The Crims #3 Page 2

  Josephine tottered inside on her stolen stilettos, leaving Imogen with the crew. Imogen took a closer look at the cameras. They had a logo on the side: “EZTV.” The same logo she’d seen on the second van outside Mega Deals. . . .

  Aha.

  Things were starting to make sense. Maybe the crew had been involved in the Mega Deals heist? Perhaps the whole thing had been a setup. . . . In fact, that was probably the only reason they weren’t all in jail right now.

  “Look,” she said to an overexcited woman with a clipboard. “None of us are going to talk to you. Are we?” she said, looking around for the rest of the Horrible Children. But her cousins were already giving interviews to different members of the TV crew. “Okay,” said Imogen. “Maybe we are going to talk to you. But we won’t say anything interesting.”

  The overexcited woman smiled at Imogen and shook her hand too hard. “I’m Belinda Smell,” she said.

  “Wow,” said Imogen. “That’s an . . . unusual name.”

  “I know,” said Belinda Smell. “My ancestors ate a lot of French cheese.”

  Imogen guessed Belinda was a producer, because she kept producing things from her pockets. Things like chocolate bars and nondisclosure agreements and Imogen’s childhood diary.

  Imogen gasped and tried to snatch the diary back, but Belinda pulled it out of her reach. “Where did you get that?” Imogen asked.

  “Your mum gave it to us,” said Belinda. “We need as much background information about you as possible, to make sure the documentary feels really gritty and real! Gum?” She pulled a packet from her pocket.

  “No, thank you,” said Imogen, who always followed Big Nana’s advice: “Never chew gum in front of strangers. Conserve your jaw strength in case you need to bite them.”

  But then Imogen’s mother appeared at the front door again, wearing a silk nightdress and a new pair of (also stolen) stilettos and muttering, “This is my best side” and “Remember, soft lighting.” She looked about as gritty as Isabella’s mushed-up baby food, i.e., not gritty at all (except when Aunt Bets made it and added some broken glass to the mix to “toughen Isabella up”). Josephine was dragging her husband, Al, by the wrist, apparently trying to engage him in her Real Housewives of Blandington fantasy.

  “Al!” she screamed at her husband. “How could you cheat like that?”

  Al pushed his spectacles up his nose. “Cheat?” he said. “You mean on the mortgage application? It’s really very simple. I just exaggerated my income—”

  “Don’t play innocent!” shrieked Josephine. “I know you’re seeing Bets!”

  She pointed at Aunt Bets, who had just appeared on the doorstep, holding some steel wool. She was knitting Uncle Knuckles a suit of chain mail so that she could practice throwing axes at him.

  Al blinked. “Of course I’m seeing her,” he said simply. “She’s standing right here.”

  Josephine let out a cry of frustration, and as usual, Al did all he could to comfort her, apologizing for not having affairs and promising to lie to her more often in the future.

  The crew, probably sensing the drama was over, turned to Imogen. “Can we go inside?” Belinda asked her. “We’d love to get a one-on-one interview with you about the Mega Deals heist.”

  “I don’t really want to take credit for my crimes on camera,” said Imogen. “I’ll get arrested, and I’m far too busy to go to jail. I have a crime empire to take over, and I still haven’t seen the last season of Gilmore Girls.”

  “Don’t worry!” said Belinda. “We can just use your first name, so no one will figure out who you are.”

  “Except that one of the policemen at the local station is my cousin, so he might guess,” said Imogen.

  But Belinda was pushing her through the hallway into the living room, and the camerawoman was pulling out an armchair for Imogen to sit in, and the sound guy was attaching a microphone to her shirt, and the lighting guy was shining a bright light into her eyes and telling her that green was her color.

  “But I’m not wearing green,” Imogen said, confused.

  “I know,” said the lighting guy, head to one side. “Shame.”

  “So!” said Belinda. “How about you choose a persona. Like are you the bad girl of the family? Or the ingénue? Are you the funny one? Or the one who always finishes the milk so that no one has anything to put on their breakfast cereal in the mornings?”

  “Can’t I just be myself?” asked Imogen.

