The Crims Read online

  Too late to think about that now, she told herself, balling her fists to make herself feel braver. She hid the lunch box in the folds of her big black dress. And then, as an afterthought, she hid the toy hippo under her veil, too. She took a deep breath and marched out of the Loot Room with as much purpose as she could muster.

  When Imogen got back to the ballroom, everything was back to normal (as normal as a party at Kruk headquarters can be, that is—in the middle of the room, the president of an Eastern European country was dancing the tango with a very large lizard). The rats had been caught, the laughing gas had dispersed, the chocolate had been cleaned up, and the pig was nowhere to be seen. Imogen found the Horrible Children and Freddie and gave them the signal that she had found the lunch box (she pretended to eat a sandwich). They signaled back that they understood (they pretended to get sandwich crumbs stuck in their throat), and they all began to head for the door.

  This was it. Just a few more minutes and they’d be safe—for now, at least.

  But before they could leave the ballroom, a woman Imogen assumed was a Kruk—she had the same tiny eyes and large teeth as Luka Kruk and Captain Crook—blocked their way. She turned to the guests and clapped her hands. “It’s time for the Kruk children to go to bed,” she announced, smiling a surprisingly sweet smile. “But first, they’d like to entertain you all with a little song.”

  The six Kruk children lined up in the center of the room in height order and began to sing:

  “There’s a strange kind of jangling from the coins in our purse,

  And the diamonds in our pockets too.

  And up in the tiger cage, our stripy friends

  Have got some human bones to chew.”

  Imogen felt like she might fall over. Was this real, or was she was in the middle of a terrible nightmare?

  The song was almost identical to the one Mrs. Teakettle had taught the Horrible Children, only with more disturbing lyrics. She looked over at her cousins—they were all staring openmouthed at the Kruk children, too.

  Nothing about this was exciting anymore. Imogen was terrified. Her former belief that the Kruks didn’t even know the Crims existed seemed naive at best, idiotic at worst. Why were their children singing the same song? Why was Big Nana’s hippo in their Loot Room? She just wanted to get out of Krukingham Palace and never come back. But was it even safe to go home?

  Could the perfect Mrs. Teakettle be . . . a Kruk?

  The eldest Kruk child stepped forward to sing her solo:

  “Good night, my friends. I’m so glad I’m a Kruk.

  I have a maid, a nanny, and a cook.”

  A serious-looking boy with slicked back hair stepped forward next:

  “Good-bye, good night! Come wake me if you dare.

  But if you do, you’ll end up like the bears.”

  And then the littlest Kruk child smiled a terrifying smile and sang “Good-BYYYYE!” in a surprisingly beautiful voice. (The Kruks were rich; they probably all had singing lessons.)

  Everyone cried “Bravo!” and clapped, and the Kruk children took bow after bow. Imogen forced herself to clap along. When the children had finally gone upstairs to bed, the Crims glanced at one another in confusion—then Freddie made the signal again, and they all ran out of the room and down the hallway to the front door.

  “Where did Mrs. Teakettle get that song from?” Imogen panted to Delia as they climbed the stairs to the trapdoor.

  “She said she made it up!” said Delia.

  Imogen had a very, very bad feeling about this. Her mind surged with questions as they exited the trapdoor, then ran across the four lanes of traffic and down into the tube station. She had always feared Mrs. Teakettle was a little too good to be true. What were the chances that the perfect babysitter would turn up out of the blue in a tiny town and love spending her time with a family of criminals? What were the chances she’d teach a strange, made-up song to the Horrible Children—and that the Kruk children would just happen to know the same song?

  Was it possible that Mrs. Teakettle could have been sent to Blandington to keep an eye on the Crims?

  IMOGEN WOKE UP before sunrise the next morning, partly because Sam was practicing voice-lowering exercises in the room above her and partly because there was a deep, nagging dread in the pit of her stomach. She knew she should be happy, and she was, sort of—she’d pulled off her first heist in two years and stolen the lunch box from right under the Kruks’ noses. But now that she was sure that Mrs. Teakettle was connected to the Kruks, she couldn’t relax. Her family was in danger. She would have to fire Mrs. Teakettle. But, of course, firing someone connected to the Kruks was quite a risky thing to do.

