Finn (7 page)

I finally told her about a few things that sounded pretty valuable, leaving out the stuff that my grandparents actually cared about. Mom wrote down what she wanted. She slapped Bobby with her little notepad every once in a while to make sure he was listening.

As I was telling her about the silver and the crystal decanters and the china, an idea was beginning to form in my mind. It started with the feeling I had been having that my life was over. I had been cooped up in that airless bedroom for a whole week, except for the trip to scope out my grandparents’ house and this one to actually rob them. I had had plenty of time to remember how bad things used to be with my mother and to look forward to more of the same. Bobby was making an effort to be decent to me, but an effort from Bobby was worse than no effort at all. One night, lying there on the sweaty mattress, reading some teen magazine Bobby had bought for me, I had been surprised to hear a voice welling up inside me, suggesting very calmly that I might be better off dead. After the initial weirdness, I found that voice pretty persuasive.

Mom and Bobby were bickering. Mom wanted to steal everything tonight. Bobby only wanted to steal things that my grandparents wouldn’t notice missing and come back for more some other night. His laziness was truly in a class by itself. I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate on a good memory, the way I taught myself when Mom and Dad were having one of their big fights. It didn’t work very well. The best I could do was reduce Mom and Bobby’s bickering to a distant buzzing. I couldn’t block it out completely because it was a dangerous buzzing, like the kind a wasp makes.

That’s when I decided to kill myself.

Whenever I’m about to tell a very daring lie, a big one, which could land me in a lot of trouble if it doesn’t go over, I feel a kind of pressure inside. My cheeks start to burn. All the branches of the lie come into focus in my imagination—all the likely objections, what I’ll need to say in order to keep it going, and, finally, all the possible outcomes. Marian tells me that cooking up a nice, complicated lie is a lot like playing chess. She may be right about that. Personally, I’ve never had much patience for games.

The key to this lie was figuring out how to be alone in the house. When Mom and Bobby were done, and Bobby was making a big whiny show of unbuckling his seat belt because he had lost the argument, I said, “Bobby probably shouldn’t come in with me.”

Mom immediately tried to shut me up, but Bobby, who was still wrestling with his seat belt because he so obviously didn’t want to go in the house, said, “Let’s hear her out. This family’s a team, right?” Mom said that this was no time for any of my nonsense, but Bobby told me to go ahead. When I spoke, I spoke to him, because as good as I am at lying, I learned everything about the craft from my Mom. She’s an expert. She can see through almost anything. For instance, I knew she’d notice the fact that I was talking to Bobby and not to her, and I even knew that she’d be suspicious of that fact alone, but I had no alternative. Looking at Mom while I was lying was not an option. It was like staring into the eyes of a snake.

“Bobby,” I said, making it sound as much like “Daddy” as I could, “I’m not saying I don’t
want
you to come along. It’d be easier if you did, because you could help carry things. Besides, being in a dark house gives me the creeps.” I said that to make him feel good. Actually, being with Bobby was a million times creepier than being in a dark house. Bobby gave Mom an “I told you so” look. “I’d love it if you went with me,” I said, “but I don’t think it justifies the risk.”

Bobby said, “What risk?” and Mom jumped in again and the two of them had a quick argument, which I took as a good sign. Mom told him that he was the worst thief she’d ever seen, and the dumbest, which hurt Bobby’s feelings but only made him more stubborn. He waited until she was done and then he said that it never did any harm to listen.

“I understand why my Mom is worried,” I said, “but the truth is, if I’m in the house alone, there’s no crime. Technically speaking. Even though I’m with you now, that house is still technically where I live. So if I’m inside, and I get caught, the worst they can say is that I ran away and came back and tried to take some stuff from my grandparents. Not a big deal, right?” Bobby nodded and said, “I hear you.”

“But if you’re inside with me, and we get caught, that means that a criminal—a
real burglar
—namely,
you
—is in the house. Which means trouble, for sure.”

