Part 1 – Six Weeks Before the Robbery
Ever feel like you’re a dry brown leaf in a big clump of dry brown leaves being swept this way then that way by swirling winds? Probably not. But I like to write poetry, and sometimes I just let my mind fly free.
You have to let your mind fly free when you’re bored and restless and it’s spring and you live in a nowhere town like Shadyside. You still have weeks to go in eleventh grade, and then there’s the long summer to get through—maybe a boring summer job—and then a long senior year. How else are you going to spend all that time and eke out some fun and stay out of trouble?
Before Jack Sabers showed up and all the horror began, my amigos and I were bored with a capital B-O-R-E-D. Just leaves blowing aimlessly in the wind.
I mean, can you imagine—we were still hanging at the Division Street Mall. No one hangs at the mall anymore. So many stores are boarded up and the place looks like the whole country is going out of business, and even the Cinnabon has a sign on it that says it’s closing at the end of May.
How can that be? Everyone loves Cinnabon.
The Burger Pit is still here, but it’s expensive, and the two-dollar double cheeseburgers at Lefty’s across from the high school are much better. And how boring am I, standing here talking about hamburgers with my friends? There has to be more to life, don’t you think?
My name is Poppy Miller. I’m the short one with the springy straw-blond hair that looks like it’s about to bounce right off my head. Yes, I have pale-blue eyes and freckles and my two front teeth stick out a little, but some people tell me that’s sexy.
Do I like to have fun? Three guesses. I admit I’m always the most enthusiastic one in my crowd. But I’m serious about things, too. I’m serious about my poetry. And I’m serious about learning to become an actor. That’s why I’m in the Shadyside High Drama Club.
I’m hoping to get a scholarship to the drama department at Carnegie Mellon. I know it’s a long shot, but you have to give yourself challenges, right? Of course, when Jack Sabers showed up, I took up some wrong challenges. But . . . don’t let me get ahead of myself.
The tall, skinny guy with the short brown hair and the serious expression is my boyfriend, Keith Carter. I guess I have to call him my boyfriend, but I’m not really that into Keith. He’s like an in-between boyfriend, if that makes any sense. It’s like looking for Swiss cheese but there’s none around and you have to settle for American.
Actually, Keith is more like Velveeta. Not even actual cheese. I guess his best quality is that he likes me.
Ivy Tanner is my BFF. She’s the one with the broad, pale forehead, the green cat eyes, and the awesome copper-colored hair that flows in waves down past her shoulders. Ivy loves her hair. She can seldom keep her hands out of it, and I don’t blame her. It shines and shimmers like ocean waves, like in the L’Oreal shampoo commercials. Seriously. Ivy has TV-commercial hair.
She’s nice, too.
Ivy has been going with Jeremy Klavan since ninth grade when he moved here. He’s a good guy, a little intense sometimes, spends a lot of time texting kids at his old school in Shaker Heights. Jeremy is quiet and, I guess, a little shy.
I think part of his problem is his allergies. He’s, like, allergic to everything, and it makes him timid. I mean, he always has to know what’s in something before he’ll eat it.
He carries an inhaler and a container of pills. But when he’s not sneezing or wheezing and his skin isn’t breaking out in blotches, he can be fun in a quiet sort of way. He has a dry sense of humor.
Most of Jeremy’s jokes go right over the head of the last member of our group, Manny Kline. Manny is big and wide and loud and a grinning fool and is always punching people and pretending to want to box with them. He doesn’t have a mean bone in his body. He’s just fun all the time and has a great toothy smile and makes us all laugh.
Manny is a musical genius. He can pick up any instrument and play it. But he’s a wizard on guitar and on keyboard. And I should mention saxophone. He was in a band with some guys from Martinsville High, but they weren’t good enough, and he got discouraged and quit.
The five of us are pretty tight. I don’t know how you’d describe us. We’re not in the cool clique at school. We don’t live in North Hills and we don’t take tennis lessons and horseback riding on Saturdays. We’re not Brainiacs, although we’re smart enough and we know enough to get by. We’re definitely not jocks. We’re the Undescribables, I think.
Ha. That’s a good title for a poem.
We’re just there, you know? We’re just people. I mean, we all want to get somewhere or be something eventually. But it’s also hard to stay motivated when spring comes and the warm air lulls you into laziness, and the air smells so sweet, it, like, teases you, and you feel so restless. It’s almost an itch, I think. An uncomfortable feeling on your skin and inside you that you should have more going on.
Or is that just more poetry from Poppy Miller?
Anyway, that day we’d been wandering around the mall, and we ran into a few kids from school. No one we were really friends with.
Ivy and I looked at some sleeveless T’s at TJ Maxx while the guys hung by the door, looking unhappy. I saw a scoop-neck tank top for only twenty dollars I wanted to try on, but they were looking so impatient, I said, “Skip it.”
