The Crims #3 Read online

  “Uh-oh,” said Freddie, pointing to the end of the candlewick.

  It was on fire.

  I guess this is it, thought Imogen. I never thought this is how I would die: tied up next to my relatives and a toothless guy who’s really bad at poker, and turned into a lavender-scented candle.

  “Imogen,” Big Nana whispered, “don’t give up. You know what I always say: ‘It isn’t over until the psychopath sets fire to your hair. . . .’”

  That’s right! thought Imogen, remembering her criminal lessons. It was always a good idea to get your enemy to expand on his or her dastardly plans—it gave you time to come up with an escape plan. So I just have to keep Ava talking. . . .

  “I have a question,” Imogen said. “Why are you doing this? Why fire? Why the Flame?”

  Ava looked at her. “What do you mean?”

  “You know,” said Imogen. “All really good supervillains and superheroes have got a moving origin story. Like the Joker used to be a comedian before he fell into a vat of toxic chemicals and turned into a mass murderer. And the Penguin was bullied because he was short and round and had a beak-like nose, but he reclaimed his nickname and dressed in black and white when he turned to crime and fought Batman. So, what’s your deal, Ava? What fire-based trauma do you have in your past?”

  Ava pouted. “Well,” she said, “everyone hates fire, right?”

  “I don’t,” said Henry.

  “But you don’t have a really personal reason for choosing fire as your brand,” said Imogen. “Which means you aren’t a real supervillain. Because real supervillains have heart. They’re motivated by pain and anger and a desire for warped justice. You just decided to be the Flame because you thought fire would be an easy brand to sell!”

  “That’s not true!” said Ava, but the flames on her costume had started to dwindle.

  Imogen noticed a pineapple lying on the deck near Sam’s legs. Sam had managed to wriggle his arms free from the candlewick and was reaching out to grab it. Ava hadn’t noticed yet. Imogen just needed to distract her for a little bit longer. . . .

  “Okay, then,” said Imogen. “Give me an example of a terrible fire-related incident from your past. And I’m not talking about the time that Elsa forgot to buy candles for your birthday cake.”

  “But that was really upsetting!” said Ava. “No one sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to me at all that year! I’m going to—”

  But we’ll never know what Ava was going to do. Because before she could finish her sentence, Sam hurled the pineapple at her.

  The pineapple hit Ava’s head.

  And she fell backward and smacked her head again on the deck.

  “Ava?” Henry said anxiously. But Ava didn’t reply, because it’s hard to reply when you’re unconscious.

  “The Flame is out!” cried Sam. “Repeat: The Flame is out!”

  “Hooray!” cried the Crims.

  “Noooo!” cried Henry.

  Sam managed to free the others from the candlewick and stamp out the flame.

  Josephine looked around, disappointed. “The camera crew have disappeared!” she said. “They didn’t get any of that!”

  “Maybe they were burned up into cinders by a fireball,” said Imogen.

  “Some people get all the luck,” said Henry.

  Imogen tied Ava up using her candlewick, and Isabella sailed the cruise ship back to the Gull’s lair, so they could lock her in the dungeon/auditorium. Freddie and Imogen carried her out of the cruise ship and up to the castle—but as they were hauling her up the white staircase, Ava awoke.

  “Nice going, losers,” she said, trying to wriggle free. “You managed to knock me out. With a piece of fruit. I didn’t expect that. Credit where credit’s due.”

  Imogen ignored her. “Let’s put her in that strange cage that dangles from the ceiling again,” she said, as they maneuvered Ava into the dungeon/auditorium. “She can’t escape from that one. And to think I actually wanted to save you.”

  “Ha!” laughed Ava. “I’ll escape from any cage you decide to lock me in! Just like Uncle Dedrick and Violet managed to escape police custody! They’re going to come and rescue me. They’ll be able to find me, because of the GPS on my phone.”

  “What?” said Imogen, pulling Ava’s phone out of her pocket. “This one, you mean?”

  “Nice one,” said Freddie, nodding approvingly.

  “Give that back!” screamed Ava.