  Belinda made a face. “Boring,” she said. “But don’t worry! If you don’t want to pick a personality, we’ll choose one for you and put it together in the edit. Right. First let’s get started. This was meant to be your big comeback heist. And the twins messed it up for you. How did you feel about that?”

  Imogen had watched enough episodes of Dancing with the Cars (an extremely dangerous show in which competitors had to perform dance routines in the middle of highways) to know what was going on: The crew was trying to create conflict between the Crims, because families who get along make for extremely boring television. But Imogen wasn’t going to play along. She smiled her best head girl of Lilyworth Ladies’ College smile, which was a little rusty because she hadn’t been head girl of Lilyworth Ladies’ College for more than a year, and said, “The twins didn’t mess it up. We got away from the store with more than a hundred thousand pounds’ worth of electronics.”

  “Oh, come on,” said Belinda. “You should hear what the twins told us about you. . . .” She looked around and said in a stage whisper: “Do you still sleep with a photograph of the Hatton Garden robbers under your pillow?”

  “No, actually,” said Imogen. “It’s a poster, and it’s on the wall above my bed.” She made a mental note to punish the twins once the interview was over—trick them into getting paper cuts, or something. They clearly didn’t know what loyalty meant. Which was understandable, considering Henry had set fire to the L–Z section of the dictionary.

  “Let’s change the subject,” Imogen said, smiling. “Want me to tell you about how I get in shape before a big heist? It involves a straitjacket and a lot of dormice.”

  “I want you to tell me everything you hate about your family. Go on! Be mean! It suits you.”

  Imogen frowned. Why was Belinda trying to cast her as the villain when she was so obviously the heroine? “I’m not going to bad-mouth my family,” said Imogen, her nose in the air.

  “Okay, then,” said Belinda, leaning forward. “How about bad-mouthing someone else’s family? Why don’t you tell me how you feel about what happened to the Kruks?”

  Imogen’s frown deepened. “What do you mean what happened to them?” she asked. “I feel fine about them leaving Blandington, obviously. One of them tried to feed my family to the sharks, and everyone knows you shouldn’t overfeed sharks—it gives them diabetes. Plus, they stole all the bananas from Blandington Grocery, which meant the ice cream shop had to start serving potato splits.”

  “Actually,” said Belinda, but she didn’t say anything else, because that’s when the front door banged open and Big Nana appeared by the living room door, hands on her extremely wide and dangerous-looking hips, saying, “What’s going on here, then, you genetically modified passion fruits?”

  “Ask Mum,” Imogen said as Josephine bustled into the living room expensively.

  “We’re just filming a little television show,” said Josephine, trying to sound casual.

  “No you’re not,” said Big Nana, and she picked up the sound guy’s boom and broke it over her knee.

  “Don’t worry,” the sound guy said. “I have a spare.”

  “But do you have spare INTERNAL ORGANS?” asked Big Nana. “Because you’ll need them when I’ve hanged, drawn, and quartered you! Don’t think I don’t know how! It’s amazing what you can learn from the History channel. Now get out of my house!”

  The sound guy ran for the door . . . but Belinda Smell held out her hand to stop him.

  “We would love to leave,” she said, producing t
he signed contracts from her pocket. “But these contracts are extremely, legally binding. As binding, in fact, as titanium ropes.”

  “The strongest kind of ropes,” muttered Big Nana. She held out her hand for the contracts.

  “Indeed,” said Belinda. “If you just look at clause three, paragraph two . . .”

  Big Nana’s brow furrowed as she studied the small print. “‘If the Interviewees try to eject the Crew from their house by threatening them with disembowelment, hanging, or any other form of execution, the Production Company hereby reserves the right to force all Interviewees to dress up in pink rompers and perform a fully choreographed dance routine to “We Are Family” on The Public Humiliation Show,’” she read. She looked up at Belinda, eyes narrowed. “But that show is the highest-rated, most embarrassing show on television!”

  “I know,” Belinda said, shrugging. “It really would just be easier for all concerned if you honored your agreement and answered a few questions about your crimes, your childhoods, what on Earth you were thinking when you decorated this house. . . .” She was looking at the painting over the fireplace, which was called Unmarked Grave.

