Nickel Bay Nick (17 page)

THE
CODE
AND THE
CUPCAKES

January 5

“Oh, NO!” Dad shouts so loudly from his bedroom that I'm instantly awake.

“What's wrong?” I yell back, but my voice is foggy with sleep.

“That stupid storm last night!” I hear his bare feet pounding as he sprints down the hallway. “We lost power! The clocks all stopped, and I overslept!” Suddenly, he's leaning into my room. “You'd better hurry, kiddo. Don't want to be late for work.”

I can't tell him that I don't have any work to be late for. Better pretend it's a day like any other. Throwing off my covers, I holler, “Yikes! How late is it?”

By the time I reach the kitchen, Dad's resetting the oven clock according to his wristwatch. “Seven thirty-five. I don't even have time for breakfast.”

He's dressed and ready to go in less time than it takes me to swallow my morning pill. “Do me a favor, Sam?” he calls from the front door. “Can you reset the rest of the clocks, please? And don't forget the VCR. I'm taping a football game later.”

Since I have nowhere to go and lots of time to get there, I eat a leisurely breakfast before adjusting the alarm clocks in Dad's bedroom and mine. It's when I'm resetting the date on the VCR that something truly weird happens.

I punch in January . . . 5 . . . and look up to see

01-05

blinking in the window. “Oh-one, oh-five,” I mutter, and then I stop.
Why does that sound familiar?
I wonder. Suddenly it hits me.

That's Mr. Wells's gate combination!

Let me explain why that's such a big deal. Jaxon's been trying to teach me and Ivy to hack into our classmates' Facebook and Twitter accounts using the school computers. “Most people don't want to be bothered remembering passwords and codes, so a lot of jerks use the name of their pet or the date of their birth,” he's always reminding us. “If you can get people to tell you one of those things, it's like they're handing you the keys to their lives.”

What if that's true? What if those numbers are more than simply Mr. Wells's gate combination?

I throw on my clothes and tear out the door. I think the Nickel Bay Public Library opens at eight.

• • •

A little before noon, Dr. Sakata answers Mr. Wells's back door. I hold up a purple shopping bag and explain loudly, “Delivery for Mr. Wells.” At that moment, Hoko dashes out onto the porch and nearly knocks me over with his greeting.

“Hey, Hoko!” I giggle. “I missed you, too.”

But Hoko is quickly distracted by a smell coming from my bag, and he buries his head in the sack.

“Hoko! KO-ra!” Dr. Sakata barks, and Hoko immediately sits, panting with excitement. Stepping aside, Dr. Sakata allows me to enter.

We find Mr. Wells in his super-sleek office, studying a computer screen.

“What are you doing here, Sam?” he says coolly when I enter. “I thought I made it clear that our work is done.”

“Got a delivery.” From my shopping bag I pull a purple pastry box and push it across his desk.

“The Nickel Bay Bakery and Cupcakery,” he reads from the cover. “Sam, I'm in no mood to—”

I cut him off with, “Open it.”

With a groan, Mr. Wells raises the cover and peers in.

“Those are my dad's three biggest-selling holiday cupcakes,” I explain. “Eggnog, Pumpkin Spice and Peppermint Pecan. One for you, one for Dr. Sakata, and one for me. You choose first.”

“I don't understand,” he says. “There are candles in these.”

“Oh, yeah. We gotta light 'em. That way you can blow 'em out and make a wish.” I watch him carefully as I add, “Isn't that what people do on their birthday?”

Mr. Wells's head snaps up. “I beg your pardon?”

If I wasn't sure before, I'm sure now. “I knew it!” I shout, clapping my hands so loudly that Hoko and Dr. Sakata jump. “It
is
your birthday! And I figured it out!”

He studies me as if he were trying to read my mind, and after a minute his eyes open wide. “Of course. The gate combination.”

“Pretty cool, huh?” I say. Mr. Wells smirks, but now I'm pumped. “Come on! You're, like, this big riddle. The man with a thousand secrets. And now I know one of them.” I pause before I add, “Or maybe more than one.”

“More than one?”

