The Inside Job (9 page)

“Wow. Okay,
glamping
. Got it,” I said, which was a lie. I most certainly did not have this. We approached.

“Hey,” I said. Walter grinned at me, as if to say,
Strong start!

“Hi,” Aria said simply, though not unkindly. “You're new.”

I laughed nervously. “Yeah—to this club, anyway. I'm George. This is Ringo.” Walter frowned at his new fake name—but it wasn't like we could have been Albert and Victor Kessel to
these
people. They probably knew the real Kessel brothers, or at least, would know that we weren't them.

Beatrix tittered in my ear. “Ringo?”

Aria smiled. Her teeth were perfectly straight. “Parents have a thing for the Beatles, huh? My name's Aria. Were you two out riding?”

I laughed a little. “Yeah. Didn't think to bring a change of clothes, and now we're stuck here till Dad finishes his golf game.”

“I know the feeling,” Aria said. “My mom's always,
Aria, they have a pool! It'll be fun!
And then I'm stuck here for
hours and hours and hours. Like I don't have anything better to do than sit at her country club—”

“Glamping. I know what glamping is,” Walter interrupted. I lifted my eyebrows at him.
Slick, Walter. Slick.

“Uh . . . cool,” Aria said, then looked back to her book.

Walter gave me an apologetic look; I tried not to sigh too heavily at him. I turned my head to give Beatrix physical descriptions as often as I could, and eventually, she'd helped me pinpoint Jeffery Alabaster and Archimedes St. Claire in addition to Aria. Three grandchildren of our potential art thieves.

Those were the kids we
had
to get talking.

I sat down on a pool chair close to Archimedes St. Claire; a waiter on the other side of the pool whisked over a glass of water so fast, it made me jump. I thanked him and tried to find my way back to a conversation—it'd mostly fizzled, with nearly everyone returning to their phones or drinks or bored stares.

“So, what would you be doing if you weren't here, then?” I asked Aria.

Aria frowned. “I don't know. Something else.”

“Movies! People go to movies,” Walter said.

I was beginning to wish I'd sent
Walter
to the movies.

Aria looked bemused this time. “Sure. I could go to the movies, I guess. Or . . .” She put her book down and looked suddenly discouraged. “I don't know, actually. I've
just always had to come to the country club or go on their yacht or to the house in Paris.”

“Or that fancy hotel in Australia,” Archimedes chimed in.

“Yeah. That. But I bet I could find something to do,” Aria said wistfully.

I nodded. “I get it. Sometimes it feels like you just live in your parents' world, right?”

“Right,” Aria and Archimedes said in unison.

The conversation drifted off a bit—I had to get them back on board, keep them talking, so I could steer us into discussing art and whether a set of fancy books might be tucked away in their basements. The easiest way to keep someone talking was to
give
them something. An offering, a trade, a token of trust—a gift, no matter how small, greased the wheels. But what could I give kids who had everything?

Exactly what they wanted: a way out of their parents' world.

I looked over at Walter, and said loudly, “Let's get out of here, man.”

Walter frowned. “Huh?”

“Let's get out of here. I saw some golf carts out back by the trees. That's way better than sitting around by a pool. We could do this at home.”

With my peripheral vision, I saw heads lift, eyes flit onto us. Walter spoke again, a little loud, a little too much
like he was in a play, but it'd do. “All right. Yeah. The pool is lame!”

“So you're going to go play golf?” one of the collection kids—it was Archimedes—said from a few lawn chairs away. He looked skeptical.

I laughed. “No. We're going to steal a car. Well. A golf cart.”

Now
I really had everyone's attention. Aria closed her book; Jeffery put his phone down and sat up. The other collection kids leaned forward. I waited till they were all staring, all eager, to say, “Anyone wanna help?”

No one said anything.

I shrugged. “All right, fine. Stay here. Have a nice day, ladies and gentlemen.”

“Wait!” Aria said, and jumped up. She grinned. “I wanna help. I mean, it's just a golf cart. We can't get in
that
much trouble, right?”

CHAPTER TEN

The others agreed with Aria (“I mean, even if we get caught, it won't be as bad as the time I burned down the guest wing . . .”) and followed me and Walter outside. The golf carts were where I expected them to be, based on the traffic patterns I'd noticed out front, but there was a caddie standing at the front of each, his eyes glazed over with heat and general world-weariness.

“Beatrix—” I muttered into my comm.

“Please, Hale. As if I wasn't already doing it,” she said, laughing. Another second, and suddenly the caddie's walkie-talkie crackled. A voice—Clatterbuck's voice—said, “We need all caddies out front. We have an emergency. Someone's golf clubs have . . . uh . . . exploded.”

“What?”
the caddie said just as I said the exact same thing to Beatrix.

“I told him to come up with a caddie emergency!” she said.

“I do not get paid enough to deal with exploding golf clubs,” the caddie muttered in German and then ran toward the front of the building. I crossed the path as he rounded the stone wall; the others followed me, looking delighted and confused. I motioned for everyone to get into the golf carts that were on the shady side, where the trees would hide us from view of the restaurant's veranda.

I stopped at the first cart and swallowed. I'd read about doing this in Automotive Handling class at SRS but had never done it. Walter looked as anxious as the collection kids, which wasn't giving me much confidence—I'd been hoping he'd be able to help, if I forgot . . .

“I need your hair band,” I said to Aria.

“Wait, what?” she said.

“It'll be great—trust me,” I said, holding out my hand.

Aria looked at Archimedes, Jeffery, and the rest of the collection, and then reached up and pulled the rubber band out of her hair. I grinned the way I thought my dad would—he's the mischievous sort—then popped open the plastic cover behind the golf cart seat.

