The Crims #2 Page 2

  Imogen pushed down her annoyance with her mother. “Yes, well, even so. Isn’t it more likely that we’ve made an enemy here in Blandington? Again?” said Imogen. “Freddie, could it be someone in your . . . secret club?”

  “What,” said Freddie, “my gambling ring? I gave that up. Pummeling people all the time is very hard on the biceps. Plus, it was much less fun after you found out what I was doing.”

  “Or, Mom, what about that woman you hit with your car?” said Imogen.

  “Oh, no,” said Josephine. “We don’t need to worry about her. She’s dead, thank goodness.”

  Big Nana smiled grimly at Imogen. “I promise you, my little matzo ball, the threat from the Kruks is real. And Elsa is really, really nuts. More nuts than those honey roasted cashews Uncle Knuckles likes.”

  “THOSE ARE VERY NUTTY. AND DELICIOUS,” said Uncle Knuckles.

  “But—” started Imogen.

  “No buts,” said Big Nana, shaking her head. “What have I always taught you?”

  “Big Nana is always right, except when she’s turning left.”

  “Exactly. Everyone, I want you to be on your guard. The Kruks could strike anytime, any place. If you see any slightly overweight lampposts, pick up your pace—it’s probably a Kruk in disguise. If you hear a particularly tuneful bird, take a second look at it—those Kruk children are small, deadly, and they know how to whistle.”

  The Crims all looked at one another. They didn’t feel like celebrating anymore. One by one, they trooped out of the kitchen. But as Imogen was about to follow them, Big Nana touched her on the shoulder.

  “Come with me,” she said. She tapped on an old photograph of Great-Uncle Umbrage, and part of the wall suddenly swung open. “I’d hoped to tell you on my deathbed where these tunnels are—but, well, desperate times call for desperate measures.”

  She followed Big Nana through a narrow, dusty tunnel until they reached a windowless room. All the furniture was covered in sheets, so the room looked as though it was home to a lot of lumpy ghosts.

  “This is where I come to think,” said Big Nana, locking the door behind them. “I covered up the furniture so it can’t see what I’m up to. You can never be too careful!”

  She whisked a sheet from an old velvet chair and indicated that Imogen should sit down.

  “Now,” she said. “Remember, Imogen: I need you to be ready to lead the family in case anything happens to me.”

  “Nothing’s going happen to you,” Imogen said quickly. Losing Big Nana once had been hard enough—so hard that Imogen had turned her back on her family and started to believe that crime didn’t pay. She had only just gotten her grandmother back. She couldn’t bear to think about losing her again.

  Big Nana shook her head. “We have to be prepared,” she said. “I’d feared that the Kruks would make a move once they realized I was back in power, and now we’ve received a credible-looking threat.”

  Imogen didn’t want to believe what she was hearing. “It can’t have been from the Kruks. They would never leave a note in a cardboard cake. It’s so basic.”

  “Never say never,” said Big Nana. “Unless it’s in answer to the question ‘Would you like pineapple on your pizza?’”

  Imogen still wasn’t convinced. “But are you sure they’re after us? Really? Remember the last time we thought the Kruks were behind something?”

  She was thinking of Derek Hornbutton. The awful, vain CEO of Charm, Inc. children’s entertainment conglomerate and owner of Charmtopia—the world’s least charming theme park—had gone missing around the time Big Nana had come back to Blandington. Imogen and Big Nana had been convinced the Kruks were responsible, and they’d considered sneaking back into Krukingham Palace to see if they could find him in one of the dungeons. But just before they caught the train to London, Derek Hornbutton had appeared on the news. It turned out he’d just been on a very long scuba diving vacation and had forgotten to turn on his out of office.

  Big Nana rolled her eyes. “If that ridiculous man had been kidnapped, the Kruks would have been behind it. The fact that he wasn’t doesn’t mean anything. Except that you should never believe what you read in the papers. Apart from the horoscopes. I promise you, Imogen, my defrosted hamburger: The Kruks are planning to attack us. And I think they’ve already put their plan into action.”

  “But how do you know?”

  “I just do,” said Big Nana. She reached up and pulled down another sheet, revealing a massive whiteboard. “Enough questions,” she said. “It’s time to get to work.”

  Scribbled across the whiteboard was a detailed grid—a little like a school timetable, only with the words “larceny practice” where “lacrosse practice” might have been.