“Didn't you tell me once that information is power? Well, Mr. Wells . . .” I pull up a chair and sit. “I decided I wanted a little more power.” He scowls, but that doesn't stop me. “So I spent the morning working on one of those public computers at the library downtown. I Googled things like ‘Herbert Wells and U.S. Foreign Service,' or ‘Herbert Wells and Southeast Asia,' and I got a couple hits. But neither of those Herbert Wellses had your birthday—January fifth—or a life story matching yours. Just as I was about to bag it, up pops a page about a guy named Herbert
George
Wells.”

“Of course. The British author. Early twentieth century. He wrote science fiction, if I remember correctly.”

“So you know about him, huh?”

“Why wouldn't I? H. G. Wells is famous.”

Exactly what I was hoping he'd say. “Well, that's just it. He
is
famous. As
H. G.
Wells. Hardly anybody knows that the H. G. stands for Herbert George, but
you
do. How come?”

Mr. Wells points to his head. “Just one of those useless facts that clutters my brain.”

“I don't think you have any useless facts cluttering your brain, Mr. Wells.” I unfold the notes I made at the library. “This H. G. guy wrote some really cool books.
The War of the Worlds. The Time Machine.
Did you know about those?”

“Absolutely.”

“Then I bet you know that H. G. Wells also wrote a novel called
The Invisible Man.
”

Mr. Wells grips the armrests of his wheelchair. Now I've got his attention.

“I got to thinking, Mr. Wells. All those years you worked overseas, you had to be a lot of different people, didn't you? It must have been hard—every few years, another country. Another assignment. Another identity. And since you like codes and puzzles, I bet you chose every new alias carefully. You weren't going to call yourself anything as boring as ‘John Smith' or ‘Bill Brown.' You'd want a name with a little mystery built into it. And I figured that, when it came time to retire in sleepy little Nickel Bay, you chose a name that contains a clue to the man you've always been . . . the Invisible Man.”

Instead of denying my story, Mr. Wells simply gazes at me, unblinking.

“Don't worry,” I assure him. “I still don't know your real name. And maybe I never will.”

After a tense silence, Mr. Wells nods and says, “No. You won't.” Then, with a small smile, he adds, “But now you're thinking like a spy.”

So I'm right!
I realize, and my pulse races.
Everything I figured out is right!
I try to steady my voice when I say, “It's okay that you're the Invisible Man. I mean, kids at school call me Frankenstein.” I point to my chest. “On account of the scar, y'know?”

“That must hurt,” Mr. Wells says.

“It used to,” I admit. “But not lately.”

“Oh, no?”

“Not since I've been Nick.” I sit forward and try to put my thoughts in order. “I'd be on a mission, Mr. Wells, and I'd get so scared and excited that my heart would be pounding like . . . like a giant's footsteps. Boom! Boom! BOOM!” I bang on the desktop. “And I'd feel so
alive.
Can you understand? After a lifetime of feeling like I was made of separate parts, finally . . . finally, me and my heart, we were on this adventure together. Like one whole, complete boy. I'd give anything to have that feeling again.” My breath catches in my throat, and I can barely whisper, “Mr. Wells, don't you believe in second chances?”

“Second chances?” he gasps, and I can tell I've hit a nerve. But he quickly tries to cover his surprise by asking, “You're still thinking about the White Mission, aren't you?”

I fold my hands in a pleading gesture. “One more time? You and me. Frankenstein and the Invisible Man.”

“Oh, Sam.” Mr. Wells groans and gazes off into a corner of the room, thinking for a long moment before turning back to me. “Sam. Even if I wanted to go through with it . . . ,” he begins, but when I start to react excitedly, he raises a
STOP
hand. “Hold on! Even if I
wanted
to go through with the White Mission—which would have to happen
tomorrow,
let's remember—I'm afraid that, with all the recent distractions, we're simply not ready.”

I bounce in my seat. “Mr. Wells, I was born ready. And you admitted yourself that nobody knows the Four Corners Mall like I do.”

“Even so,” he says with a sigh, “your put-pocketing skills are sadly . . .”

