The Crims Read online

  Imogen jumped back from the bars instinctively as Uncle Clyde knelt on the floor and screamed, shaking his fists at the ceiling.

  She didn’t quite know how to respond. Imogen had never seen her uncle this upset before. Maybe she had underestimated Uncle Clyde, after all? He’d certainly put enough work into planning The Heist, ridiculous as it was. She sighed to herself. She’d changed her mind so many times in the past few days that she really didn’t know what to think anymore. “I’m sorry,” she said carefully. “You’re right—I should never have doubted my own family.”

  “Well. Good,” Uncle Clyde said gruffly, still on his knees.

  “You can get up now,” Imogen said.

  “I know,” said Uncle Clyde.

  “You need someone to help you up, don’t you?” asked Imogen.

  Uncle Clyde nodded. “Just wait till you turn forty,” he said. “It’s all downhill from there.”

  Al and Uncle Knuckles pulled Uncle Clyde up from the floor and helped him back to the bench.

  “As I was saying,” said Imogen, “I’m really sorry for doubting you. It’s just that I looked in the Loot Cellar and the lunch box wasn’t there.” She watched her family. If they really had stolen the lunch box, this news would be a blow. But they didn’t look that concerned.

  “It wasn’t?” asked Uncle Clyde.

  Imogen shook her head.

  “Huh. Well, it is quite a small object,” Uncle Clyde said thoughtfully.

  “I suppose so,” said Imogen.

  “Also.” Uncle Clyde looked down and brushed some dust off the knees of his pants. “You were right: We didn’t steal it.” He picked up his notebook and started to doodle.

  Imogen grasped the bars with both hands, her jaw dropping. “Yes!” she shouted, pumping her fist. “I knew it! Okay, then . . . why are you telling everyone that you did steal it?”

  “Well, it’s merely a minor technicality,” said Uncle Clyde, putting down his notebook. “I still planned The Heist. It’s just that someone else pulled it off! That means we’re still responsible for the crime, right? The plan worked. We’re still famous criminals!”

  “No you’re not! You’re stupid criminals!” said Imogen, exasperated. “If you didn’t pull off The Heist, you’re innocent—but someone wants you to take the blame. Didn’t you read the papers? Whoever did it followed your plan to the letter. They even left the Crims’ signature inside the front door so everyone would think it was you.”

  When her family still looked at her blankly, Imogen shook her head. “Don’t you get it?” she asked.

  “OI! GET WHAT?” demanded Uncle Knuckles.

  Imogen sighed and shook her head. “This wasn’t a coincidence. The Crims were framed!”

  THE AFTERNOON IMOGEN spent at the police station trying to persuade her family to confess their innocence was one of the longest of her life, and she had once taken part in an interpretive dance workshop involving puppets. She tried bribing her relatives and flattering them and attempting to convince them that they’d still have to serve time even if they hadn’t stolen the lunch box, but Josephine insisted that “wasting police time” wasn’t a glamorous enough crime and refused to back down while Al tried to soothe her with a neck rub, mouthing “sorry” at Imogen. Eventually, Imogen gave up and walked back home to Crim House starving, completely exhausted, and thoroughly ashamed to be a Crim.

  As she picked her way up the front path, trying not to slip on the marbles or slide on the banana peels the twins planted there every morning, her phone buzzed with a text from Freddie: Are you nearly home? Dinner’s ready! Her stomach clenched. Freddie’s cooking was, as one could imagine, very, very bad indeed. He had once mistaken Isabella’s toy pig for a chicken and tried to roast it, and that was one of his more successful attempts. But when Imogen entered the house, she smelled something she didn’t associate with the Crim kitchen—edible food.

  Before she could walk into the living room, Freddie poked his head around the door. “Chinese!” he said, holding up some takeaway bags. “A man just turned up and handed it to me. Amazing! I didn’t even have to pay for it!”

  “Do you think he might have delivered it to the wrong house by mistake?” Imogen asked, taking the bags from him and carrying them to the table.

