Pilfer Academy

by Lauren Magaziner

  “What are you all doing?” the dean hissed. “Get back to work before I th—”

  “Union strike!” shouted a young freckled woman in front, banging a spoon on the pot she was holding. The staff cheered.

  “YOU DON’T HAVE A UNION!”

  “Well, then, this is just a NORMAL REVOLT!”

  “NORMAL REVOLT!” shouted the crowd. And they charged, banging pots and pans, waving spatulas and mops, brandishing brooms and bottles of cleaning solution.

  “GET THEM!” the dean shouted at his staff.

  “B-but I teach Stealth!” Browbeat said. “I deal with sneaky, sly attacks. I don’t know how to fight.”

  “Nor I!”

  “Me too!”

  “Mmmmm!”

  “Apologies, sir!” Strongarm said, and she ran away from the charging staff.

  But just as the waitstaff was close enough to whop the dean over the head with a mop, the mansion shook violently, and everyone toppled over. The dean accidentally let go of George’s and Tabitha’s wrists, and they both went tumbling into the wall.

  The dean popped back up immediately and dove for them. George tried to grab Tabitha by the hand and run. But Tabitha pointed to the window and shouted, “LOOK!”

  Outside, a legion of planes in V formation had hooked enormous chains onto Pilfer Academy of Filching Arts and was flying upward. The mansion quaked again as it was plucked from the ground like a weed.

  As Pilfer swung from side to side, exhibits toppled over—pictures and tapestries were tumbling off the walls, and a giant stone statue fell over and cracked right down the middle. There came sounds of glass shattering and students screaming. A wave of lemonade from the fountain in the foyer spilled over and drenched a bunch of third-years, who ran into the hall, shrieking. Wind whooshed through the open windows, creating an enormous draft.

  George shivered. He could barely make it out in the darkness, but it seemed as though each of the planes dropped a French flag from the window. His heart leaped with a giddy sort of hope.

  The dean gasped and hugged the windowpane.

  “DEAN DEAN DEANBUGLE!” said a voice from the megaphone. “THE DUKE OF VALOIS WOULD LIKE TO BID YOU BONJOUR. AND VERY SOON, ADIEU!”

  “NO NO NO! YOU’LL NEVER CATCH ME!” Dean Dean Deanbugle shouted, and he jumped out the window.

  It was an impressively large drop. But the dean was like a cockroach you just couldn’t crush.

  For a moment, George scanned the dark ground for Dean Dean Deanbugle and couldn’t see a thing. But then, suddenly, a helicopter swooped down, illuminating everything in its beam lights. Dean Dean Deanbugle lay sprawled where he had landed—right in the middle of a field. Taking a cue from the dean, it seemed like all of the students and teachers were now grabbing prized items and pieces of Pilfer’s finest exhibits in their arms—and jumping out of the mansion, leaving a bread-crumb trail of thieves and precious stolen goods across the ground.

  “Out of my way!” snarled Milo from behind George.

  He and Tabitha turned around.

  Milo looked furious. He was holding one of the presidential mattresses, though it seemed like he’d rather prop it against the wall and use it as a punching bag. “You’ve ruined everything!” Milo spat at George and Tabitha.

  “No, we didn’t!” George said. “We’re saving everything. Not like you’d understand.”

  Tabitha folded her arms. “Get lost, Milo!”

  “I’m going to keep on thieving! Forever!” Milo beat his fist on his chest. “PILFER FOREVER!”

  “I can’t wait until the day you get arrested,” Tabitha said coolly.

  Milo blanched. Then he hopped up onto the windowsill, unlatched the window, and jumped out, the mattress beneath him to cushion the fall.

  George rushed to the window—it was too dark to see, but he heard Milo shouting.

  “Good-bye, Milo!” George cheered, and Tabitha whooped.

  The stream of jumping students and teachers had mostly stopped, except for one window, where a few kids were escaping using hang gliders. From afar, he recognized Robin’s curly hair.