  “What’s this?” asked Imogen.

  “This is your crime timetable,” said Big Nana. “We need to ramp up your criminal training so you can take over the family if the time comes.”

  “Which it won’t,” said Imogen. “Not soon.”

  “Even if it doesn’t, my little extractor fan, I still need you in top shape.”

  Imogen studied the crime timetable with a feeling of rising panic.

  5 a.m.: Get up. Cold shower.

  6 a.m.: Pickpocket enough money to buy breakfast.

  7 a.m.: Tiger wrestling (if no tigers available, tie one arm behind back and practice with five stray cats).

  7:30 a.m.: Rehearse evil monologue in mirror.

  8 a.m.: Vandalism. Destroy one Blandington landmark per week, starting with the bakery, because their doughnuts aren’t as good as they used to be.

  9 a.m.: Disguise making. Dress up as a piece of fried chicken and lie on the street corner until a dog tries to eat you.

  10 a.m.: Forgery. Make a credit card and use it to book a holiday for two to the Bahamas. Thank you for asking—I would love to come with you.

  11 a.m.: Bikini shopping for the Bahamas.

  12 p.m.: Go to primary school and steal lunch from weakest-looking child.

  1 p.m.: Steal a motorbike and teach yourself to ride it.

  2 p.m.: Possible trip to the ER, depending on how the motorbike training goes.

  3 p.m.: Help four wild animals escape from the zoo. Suggest lemurs, as they’re cheerful and also portable.

  4 p.m.: Collect Crim children from school, disguised as a stay-at-home dad. Extra points for convincing facial hair.

  5 p.m.: Scout out new criminal headquarters in case Crim House is invaded and occupied by the enemy.

  6 p.m.: Call prime minister, convince her that you are the head of her security team, get her to reveal classified information to you, leak it on the internet.

  7 p.m.: Dinner—pasta with tuna sauce (very good for the brain).

  8 p.m: Bed. Practice sleeping with one eye open.

  “But when am I supposed to go to school?” asked Imogen.

  “It says . . . You’ll collect the other children at four p.m.,” said Big Nana.

  “No, I mean, to class,” said Imogen. “It starts tomorrow, you know. It will take up a lot of my day. And it’s illegal for me to drop out of school unless I’m sixteen.”

  “Exactly! Crimes that involve not doing something are the easiest of all to commit!”

  “But I want to go to school! I have to!” said Imogen, starting to feel a bit desperate. Truth be told, she’d been constantly fantasizing about going back to school since moving back to Blandington—even if she’d be attending her old public school and not the posh boarding school she’d left, Lilyworth Ladies’ College. At Lilyworth, Imogen had learned that her intelligence—when not used for criminal pursuits—could actually be useful. That it made other students look up to her. And that meant she wielded quite a lot of power.

  Power she’d been missing these last few weeks back with her family. “Please?”

  Big Nana looked at her. “Fine,” she said. “In that case, you’re going to have to get up earlier and stay up later to fit in all your crime homework. The future of the Crims is in your hands!”


  Imogen looked down at her fingers.

  “Not literally,” said Big Nana. “That was a metaphor.”

  “I know,” said Imogen. “I was just checking my cuticles.”

  “Good,” said Big Nana. “Now. Put on a boilersuit and some insect repellent. It’s time to get started.”

  Imogen already felt defeated by the sheer amount of work ahead of her, and the prospect of having to take over as head of the family so soon. Yes, she wanted to rule the Crims, Big Nana–style, when she was older, but she was only twelve. She’d thought that before she took over the family, she’d have time to be a teenager and do all the stupid things that teenagers do, like dye her hair an extremely neutral color and lie to her parents about who she was on the phone with (it would be the UN) and date boys who her parents disapproved of, like valedictorians and junior chess champions. But no. This was going to be her life now.

  For the first time in a long while, two words wriggled their way to the front of her brain. She said them out loud: “I can’t.”

  Big Nana blinked. “What did you say?”

  “I can’t start my crime homework now,” said Imogen, in a smaller voice.

  “There’s nothing a Crim can’t do,” said Big Nana, “except pay their taxes on time.”

  Imogen needed an excuse, and she needed it now. “I have schoolwork,” she said. “My class had a summer assignment. I have to write a report on global warming by tomorrow morning.”

