Sneak Thief Read online

  THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2018 by Faith Harkey

  Cover art copyright © 2018 by John Hendrix

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Visit us on the Web! rhcbooks.com

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

  ISBN 9781524717476 (trade) — ISBN 9781524717483 (lib. bdg.) — ebook ISBN 9781524717490

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

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  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1: Wanted

  Chapter 2: Goody

  Chapter 3: Treasures

  Chapter 4: ’Bagoville

  Chapter 5: Loco

  Chapter 6: Stash

  Chapter 7: Transplant

  Chapter 8: Whatsits

  Chapter 9: Useful

  Chapter 10: Crispy

  Chapter 11: Mission

  Chapter 12: Yogi

  Chapter 13: Invited

  Chapter 14: (Un)Fair

  Chapter 15: Fine

  Chapter 16: Dust-Up

  Chapter 17: Duty

  Chapter 18: Catastroke

  Chapter 19: Broken

  Chapter 20: Emergency

  Chapter 21: Amends

  Chapter 22: Nina

  Chapter 23: Criminal

  Chapter 24: Beginning

  Chapter 25: Gift

  Chapter 26: Real

  Chapter 27: Alarmed

  Chapter 28: Map

  About the Author

  For Drew—

  my special, crazy friend

  My name is Belle Cantrell, but you can call me Hush.

  I’m what you’d call a sneak thief.

  You say you don’t know what that is? Look here. One morning, there was me, going into Sass Foods. I walked right up to the counter and asked the cashier where I might find the AA batteries. While she was busy spinning out her reply, telling me up this aisle, right at the end, look underneath the flashlight display, I reached out my hand and snuck a packet of playing cards off the shelf in front of me. Cool as you please, I slid the cards into my pocket, thanked the lady kindly, and wished her a fine day. Then I left the store, strolling all casual-like.

  Simple, see?

  Though it turns out I am more than just a filch and a delinquent. How, you want to know? All right, but the story’s kind of knotty.

  * * *

  —

  We’ll start on that same day, just a short time later, when I took myself to the laundrymat. Nina, my ma, had sent me with a fistful of change, a pillowcase of stank clothes, and orders not to be home before six. She was having guests, she’d told me, and she wouldn’t have me mooning around, staring after her with my dumb cow eyes.

  I didn’t think I had cow eyes, dumb or otherwise. But I obliged her, pleased for any excuse to get gone from broken-down old ’Bagoville, the trailer park where I lived. Nina didn’t much like it when I went to town. She didn’t want me anywhere near the nibs, her name for the goody-goodies in town. But she couldn’t have it both ways. Either I stayed or I went, and if I went, I went where I wanted. And what I wanted was out, past the chain-link limits of my life, away from the field where my people kept company with rusted-out cars, cast-off refrigerators, and the tractor on its side.

  It was a real relief to get away, too, because even though there was some thieving a person could do from one’s kin, too much too often would get you caught—like the time I got busted for five-fingering my grown cousin Sheena’s pink lipstick. After that—plus the time they found another cousin’s Sashay perfume in my stash—the family watched too close for me to do any real borrowing.

  I reckon what I’m shaping up to tell you is that, by age nine, I had discovered a certain truth about myself: I had to thieve. I called it my loco because it came over me like a crazy fit, and I couldn’t think straight until it was done. But it was also like a train, rolling along so fast, so heavy and wild, a Hercules couldn’t stop it if he tried. Once or twice, I did try to halt that train. There was me, standing on that track, all shakin’ and trying to stand my ground, feeling like I was gonna die, the train coming, the train coming—and in the end, it only mashed me down flat, and I ended up stealing the hairbrush or whatnot anyway.

  And so these trips into town were more dire than pink lipstick, more mesmerizing than Sashay perfume. After only my first hour, in the pockets of my first daddy’s jacket, I had my pack of cards, a set of measuring spoons, and a tube of butt-cheek ointment. I didn’t know what I’d do with those last two things—truth to tell, it didn’t much matter—but I thought I might use the cards to teach myself, what’s it called, sleight of hand. And with that, I might step up my sneak-thieving game.

  * * *

  —

  The laundrymat was a yellow building next to a lady hairdresser’s. It had seven washers, six dryers, and a big sink for hand washing. Just now, there was a girl leaning over that sink, watching—as far as I could tell—the slow dripping of a leak from the faucet.

  “If you take a picture, it’ll last longer,” I said to her.

  The girl turned around. She had big blue eyes, glasses, and a pimple right in the middle of her forehead. Her crayon-yellow hair was tied in a tail held together by a strand of twine.

  “What’s that mean?” she asked me.

  I started to reply but realized, “I don’t know. Nina says it.”

  “Who’s Nina?”

