Sneak Thief Page 2

“All right!” Her smile was so bright, she made the sun seem a little dim. “Come help me bag up my laundry so I can run and tell my ma to set an extra place for supper! After your clothes are dry, I’ll come back and we can walk to my place!”

  Like I said, only a fool turns down free food.

  * * *

  —

  A wood shingle hung under the mailbox in front of Desiree’s house. In the middle it said ORR. Burned into each of the corners was a name: Jimmy, Didi, Martin, Becky.

  Desiree saw me looking at it. “They used to call me Didi when I was little.” She made a face.

  “But you like Desiree better?” I asked.

  “Don’t you?”

  “I think they’re both fine,” I replied.

  She laughed. “You don’t get riled up about much, do you?”

  That took me by surprise. It seemed to me like I got riled up about everything, that my feelings were huger than my body and one day I’d pop like a salamander squeezed under a tire.

  “I do. Sometimes,” I said.

  The inside of Desiree’s house was so big and fine, it shamed me. It wasn’t just that there were real sofas for sitting and tables with candles and drink coasters, but there were spaces for walking between those tables and sofas, too, so wide that a body could lay down and take a nap on that clean floor. The fabrics of the curtains and the pillows were a friendly patchwork of denims and whites with hearts sewn in, in places. But despite all the finery, there was plenty of good mess. Portrait pictures and homegrown artwork hung on the walls, a stack of school papers spread across a table—and my fingers itched at the sight of an oh-so-soft blanket thrown over the arm of a chair.

  The next thing that hit me was the smell of real food. Not box or bag food microwaved to dingnation, but the kind that got chopped on a counter and stirred in a pot. It was the sort of food they served at the charity luncheon at the church down the road from ’Bagoville.

  “Didi, honey? Is that you?” a lady called.

  “It’s Desiree, Ma,” she replied through gritted teeth. Then she whispered to me, “She refuses to learn.”

  A woman, wide as she was tall, burst out of the kitchen, her face pink with the heat of cooking. “And you’re Hush! Introduce me to Hush, Di—siree.” She winked at me.

  “Seems you already figured out who she is, Ma.” Desiree rolled her eyes, but in a way that let us know she was funnin’. “Hush, this is my ma, Becky. Ma, this is Hush, uh”—she looked at me—“I don’t remember your last name.”

  I quick made one up. “Sikes.”

  “Hush Sikes,” she finished.

  Becky reached out a warm hand and gave me a squeeze on the arm. “Welcome, sugar. What’ll you have to drink? We’ve got peach lemonade, water, milk, and”—she made like she was sticking a finger down her throat and fake-gagged—“rice milk.”

  “That’s mine,” Desiree told me. “Too healthy for some people.”

  “Too weird, you mean,” Ma Orr corrected.

  “I’ll, uh, I’ll try some of that weird milk,” I said.

  I could tell by Desiree’s glad expression that I’d done right.

  “At least let me heat it up and put a little cinnamon in,” Becky pleaded.

  “Sure,” I agreed.

  “Come help your mama,” the mama said.

  Desiree tugged the pillowcase of laundry out of my hand and set it on the floor. I’d forgot I even had it. “I’ll be right back. You can sit.”

  While she was gone, I circled the living room, which was bigger than I thought because it turned a dogleg on the far side. Another white sofa, but this part of the room had a fine red carpet on the floor and a number of bookshelves, all of them full. In one corner, some glass trinkets shone in a glass case.

  I couldn’t ever imagine living in a place like that, but part of me did start to marvel. I got invited here, like a real person. Nobody knows I’m a sneak thief. They think I’m a plain and normal girl.

  If I kept my corners up, I might get invited here again. Get offered something to drink and a place to sit again. Maybe just for a time, I could forget about my ramshackle old Winnebago house—and whatever slur Nina would throw at me next.

  That’s when my loco struck me—hit-me-on-the-head, grind-me-into-the-dust irresistible strong. I was gonna steal something, probably more than one something, and there was nothing I could do about it.