  “Possibly,” said Freddie, frowning. “He did keep calling me Mr. Murphy, but I assumed that was a term of endearment.”

  Ten minutes later, Imogen was sitting on the sofa, eating hot, spicy noodles and duck with sweet plum sauce, feeling almost happy for the first time in days. Good food had that effect on Imogen—even when everything else was awful, a mouthful of truly delicious food could make everything okay for a few moments—until she remembered that she’d stained her favorite cardigan or fallen out with her best friend or been kicked out of school for being a master criminal. When the pleasure of the first few bites had worn off, she realized something: She couldn’t see or hear or smell the Horrible Children. “Where are the cousins?” she asked Freddie.

  “They wanted to get to bed nice and early tonight,” said Freddie, spooning some more duck onto his plate. “Said they were exhausted. Anyway, don’t worry about them—tell me more about what happened at the jail.”

  “There isn’t that much more to tell,” she said, ignoring the very loud alarm bells going off in her head about her cousins. “Uncle Clyde admitted they didn’t do it. Someone else pulled off The Heist.”

  “I can’t believe it!” Freddie said, shaking his head. “I mean, I suppose it makes sense—I have no memory of it whatsoever—but then I can’t remember putting my underpants on this morning, and there they are!” He looked down his trousers and frowned.

  “You’re not wearing any, are you?” said Imogen.

  Freddie shook his head. Then he shrugged and helped himself to more noodles. “I suppose The Heist being a fake is good news for you, at least?”

  “Yep,” said Imogen. “I’m going to write to my headmistress tonight and tell her. But she won’t believe me till I’ve proved it. She practically thinks I’m Al Capone.”

  “It must be wonderful to have someone think so highly of you,” said Freddie.

  Just then, the doorbell sang. (Most doorbells chime rather than sing, obviously, but that would have been too ordinary for the Crims—their doorbell featured Big Nana singing “Willkommen” in an extremely threatening, incredibly unwelcoming, minor key.) Imogen felt the hairs on her arms stand on end—she hadn’t heard Big Nana’s voice for over two years. It was almost as though her grandmother was back in the house with them.

  “Are you expecting anyone?” Imogen asked when the doorbell had stopped singing (about ten minutes later—it was quite a long song).

  “No.”

  “So who would turn up out of the blue at this time of night?”

  “Search me!” said Freddie, holding his arms out so Imogen could frisk him.

  She didn’t. “You definitely didn’t invite anyone over?” she asked instead.

  Freddie looked at his phone. “Oh! Yes I did! Remember how you said we should hire a babysitter?”

  “I do remember, yes,” said Imogen.

  “Well, I asked Delia to post an ad on blandthings.com.”

  Blandthings.com was a local website that people used to advertise jobs and secondhand furniture. Most things on there were pretty boring—there were sale notices for gray sofas and meditation courses, and solicitations for people to watch paint dry. Imogen had a feeling that Delia’s ad would have stood out a bit.

  “What does the post have to do with the doorbell?” Imogen asked as Big Nana broke into song again.

  “Well, I’ve had quite a few replies to the advert, and I’ve set up some interviews for this evening. Sorry—forgot to mention it sooner.”

  “A few interviews?”

  “Seven.” Freddie picked at the duck with his chopsticks without looking up.

  “SEVEN?”

  “The first one is right now. I guess we’d better get started!”
>
  “WE?”

  “You don’t mind helping me, do you?” said Freddie. “It’s just that I might forget to ask them something impor-tant.”

  Imogen groaned. “But I have to write that letter to my headmistress! And I’m exhausted! And anyway, anyone who would reply to an advert written by Delia is probably quite mad and extremely dangerous.”

  “That might not be the worst thing in the world. . . . They’ll have to control the Horrible Children, after all.”

  Imogen had to admit he had a point.

  “Actually, some of the applicants are very interesting and don’t sound that dangerous,” said Freddie. “Please help?” He looked at her the way Delia had when she’d begged Imogen to take the blame for the ice cream van theft. Imogen suddenly saw the family resemblance between them, and she felt an unfamiliar, sad sort of feeling deep inside her. At first she thought it was indigestion, but then she realized it was sympathy.