  Think positive, Imogen told herself. You achieved what you set out to achieve. You’ve succeeded! There was nothing Imogen liked more than succeeding—although when people like Bridget Sweetwine didn’t succeed, that came a close second.

  And speaking of Bridget Sweetwine . . . Imogen just had to get down to the police station, give them the lunch box and get her family’s name cleared, and write a guilt-inducing email to Headmistress Gruner, and she’d be back at Lilyworth. There was still over a week to go till the head girl elections—plenty of time to polish her campaign speech. Though, something about the thought of going back to Lilyworth made her feel uneasy.

  I’m just nervous, Imogen thought, forcing herself to get out of bed. I just really, really want to go back to school, and I really, really want to become head girl. That’s all. As she got dressed, she focused on all the good things about going back to Lilyworth—the croquet championship, the weekend waffle bar, not spending her time worrying about whether she was going to be murdered in a creative but extremely painful way by a family of master criminals—and by the time Freddie knocked on her door to ask if she was ready to leave for the police station, she felt much better.

  She packed the lunch box in a shopping bag, along with the Kruks’ coloring book, and set off, arm in arm with her cousin.

  “Here’s the plan,” she said to Freddie as they walked along. “We go straight to the Crims’ cell, show everyone the lunch box, let Uncle Clyde say good-bye to it properly, and then we hand it over to the police. Then this whole horrible mess will be over, and the adults will come home, and we can fire Mrs. Teakettle without her knowing we suspect anything about her being a Kruk. Deal?”

  “Deal,” said Freddie, nodding. “And I can go back to spending my gambling money on beautiful tailored clothes that I can only wear in the privacy of my bedroom. Let’s get this over with!”

  The police officer on duty was PC Donnelly, and unfortunately for Imogen and Freddie, he seemed to be in the mood for company. “Hang out with me for a bit!” he said, after Imogen and Freddie asked to see the other Crims. “Have you had breakfast yet? I’ve just put the kettle on! We can have tea and toast!”

  Big Nana had always told Imogen, “Always say yes when a police officer offers you food. Unless it’s seafood—police officers always buy dodgy oysters.” So she and Freddie sipped their tea and watched the time tick by on the gray police-station clock as PC Donnelly told them about the rubbish crimes their ancestors had committed.

  “Those were the good old days. . . . I remember my mum telling me about great-granddad Gary Crim committing the Not-So-Great Train Robbery. All he got was a packet of crisps and a roll of very thin toilet paper. . . .”

  Imogen and Freddie nodded and smiled, cursing PC Donnelly for choosing this moment of all moments to reminisce about family history.

  When he’d run out of interesting ancestors to talk about, PC Donnelly turned to Freddie. “How’s the bookkeeping course going?” he asked.

  “Really well,” said Freddie, beaming. “I keep learning things that blow my mind. Did you know there are negative numbers?”

  PC Donnelly shrugged. “If you say so,” he said. “You really take after your uncle Al, Freddie.”

  “Speaking of Dad,” said Imogen, drinking the last of her cup of tea. “Is it okay if we go
and visit him and the others now? We have a couple of things to show them.”

  “Like what?” asked PC Donnelly.

  Imogen and Freddie exchanged glances.

  “To begin with . . . this,” said Imogen. She reached into her shopping bag, pulled out the coloring book she had been given at Krukingham Palace, and pushed it across the desk. “Do you think a court would accept confession by coloring book?”

  PC Donnelly opened the coloring book. “Ah, the Kruk family coloring book! These are legendary,” he said. “I came across one in London when I was investigating the Eviscerated Engine Driver Case. Someone pulled out this poor guy’s internal organs and then crashed into him with his own engine! Terrible, really. It would have been a lot less painful if they’d crashed his engine into him first. . . .”

  Freddie gave Imogen another look.

  Imogen gave him one back.

  “You’ve colored in the Kruks’ monogrammed pistols purple!” said PC Donnelly, turning the page. “Interesting choice.”

  “I picked up the wrong crayon by mistake,” explained Imogen, glancing up at the clock again. “By the time I realized it wasn’t gray, it was too late to switch.”