  “You know that’s caused by the Kruks blow-drying all the polar bears, don’t you? Elsa hates looking at photographs of polar bears with messy fur.”

  Imogen nodded. “I’ll be sure to mention that.”

  Big Nana studied Imogen as though she were an interesting painting. She sighed. “Fine,” she said. “But I want to see you back here tomorrow morning to start work in earnest.”

  Imogen rushed out of the room before Big Nana could change her mind. After several wrong turns—who knew there was an aviary in the basement of Crim House?—she made it out of the secret passageway and back to her apartment. She locked her bedroom door, collapsed onto her bed, and closed her eyes. It had been a long day. And tomorrow was going to be even longer.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE NEXT MORNING at seven thirty a.m., as scheduled, Imogen Crim was staring at herself in the mirror, delivering an evil monologue.

  “As soon as I walked into Blandington Secondary School, I knew I was going to kill it,” Imogen said to her reflection. “And I did. I slayed it. I assassinated it, maimed it, made it beg for mercy.” Imogen nodded to herself. She didn’t really know what ‘it’ was, but that was beside the point. Today was her first day at a new school, and though Imogen would never admit it to anyone—particularly to her own reflection—she was a little bit nervous. She’d been queen bee at Lilyworth. And as a child, she’d been a baby queen bee at Blandington Primary School, ruling over a slightly ramshackle clique of three girls named Penelope, Hannah, and Willa. It seemed reasonable to expect that she be queen bee of Blandington Secondary School. But what if another queen was already in control? She’d been out of the Blandington school game for a few years—long enough for someone new to buzz in.

  Not possible, Imogen assured herself. Blandington Secondary School was in Blandington, after all, one of the most boring towns in the most boring part of England—so dull it didn’t even have hills. It was the town equivalent of a YouTube ad for car insurance that you’re not allowed to skip. And while Penelope, Hannah, and Willa were perfectly nice girls—nice enough that Imogen had called Hannah and asked her and the other girls to meet her in the schoolyard to flank her for her Big Entrance—Imogen felt confident that none of them had the charisma, talent, intelligence, or powers of manipulation necessary to rule the school.

  Still, she was nervous, so she was practicing one of Big Nana’s favorite confidence-building techniques: criminal visualization. “If you can do it in your imagination, you can do it in reality,” Big Nana liked to say, although Uncle Knuckles had proved this statement false when he convinced himself he could fly and jumped off the roof of the house. Still, in her desperation, Imogen was willing to give it a try.

  She closed her eyes and pictured herself as the undisputed ruler of Blandington Secondary School. She even gave herself a crown—a boring one, obviously. “You,” she said, stretching an arm toward her imaginary classmates, “I feel almost sorry for you. None of you stood a chance against someone as strong, confident, and criminally gifted as me. The moment I walked in that classroom, I knew I’d have everyone at Blandington Secondary School under my thumb in no time. Luckily, I have surprisingly big thumbs.” She opened her eyes and smiled at her reflection—a smile so evil, she actually felt a bit intimidated. Still got it, she thought, and tipped back her head in preparation for her maniacal laugh. “Ahahahahaha! AHAHAHAHAHA!” She was working her way up to her big, terrifying ending—quoting a few Latin poets, maybe throwing in a bit of ancient Greek—but before she could really get into the flow of things, her door burst open.

  There, framed in the doorway like a cat-eyed version of Munch’s famous painting The Scream, was her cousin Delia.

  “Hurry up,” Delia said.

  “How did you get in here?” Imogen asked, smoothing down her hair—all that maniacal laughing had messed up her ponytail.

  “How do you think?” asked Delia, holding up a screwdriver.

  Imogen nodded. “Stupid question.” All the Crim children had learned to pick locks before they could walk. “Can you give me a minute? I need to do the sinister cliffhanger ending and twirl my imaginary mustache.”

  “But it’s my turn,” said Delia, pouting. “I have the seven thirty evil monologue rehearsal slot. The twins did theirs at seven, Sam does his at eight, and Freddie’s helping Isabella with hers at nine.”

  Isabella couldn’t really speak in sentences yet, but she certainly could cackle maniacally. “There’s no time like the present,” Big Nana always said. “Except the past, but that’s full of dead people and slow internet connections.”