  “No,” said Imogen, slipping it back into her pocket. She looked at her former best friend and current nemesis and sighed. This wasn’t how she thought things would end with Ava. She had hoped that they’d travel the world together, fighting superheroes, committing crimes without even trying, drinking nonstop fruit smoothies, and listening to nonstop Justin Bieber (okay, that bit wasn’t quite so appealing, but she’d been hoping to convert Ava to Rachmaninoff’s piano concertos eventually). If only Ava hadn’t been so fond of trying to kill her family. If only Imogen hadn’t been quite so fond of her family, and so anxious to stop Ava from killing them. It could have been the beginning of a beautiful friendship. . . .

  Imogen smiled at Ava. “Let’s go, Freddie,” she said, and turned toward the exit.

  “Wait,” Ava called.

  Imogen turned around. Ava was standing at the bars of her cage, looking smaller and less powerful than usual.

  “You have so much potential, Imogen,” Ava said. “But as long as you stick with your family, you’ll never become a true supervillain.”

  Imogen hesitated. She wanted to be a supervillain very badly. And she couldn’t help liking Ava, despite everything.

  “Come on,” said Freddie. “Everyone’s waiting for us.”

  Imogen looked at Freddie, and she remembered everything they had been through together—all the failed heists and the ridiculous plans and the kidnappings and the near-death experiences involving butlers and sharks—and she thought about her other cousins and her mad aunt and uncles, and her strange but lovable parents, and her insane genius of a grandmother, and she realized that even though they definitely, definitely did hold her back, she could never leave them. “I’m fine with just being a notorious criminal,” she said to Ava. “That way I get to be myself, instead of giving myself a stupid nickname. Plus, I look terrible in Lycra.” She turned to go.

  “Wait!” Ava called again. “Can’t you turn the TV on before you go, so I have something to watch?”

  “No problem,” said Imogen. She walked over to the giant screen and turned it on—and then she flicked through the channels until she found what she was looking for.

  Ava watched in horror as the host announced the start of a Don Vadrolga movie marathon. “No!” she screamed as the opening credits of the talking baby movie started to play.

  Imogen paused in the doorway, watching. “I guess we’ll never know what happened to Don Vadrolga,” she said.

  “He won’t be able to evade the Kruks forever,” muttered Ava, putting her hands over her ears.

  Imogen smirked and turned up the volume on the TV. And then she and Freddie walked out of the dungeon/auditorium, ignoring the cries of “Please! Talking babies make me break out in a rash!” and “Heartwarming plots give me migraines!” and “No, please! He’s wearing sunglasses! Make it stop!”

  19

  AS IMOGEN AND Freddie were walking back to the cruise ship, they passed Unfortunate Pete, sitting alone on the beach, looking more unfortunate than ever before. Freddie ran back onto the ship as fast as he could, but Imogen hung back to talk to Pete. She felt sorry for him. After all, because of Freddie, he’d lost all his money, his teeth, and his self-respect. And now he’d lost his amazingly successful second career as a superhero.

  “Hey,” she said. “If you don’t have any immediate plans, do you fancy coming back to England with us? We have a lot of spare rooms in our house. And a bouncy castle, which is great for venting your anger, before you do something stupid like reinventing yourself as a bird and trying to murder someone with a ju
mpsuit covered in plastic dentures.”

  Unfortunate Pete smiled at her. At least, he tried to smile, but he didn’t have any teeth. “Would you mind dropping me oth in Barbadoth, on the way?” he said. “I really mith Dave.”

  “Dave?”

  “Aka the Muthel,” said Unfortunate Pete.

  “Oh! I always wondered what the Mussel’s real name was,” said Imogen. “And nice use of ‘aka,’ by the way. I’ve always wanted to say that out loud.”

  The Crims all agreed to give Unfortunate Pete a lift. He seemed a lot more chilled out after his pineapple-induced concussion. That night, after Sam’s ten p.m. karaoke show, he joined Imogen and Big Nana in the Jacuzzi.

  “I wanted to tell you how thorry I am for everything I did,” he said. “I thould never have lithened to Don Vadrolga. I thould have known he couldn’t be truthted.”

  “That’s okay,” said Big Nana. “It’s like I always say: ‘It’s hard not to trust a celebrity with a chin dimple.’”