  Yes, there was! I realized. There was! I could run off right then and steal a football out of the neighbor’s yard! Maybe I’d never be able to show my face at the Orrs’ again, but at least Desiree would only have hurt feelings, rather than knowing I was a sneak thief, and truly despising me.

  I bolted for the door—

  —And careened right into Desiree.

  “Dog my cats, Hush!” Some speckled milk dribbled out of the glass she carried and onto her shirt. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m—fine. Sorry. Sorry,” I said. “I was gonna find you, but I got turned around, is all.”

  She gave the room a puzzled look. “Huh. Well, here’s your milk.” She handed me the glass. “Let me get a rag to sop this up, then I’ll show you my room.”

  This time, she went and came so fast I didn’t have time to slip off.

  * * *

  —

  Desiree’s room was papered with pictures of two things: horses and weather. There was a giant wave striking a lighthouse, the curving funnel of a tornado in the middle of a nearly green sky, a roan-colored horse rearing up, wild-eyed. She also had a pair of binoculars on a desk, a set of shelves full of books and treasures, and a whole closet of things that were hers—which desperately wanted to be mine.

  Lordy, I was in trouble.

  It wasn’t fair! These Orrs really seemed to like me! But nobody was gonna invite me nowhere if they found out half their jewelry and all their perfume was gone after I left.

  “Hey, cheese eater—” A boy stuck his head in the room. He gave me the once-over. “What’s Smell Cantrell doing here?”

  Smell Cantrell.

  I’d forgotten—but, dang, did it come back to me in a flash.

  It was a while back, right after I’d stole my cousin’s Sashay perfume. I’d left for school that morning, which I did roundabouts two to three times a week. The perfume was in my pocket, and I had the idea I’d fancy up before school. I was just twisting off the cap when I heard, “Heads up!” A boy running backward with the aim of catching a football came barreling into me. I fell, the perfume slipped—and I was soaked in what I now understand to be a very stinky eau du toilet.

  The boy who’d knocked me down was fairly kind. He reached out a hand to help me up, at least. But when the other kids came along and got a whiff of me, let’s just say that my face was red, my heart was broken, and my school attendance slipped even more after that day.

  Smell Cantrell, they called me.

  Now here it was, years later, and the name still had all the sticking power of chewing gum in the hair.

  To make matters so much worse, Desiree’s ma appeared right behind the boy, saying, “Excuse me, what?”

  I could tell from Becky’s tone that she understood some name-calling was involved and she didn’t approve. Problem was, just five minutes before, I’d given myself a false name. When they found that out, I wouldn’t keep hold of their victim-pity for long.

  Just then, a rainbow-painted pebble on Desiree’s shelf caught my eye. Ooh, I wanted to feel that pebble in my palm, and in my pocket—so bad my belly churned.

  “Belle, I mean. Belle Cantrell,” the boy said, grinning. “Sorry.” Then he hightailed it out of there.

  “I’m not done with you, Martin!” Becky called after him. “Whichever one of you girls that was directed at, I’m sorry. He can apologize at dinner.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” I said.
/>   Desiree gave me a slantwise look.

  Becky pursed her lips. “All right. If you’re sure.” Then she smiled, said, “Dinner’s nearly done,” and disappeared down the hall.

  “What’s Smell Cantrell?” Desiree asked when her ma was gone. Her eyes focused full on me, making it hard to spin a lie.

  “Can I hold that rock?” I asked, pointing to the rainbow pebble.

  Desiree reached for it and handed it over. She was still waiting on my reply.

  I slapped the stone from one palm to the other, getting the feel of it, hoping that might be enough to send my loco away.

  “Hush is only my nickname,” I explained.

  “Oh, I figured that,” Desiree said.

  “And, uh, Sikes, well, that’s kind of a nickname, too.”

  Desiree gave me a slow, confused nod. “I’ve never heard of a nickname for a last name.”