  “Of course,” said PC Donnelly, nodding. “You wouldn’t want the colors to get muddy.”

  “So . . . can we use the book as proof that the Kruks committed all these crimes?”

  PC Donnelly shook his head. “Afraid not,” he said. “We can’t prove that the Kruks drew the pictures or that they’re based on actual events. And going after the Kruks is a dangerous business, anyway. Did you ever hear what they did to poor Inspector Sheldon when he tried to pin the Eviscerated Engine Driver Case on them?”

  “I—” Imogen wanted nothing more than to stop PC Donnelly from telling his story, but he seemed absolutely determined to get the words out. Words that were already quite terrible on their own—“moist,” “laceration,” “overripe,” and “plopped”—but that were taken to a whole new level of horrifying when they were combined into this improbable, nightmare-inducing tale.

  “I—” Imogen tried to excuse herself politely, but she began vomiting almost immediately upon opening her mouth, so she clamped it shut and bolted for the ladies’ toilet, where she surprised herself both in terms of volume and ferocity.

  A few moments later, there was a knock at the door, and Imogen heard Freddie’s voice saying, “Imogen? Can I come in?”

  “Mmmmhgh.”

  The door inched open, and Freddie’s head appeared. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  Imogen rested her forehead on the cool toilet seat. She was sure she’d seen at least one small but essential organ go by, like her pancreas. “I don’t know,” she said.

  She was still struggling to come to terms with the implications of PC Donnelly’s story. She had planned to hand the lunch box to the police today, to prove that the Crims were innocent and the Kruks were extremely guilty, and to be on a train back to Lilyworth by the weekend. But if that was how the Kruks treated whistleblowers, she wasn’t sure she could go through with her plan. What the Kruks did to Inspector Sheldon was worse than death. It was death, obviously, but all the stuff they did to him before he was actually killed was . . . inhuman. She liked to think of herself as brave, but no one was that brave. And even if she was prepared to put her own life at risk for the sake of justice, she couldn’t put the rest of her family in danger. I love them too much, she realized.

  “That story—” said Freddie.

  “Don’t say it,” said Imogen, closing her eyes.

  “Who even knew that a deck of cards could—”

  “I know,” Imogen said quickly, worrying she might vomit again. “Please, can we never talk about it ever again?”

  Freddie sighed. “Good idea,” he said. And then he opened his mouth to say something else, but changed his mind and shut it again.

  “What is it?” Imogen asked.

  “Okay,” said Freddie. “I’m all for justice. And I want to get the Crims out of jail, obviously. But—”

  “But we can’t go after the Kruks,” Imogen finished for him. She sighed. “I know. We don’t want to end up like Inspector Sheldon.”

  “We really, really don’t,” said Freddie. “It’s strange, though—the Kruks actually seemed quite nice at the party. Those children, singing that sweet song . . . and Luka, with his nice little beard . . .”

  “And that butler who tried to poison me and feed me to the tigers,” said Imogen, resting her head on the toilet seat again.

  “Good point,” said Freddie, nodding. “And he was just the butler. So . . . what do you say we find a way to clear our family’s name without telling the police that the Kruks were the ones who stole the lunch box? Mission aborted?”

  “Mission aborted,” Imogen replied. She gave Freddie a sad smile. After everything they’d been through, she hated the idea of letting the Kruks get away with what they’d done.

  When Imogen had washed her face and smoothed down her hair, and Freddie had ruffled his hair up to disguise the fact that he’d combed it that morning, PC Donnelly showed them to the Crims’ cell. At last.

  Their family was very pleased to see them, and Imogen found that she was very pleased to see them, too. It doesn’t matter about the Kruks, she told herself. What matters is getting my family out of jail, so we can all be together again. But how would she be able to prove it wasn’t them if she couldn’t pin the crime on the real culprits?

  Josephine hugged Imogen and insisted on helping Freddie put his shirt on the right way around. “You’ve got it on inside out!” she said fondly. “Honestly, darling. You are hopeless!”

  Imogen avoided Freddie’s eye and smiled at Uncle Clyde instead, who was walking up to her, rubbing his hands. “So?” he said. “Did the plan work?”