“My put-pocketing skills are awesome!” I exclaim. “Didn't you tell me that if I can learn to be a pickpocket, I can be a put-pocket?”

“I did.”

“Well, how do you think I got the key that opened Hoko's truck?”

“I don't know,” he responds. “How?”

As Mr. Wells translates for Dr. Sakata, I act out the scene at the 7-Eleven with the grape Slurpee and the hysterical counter girl. And when I get to the part about snatching Mr. Eye Patch's key ring and barricading him in the men's room before running to Hoko's rescue, they break into big smiles.

“You wanted confidence?” I shout, raising my arms like a winning prizefighter. “I got confidence!”

And then they both applaud.

THE
MIX-UP
AT THE
MALL

January 6

It's the twelfth and final day of Christmas, the Sunday before holiday decorations come down and school starts again. On the morning news shows, the announcers predict that everybody in town will be out in public, hoping for their own visit from Nick. “If he's sticking to his usual schedule,” says one reporter, “Nickel Bay Nick will make his third and final appearance today. But where he'll show up, nobody knows. So merchants all over Nickel Bay are gearing up for what is expected to be the largest shopping day of the season.”

Every security guard at the Four Corners Mall is on duty. Every entrance is being watched by at least eight pairs of eyes. I know all of them, and they all know me, either by sight or from my photo in their computer system. But when I stroll in just after noon, a single ripple in a massive ocean of shoppers, not one of them raises an eyebrow. That's because they're not looking for a short teenage girl in pigtails wearing a Hello Kitty wool cap, lime-green sunglasses, and a pink ski parka with a sky-blue backpack slung over one shoulder.

Don't think “Sam.” Think “Samantha.”

• • •

It was my idea to go disguised as a girl. “To hide in plain sight,” Mr. Wells called it. He and I spent yesterday stamping the Nickel Bay Bens and laying out my route. In anticipation of glitches, we created an alternative to the primary mission. “Plan B,” Mr. Wells called it. And then, just to be safe, we devised a Plan C. “Although I hope it never comes to that,” he said.

Once we decided on my wardrobe, Dr. Sakata shopped, being careful not to buy more than a single item at any one store. He even drove an hour north of Nickel Bay to purchase the brown wig we braided into pigtails. After he returned late yesterday afternoon, I sang a quick “Happy Birthday” to Mr. Wells, and once he made a wish and blew out the candles, we each ate one of Dad's cupcakes.

“Delicious!” Mr. Wells declared, and Dr. Sakata nodded in agreement. Between bites, Mr. Wells warned me that, of all the operations he's devised over the years, the White Mission is by far the most dangerous.

I gulped. “You never said it was dangerous.”

“Think about it,” he said. “If your cover is blown, you will be chased. If you're caught, a frenzied mob will no doubt tear you apart for the money you're carrying. And what's even worse is that, once your identity is revealed, the entire history of Nickel Bay Nick will be exposed.”

My mouth went a little dry when I heard that.

• • •

Now, all around me, thousands of shoppers jostle one another while, in the pocket of my parka, fifteen one-hundred-dollar bills crinkle at my fingertips. As anxious as I am to get started so I can finish and get out, I've been warned to take my time at first. “Stroll around,” Mr. Wells advised. “Visit every floor of the mall. Watch how the crowds are moving. Make note of places where people seem to be distracted.”

Four Corners Mall is built around a soaring central court, which is dominated every December by a twinkling fifty-foot Christmas tree. Riding the escalators and wandering in and out of stores, I observe the crush of bodies at the sales tables in Macy's on the ground level. I study the long lines at the cash registers in Sporting World up on three. And in the food court, I marvel at the two brave souls ordering ice cream sundaes at Baskin-Robbins despite the freezing weather outside. I reconfirm the location of every surveillance camera. And on my journey, from behind my dark sunglasses, I look out at the citizens of Nickel Bay.

Neither of the first two missions, I realize, brought me face-to-face with the recipients of Nick's generosity. While pretending to be interested in the window display at JC Penney's, I watch the reflections of the crowds passing behind me. People are smiling and laughing. They're hugging and greeting one another with a holiday spirit that was impossible to find in this town just twelve days ago.