Bobby thought about that and said, “She does have a point, Claire,” which triggered another quick argument, this time about what a coward Bobby was, and couldn’t he tell that I was up to something. If they let me inside the house, there was no telling what I’d do. Et cetera.

“I wouldn’t want you to worry while I was in there,” I said, “so I thought of a way around it. I’ll take a watch into the house with me and I’ll come out every three minutes with whatever I’ve found, even if I haven’t found anything. Three minutes will be a kind of check-in time.” Bobby was impressed with that. “Makes a lot of sense,” he said, nodding.

“It doesn’t take three minutes to call 9-1-1,” Mom said.

“I thought of that, too,” I said. “The phone in the front hallway is a portable. I’ll bring that out first thing, and you can listen in and make sure I don’t call anyone. If I tried it, you could hang up from the portable. You’d control the phone calls.” Bobby was especially impressed with that. He called me a “real thinker.” He meant it as a compliment, but he couldn’t help sounding a little jealous.

“I don’t like it,” Mom said, but she couldn’t say exactly why, and she couldn’t deny that it was better if Bobby never had to go inside, especially if there were a lot of trips.

There was a third little argument, but it was the quickest, because Bobby knew that he didn’t want to go in the house, and my Mom was wavering, and finally she ran out of nasty things to say to him, so it was decided.

O
f course I had no intention of dying that night, at least not in the literal sense. I’ve always thought that killing yourself is a cowardly thing to do unless you’re suffering from terminal cancer or something and you can’t stand the pain. What I needed to do was to make Mom and Bobby
think
I was dead. That way, they wouldn’t come looking for me.

Pretending to kill myself was not something I’d thought up completely on my own, although I wish I had. I got the idea from Marian, who’d been reading
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
and giving me a blow-by-blow every day at lunch. There’s a part where Huck fakes his death so his crazy, murderous father won’t follow him. I couldn’t remember whether the plan worked in the book or not—it’s impossible to listen to Marian day after day and not let your mind wander a little—but the part about faking a death seemed pretty sound.

I walked up to my grandparents’ front door feeling like an imposter. I imagined that this was what a travelling salesman felt coming home after a long trip, forgetting for a minute that this was where he lived, and maybe practicing his phony little greeting as he approached the front door, wondering if the people inside were gullible and easy to rip off.

My key still worked. You’d think they would have changed the locks, but my grandmother can’t stand workmen in the house. After I let myself in, it was sad to call out hello and get no answer. It was even sadder to be relieved that no one was home. Turning off the alarm wasn’t the mindless ritual it used to be. Part of me was hoping that my grandparents had changed the numbers in the code, but it was still seven twenty-five, after July 25th, my birthday.

The first thing I did was to take the portable phone out to the van, just like I said I would. Mom snatched it from me and pressed the “Talk” button to make sure it worked. My grandparents kept the volume turned way up because my grandfather was going deaf. You could hear the dial tone from three feet away. Bobby said, “Good going, tiger!” and gave me his watch. He pointed to the clock in the dashboard and whispered, “Everything’s synchronized.” He wasn’t even joking!

I was almost out the door when Mom kicked my butt— literally—which almost tripped me. “Three minutes,” she said.

“I know, I promise,” I said.

As soon as I was back inside, I went right to the kitchen and turned on the stove, all four burners, and the broiler, too. My grandmother never throws anything away, including kitchen appliances. She still has an ancient gas stove—the kind you have to light with a match. The gas was hissing loudly and already starting to stink when I closed the pocket door to the dining room. There was one other door to the kitchen, from the living room, which always stuck because it was warped. It took me a while to push it shut, and then I remembered the air conditioning vent under the kitchen table. I wasn’t sure whether the vent was the kind that blew in air or sucked it out, so I went back in and closed it. It got a little claustrophobic under the kitchen table. The sound of the gas made the closed-up kitchen feel like it was inflating.

