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“No,” Kami rushed to assure him. “I’ll be the only one who breaks in. I mean—goes in. Via the window. I won’t be breaking anything.” She smiled beneficently around at them. “And all you guys have to do is be my lookouts.”
Angela looked resigned. Holly looked intrigued. Ash looked unsure but as if he didn’t want to back down. Kami figured that was good enough. She overcame a moment of hesitation and glanced at Jared. All the lights in his crazy gray eyes were dancing. A shiver went through her, a ripple of his delight. She felt again the way she had at the Crying Pools and at her house, the thrill of sharing your secret soul and having someone think it was wonderful.
“Aw,” he said. “How come you get to have all the fun?”
The only problem with Mr. Prendergast’s office was that it was on the High Street. A lot of the postcards in Crystal’s Gift Shop had some portion of Sorry-in-the-Vale’s main street on it, the honey-colored buildings on the street or behind low stone walls, the casement windows gleaming. The oldest buildings were weather-pitted, spotted with lichen, like the inn, the Bell and Mist, and the secondhand bookshop run by Mrs. Pike. Most of the buildings were soft gold Cotswold stone against the bright blue of the sky, cut by random turrets and gently spinning weather vanes.
It was all very nice, but most of the people in Sorry-in-the-Vale had seen it a thousand times, so it was hardly a social whirl. Still Kami noted a few more people on the street than she was entirely comfortable with. She also noticed that a few people were giving their group strange looks, but she wasn’t sure if that was because of the presence of the Lynburn boys or because she had a guilty conscience.
Kami thought about her mother telling her how the town regarded the Lynburns. People seemed to respond to them with either awe or fear, and neither made any sense. Particularly not awe directed at Jared, who was kind of a weirdo.
“You doing okay?” Kami asked, falling into step with Holly so she could give her arm a squeeze and also drop a hint in her ear.
“Yes,” Holly decided after a moment, and smiled. “I’m just not hardened to a life of crime like you.”
“Give it time,” Kami said. “So, I’ll need two pairs of lookouts, one for the front and one for the back of the place. Maybe you could”—she lowered her voice—“pair off with Jared?”
Holly looked startled, her mouth going through a variety of expressions before settling on amused. “Oh, it’s Ash for you, is it?”
“What?” Kami said. “No.” She found herself blushing, but it wasn’t a totally awful feeling. She was surprised at how much fun it was, talking about boys with a girlfriend. Angela’s steady dislike of most of the world meant that she had scorned all Kami’s previous crushes.
Holly smiled as if she thought it was fun too. She lowered her voice, as if she was telling Kami a pleasant secret. “You don’t have to choose one right away, you know.”
“Uh,” said Kami, “I’m not really hot enough to juggle two guys….” Holly made
a protesting noise. Kami grinned at her and went on. “But thanks for the thought. You’ve got the wrong idea, though. Jared is not into me like that at all. He told me that you were gorgeous.”
“Well,” said Holly, so used to hearing it that she didn’t blush. She gave Jared a speculative glance.
“Think about it,” said Kami, and hurried to catch up.
Jared shot a look over his shoulder as she did so. There’s a card up in your little sweetshop advertising Pomeranian cross puppies free to a good home, he observed.
What’s your point?
I’m not a puppy, said Jared. You can’t give me away.
Kami and Jared were still arguing in their heads when they reached Mr. Prendergast’s office. Kami waved to the broad front steps leading up to the front of the house and the plaque winking in the sun, and to the back, where a few of the buildings around shared a small common. The pairs of sentries could pick their own places. Kami had things to do, offices to break into. She couldn’t decide every little thing.
You did think she was gorgeous. Which she is. She is gorgeous, and she owns a motorcycle. Holly is your perfect woman, and I am just trying to help.
Well, don’t, Jared thought.
The bathroom window was on the left side of the building, caught in the shadow of the office and a little stone wall, the slate stacked instead of held together with cement. Kami scrambled onto the wall and wiggled the window. Even though it wasn’t latched, it stuck slightly in the frame.
Then it was open.
Fine, since you are totally ungrateful and you hate things that are awesome, I won’t, Kami thought back. She braced her palms on the sill and boosted herself up. There was a moment when her hips stuck in the frame, and she had to slither over the toilet, using the porcelain edges for handholds. She ended up sitting triumphantly on the bathroom floor.
Victory! Kami announced, leaping up and running into the office with her arms spread wide like an airplane. If I wasn’t going to be a world-famous journalist and if I didn’t have such respect for truth and justice, I could be an amazing master criminal.
I still don’t see why I couldn’t break in too, Jared complained.
Good luck getting in that window with, like, two people’s fair share of shoulders, Kami thought. That’s part of why I would be such a great master criminal. I am so small and so nimble. Built for cat burglary! She almost nimbly tripped over a box of files on Mr. Prendergast’s floor, and decided she should concentrate on her first crime rather than mentally build her criminal empire.
The third filing cabinet, which bore a peeling yellow sticker that said DEEDS in Mr. Prendergast’s looping handwriting, was tucked between two big bay windows. Kami felt that this was poor positioning. The white plastic blinds looked very flimsy.
Kami skirted around Mr. Prendergast’s desk and dropped to her knees by the filing cabinet, pulling out the bottom drawer. She found some leases and went through them to check that nobody was renting the hut in the woods.