  Big Nana sighed. “Fine,” she said, sounding defeated, like the French after the Battle of Waterloo. “You win. Why don’t I show you around the Loot Cellar? It’s where we keep all the fruits of our crimes. And the vegetables too.”

  “That’s more like it!” said Belinda Smell, and she followed Big Nana out of the living room and down the staircase that led to the Loot Cellar.

  Imogen followed Big Nana and the camera crew down to the Loot Cellar in the basement of Crim House. Big Nana typed in the combination lock on the disturbing-looking door, which was decorated to look like a gnome’s face, and stood back as the door swung open. “After you . . . ,” said Big Nana. “As a special treat, you can each keep one thing you find in the cellar.” She winked at Imogen. Which was the Crim way of saying “Don’t worry. I have a plan.”

  The camera crew walked into the Loot Cellar and looked around, saying things like, “Wow! A VHS copy of Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights!” and “Really? An ashtray shaped like a colon?” and “Help! It’s the original Broadway cast of Cats! I have a phobia of full-body leotards!”

  But no one helped them. Because Big Nana had already slammed the door in their panic-stricken faces.

  She gave Imogen a high five. “Well, my overly sweet pumpkin spice latte,” she said. “I think it’s time for a family meeting.”

  Ten minutes later, the Crims were all crammed into the living room, waiting to hear what Big Nana had to say. The Horrible Children were sitting on the floor with Freddie and Imogen, throwing small knives at one another, and Aunt Bets sat on the sofa, embroidering swear words onto pillows, next to Josephine, who was watching a YouTube video about contouring. Uncle Clyde stood in the doorway, doodling a new plan to steal the Victorian era from the past; Al was working on quadratic equations in a corner; and Uncle Knuckles was standing by the fireplace, reading a book called Mindfulness and Murder: Making Peace with Your Pathological Past.

  “Right, my typhoid-flavored turnips,” said Big Nana. “This meeting is going to be short and sweet, like an adorable child actress. I want each of you to pack an overnight bag. We’re blowing town!”

  “By which you mean we’re leaving, right?” said Imogen. “Not destroying Blandington with a nuclear bomb or anything?” It was always best to clarify these things when Big Nana was involved.

  “That’s right, my bite-sized bran muffin,” said Big Nana. “I need a vacation, anyway. And besides, we’re totally out of uranium.”

  “WONDERFUL!” Uncle Knuckles shouted happily. “I KNOW THE PERFECT PLACE FOR A BIT OF REST AND RELAXATION!”

  “We are not going to that yoga retreat you’re so fond of,” said Big Nana. “They serve only vegan food, and last time, you completely destroyed the teacher’s chakras.”

  “I’M NOT TALKING ABOUT THE YOGA RETREAT!” said Uncle Knuckles. “THE PLACE I’M THINKING OF IS MUCH MORE CHILLED OUT THAN THAT!”

  Imogen sighed. She couldn’t be sure what Uncle Knuckles’s idea of a chilled-out vacation spot was. But if it was anything like his idea of a “gentle walk”—a two-week trek up Mount Kilimanjaro—or his signature “mild” curry, which contained several ounces of gunpowder, she wasn’t going to find their vacation very relaxing at all.

  2

  IMOGEN HAD TO admit she’d been wrong about Uncle Knuckles’s choice of vacation destination. She had been picturing something terrifying and dangerous, like a weeklong scuba diving expedition with an hour’s worth of oxygen, or a weekend break in the murderers wing of a high-security prison. That, at least, would have been interesting. But it turned out, Uncle Knuckles’s idea of a great place to stay was a four-person caravan in Dullport, Britain’s least interesting and most rundown seaside resort.

  Dullport had everything you wouldn’t want in a vacation destination: a derelict pier complete with signs reading “Danger of Death”; fish and chip shops complete with signs reading “Danger of Death”; far too many rats, not counting Sam’s pet ones; and an amazing lack of sunshine. The Crims had been there for a week now, and it had been raining ever since they had arrived. They knew the sea was out there somewhere, but they couldn’t see it, what with all the fog and mist and hailstones that were in the way. Imogen was beginning to wish they’d gone to the yoga retreat. Even a room full of middle-aged women trying to contort themselves into the pigeon pose and talking about “living their best lives” would have been more entertaining than this.