  Pete nodded. “I realithe now that I wath never cut out to be a thuperhero,” he said. “I want to live a thimple life from now on: live in a hut on the beath; open a thmoothie thtall, maybe—”

  “Good idea,” said Imogen. “Everyone, good or evil, loves a smoothie.”

  “Ethactly,” said Pete. “And Barbadoth ith the world’th number one dethtination for budget dental work! Dave told me he’th met a great dentitht, out there, called Dr. Payne. He’ll do your dental work for free if you let him perform ethperimental medical techniqueth on you. What could pothibly go wrong?”

  Imogen was a little bit sad to see Unfortunate Pete go when they arrived at Barbados. And a little bit relieved, too, because he’d discovered the onboard casino and had challenged Freddie to a game of blackjack. When they left, Unfortunate Pete waved to them from the dock.

  “Don’t ever come back to Blandington, or I’ll kill you!” Freddie said cheerfully. “I may kill you, anyway,” he muttered, as the ship pulled away, rubbing his arm, which was still covered in bite marks.

  Coming back to Crim House felt strange after so many weeks away. As Imogen walked up the front path, past the piranha pond, toward the stripy front door, she looked up at the house. Despite the huge bouncy castle on top, it looked smaller than she remembered.

  Big Nana put her arm around Imogen’s shoulders. “Happy to be home?” she asked.

  “Yes,” said Imogen.

  “Me too,” said Big Nana. “But I’ll miss the Jacuzzi. And the buffet. And the ballroom. Every home should have a ballroom, I think, unless you live in a lighthouse. It’s wrong to have too much fun in a lighthouse.”

  “DON’T WORRY,” said Uncle Knuckles, running up the path behind them. “I’VE GOT AN IDEA.”

  Later that afternoon, Imogen and Big Nana were drinking tea in their kitchen when they heard the BEEP-BEEP-BEEP of a crane coming from the back garden. They ran into the garden—and there was Uncle Knuckles, lowering the cruise ship onto the house, right next to the bouncy castle. There was a distressed clucking noise coming from the upper deck. . . .

  “Oh dear,” Imogen said. “We forgot about the captain.”

  “He’ll be fine,” said Big Nana. “He can live in the garden with the other chickens, and the snakes, and President Jimmy Carter. It’s just a shame we can’t hypnotize him to lay eggs. One would be big enough to make an omelet to feed the whole family.”

  “Darlings,” said Josephine, bustling into the garden after them. “Have you seen this week’s Blandington Times?” She thrust the paper at Imogen and pointed to the front page.

  Imogen sat down on the back step to read the article.

  STELLA STICKYFINGERS: THE PINT-SIZED THIEF STEALING PINTS OF MILK!

  Blandington has seemed even blander than usual in recent months—the town’s much-loved Crim family has been away on a summer vacation, and crime has dropped to almost zero. Sure, it’s nice to be able to leave the house and know it will still be there when you get back. Yes, it’s great to go out to a restaurant and not have a pair of identical twins steal your steak before you can eat it. But life’s a little bit more exciting when you could be kidnapped at any moment and held ransom for an almond croissant! But in the past week, all that has changed: a brand-new felon has filled the Crims’ extremely large, extremely stolen shoes. Her name: Stella Stickyfingers. Her age: eighteen months old. Her parents: “Extremely neglectful,” according to PC Phillips, who added, “But apparently they spend all their time with their Shetland pony, Molly. And who can blame them?”

  Stella Stickyfingers is the star of a new reality TV series, BAD BABY OF BLANDINGTON!!!!!!! Which is shown after nine p.m. as that many exclamation marks can traumatize younger viewers. Stella’s crimes so far include theft (stealing milk from doorsteps); impersonating a police siren (she has a very piercing wail); and cat tail pulling (residents are advised to keep their pets indoors between one p.m.—when infant day care lets out—and three p.m.—when bathtime takes place. Those are Stella’s peak offending hours). Sales of Stella Stickyfingers merchandise have skyrocketed in recent weeks, whereas sales of the Crims action figures have nose-dived, all except for the deep-voiced Sam Crim action figure, which customers say, “Sings a lovely version of ‘Someone Like You.’”

  “It’s a disaster!” said Josephine, sitting down next to Imogen. “We’re not famous anymore!”