“So, there's this thing on golf carts—they call it the governor. It keeps you from being able to go really fast,” I explained as I reached down into the engine. “But you can disable it with”—I withdrew my hands and looked up at everyone—“a well-placed hair band.”

“So we can . . . go fast in a golf cart?” Archimedes said, sounding unimpressed.

“You'd rather go back to the pool?” Walter asked, folding his arms.

Archimedes shook his head emphatically and then turned to another one of the collection girls. “Give me your hair tie, Merry. Or wait, no—give it to
him
. You can take the mayor off this one too, right?” he asked, tapping the next golf cart in line.

I grinned. “The
governor
. And absolutely.”

There were eight of us—me, Walter, Aria, Jeffery, Archimedes, and another three collection kids, so we packed in the carts four each. Archimedes was driving the second; he climbed in, gave me a tentative look, and then tapped the accelerator. The golf cart lunged forward—Archimedes braked and then grinned recklessly.

“This is going to be
awesome
,” he said. “Let's go!”

Then he floored it; the cart tilted onto two wheels and nearly tipped, but then it shot forward like a bullet from a gun. Walter slid into the passenger seat of my golf cart; Aria and Jeffery leaped onto the back, clutching the edges of the roof.

“Go! They're getting away!” Aria squealed, pointing.

I smashed my foot onto the accelerator, and we jetted off. Aria and Jeffery howled from the backseat as we raced after Archimedes and the others. We broke out of the shade and onto the shockingly green golf course.
I glanced toward the main building; a few heads were turning, people looking up from wine and brandy to see what the shouting on the course was all about. Walter waved.

“That's my dad on the veranda! He's going to kill me!” Aria yelled, but she sounded thrilled about it.

Archimedes braked as he went down a hill—I didn't. We crested the hill with a bounce so hard, Walter's head hit the top of the golf cart, and for a second I thought Jeffery had fallen off entirely. But no—I heard him yelling out insults as we shot ahead of Archimedes, away from the golf cart and toward the equestrian trails—

“Turn right!
Right!
” Aria roared. “Or we'll have to go over the stream!”

I nailed the brakes and spun the steering wheel hard to the right so that the car slid into place—then shot off again. Archimedes was behind us, but he was getting farther and farther away. The wind was making my eyes water, and I could smell the golf cart's engine burning, the consequence of making a car meant to go five miles an hour top out at thirty. I pressed harder, and we careened over a small fallen log; I almost lost control, but they didn't teach SRS kids how to drive getaway cars in third grade for nothing. Walter and I seamlessly leaned to the left, rebalanced the car, and kept going.

“What are you doing? Why is it so loud?” Beatrix shouted in my ear.

“Golf cart race!” I shouted back, knowing Aria and Jeffery couldn't possibly hear anything over their own howling laughter.

“Oh. Carry on,” Beatrix said. “Except know they just entered you guys into the security log—they're coming after you on . . . well. On golf carts.”

Slow golf carts,
I thought.

A crash ahead of us—it was Archimedes bounding out of the woods. There were leaves stuck in his—and his passengers'—hair, but they were all grinning wickedly. I slammed on the brakes, skidding to a stop inches from the other cart.

The collection went wild with laughter.

“Wow. We're in so much trouble.” Archimedes celebrated, punching his fist into the air.

“Did you guys see us go over the hill? How much air did we get?” Jeffery asked.

“It was, like, three feet. At
least
,” one of the girls—Merry, right?—answered.

“I'm thinking five, personally,” Walter joined in, high-fiving Archimedes. They jostled Walter and clapped their hands on his shoulders, and for a moment I felt left out—till they hauled me toward the center of the circle and did the same. I laughed, tried not to enjoy it—but wow, it was nice fitting in, being the hero for something as stupid as making a golf cart go faster.

“Security! Go, go!” Archimedes shouted, pointing through the trees. Cutting through the path of downed
weeds we'd created was a golf cart with a piddly little blue light on its top. The driver shouted at us in French and then jumped out.

The other four kids took off running and, to my relief, the officer followed them.

“Come on!” Aria said hurriedly. “They'll send someone else, I bet. I know where we can go.” Then she took off into the trees so fast that I almost missed what direction she'd gone in. Luckily, Jeffery was familiar—we followed him, and eventually, the four of us emerged into a little picnic area that I supposed was meant for the horseback riders to relax in. There were umbrellas and tables and even a little water trough for horses.

“Wow,” Aria said, slumping onto a chair. “That was fantastic. You guys are great.”

Jeffery laughed and shoved her familiarly. “See if you're saying that once you're grounded forever. Aria's dad thinks she's like a statue or something. She might shatter at any moment.”

“He's just afraid I'll wind up being one of those heiress party girls,” Aria said, but she didn't sound very convincingly defensive. “Though he won't let me get a pet iguana, which I really, really want, and how nonheiress-party-girl is that? It's not like I'm asking for a little purse dog.”

“You're weird. Iguanas are weird,” Jeffery said.

“Your dad keeps a white tiger as a pet. At least the iguana won't eat me,” Aria said, and stuck her tongue out.

I sat down, catching my breath. Sweat was making my white shirt nearly transparent, but there wasn't much to be done about that, so I tried to ignore it.
Come on, Hale, conversation, steer the conversation—
“So, that's it, though? You'll get grounded?”

“I'm sure. But then he'll go out of town on business and he won't know the difference anyhow. It's not so bad,” she said, and grinned. “Besides, that was the most fun I've had all summer. Maybe I should turn to a life of crime, stealing golf carts. A criminal mastermind. Think I'd make a good thief?”