  “My family does it a lot,” I told her, which was true. False names were the bread and butter of my bill-dodging, skimmy-scamming relations.

  “So, Cantrell is…?” she led me.

  “My real last name. My first name is Belle.” There. I’d said it. “But call me Hush anyway, if that’s all right.”

  Desiree laughed. “Sure it is! I’m hardly one to begrudge someone whatever name they please. Remember? Didi?”

  I couldn’t help laughing, too. “Oh yeah! Didi!”

  Desiree’s eyes drifted to the pebble in my hand, which I was still tossing right, left, right, left.

  “If you like that,” she said, “you can keep it.”

  My rock slapping stopped. I swallowed hard. I had to repeat her words in my head to make sense of them: If you like that, you can keep it.

  “You mean it?”

  She nodded.

  “Wh-why?” Who was this crazy girl, inviting me to supper, offering me her rock, looking at me straight-on with those friendly blue eyes?

  “Why else, you clabberhead?” She shone her smile on me. “ ’Cause I like you!”

  “But you don’t know anything about me!” I protested.

  “I do too.”

  My disbelief surely showed on my face.

  “You know how horses have instincts? How they can tell right away if someone is kind or cruel?” she asked.

  “I…didn’t know that. But okay, I hear you.”

  “Sometimes I have instincts about people—and I always, always trust them.” She took a sip of her rice milk and came away with a cinnamon mustache. “I think it might be my horse-witch powers coming alive.”

  “And you have an instinct about me?” When she nodded, I asked, “What’s it say?”

  “It says”—she seemed to be hunting for the right words—“This girl is valuable and good and you should help her, Desiree Orr.”

  I almost snorted my milk through my nose. Valuable! Talk about missing the mark! “Naw!”

  She nodded widely. “It’s true. I never lie, because horses are the most honest beings on earth, and I try to follow their example.”

  * * *

  —

  Dinner was gumbo, which was lumps of meat and vegetables in sauce. I’m sure it would have tasted very fine if I could have tasted anything, which I couldn’t. I was too occupied with answering Pa Orr’s questions and wiping the sauce off my shirt and the squalling demand inside me that insisted that I Steal. Something. Now. So much for the idea that holding Desiree’s stone would remedy the loco.

  “Do I know your daddy, Hush?” asked Jimmy, Desiree’s pa. Like Desiree’s ma, he was big and well-rounded. There was crinkles at the corners of his eyes when he smiled.

  “Not at this time, sir,” I replied. “He don’t live here no more.”

  He nodded with a kindly understanding that made me uneasy. “What’d you say your last name was?”

  Desiree answered, “Cantrell.”

  Becky answered, “Sikes.”

  Everyone looked at me.

  “Can I use the bathroom?” I asked.

  “Right around the corner, sugar,” Becky replied.

  As I was leaving the table, I heard Desiree start explaining about how nickname last names were common in my house. I felt like banging my head against a wall. And then five-fingering the picture that hung on it.

  The bathroom was on the far side of that living room dogleg, past the place where the glass do-funnies and all those books lay. With the loco building up the way it was, it took all my strength just to cross the room whilst keeping my hands in my pockets.

  But I made it! I did! I made it to the bathroom door! I made it inside! I shut myself in—

  —And opened the medicine cabinet.

  —And stole a box of floss.

  Then I sat down on the toilet and cried.

  “You all right, sugar?” a motherly voice called out some time later.

  “Yes! I’ve got the runs!” I replied real loud so no one would come looking for me.

  Desiree’s brother laughed. Becky shushed him.

  After another minute, I wiped my eyes, flushed the toilet, and made like I was washing my hands. I hardly recognized the girl in the mirror. What looked merely skinny and dark in the mirror at home was downright sickly and gaunt under the Orrs’ fine lights.

  Never in all my born days had I felt so despisable.

  On the way back to the table, I pinched a book off one of them shelves and stuck it in my coat.