Manny had to stop and stare into the display window at Guitar World. The instruments in that window always make him drool. “I’m saving my money for that Gibson over there,” he said, pointing, nose pressed against the glass. “I can feel it in my hands. It’s like a baby, you know?”
“Don’t get weird,” Jeremy said, giving Manny a shove.
Manny laughed. “Just trying to freak you out.”
“Looking at you freaks me out,” Jeremy replied.
“It’s getting late,” Keith said. “I think the mall closes at nine.” Keith always knows what time it is. He’s the time cop in the group. He’s never late for anything, which is totally weird, right? He’s the only person I know who always worries about the time.
We ended up at the end of the mall. I could see the parking lot through the wide exit door. We were standing in front of the last store, Pet Haven. And two adorable white puppies pawed the window glass to get our attention.
“Awww, what are they?” Ivy asked. “Oh. The sign says shih tzu.”
Manny laughed. “That’s a nasty word. Who would call a dog that?”
Ivy slapped his wrist. “It’s two words, and it’s Chinese.”
Manny gazed at the puppies behind the glass. “Do you think they speak Chinese?”
“Ohmigod, they are adorable. I want them both!” I said. “Look. That one is jumping up and down. He likes me.”
“Your mom would kill you if you brought home a dog,” Keith said, shaking his head. Why does he always have to be sensible? He’s so totally predictable.
I ignored him. “Let’s go in. I have to cuddle that dog. I mean, really.”
Jeremy took a step back. “I can’t go in the store,” he said. “I’m allergic to dog dander.”
Manny laughed. “Dog dander? Is that a thing?”
“Dog fur,” Jeremy said. “I’m totally allergic.”
I started to pull off the silk scarf I had around my neck. “Wrap this around your face,” I said, “and maybe you’ll be okay.”
“No way.” Jeremy backed away, motioning with both hands. “I can’t wear it unless you wash it first. My skin is very sensitive and—”
“You should live in a plastic bubble,” Manny said. “People would feed you through a tube in the side.”
Jeremy scowled at him. “Funny,” he muttered. “Do you think I like being a freak of nature? Allergic to everything?”
Manny actually blushed. “Hey, I’m sorry, man,” he said. “I didn’t mean it. You’re right. That was stupid. I shouldn’t make fun—just because you’re a freak of nature.” He hee-hawed and slapped Jeremy on the back.
“Poppy thinks a scarf can solve any problem,” Ivy said, trying to change the subject, I guess.
My friends are always making fun of me about the scarves I wear. But I love them. I always like to have a really colorful one draped around me.
It’s not so weird. My parents took me to Paris when I was ten, and all the women wore beautiful, stylish scarves over there. So I adopted the habit. It’s kind of like my trademark.
Ivy pointed to the store window. “That puppy has his eyes on you, Poppy. Look at his little tail snapping back and forth. Ha. That’s hilarious. Like a cartoon.”
I started to pull open the glass front door. And if I had continued walking into the store without glancing to one side, everything would have been fine, and maybe none of the nightmare things would have happened.
But I stopped and glanced at the doors from the parking lot, which slid open, and I stared at the boy who strode into the mall. I recognized him. Jack Sabers. I didn’t know him. But I’d seen him around school, and people talked about him a lot. The word they usually used when they talked about Jack was “trouble.”
He looks tough. He has a sharp jaw that looks like it could cut you. And strange silvery eyes—robot eyes, that you can’t read. He’s normal height, but he walks with a strutting step, like a cowboy or something, that makes him look taller. His hair is white-blond and spiky. No one else at Shadyside High has that kind of punk hair. Not anymore.
Jack hasn’t been at our school for long. I don’t know where he came from. I mean, until that night, we’d never spoken a word to each other. But I’d noticed him a lot. And a few times, I thought I’d caught him looking at me.
And he was looking at me now, one hand on the pet-store door, the puppies yapping through the window glass. Jack had this stern expression on his pale face as his gaze moved slowly from one of us to another. He nodded to himself. I guess our faces clicked in and he recognized us from school.
I watched him strut toward us, such a peculiar bobbing walk, as if he was moving to a silent beat. His faded denims were shredded at both knees. He wore a gray sleeveless T-shirt with the letters UFO in blue across the chest. As he came closer, I saw the gold stud in one ear and a small tattoo of a blackbird on the back of his right hand.
He slid his hands into his jeans pockets. “What’s up?”
“The moon,” Manny said, pointing up.
Jack sneered. “I’ve seen you at school. You’re the funny guy, right?”
Manny grinned. “Sometimes.”
“We’re just hanging,” I said. I couldn’t believe his eyes. They were like silvery mirrors.
He studied me for a long moment. “You bored?”
Ivy and I nodded. Keith took a step back. Maybe Jack made him nervous.
“Not much happening here,” Jeremy said.
A tight-lipped grin spread over Jack’s face. He leaned toward me, until he was almost touching me. “Want to do something dangerous?”