Suddenly Mr. Wells's final words ring in my ears. “Remember,” he warned when he and Dr. Sakata dropped me off four blocks from the mall, “once you actually do start, you've got to move like lightning. The instant someone slips a hand into a pocket or a package and discovers a Ben, the shouting will begin and the mission will end.”

Five levels of stores. Fifteen Nickel Bay Bens. That works out to three drops per floor. My mission is clear.

I fight to control the trembling in my left knee and sing a little snatch of Mom's song inside my head.

Now I'm ready

Whoa-oh

I'm so ready!

• • •

At Baby Gap on the top floor, in a swarm of bargain hunters, I spy a weary mother pushing a newborn in a stroller as two more toddlers hang on to her. From the back of the stroller dangles a diaper bag, into which I easily slide a Ben.

In Sun & Sand, an older Asian woman on an aluminum walker pauses to squint up at a mannequin wearing a yellow polka-dotted bikini. “Oh, you'd look good in that,” I say in a high-pitched voice, and when she turns away, blushing and giggling, I slip a bill into a side pocket of her handbag.

A father and the wide-eyed little boy on his shoulders are entranced by the animated elves in the window at Toys R Us. I casually bump against the dad, mumble “Sorry,” as I insert a hundred in his back pocket, and melt into the crowd.

On my way down to the fourth floor, I listen carefully for any sound rising above the hubbub, a joyful scream from somewhere behind me that might indicate the first Ben has been found and the operation is over. So far, so good.

In Slacks 'n' More, as an oblivious guy who looks to be about my dad's age models a new pair of jeans for his wife, I zip into the changing room where his old pants hang on a hook and zip right back out again. Done!

Zip! Zap! Zip! I'm really moving now, my hands flashing in and out of my coat and into other people's pockets and parcels. On the third floor, I steer clear of a pair of security guards making their hourly rounds. Once I'm finished on three, I descend to the second level, where a choir of carolers up on a stage has attracted an appreciative audience. Engrossed in the music, they don't notice the teenybopper in pigtails who squeezes through their midst, leaving Bens along the way.

With only three bills left in my pocket, I'm on the down escalator, heading for the ground floor, when I encounter the first serious threat to my mission. Coming toward me on the up escalator are two pimply teenage boys—fourteen, maybe fifteen years old. One bozo sticks his fingers in his mouth and whistles loudly, as the other one shouts, “Oh, baby! I'd sure like to find you under
my
Christmas tree!”

It takes a second to realize that they're whistling and hooting at me. Not me
Sam,
but me
Samantha.
I stop breathing. As they glide by, the whistler growls, “Oh, mama! What're you hiding behind those sunglasses?” He follows that with a rapid stream of air kisses. “Mwa! Mwa! Mwa! Mwa! Mwa!”

I suddenly regret that I haven't adopted the disguise of a plain Jane, but it's too late now. Is it my fault that, in the right light and with the right wig, I
am
kind of a total fox?

I'm relieved that the yahoos are heading up while I'm going down, but before they reach the top, they both vault over the escalator rail and start to descend, pushing through the bodies in their way. From the steps behind me I can hear irritated shoppers snarling.

“Hey, watch it!”

“Stop shoving!”

“How rude!”

As the stairs slide into the ground floor, I cut through the mob and make a beeline for the nearest restroom, with my admirers in hot pursuit. My first instinct is to race into the men's room. After all, that's the door I've entered my entire life. But when I remember that I'm in disguise, I whip around and head for the women's room door. Through the thicket of winter coats and shopping bags behind me, I spy my stalkers getting dangerously close, and that's when I realize what a bad move I'm about to make. Those jerks will
expect
me to be in the women's room, won't they?

I spin again, push through the door marked
MEN
, and nearly trip over a guy who's down on one knee, tying a shoelace. As he's about to look up, I fake a loud, wet sneeze, and he quickly turns his face away from my explosion of germs. I hurry into the main room, where five men and two boys are standing along the urinal wall, busy doing what guys do at urinals. Not one of them glances around. My purple sneakers squeak on the tile floor as I dash into an open stall and lock the door.