  “My mama.”

  “Oh.” She waited for a few seconds, as if she wanted me to say something else. When I didn’t, she left to go check on her laundry.

  Me, I headed for my favorite washing machine. It was an old one—easier to scam—and sat in the back, harder for the attendant to see. I snuck a broken fork out of my pocket. All but one of the prongs was snapped off. Slipping it into the sweet spot which only I knew, I jiggled the fork until the machine clicked inside itself. The faceplate now read WASH.

  I opened the door and started shoving in my clothes.

  “I think that’s stealing,” said a voice.

  I turned around to find the yellow-haired girl blinking at me.

  “I’m sure it is,” I told her. “But it ain’t hurting nothin’.”

  Her eyebrows crinkled. “It’s hurting Miz Buchanan. She’s the owner.”

  “Huh.” Thinking I’d better cover my tracks, I lied. “I didn’t know.”

  “Yeah. Sometimes it’s hard to know.” The girl gave me an understanding smile.

  I waited for her to go away so I could get back to my filching.

  Instead, she told me, “I’m Desiree.”

  “Okay,” I said.

 
“What’s your name?”

  “Uh. Hush.” Would she ever get gone?

  Desiree reached into her pocket and brought out a wrapped candy. She broke off half and handed it to me.

  I took the candy. Only a fool would turn away free food.

  As she chewed on her half, she mused, “I used to know somebody called Hush. How’d you come by a name like that?”

  I shrugged as if I didn’t know. But I did. It was one of Nina’s jokes. She said I’d chattered so much as a young’un that “Hush!” was all she’d ever seemed to say to me. She told me I was lucky she didn’t decide to call me Slap Upside the Head. I never thought it was a very funny joke.

  “How’d you come by a name like Desiree?” I flung back at the girl.

  “It means wanted,” she replied. “My ma picked it.”

  For some reason, that made my throat go tight.

  After a second, she added, “I’ve seen you around. I think you might be my age. Are you? I’m twelve.”

  “Uh-huh. Twelve,” I agreed.

  “That was you, then!”

  What was me? I wondered.

  Desiree glanced at the tumbling laundry in a nearby machine. “Mine’s still got ten minutes. Want to take a walk?”

  “Um. No.”

  “Oh, come on.” She tugged at my arm.

  “Stop pulling on me, girl!” I yanked my arm back. “I don’t want no walk. It’s hot out there.”

  She slow-slid her foot forward and tapped the toe of my shoe. “I do remember you from school. I’m sure of it. You were in Miss Bonnet’s class for a while.”

  It could be. I never troubled to remember the faces of the goody-goodies.

  I moved my foot away from her fancy red shoe. “So?”

  “They had to take the class picture three times because you kept ducking down.”

  “I don’t like my picture taken.”

  She slid her foot forward again. Tapped me again. After a second, she added, “You’re always alone.” Tap-tap. “Every time I see you.”

  I only barely kept myself from kicking her. “SO?”

  “Nobody likes to be alone.”

  “I do.”

  She looked at me so long and so hard it gave me the fidgets.

  Finally, she said, “I think you need a friend.”

  Friend. My breath caught at the peril and magic in the word. As far as I knew, there were two kinds of friends in the world. The kind that used you while they could and disappeared when they were done, and the sort from movies, where two people were nice and helped each other, which looked all great and good, but never happened in real life.

  “And you aim to be my friend.” I said it singsong, like a taunt.

  “I think I do,” Desiree replied. “And I think maybe you aim to be my friend, too. You did talk to me first.”

  “Only because I meant to poke at you!”

  She clearly didn’t believe it.

  “Throw off the harness, Hush!” She gave a little jump. “Aren’t you curious what might happen if you did?”

  I was all ready to say No, and even, Harness this, you crazy goody-good, when something settled over me. It came with a word, in a Voice that wasn’t my own.

  Try, it said.

  I’d heard the Voice before. More than once, its advice had kept me out of trouble. Meanwhile, the times I ignored it usually turned out poorly. I tried to think of a good reason to refuse it now.

  Desiree took my silence for agreement. She’d dragged me halfway out the door before I thought to complain. “Hold up! I ain’t even started my laundry yet!”

  I raced back, regretfully dropped in Nina’s quarters, and—surprising even myself—joined up with Desiree for that walk.

  As we passed the hairdresser’s next door, Desiree turned her face to the sky. “The summer solstice is almost here, so there couldn’t be much more sunlight. Plus all those cumulus clouds daydreaming their way across the sky. It’s a right pretty day, isn’t it?”

  What kind of stupid person gets all stirred up over clouds? I wondered. But as I gazed at her, I realized, No, that’s not the look of stupid. It’s the look of free.