  “Wrong as usual, my underwhelming ham sandwich,” said Big Nana, patting Josephine’s shoulder. “This is excellent news. If the police are busy with Stella Stickyfingers, they won’t be watching us anymore. And if they’re not watching us, we might be able to pull off some actual crimes! After we’ve had a mega nap, of course. And soaked in the Jacuzzi, maybe. But first, shall we have another cup of tea?”

  Al was waiting for them in the kitchen, with tea and crumpets. He had taken off his pirate costume at last and was wearing his gray suit and his white shirt and his I LOVE DECIMAL POINTS! tie.

  Josephine pouted up at him. “I liked you in your eye patch,” she said. “I thought you were a pirate now.”

  “Ooooh aarrrrrr,” said Al, taking a sip of tea and steaming up his glasses. “Don’t be sad, me little pirate queen. I’ll always be your scurvy sea dog!”

  “Ooh!” squealed Josephine, grabbing him by the hand. “Talk pirate to me!”

  Imogen wanted to do something—anything—to take her mind off what was happening in her apartment. So, she went upstairs to Delia’s room and knocked on the door.

  “Is there anything worse than hearing your parents flirting in bad pirate voices?” asked Imogen when Delia opened the door.

  “I doubt it,” said Delia, sitting down on the bed. “Come in and hang out with me for a bit. We can watch Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and paint our nails black.”

  Imogen sat down on the bed next to Delia and started flicking through Nickedflix to find the movie. But then she came across a familiar-looking TV show in the Recommended for You section. . . . “Hey,” she said. “Our show! There are new episodes available!”

  The new episodes couldn’t have been more different from the first one. This time there was no laugh track and no comedy sound effects to make them seem more stupid than they really were. This time there was scary music and dramatic camera angles and footage of the Crims running in slow motion. The TV crew had obviously survived Ava’s attack on the cruise ship, and they had caught every moment of what happened next. There were close-ups of Isabella’s pointy teeth. There was footage of Imogen shot from below, which made her look taller and more dangerous than she actually was. There was the dramatic moment when Imogen distracted Ava . . . and Sam knocked her out with the pineapple . . . and Imogen and Freddie tied her up and carried her off to the Gull’s lair. . . .

  Best of all, there was no footage of Imogen saying snarky things to her family. Because she hadn’t said anything snarky at all.

  “I can’t believe it,” said Delia as the credits rolled. “It actually makes us look as though we know what we’re doing. P
eople are going to take us seriously as criminals after this.”

  Imogen’s phone buzzed with a message. “They’re already taking us seriously,” she said when she saw who the message was from. She grinned at Delia. “It’s the International Association of Supercriminals,” she said. “They want to speak to us about joining!” She smiled, satisfied. She had made it. She had become a supervillain, just by being herself. She didn’t need a stupid brand. To celebrate, Imogen and Delia settled back into the pillows, rewound to the episode where Ava got hit by the pineapple, and played it over and over again. Everything is exactly as it should be, thought Imogen. She was home, where she belonged. Ava had probably escaped from the dungeon/auditorium and was almost certainly hanging out in a supervillain lair, where she belonged. Imogen was friends with Delia again. And she was surrounded by her hopeless, unstable, criminal, unreliable, completely wonderful family.

  There was nowhere else she’d rather be. Except maybe in a Jacuzzi, drinking a piña colada. So, she went upstairs to the cruise ship to make one.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to my writing friends Zanna and Sarah, my wife, Victoria, and my former colleagues at Quarto Books for keeping me sane when I was writing jokes every morning before work. Thank you to the brilliant editors at Working Partners and HarperCollins, particularly Stephanie Lane Elliott, Conrad Mason, Samantha Noonan, Will Severs, Elizabeth Lynch, and Erica Sussman. Thank you to Mai Ly Degnan for drawing the Crims and making them look just as funny and terrifying and mad as they are in my head.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  PHOTO BY LYNTON PEPPER

  KATE DAVIES lives in London, where she writes children’s books, performs improv comedy, and spends too much money on cheese. She also edits other people’s children’s books and she once worked at Buckingham Palace, selling tea towels to tourists. She never met the queen, but she did get to stroke a corgi once.