continue to perform like this, you could move up to year two soon. Of course, I can’t make any promises.”
George smiled, though it felt like more of a wince.
For the first time in a long time, he thought of his family. He wanted more than anything to talk to his mom or dad about what had just happened. Would the little girl be okay? Did he just do something really wrong? Was it okay to steal something just because an adult told him to?
Strongarm nudged him toward the bus, with Pickapocket huddling by the door like an overly aggressive ostrich.
His classmates all looked up at him curiously, and he knew they were all waiting to hear how it went. “It was awesome,” George said as enthusiastically as he could manage.
As he walked the length of the freezing bus, a bit of movement out the window caught his eye—Tabitha was halfway to a house with Dean Dean Deanbugle, so excited she was practically skipping. He must have just missed her.
“Great job, George,” Strongarm said. “Next up—Sunny Knight!”
George took his seat, feeling his throat tighten and his ears flush with shame. He hoped no one could tell how he was truly feeling. He huddled by himself, shivering and miserable, but it had nothing to do with the cold.
What to Do
The next morning, George paced around his bedroom. Pale sun peeked through the curtains, making the room’s gold trim shimmer. George closed his eyes, knowing that when he opened them, he’d be staring at a stolen comforter on stolen furniture in a stolen house that rightfully belonged to the Duke of Valois.
He looked at all the items that rested on top of his dresser—the silver watch, gold cuff links, leather wallet, and antique alarm clock. And the teddy bear, which Strongarm had given back to him as a trophy. The stupid stuffed bear with its patchy, drool-crusty face glared at him with big glass eyeballs.
George covered it with a baseball hat. But he could still feel its eyes on him, so he covered the hat with a shoebox. Then he covered the shoebox with a lamp shade. Then he covered the lamp shade with a trash can. After that he felt safe from its judging glass eyes.
“What are you doing?” Milo groaned. “Go back to sleep, Beckett! Or get out.”
“Where should I go?”
“Into the whirlyblerg. Feel free to stay there forever.” And he collapsed back onto his pillow.
George scurried down to the dining hall, where the waitstaff were setting up a buffet for the second-year, third-year, and fourth-year students, who didn’t have an excused late wake-up time. When the doors to the dining hall finally opened for breakfast, George took one look at the buffet and blanched. All of the food in the buffet had been stolen from local restaurants—and he’d been eating it for nearly two months without a care in the world.
He swept out of the dining hall without a bite.
When it finally came time to go to class, he scuffed his feet along the polished floor. He didn’t want to go, but he couldn’t miss it or he’d meet severe punishment, frowny-face frowny-face. And as miserable as he was feeling, he was quite sure that severe punishment wouldn’t help.
He trudged into Ballyrag’s class and took his seat next to Tabitha, who was eager to hear Ballyrag talk about the midterm scores.
She flashed him a grin. “Bet we’re still top two,” she whispered to him as he s
at down.
He returned a feeble smile.
“If we get top scores, let’s celebrate with junk food in the Robin Hood Room tonight, okay?” she said, chipper as a chipmunk.
He wasn’t remotely in the mood to celebrate, but he nodded anyway.
She stared at him shrewdly. “What’s wrong with you? You’re so quiet.”
Luckily he was spared having to answer her because Ballyrag banged his fist on his desk. “Sunny Kite—get out of my class.”
Sunny Knight looked around, confused. “Am I in trouble?”
“You’re moving up to year two. You’re ready.”
The class applauded, but Sunny looked stunned.
“Congratshoelations!” Ballyrag bellowed, taking one of the three shoes he was wearing around his neck and pelting it at her. She squeaked and jumped out of the way before running out of the room.
“She got the bestest score on that exam. And next bestest was . . .” He drummed his hands on his desk. “George Bucket!”
“Beckett,” Tabitha whispered automatically, before squealing and clapping George on the shoulder.
Ballyrag read from a piece of paper. “According to his write-up, Mr. Bucket was unstoppable—he lost points for waking his victim, but he earned points back for being toothless and snatcherling her teddy doll right out of her hands without any desertations. And he got extra points for using a blanket as a sneakery disguise. He is our newest most accomplerished thief, and we are proud of his pecatcular display of criminalism.”
Ballyrag applauded, and the class joined in, his friends loudest of all. Milo folded his arms and sneered. Then, Ballyrag moved on to complimenting the third highest score, which was Tabitha. But George barely listened as he sunk down in his desk.
Ballyrag’s praise echoed around in his head. His teachers were so proud of him, but why did every compliment feel like a knife in his navel?
He exhaled deeply. What was wrong with him? It wasn’t like he didn’t know he was attending thieving school. He had never had a problem with the thieving part before, so he couldn’t possibly understand what had changed.
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