Time for Plan B.

Off come the sunglasses, ski cap, wig and pink parka. From my backpack, I pull a dingy-brown zippered sweatshirt, dark-green tennis shoes, a gray scarf and a navy-blue baseball cap. In ninety seconds, I'm Sam again. My shoulder bag turns inside out, so it's now black. Before cramming my old costume into it, I pull the last three Nickel Bay Bens from the pocket of the parka and stuff them into my sweatshirt.

On the way out, I check myself out in the mirror, pulling the scarf up over my mouth and tugging the cap visor down to my nose. There's no question that I'm more exposed, but I feel freer to move around than I did as Samantha.

Hunching my shoulders and ducking my head, I exit the men's room, and sure enough, Tweedle-Dumb and Tweedle-Dumber are pacing in front of the women's room door, waiting to hassle the girl of their dreams. In the blink of an eye, I disappear back into the crush of shoppers.

With only three Bens left, I'm feeling pretty pumped. But as anxious as I am to finish my work and get out of the mall, I'm also feeling a little down. Once the White Mission is complete, I realize, Operation Christmas Rescue will be history. Next year, I'll bet Mr. Wells will be up and walking, and he'll want his old job back. So I have only three more chances to be Nickel Bay Nick. Three more opportunities to feel this frightened and excited.

And complete.

The sight of a security guard holding tightly to the leash of a German shepherd startles me back into focus.
This is no time for daydreaming,
I remind myself.

In front of Bed, Bath & Beyond, a wrinkled old nun wearing dark glasses stands beside a collection kettle, vigorously ringing a bell. Clutched tightly in her other hand is a red-tipped cane, the kind blind people carry. She responds with a cheery “God bless you!” every time she hears the jangle of a coin tossed into her kettle, but I'm happy to report that she doesn't react as my contribution falls silently through the money slot.

A young couple with three little girls—triplets!—gets my second-to-last Ben, and with only a single bill left in my sweatshirt pocket, I pause to look around.

This is it. The last drop of the season. Nickel Bay Nick's final move. What's it gonna be? In the next moment, though, an unexpected sighting makes me gasp and flatten my body against a pillar.

I twist my neck around the corner to see . . . Mrs. Atkinson, my counselor from Family Services. Sitting on a bench in the middle of the arcade, she's eating a hot pretzel with mustard and watching the crowds go by. Instead of wearing her hair in a bun today, she's got it hanging around her face, and the difference is surprising. She doesn't look like the stern, disapproving grump I'm used to. Instead, she looks sort of . . . normal. Pretty, almost. The way my mom looks when she doesn't curl her hair.

At her side sits a girl—her daughter, I'm guessing—a little older than me. Her knees are drawn up to her chest, and her head is bowed over the video game she's playing with great intensity. When Mrs. Atkinson breaks off a piece of pretzel and offers it to her daughter, the girl rejects it with a jerk of one shoulder, not even bothering to look up. A fleeting look of loneliness flashes over Mrs. Atkinson's face, and in that moment, I realize I've never thought of Mrs. Atkinson as a person.

She's always been just another adult in the long line of adults who disapprove of me. She even wanted to take me away from Dad! But seeing her like this—smiling sadly and licking the mustard from her thumb—I get a different impression. Mrs. Atkinson isn't a monster. She's a lady with a tough job who's trying to do what's best. She has her own family, and I can tell she loves her daughter, even if her daughter doesn't get that right now.

I know who's gonna get the last Nickel Bay Buck.

Crossing behind their bench, I zero in on the two shopping bags next to Mrs. Atkinson. Either one of them would make a perfect target. I'm playing with fire, I realize, getting this close to someone who could recognize me, but I'm determined not to wimp out. I rub the final hundred-dollar bill between my fingers, savoring the feel one last time, waiting for Mrs. Atkinson to turn away. A split second of distraction is all I need.

But when it comes, it's not the sort of distraction I'm hoping for.

Behind us, somewhere down the south arcade, a woman screams something, followed by a man yelling words I can't understand.