Next, I went right to my grandmother’s jewelry box, which she keeps on her dresser, and picked out a few pieces that I knew she didn’t like very much and which were mostly costume jewelry anyway.

I had prepared Mom in advance by saying that there wouldn’t be too much good jewelry, since my grandmother kept the really nice stuff in a safety deposit box. That was actually true, and Mom knew it. She gave me an ironic look, and asked me what was the point of owning luxurious things if you kept them locked up in a vault your whole life. She said that people who locked things up like that didn’t know how to live, and didn’t deserve to have nice things. I didn’t bother to tell her that people locked things up so they wouldn’t lose them to moronic thieves like us.

According to Bobby’s watch, I still had half a minute left, so I went to my grandfather’s study and pulled a piece of stationery out of his desk. His drawers are full of giveaway pens because he’s too cheap to buy them. By the time I found one that worked, I only had ten seconds to go, so I left the pen and paper by the door, ran out to the van, and handed Mom the jewelry.

“She’s a regular cat burglar,” Bobby said. Mom immediately started pawing the tangled chains. “This is a lot of junk,” she said. “Pure junk.” I kept quiet and waited for the top of the next minute. “Time for round two,” I said. As I sprinted back to the house, I heard Bobby leaning back in the squeaky driver’s seat and saying, “A guy could get seriously used to this.” I could just picture the look on Mom’s face.

Whatever I brought back this time had to be nicer than the jewelry. I went down to the basement and pulled out the wooden box where my grandmother kept her good silver. I brought it upstairs, left it by the door, and went to the kitchen to check on the gas. It was smelling pretty gassy, but I figured it still had a ways to go. Then I got the paper and pen, and in the remaining minute and a half, started a note to my grandparents. It basically said that I was sorry I had disappeared, but that it was Mom’s fault, and that she had kept me locked up, which was why I hadn’t called. Then I apologized for helping Mom and Bobby steal the jewelry and the silver. That’s as far as I got before I had to run.

Bobby oohed and aahed over the silver, studying the salt dish and the ice tongs as if they had been made by an alien race, but Mom sensed something was up. “Three minutes, and that’s all you got?” she said.

“It wasn’t where she usually keeps it,” I said. “I had to go digging in the basement.”

“We don’t have all night,” Mom said, flicking Bobby’s arm. “This time, you go in with her.”

“I think she’s doing great,” he said, giving me a cheesy thumbs-up.

“This time I’m going for the crystal,” I said. “It may take a little longer.”

Mom gave me an icy look. “Three minutes,” she said, and I knew she meant it. “There’s no point taking it if it’s all broken,” Bobby said, but even he could see that his opinion was irrelevant. I was tempted to look back at my Mom as I ran back to the house. If my plan worked, I would never see her again. I almost did, but then I thought the better of it. It would have raised too many flags in her mind.

Once I was inside, I didn’t waste any time with the crystal. I knew I wasn’t going to make another trip out to the van. The kitchen was good and gassy, so I finished up my note to my grandparents. “Sorry for blowing up your kitchen,” I wrote. “If it worked, I’ll be explaining this in person. If not, thanks for everything you did for me. P.S. You were wrong about Silvia. She’s a good person and she didn’t deserve to be kicked out. P.P.S. If I’m dead when you read this, please bury me near Dad. Love, Chlo.”

I signed it with some Xs and Os. I was crying a little, because thinking about where I wanted to be buried was serious, and writing the note made me remember the nice things my grandparents had done for me. Anyway, when I checked my watch, I only had thirty seconds left. That’s when I remembered I needed matches. I opened the kitchen door, and tried to go in, but it was so full of gas that I started coughing right away and almost threw up. I pulled my shirt up over my nose and ran over to the stove, which is where my grandmother usually keeps her matches, but there were none there, so I had to go into the pantry closet to get a new box. By that time, I was five seconds over. I expected to hear the key in the door any second. Mom had made a copy so I wouldn’t be able to lock them out of the house.