“What?” Grace says, unable to hide her disbelief. “For how long?”
“Oh, about three months or so. Mr. Cavadini nally got sick of telling me to go home, so he officially rehired me and put me back on the schedule.” He smiles, big and wide, lifting his shoulders. “And here I stand. It hasn’t killed me yet. I think Porter should be in the cash-out room by now. Cover your ears, ladies. He’s not going to be happy.”
Grace knocks shoulders with me while Pangborn radios Porter. “Glad we’re nally scheduled together again.”
“Me too,” I say, genuinely meaning it. “Team Grailey, taking care of business.”
“Team Baice, dropping the hammer.”
We both laugh until Freddy peeps around the turnstiles again and Grace makes a hissing sound at him. He leaves us alone now. “Got plans this weekend?” she asks me.
“I don’t know. Why?”
“?ere’s a bon re on Saturday after work. Party on the beach.”
I grip my till harder, thinking of Porter’s friend Davy. “Is this the one at the Bone Garden?”
“Yeah. You’ve heard about it?”
“Only in passing.”
“?e core of it is a surfer crowd, but other people show up, too. ?ey’re usually every Saturday night in the summer. Sometimes they’re boring, sometimes they’re fun, but I thought it might be a good place to meet people from Brightsea, since you’re new. I can introduce you.”
?e evader in me cowers, readying an excuse to turn her down, but the weird thing is, I think I want to go. Especially with Grace. So I say, “Sure, why not?” And before I know it, I’m telling her where my dad lives, and we’re making plans for her to pick me up in her car. What do you know? I guess I’m a social butter y. Must be all this fresh air and sunshine.
Or maybe it’s just that I’m feeling more hopeful about life in general after nding out my dad has a new girlfriend. A kickass cop girlfriend. “We’re just friends. Taking things slow,” he assured me on the ride home yesterday. ?at was all he offered, so that’s where we left it. As long as he’s happy and there’s no weirdness, I’m ne with it.
And speaking of ne, there’s the other more important thing buzzing around in my brain: bumping into Patrick at the Pancake Shack. Patrick, and only Patrick, I remind myself for the millionth time, who may or may not be Alex. But I decided last night that I’m going to muster up the gumption to go talk to him again. I’ve been daydreaming about it off and on for hours. Epic sigh.
A rush of cool museum air blows across my arm, and my daydreaming is cut short when I have to step to the side to avoid the buffalo that is Porter, charging the ticketing booth.
“I’m going to rip out your large intestines, sew this key to the end of them, and then stuff them back inside your body.”
Porter opens Pangborn’s hand, shoves down a key, and closes the man’s ngers on top of it. “Don’t. Lose it. Again.”
?e older security guard smiles. “You’re a good boy, Porter. ?ank you.” Pangborn pats him on the shoulder, completely unfazed by Porter’s bad attitude. He’s a better man than most. “Come along, ladies. Freddy’s got ants in his pants. Let’s bust up this line and sell some tickets.”
Team Grailey—I win the name game—kicks butt, per usual, and we do bust up that line, because we are the best. Our shift supervisor remarks on the good work we do, and when Mr. Cavadini drops by to check on us, for once, he even gets our names right. It’s a good day, right up until about four p.m.
Museum foot traffic has slowed. My break’s almost over and I’m nearly ready to power through my last couple of hours, but I’ve still got a few minutes, so I’m strolling through Vivian’s Wing. I’m in the San Francisco Room, which has a Golden Gate Bridge that visitors walk beneath and a fake Chinatown street, where you can peer inside staged storefront windows that look like they did in the late 1800s. As I’m gazing at a Chinese tea shop, I notice two kids, maybe thirteen, fourteen years old, acting a little weird. ?ey’re standing a few yards from me, in the nearby 1940s San Francisco lm noir display, eyeing a replica of the Maltese falcon, which is sitting on the desk of famous
ctional detective Sam Spade—played by Humphrey Bogart on
the big screen. One of them, a blond boy in a white polo shirt and Top-Siders, is experimentally touching the statue, while his friend, a drowsy kid with a backpack, keeps a lethargic lookout.
I can guess what they’re planning. Morons. Don’t they notice the security cameras? ?e backpack kid does see them, though, and he’s inching around, blocking his Richie Rich friend with his body, looking up at the camera and judging the angle. I don’t know what they hope to accomplish. Everything in the museum is glued, nailed, screwed, or locked down.
Only it’s not.
Polo shirt touches the falcon, and it jiggles. Just a little. But enough.
?ey’re going to rock it off its mounting. ?e jerks are planning a heist.
I glance around. Only a few museum guests in this room. I keep my head low and casually walk to the other end of the room, where I know from memorizing the stupid employee map that a call box is hidden in a wall panel. Making sure I’m not seen, I duck behind a potted palm, pop open the panel, and hit the button for security. Porter’s voice booms over the old line.
“Talk to me.” He’s on his radio doohickey. I can tell by the click and static.
“It’s Bailey,” I whisper. “I’m in the San Francisco Room.”