  * * *

  —

  Martin left the table with a plate of pie and the excuse that he had homework to do. I, myself, knew the face of mischief in the making, however, and didn’t believe a word of it. Interestingly, I don’t think his daddy did, neither.

  “I’ll be in there in half an hour to check your math,” Jimmy said.

  Becky dished out a slice of pie for me and one for Desiree. “Ice cream on top of that?”

  “Not me,” Desiree said.

  “Me neither,” I said, making Desiree my bellwether.

  Jimmy gave us girls a looking-over. “Not much on TV tonight. How about some treasure maps?”

  Desiree bloomed so pretty it made me ache. “Yes, yes! I bet Hush never did one before! Did you?”

  I shook my head.

  Jimmy went away for what seemed like an age. Now, I know it doesn’t make sense, but when he came back, I was so scared he was gonna say something about that missing floss. Why he might have gone looking for floss, right then, I can’t tell you. Thankfully, he only dropped a stack of magazines on the table.

  “S-so, what’s treasure maps?” I asked.

  “It’s easy.” Desiree took four magazines from the stack, setting one out in front of each of her parents, then one for me and one for her. “You find pictures of things you want and you cut ’em out. Then you paste ’em to a board, and—” She looked over at her ma.

  Becky handed me a pair of scissors. “And then you just let it go, knowing that what you treasure will come to you.”

  Opening up my magazine, I said, “So cut out all the things I like? Clothes and cars and whatnot?”

  “That’s a fine way to do it,” Jimmy told me. “Or you could do a map of how you want your life to be. If you want a peaceful life, cut out pictures that make you feel peaceful. If you want to have courage, find things that make you think of bravery.”

  “What kind of things do you cut out, Jimmy?”

  He shrugged. “Depends. Used to be that I was angry a lot of the time. I didn’t like that about myself, so I cut out pictures that made me feel calm and free.” He pointed to a magazine cover where a dolphin leapt from the sea. It was true. That critter did look so wild and free, I imagined no loco could ever get hold of him.

  I looked up at Jimmy and nodded to show I understood.

  He went on, “Speaking for myself, I find it’s
easier to change once I know what I want to change into. Making a treasure map helps me figure that out.”

  That seemed to be more than enough instruction for everyone else, because a quiet fell over the room, with only the sounds of page flipping and paper cutting.

  I considered the first page of my magazine. It showed a lady smiling at a lipstick. She wore a pearl necklace and a diamond clip in her hair. I thought, given the chance, I might steal that lipstick, but as for the other two, a body was sure to get caught pilfering things so refined.

  The next few pages were mostly words, the articles in the magazines. But then I flipped over to something else, an ad that caught my eye. A girl sat on top of a giant cereal box, her legs a-swinging over the side. There were clouds all around her, as if the girl and the box were floating in the sky. It was a head shaker and an eye roller for sure, all of it, except for one thing. Underneath the girl’s dangling feet were the words SHE KNOWS LIFE IS MEANT TO BE MAGICAL.

  I stared at those words for a long time. At first, they made me think of Desiree, because in a way there did seem to be a certain sort of magic flitting round her. But I read the words again, and I realized, no, it wasn’t for Desiree that those words were written. Somehow, they were written for me.

  She knows life is meant to be magical.

  “Something struck your fancy, Hush?” Jimmy’s voice busted in from the world outside.

  “Uh,” I said. “Maybe.”

  Desiree leaned over and looked at what I’d found there. “The words, right?” she asked. “Not the picture, but the words?”

  How had she known?

  “They’re good. You should cut them out,” she told me.

  I looked at Becky, then at Jimmy.

  “Don’t look at us, girl,” Becky laughed. “You’ve got the scissors!”

  So I cut out those words. And in no time at all, I had also cut out a picture of a flying bird, two little girls holding hands, and a lady sleeping in a bed so restful-like she was grinning in her sleep. After a time, a bottle of glue got passed around the table, and I stuck my pictures to a heavy paper they gave me.