  “Hey, wait a minute,” George said to Tabitha. “Those are our friends! HEY, GUYS!” he called, but they were too far away to hear him.

  His friends kept screaming things into the night that sounded an awful lot like, “HOME!” and “FREEDOM!” They each launched themselves off the ledge and glided into the darkness of the night.

  He felt happy, watching them soar away. He remembered how, on the very first day he’d met them, Beth and Becca had said they missed their parents. George hoped that they—and all his friends—would be reunited with their families soon.

  “George!” Tabitha said. “The dean!”

  She pointed back to the field, where Dean Dean Deanbugle was writhing around on the ground. Then he began to kick his legs and throw the biggest temper tantrum George had ever seen. His wails echoed into the night sky. He beat his fists and pulled at his eyebrows. He snozzed onto his sleeve. He punched the living stuffing out of a scarecrow. He ran around like a rabid dog, cursing the day that George and Tabitha had been born and vowing for revenge.

  “REVENGEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!” his voice echoed up, until it was drowned out by the sound of plane engines and the roaring wind.

  The people who had jumped out grew smaller and smaller, but just before their faces were indistinguishable, George saw, from a distance, flashes of red and blue lights headed toward the area.

  The police were coming for Dean Dean Deanbugle, and it made George oddly happy to feel like justice was about to be served.

  Everything was right again with his world: The dean would be carted off to prison; he and Tabitha wouldn’t be forced to steal; the mansion was returned to its rightful owner; and Pilfer Academy of Filching Arts was over.

  Everything was perfectly peachy . . . except for one thing.

  They were ascending into the clouds on a one-way ticket to France.

  George and Tabitha leaned out the windows of the school and shouted to the pilot. “HELLO!” they shrieked. “HELLO! HELLO! PUT US DOWN! STOP THE MANSION! STOP! STOP! STOP!”

  But no one could hear them over the roar of the engines and howling wind.

  At last, they finally had to accept that they were being kidnapped again. They just hoped it would turn out better this time.

  When George turned back around, the waitstaff were shedding their Pilfer patches and stomping on them furiously.

  “Thank you,” George said, turning to the balding waiter and the rest of the staff. “You guys saved us.”

  “It was the least we can do for you kids. It’s been a long while since anyone cared about our well-being.”

  George held out a hand. “What’s your name?” George said.

  “Reuben,” the balding ex-waiter said. “Reuben Odell.”

  George and Tabitha gasped.

  “You were right here this whole time!” Tabitha exclaimed.

  “What happened to you after the whirlyblerg?”

  “Dean Dean Deanbugle made me part of the waitstaff,” Reuben said. “For years, I was too afraid to fight back or escape—we all were. Dean Dean Deanbugle often threatened to put us back on the whirlyblerg forever to keep us in line.”

  “And speaking of the whirlyblerg,” George said, “there are people still on it—Lionel and Hannah and everyone else.”

  “We’ll take you there!” a woman said. And they all began to run toward the side door that led to the dungeons.

  When they reached the hallway full of putrid, rotting pumpkins, George knew they were close. And when they reached the entrance, George didn’t hesitate one second. He kicked the door open, ran to the lever, and shut down the ride. Then the waitstaff helped everyone off.

  While most of the whirlyblerg victims stretched their limbs, Lionel ran straig
ht for the bathroom. Afterward, they all gathered in the ballroom. Lionel, Hannah, and the other people on the whirlyblerg had a million zillion questions, and George and Tabitha explained what had happened.

  “He was pure evil,” a gangly-looking woman said when they finally finished speaking.

  “The police have him now,” George said.

  “Good,” Lionel replied. “He deserves that. And worse.”

  They sat around talking for a few hours, but then people began to doze off. Maybe it was the soothing whoosh of the wind outside, or maybe it was the way the mansion swung back and forth, like a giant cradle beneath the planes. But soon everyone was all curled up and snoring.

  Except George. He was still too hyper. He turned to Tabitha, whose eyes were closed. He couldn’t tell if she was sleeping or not. “Pssssst! Tabitha! Are you awake?”