  She saw me staring at her. “I get caught up, sometimes. That’s what my ma calls it when things are so beautiful, you drift away.”

  We kept on walking, past the drugstore and real-estate office. Then came the credit union—which had me wondering if money ever got left lying around in there and, if so, how I might filch some.

  Desiree came to a stop at the Veterans’ Garden, which was a green spot with two benches, a flag, and a metal plaque with a list of names.

  “My great-granddad’s name is on here.” She pointed to the words CAPTAIN JOHN ORR. “He was mayor, after he came back from the war.”

  “Your people have been in Sass a long time, huh?” I asked her.

  She nodded. “How long have yours been here?”

  “Oh, they ain’t,” I replied. “I live outside of town, just past the ‘Welcome to Sass, Georgia’ sign.”

  It was a dopey sign, too, in the shape of the Rural News Network Building. Every couple of months somebody came to repaint the population figure. Last week it was 842.

  I could see her thinking that over. “So now you go to school in Pitney?”

  “No. I’m homeschooled.” That was Nina’s lie, not mine, and I didn’t like it much. Truth is, Nina had forbidden me to go back to school after a teacher’s assistant—a little old lady with watery blue eyes—showed up at our door asking if she might tutor me some. She saw I’d been struggling. It was the nicest thing anyone had ever tried to do for me, but Nina just called it interfering.

  “You must be smart,” Desiree told me. “I woolgather too much for home study.”

  A flash of movement caught my eye—and Desiree’s, too, it seemed. All at once, she was making a sound like Awwwww! and running toward a man on a horse.

  No. Not a man on a horse. A policeman on a horse.

  “Sheriff!” Desiree called out.

  Sheriff? Oh, Lordy.

  Even with all my sneak thieving, I’d never actually been busted for anything. But that was partly because I knew when to get gone. Like now.

  “Oh, she looks so fine, Sheriff!” To the horse, Desiree said, “Don’t you, Miss Porter? Don’t you look fancy in your promenade getup? Hush, come see!”

  The sheriff turned my way. It was too late to run. I’d just have to put on my Upstanding Citizen face.

  “That sure is a fine horse!” I wore my best nib grin, lots of teeth and glistening with gladness. “What’s her name?”

  “Miss Porter. Like Desiree just said,” the sheriff growled. “What’s your name?”

  I was deciding what name to use when Desiree told him that I was called Hush. And that I was homeschooled. And that I lived just outside of town.

  “Is that so?” he asked. “Which school system would that—”

  His radio squawked. He reached for an earpiece and set it in his ear. “Thrasher here. Okay, JoBeth. I’m on it.”

  Turning back to Desiree and me, he said, “Got to run. Y’all be safe.” Then, with one final frown made special for me, he departed.

  “Isn’t she a wonderful horse!” Desiree exclaimed as the man rode off.

  “Real good,” I muttered, wondering just how much trouble this little “walk” was going to make for me.

  “And she didn’t seem at all shy around you, which horses sometimes do around strangers,” she babbled. “I know, because I’m going to be a horse witch.”

  That was so peculiar, it took me back a step. “A what?”

  “You know. The wildish folk who run the horses all night and leave their manes braided in the morning.”

  “Ain’t that a fable?” I asked.

  “Uh-uh! I saw one once! She was
wispy and thin, with twigs in her hair. I was gonna be scared, but the horses loved her so much. Folks call horse witching a torment, but that’s just because they don’t understand. A horse loves to run! It’s what they’re made for!” She squinched her shoulders with the excitement of it, but when I kept on looking mystified, her voice went a little glum. “You do think I’m addled.”

  I wanted to tell her it was the addled-est thing I ever heard of, the idea of going around with sticks in her hair, riding bareback at midnight, makin’ like a haint. But I didn’t.

  “I think…” I chewed on my tongue for a time. “I think it must be nice to want something.”

  “What do you mean? Are you telling me there’s nothing you want?”

  I shook my head.

  “Not one thing in all of creation?”

  “Nope,” I denied, though something I might maybe want did start bubbling up in my head. I shoved it right back down. One thing life had taught me was that hoping hurt.

  “You do too want something!” she sang, then leaned in to jab her elbow in my side. “I can tell! Fess up!”

  I looked away. “Oh yeah? What do you think I want?”

  She stood square in front of me and set her hands on my shoulders. Leaning in, she peered into my eyes like she was searching for something. “You want”—she peered some more and even pushed up one of my eyelids—“to have dinner at my house tonight!”

  I jerked my chin back. “I do?”

  “Uh-huh.” She said it with all the confidence in the world. “Think your ma will let you? You can use our phone if you need to call her.”

  My head swam. Never once, in all my born days, had I been invited to do anything other than leave. “Naw, I don’t need to call her.”