Suddenly, the door swung open, and there was Opal, wearing jeans, shiny black shoes, and a white sweater, a coffee cup in one hand. “Please tell me,” she said to Dave, skipping any greeting, “that you are here for the community project.”
“Yep,” he replied. Then he shot me a look that could only be described as smug. “I am.”
“Oh, thank God.” Opal pushed the door open farther and he stepped through. Then she said to me, “You saw all the people here the other day. I had tons! And now, today, when the local paper and freaking Lindsay Baker are coming in twenty minutes, no one. Not a single person!”
She was still holding the door, so I stepped inside behind Dave, who was standing there awaiting instruction. Opal let the door bang shut, then hurried around him and started down the hallway to the restaurant, still talking.
“Plus the walk-in conked out at some point last night, so we lost half our meat and all of the fish. On the day of the Defriese game! The repairman can’t get here until this afternoon and he’ll charge double overtime, and all the suppliers are totally out of everything because everyone else ordered so big for game day.”
That explained my dad’s text, at least. Sure enough, as we passed the main door to the kitchen, I could see him in the walk-in, poking at something with a screwdriver. Jason the prep cook was standing behind him with a toolbox, like a nurse handing off instruments during surgery. It was not the time to interrupt—you never wanted to bug anyone when they were doing hardware repair on old kitchen equipment—so I continued following Opal and Dave through the restaurant and to the stairs that led to the attic.
“The last thing I was worried about,” Opal was saying now as she started up the stairs, “was not having enough delinquents for this freaking photo op.” She stopped, suddenly, both walking and talking, and turned back to look at Dave. “Oh. Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to call you—”
“It’s okay,” he told her. “Kind of comes with the community-service requirement.”
She smiled, relieved, and turned back around. “Seriously, though. I had such a turnout on Wednesday, and now today nobody shows up? I don’t get it.”
“Did you sign their sheets?” Dave asked her.
Opal paused. “Yeah, I did.”
“Oh.”
She looked back again. “Why?”
“Well,” he said, “it’s just that I’ve heard that once some people get a signature, it’s easy to just copy it. The court office is usually too busy to do more than double-check the name matches.”
Opal looked appalled. “But that’s so wrong!”
Dave shrugged. “Theyaredelinquents.”
“So, wait.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Does that meanyou’rejust here for one day and a signature, then?”
“No,” he said. Then he glanced at me, like I was going to vouch for him, before saying, “I’m not a true delinquent. Just did something stupid.”
“Haven’t we all,” Opal said, sighing.
“Opal?” someone yelled up the stairs. “There’s a reporter at the front door asking for you.”
“Oh, crap,” she said, taking a panicked look around the attic space. Behind her, I saw the boxes had all been opened, and someone had constructed the rest of the model’s base around the one piece I’d put down. Everything looked ready to begin, except for the fact that we had only one delinquent. Or sort-of delinquent. “She’s early. What am I going to do? It’s supposed to look like I have a whole crew here!”
“Two isn’t a crew?” Dave asked.
“I’m not part of this,” I said. “I just came to see my dad.”
“Oh yes, but, Mclean,” Opal said, desperate, “you can just pretend, right? For a few minutes? I will owe you big.”
“Pretend to be a delinquent?” I said, clarifying.
“You can do it,” Dave advised me. “Just don’t smile, and try to look like you’re considering stealing something.”
I actually had to fight not to smile at this. “It’s that easy?”
“I hope so,” Opal said, “because I’m about to recruit everyone I can get my hands on. Can you guys please start taking some stuff out and just, you know, make it look like it’s in progress? ”
“Sure,” Dave said.
“Bless you,” she replied, setting her coffee cup down on a nearby table with a clank. Then she was bolting down the stairs, announcing, “I need anyone here under thirty upstairs, stat! No questions! Now, now!”