  “Of course,” she said immediately, not opening her eyes. “How could I possibly sleep right now?”

  George sat up. “Let’s go then!”

  Together, they tiptoed out of the ballroom and wandered around Pilfer, full of giddy excitement and dizzying relief.

  “We did it!” George said. “I can’t believe we pulled this off.”

  Tabitha nodded. “Of course we did—we’re both top of our class.”

  “We were top of our class,” he said. “But I’m sure you’ll be top, no matter where you go next,” he added.

  They drifted into the room with enormous chandeliers and forty-foot mirrors with gold trim. They looked at their reflections, and what they saw was pretty awful. Between the two of them, they had torn-up clothes, scratches, scrapes, lopsided hair (in Tabitha’s case), and a few blossoming bruises.

  “Let’s keep walking,” Tabitha said. “After all, it’s our very last night in this mansion. Ever.”

  In every room and every corridor, George was surprised to find how empty the school was. Most of the valuable items had been pushed out the windows already or nabbed by students and teachers. Only a few enormously heavy items remained. The fighter plane was still in the foyer. The T-rex was there, too, but it was missing a bunch of the bones on its legs.

  They wandered upstairs, and after hours of circling the wings and recounting the night’s events in every detail, they found themselves sprawling on the couches in the dorm’s narrow entranceway.

  George let out an earthshaking yawn. “Don’t let me fall asleep!” he groaned.

  “You know what we need?” Tabitha said, her dark eyes twinkling.

  “What?”

  “A sugar rush.”

  George grinned. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “Race you there!”

  She sprinted off, and George followed. They screamed wildly, crashing into toppled stands and broken items, not stopping until they reached the kitchen. They opened the freezer and found—to their delight—that Strongarm didn’t have time to save her Triple-dipple Ultra-deluxe Melty Creamy Creamer Rainbow Swizzle Milk Munch ice cream. The freezer held eight cartons. There was no way they could eat it all—but nothing could stop them from trying.

  “TRIPLE-DIPPLE!” they both shouted, and they dug in.

  The ice cream was even better than he remembered—but maybe it was because this time it tasted like victory.

  George ate as much as he could and only stopped once he was on the verge of puking. Tabitha, too, groaned and clutched her stomach.

  “I’m going to miss that the most!” she said, closing her eyes.

  “I wonder if you can find this stuff on the Internet,” George said. “I’d pay a lot of money for that ice cream.”

  “Really? You’d pay?” Tabitha said. “Hey—I’m only joking!” she added, catching the look on George’s face.

  Suddenly, the mansion thudded to a stop.

  The Duke

  George and Tabitha dashed out of the kitchen, leaped down the hall, and sprinted across corridors. They squealed as they slid all the way down the banister, from the third floor to the first—until they arrived in the foyer, just as the front doorknob was turning.

  In walked the fanciest-looking man George had ever seen, with brown curls in perfect tendrils, a plump face with jibbling jowls, impressive muttonchops, and the air of being mollycoddled by hundreds of servants and attendants. But, George thought, perhaps it was just the outfit that was giving that impression, as the duke was wearing something that looked like it was from the sixteenth century: long white tights, a frilly blouse, poufy shorts, a dashing cape, and—to top it all off—a velvet hat with a feather in it.

  George stepped forward, and the duke drew a fencing sword out of his holster, wielding it with wild eyes.

  “Where iz he?! Ze one zey call ze Deanbugle?”

  “Not here!” George said. “He jumped out the window! Put the sword down!”

  “Calm down,” the Duke of Valois said. “It iz blunt. For costume.”

  “Costume?”

  “You zink I dress like zis on a daily basis?”

  “Um . . . no?”

  “Zat’s right, no! I’m coming from ze most excellent costume party!” he clapped his hands, and two servants began to undress him. They removed his muttonchops—which were apparently stuck on—and his ruffled shirt before retreating with a bow. “My beautiful ’ome!” the Duke of Valois said, planting a big, wet, slobbery kiss on the banister.