  “See for yourself,” said Imogen. She held the shopping bag out to Uncle Clyde.

  His eyes lit up. “It’s not . . .,” he said.

  “It is,” said Imogen, laughing.

  He snatched the bag from Imogen, reached a hand in, and triumphantly pulled out . . .

  “MY LUNCH BOX!”

  All the other Crims gasped—except Aunt Bets, who screamed (because Uncle Knuckles had stepped on her toes in all the excitement)—and Freddie and Imogen, obviously, because it wasn’t much of a surprise for them.

  Uncle Clyde cradled the lunch box tenderly in his arms (much more tenderly than he cradled his children, if you remember what happened to poor Henry). “It’s really you!” he cooed to it, tears in his eyes. “I never thought I’d see you again! Did you miss me?”

  The lunch box didn’t reply.

  “I don’t mean to interrupt . . .,” said Imogen.

  “Then don’t,” said Uncle Clyde, holding the lunch box up to his face and stroking it.

  “It’s just . . . You do know that you can’t keep it, right?”

  Uncle Clyde’s smile dropped. “But it’s MINE!”

  “I know it’s yours,” Imogen said carefully. “But technically, it’s not. So we’re going to have to give it to the police.”

  “Don’t call my lunch box ‘it.’ It’s a ‘he,’” said Uncle Clyde, stroking the lunch box one last time and wrapping the towel around it like swaddling.

  “So,” said Al, blinking nervously, “did the Kruks really steal it, then?”

  “Steal him,” corrected Uncle Clyde.

  Imogen nodded. “I found it—sorry, him—in their Loot Room.”

  Uncle Clyde shook his head. “I can’t believe they wasted my genius heist on gathering evidence for a stupid lawsuit about whether or not Captain Crook looks like one of their ancestors,” he said.

  “But don’t you see?” said Josephine, clutching Uncle Clyde’s arm. “The Kruks knew about The Heist! Which means they know about us! They probably know our names! It’s too, too thrilling!”

  Imogen winced, remembering that she still had to fire Mrs. Teakettle. “Here’s the thing, though,” said Imogen. “We’re not really sure what
to do next. Because”—she braced herself—“we can’t go after the Kruks.”

  The Crims were outraged.

  “WHY NOT?” shouted Uncle Knuckles. “WHAT THOSE KRUKS DESERVE IS A NICE FAIR TRIAL.”

  “I know,” said Imogen, sitting down on a bench. She took a deep breath. “But did you hear what happened to Inspector Sheldon after he went after the Kruks for the Eviscerated Engine Driver Case?”

  The Crims shook their heads.

  Ten minutes later, everyone had stopped vomiting. Uncle Knuckles hadn’t stopped shaking, but Aunt Bets was doing her best to comfort him (by repeatedly hitting him around the head with one of her shoes).

  “Fine,” Uncle Clyde said weakly. “I get it now. We can’t go after the Kruks.”

  “But how are we going to prove that we didn’t do The Heist?” asked Aunt Bets.

  Al had his head in his hands. “I really want to get out of here,” he said. “I really miss being an accountant. . . . What I wouldn’t give to do some long multiplication!”

  Imogen felt as though she’d let everyone down. “I haven’t given up,” she said firmly. “I’m still trying to think of a way to get you out of here.” She smiled at everyone as encouragingly as she could, but their eyes all shared the same bleak expression. Imogen felt pretty bleak, too.

  “I need to get out ASAP too,” said Uncle Clyde. “It’s the Obscure Cartoon Character Conference this weekend.”

  Uncle Clyde went to the Obscure Cartoon Character Conference every year, dressed as Captain Crook. Jack Wooster went every year too, also dressed as Captain Crook, except his costume was better and more expensive. Jack was always invited to speak on a panel (usually about how Captain Crook had inspired him to do wonderful things with his life), and Uncle Clyde always went to watch and threw rotten tomatoes at Jack.

  Imogen suddenly had a thought. “Is Jack definitely going to be there this year?” she asked.

  “Yes,” said Uncle Clyde. “He’d never miss it! I normally wouldn’t either, but of course, I’m in jail.”