  “I DON’T UNDERSTAND!” shouted Knuckles, studying the Dullport brochure as the Horrible Children tried to kill one another with rocks. “IT’S SUNNY AND WARM IN ALL THE PICTURES.”

  “Ugh, hello?” said Delia, dodging a small but fast-moving pebble. “It’s the middle of March, and the photos in that brochure were probably taken in August.”

  “DEFEATED BY THE SEASONS YET AGAIN!” cried Uncle Knuckles, shaking his massive fist, which, unbeknownst to him, sparked off a small tornado in Cambodia.

  Imogen walked to the grimy window of the caravan and looked out at the nonexistent view. As she did so, a pigeon flew headfirst into the caravan and fell down dead with a thud. She didn’t blame it. She felt as though she might go mad from caravan fever, which is a bit like cabin fever but much worse, because caravans have less effective ventilation than cabins, and the Crims had been eating a lot of fried fish. Plus, there was a donkey in the caravan, which Delia had “freed” from a donkey ride at the beach, “because animal rights,” and which had taken over the only bedroom in the caravan, eaten the pillows, and was now vomiting them back up again all over Uncle Clyde’s shoes.

  “When can we admit that this was a terrible idea and go back home?” Imogen asked.

  “When we’re sure the crew is dead,” said Big Nana, taking a bite of deep-fried cod.

  “But that won’t happen for ages,” said Freddie, who was searching a cabinet for a jigsaw puzzle that wasn’t missing all the exciting bits. “The Loot Cellar is actually very well stocked with food; Macaulay Culkin and his brother have started an organic vegetable business down there.”

  Freddie found a puzzle and shook out the pieces onto the floor. The Horrible Children started trying to put them together.

  “All the pieces are white,” said Delia.

  “That’s because the picture shows Dullport during a blizzard,” said Freddie.

  The twins started stabbing and cutting the pieces with knives (large, illegal ones) to make them fit, but that just made the whole thing seem even more pointless.

  “What about some good old-fashioned entertainment?” asked Sam, in his new, deep voice. “We could form a barbershop quartet and sing close harmony together.”

  “THAT WOULD BE LOVELY!” said Uncle Knuckles. “I DO A GREAT VERSION OF CHRISTINA AGUILERA’S ‘BEAUTIFUL.’” He closed his enormous eyes and started to sing. The noise was so appalling that it shattered the windows in the caravan. An
d then, to stop Uncle Knuckles’s singing, Henry started to garrote him with the electrical wires, which caused the one working light in the caravan to sputter and die.

  “We’re all going to kill one another before we get home,” Imogen said to Big Nana, who was now sitting on the sofa, reading a copy of What Caravan? magazine that she’d found in the bathroom. “Or is that the idea?”

  “Stop complaining,” said Big Nana, admiring a horse-drawn, two-bed caravan that cost seven guineas (the magazine was very out-of-date).

  “We don’t even have any Wi-Fi!” moaned Delia, trying and failing to look at Instagram on her phone. “There isn’t even any phone signal!”

  “BUT THERE IS A TELEVISION!” shouted Uncle Knuckles, turning it on.

  Big Nana looked up from her magazine and smiled. “That’s the same TV model that we had when I was a young child snatcher.”

  “Yeah,” grumbled Delia. “When, like, dinosaurs were walking the planet.”

  “Don’t be silly,” said Big Nana. “You know that dinosaurs and humans didn’t coexist. We did have a pet dodo, though. Poor little Norbert.” She shook her head sadly. “He didn’t deserve to be made into a stew. My brothers were monsters. Everyone knows the best way to eat dodo is to roast it whole and serve it with gravy and roasted potatoes.”

  “SUCCESS!” shouted Uncle Knuckles. He had managed to turn on the television. Though there wasn’t much to see; the screen was filled with gray squiggles.

  “My favorite show!” said Uncle Clyde, rubbing his hands. “Did you know that the static you get when you turn on a television is actually an echo of the big bang?”

  “Who knew the big bang was so boring,” said Henry, who was graffitiing the donkey’s back with a Sharpie.

  “Right,” said Imogen. “That’s enough. Let’s take the donkey back to the beach—”