  George sat down on the step, and as he looked up, he saw the waitstaff headed down the stairs. George even saw Lionel and Hannah wave to him from the crowd.

  “Do tell me ’ow you did it,” the duke demanded.

  And so George told them all about his experiences at Pilfer, with Tabitha jumping in to fill in the blanks and occasionally correct him—because old habits die hard. The staff kept ooooohing and ahhhhhhing—and the duke listened very intently, particularly about the parts where Dean Dean Deanbugle was involved.

  “Tell me again ’ow he jumped out ze window!” the duke said, giggling.

  “We just told you three times,” Tabitha said.

  “But I want to ’ear it again!” he said petulantly.

  “Okay, but after you tell us something,” George said. “How did you get the planes to come so quickly?”

  “I am rich,” he said simply. “Ze problem was, I had no idea where zees mansion was. The world iz a very big place, you see. But once I knew ze location, I had ze resources.”

  “Very resourceful, sir!” one of the duke’s servants said. “Very clever of you!”

  “We need to talk about one thing,” the Duke of Valois said. “What weel ’appen to all of you?”

  The waitstaff all began to mumble among themselves. Some wanted to travel the world; others wanted to return home; others wanted to go back to school; and others still wanted to wait upon the honorable Duke of Valois, and he accepted them into his service with a giddy giggle.

  “And what about ze children?” the duke said, smiling at them.

  “Tabitha and I need to go home,” George said.

  “Then I weel arrange a plane in ze morning tomorrow! As for today? Go out on ze town! Explore! And enjoy zis one day vacation in France! You ’ave certainly earned it!”

  The Same Old Different George

  George had a wonderful day in France. The duke drove them around the countryside, and he and Tabitha walked around town. They peeked in the windows of stores, threw coins into a wishing fountain, and got to see a local historical house. But best of all, the duke bought them crepes, stuffed full of melted chocolate-hazelnut drizzle and fresh strawberries.

  But the next morning, their mini-vacation was over and it was time to go home. George and Tabitha climbed into the duke’s private jet. George had taken virtually nothing with him, since nothing he had at Pilfer actually belonged to him. But he did keep one thing that he knew he needed to deal with later.

  Before G
eorge knew it, they were soaring. He pressed his nose against the window as the Duke of Valois’s mansion became a pinprick in the distance before disappearing from his sight—and life—altogether.

  And as the morning sun shone in through the plane, George leaned his head on Tabitha’s shoulder and fell fast asleep.

  When he woke up again, they were flying somewhere over some ocean. There was just blue sky and blue water as far as he could see in every direction.

  “How long was I asleep?” George asked.

  “Two hours, twenty-seven minutes, and forty-three seconds,” Tabitha said. “I’ve been counting.”

  George gave her a look.

  “Well, more or less.”

  George sighed and leaned back in his seat again. From his chair he watched the copilot eat an enormous ham sandwich.

  “You know,” said Tabitha. “I’m glad we did that.”

  “You are?”

  “Yeah. I know I didn’t feel the same way you did about the stealing, but it actually felt much better to be giving the mansion back to its proper owner than it felt to take things from people. I’ve been thinking . . . we should start our own thing. A club where we sneakily give people things.”

  “Like what?” George said.

  “Like things they’ve lost. A service for returning lost or stolen items, if we ever come across any. For making people feel good. We have enough experience now to be able to run this in secret.”

  “The complete-opposite-of-crook-club club!” George said. “We’ll have to work on the name a bit . . .” The plane made a sudden, turbulent jerk, and he gripped on to the seat for dear life.

  “It’ll be a good way to keep in touch,” Tabitha suggested.

  All too soon, the plane began to descend.

  The pilot turned around. “You have your parachute strapped on?”

  George nodded.

  “Pull the lever on your shoulder to deploy the chute.”

  George turned to look at Tabitha, who was tearing up.

  “Tabitha,” he said, gearing up for what was sure to be a touching good-bye. “I am so gla—”