The Classy Crooks Club by Alison Cherry Read Free Book Online

the house so you don’t distract me.”
    On a normal summer night, I’d run straight over to Maddie’s after dinner for Xbox or bike riding or our complicated version of badminton. “Actually, I think I’ll take my skateboard out for a while and explore the neighborhood,” I tell Grandma Jo, hoping some exercise might distract me from how much I miss my best friend. “I’ll come back in before it gets dark.”
    Grandma Jo’s eyes bug out so much I think they might pop out of her head. “Absolutely not. I can’t have my granddaughter hurtling around the neighborhood on that infernal plank. What would everyone think?”
    They’d probably think, Hey, there goes a perfectly normal kid having a good time . “Come on, Grandma Jo, please?” I say. “Nobody cares anymore if skating is ladylike or whatever. Lots of girls do it.”
    She sniffs. “The fact that it’s popular doesn’t make it okay. Lots of girls put piercings in their faces and smoke cigarettes, too. Is that the kind of person you want to be, Annemarie?”
    â€œThat’s not the same thing at all ! And how do you expect me to entertain myself if I’m not allowed to watch TV or play video games or go outside?”
    â€œYou might consider exercising your brain,” she says. “This house has a lovely library, and you’re welcome to take all the books you want up to your room. Your parents may let you run around like a savage, but while you’re under my roof, you will learn discipline and decorum.” With that, she turns and leaves the room.
    There’s a pressure building in my chest, and for a second I’m sure I’m going to explode. I’ve been trying so hard to be polite and cooperative all day, and I’ve done everything she asked, including sewing that stupid sampler. But none of it matters at all, and she’s still treating me like I’m a wad of chewed gum on the bottom of her shoe. What is her problem? Did she seriously call me a savage ? Good behavior clearly isn’t getting me anywhere, and I suddenly want to break every single one of her rules as fast as I can.
    I push my chair back so it scrapes against the nice wood floor and sprint around the dining room table a couple times. Then I open and close the china cabinet with a loud bang and watch as all the plates rattle, but that doesn’t make me feel any better. I go into the living room and move all the stupid china figurines around on the shelf my grandmother called a “credenza”; I even arrange a wolf figurine over a knocked-over shepherd girl so it looks like it’s going to eat her face. I think about smashing a vase on the floor, but Grandma Jo would probably make me clean it up, and that’s seriously all I need right now.
    There’s nothing else to mess with in the living room, so I go outside and walk through some of the flower beds, then make sure to track dirt across the floor as I stomp upstairs to my room. I grab my cell phone out of my soccer bag and send Maddie a bunch of angry texts.
    i hate it here so so so SO much .
    my grandmother is totally evil.
    im so bored.
    save me.
    But she doesn’t even reply. She’s probably off riding her bike or playing Xbox without me. I slam my door and throw the phone at the bed, hoping it’ll make me feel better, but it doesn’t.
    I don’t know what Grandma Jo does for the next two and a half hours while I stew in my room, but at 9:25 on the dot, I hear her making her slow, stately way up the stairs— clomp-click-rustle, clomp-click-rustle . “Lights out in five minutes, Annemarie,” she calls from outside my door. “I trust I won’t have to remind you again.”
    â€œWhatever,” I grumble.
    â€œWhat was that?”
    â€œI said fine .”
    She’s quiet for a minute, and I wonder if she’s going to feed me some lie about how she’s glad