  Imogen sighed. Now that Big Nana had ordered the Crim children to practice evil monologues every morning before school, the bathroom line was going to be a nightmare. Imogen usually liked to do her monologue in her own bathroom—the one in the apartment that she shared with her parents at the top of Crim House—but her mother had been in there for the last hour and showed no sign of getting out; she had stolen some caviar-infused shower gel from the Russian mafia and insisted on “getting her money’s worth,” even though she hadn’t spent any money on it, and it left her smelling vaguely of fish.

  Imogen stepped aside, allowing Delia to take up her place in front of the mirror. “Are you nervous?” she asked.

  Delia turned to look at Imogen, frowning. “Why would I be?”

  “You know,” said Imogen, fiddling with her watch. “First day of a new school year . . .”

  Delia laughed. “NO!” she said. “The only people who get nervous about school are goody-goody teacher’s pet types, like—”

  “Me?”

  “Exactly!” said Delia. “So I bet you’re terrified. Which is pathetic, by the way.”

  “I’m not terrified,” said Imogen, her cheeks reddening. “And it’s not pathetic to want to do well—”

  “This school is in Blandington. In case you hadn’t noticed, you’re not going to Lilyworth anymore.” Delia gave Imogen a nasty smile, pushed her out of the bathroom, and slammed the door.

  Imogen stomped back up the stairs to her family’s apartment. Yes, she had noticed she wasn’t at Lilyworth anymore. And the more time she spent with the Horrible Children, the more she had to keep reminding herself why she’d left her posh boarding school, where she’d ruled over the other students and had been top in every class except needlework, which didn’t count—unless you were planning on being a housewife in an eighteenth-century novel when you grew up.

  Imogen wasn’t planning on being a character in an eighteenth-century
novel—not even a really good one with bonnets and horses and multiple uses of the word “hitherto.”

  She was planning to be the head of a crime empire.

  And if there’s any chance Big Nana’s right about the Kruks, she thought, I need to get the Crims in top criminal shape. . . . The only trouble was, Imogen still couldn’t work out why the Kruks, who were actually good at committing crimes, would bother fighting the Crims at all. The Kruks had once stolen an Alp and installed it in their backyard so that the young Kruks could learn to ski. The Crims had once stolen a single, broken ski from a trash can. Uncle Clyde, whose “heist” it had been, had spun round and round in circles for a few minutes before falling over, getting a concussion and calling everyone “Your Majesty” for a few weeks until he recovered. The ski now sat in the Loot Cellar, along with the spoils of all the Crims’ other pointless crimes.

  So yes, maybe Imogen did have a bit of work to do to help transform her hopeless relatives into a world-class crime organization. But she wasn’t convinced that a showdown with the Kruks was imminent, so what was the rush? Besides, there was a while yet before she’d have to take over the Crim empire—and there was nothing wrong with wanting to do well academically in the meantime. Or wanting to rule the school like a dictator with really smooth hair. . . .

  Just as Imogen opened the door to her apartment, something small and red whistled past her head. She turned around to see who had thrown it and was immediately knocked to the ground by a massive poodle.

  “Barney!” she yelled, except her face was squashed into the carpet, so it came out as “Bmmmnmmmfh!” She tried to push Barney off her, but he was surprisingly heavy. He was also unbelievably stupid and ridiculously loyal—in other words, he fit right in at Crim House.

  Barney was the first pet the Crims had ever had, unless you counted the piranhas in the piranha pond; or the deformed snakes that patrolled the front garden; or the live, rabid fox that Josephine sometimes wore as a scarf. Barney had followed Al Crim home from work a few weeks’ previously (though what an oversize poodle had been doing in an accounting firm was anyone’s guess), and he’d refused to leave, no matter how politely he was asked. He’d refused to leave no matter how impolitely he was asked, too, so Nick and Nate decided to adopt him and train him as an attack dog. Which wasn’t going very well. Barney, unfortunately, was a lover, not a fighter. He loved many things: Henry, Aunt Bets, lit matches, Delia, eating other people’s food, Imogen, Uncle Knuckles, Uncle Clyde, chasing squirrels, chocolate, the color orange, and, above all, Imogen’s father, Al. Which was weird, because most other people forgot Al Crim existed, unless they needed help with a particularly tricky math problem. He was the quietest and nicest of all the Crims, and he only ever committed minor bookkeeping offenses.