“Sometimes,” she replies. “Doesn’t your dad keep some money hidden at home?”
I shrug. It never occurred to me to look. Dad doesn’t seem the type to keep money in jars and even if he did, he’d know exactly how much was in it. And if some went missing there’d be hell to pay.
She takes a deep breath. “We need money, Oscar. We can’t get to Reno without it.”
“Yeah,” I say as we leave the house. “Now what?”
Henri shakes her head. “I don’t know.”
We stand outside for a few minutes, then I say, “If your grandma is working, we could ask her.”
She thinks this over. “She’s cool enough, I guess. And easy to fool.” She nods. “Let’s go.”
Henri stuffs her hands into her jean pockets as we walk. “What if she isn’t working? Or makes us go home? Or calls the police?”
“She seems okay,” I say. “And I guess we could blackmail her. Tell her we’ll tell her boyfriend how old she really is.”
Henri raises her eyebrows. “And I thought you were such a goody-two-shoes.”
“My dad’s a Hell’s Jury biker,” I say, feeling insulted. “I’m his son. What makes you think I’m not like him?”
She shrugs. “I guess because you never tried to beat me up.”
I stop in my tracks. “For real? You think my dad beats on girls? Dad would kill me if I did that.”
She hangs her head. “I guess you’re right. Maybe I should stop punching you.”
“Ya think?” I reply sarcastically.
We walk along for a few more minutes, then Henri says, “What if gramma has no money?”
“We’ll ask her to give us a ride.”
“What if she won’t? What if she won’t be blackmailed?”
Henri has a point. “We’ll get the money before we check to see if she’s working.”
“And how’re we gonna do that?”
“I’ll get it. I know how to pickpocket.”
Her eyes light up with respect. “You know how to pickpocket?”
I shrug pretending that her tone of voice doesn’t make me happy. “Dad taught me. Only supposed to do it when I got no other choice.”
“We’ve got no other choice,” Henri says.
“Yeah. Monty’s will have a lot of easy marks there.”
“We won’t need to steal the money if Gramma drives us.”
She’s missing the point. “We can’t know for sure until we talk to her, and if she says no, then it’ll be too late to do anything about it.” I let the silence slide for a minute, then add, “She’s different, your grandma. Hard to tell how she’s gonna react. “
“Yeah,” Henri agrees. “Mad as King George the Third.”
Why can’t Henri just be normal?
She realizes I’m annoyed. “That’s what mom says. She likes to read regency romances.”