  I must be going soft, she thought. But she said, “Fine.”

  Freddie hugged her, which was a little bit painful, as he was still holding his chopsticks.

  “We’d better answer the door,” Imogen said. “Whoever it is has been standing out there for quite a while now, and it probably won’t be long before the snakes get them.”

  The next three hours passed in a blur of shaved heads and prison tattoos and disturbing facial expressions.

  The first candidate was Nigel, who had just been released from prison after serving time for twenty different crimes and was trying to start a new life in a quiet town. When Imogen asked him how he’d go about breaking up a fight between the twins, he scratched his armpit and said, “I’d bang their heads together till they made up. That’s my signature move, see?”

  Then there was Mary, who had just been released from prison for serving kitten burgers at her fast-food restaurant and wanted to make a new start somewhere peaceful. When Freddie asked whether she’d be happy to cook for the kids, she said, “Oh yes. I’m very resourceful when it comes to ingredients, too. It’s amazing what you can pick up on the street or at the pet shop.”

  And then there was Jamila, who had just been released from prison for dangerous driving and wanted to start over in a nice, safe neighborhood. (Imogen was sensing a theme among the candidates.) When Imogen asked why she had applied for the babysitting job, she said, “I like to challenge myself. I do one thing every day that scares me and other people.” And then she smiled, and Imogen noticed that her front tooth was carved into the shape of a skull.

  When Imogen had slammed the door on the seventh and final candidate (Leon, who wasn’t a criminal, amazingly enough, but who asked whether Freddie and Imogen would be okay with him performing a few scientific experiments on the children), she sighed. “I guess our cousins have a bit of a reputation,” she said. “Also, is it me, or has Blandington become a retirement village for ex-prisoners?”

  “I know,” said Freddie. “And they all want to work with us! It’s quite flattering, really.”

  “It’s not flattering!” said Imogen, slumping on the sofa. “It’s a disaster! Clearly everyone else has rejected them, but they think we’ll employ them because we’re criminals too.”

  “But we will employ one of them, won’t we?” said Freddie. “What did you think of Jade? She likes to make bombs, sure, but she could probably help the kids with their chemistry homework.”

  “No!” said Imogen. “We can’t put a criminal in charge of the Horrible Children.”

  “You’re right,” Freddie said sadly. “The children would be a very bad influence on them.” He flopped down on the sofa next to Imogen, defeated. “I guess I’ll just have to carry on looking after them.”

  “That’s a terrible idea,” said Imogen. But she didn’t have a better one. She looked at her watch. It was almost midnight.

  “It’s okay. I’ll do it properly this time,” said Freddie. “I’ll buy at least three new DVDs for them to watch—they have a two-for-one offer on wrestling videos down the road—and I’ll get some hammers and drills and wood for them to play with when they get bored. If we’re lucky, we might get a nice bookshelf out of it.”

  Imogen sat perfectly still, trying to stop herself from responding. She knew what she had to do. Somehow, in between figuring out who had carried out The Heist, clearing her family’s name, winning back her place at Lilyworth, writing the perfect speech to put Bridget Sweetwine in her place, and choreographing some kind of comeback walk to use when she reentered school, she was going to have to find time to look after the Horrible Children. She didn’t want to do it—she didn’t even like her cousins most of the time—but the last thing she needed was for more of her relatives to end up in jail or for her family home to burn down or for one of her cousins to drown while trying to steal a goldfish.

  “Freddie,” she said reluctantly. “I suppose I could—”

  But that’s when the doorbell went again.

  Imogen looked at Freddie.

  Freddie looked at his phone. “Oh!” he said. “Silly me—I’d forgotten, I actually scheduled eight interviews.”

  “Eight?”

  “That’s right!”

  Freddie bounced up off the sofa and rushed to open the front door. Imogen followed behind, looking at the figure silhouetted behind the cracked glass of the front door. Who would even come to a babysitting interview at midnight? The mystery candidate was tiny and seemed to be wearing a strange little hat. Was it some sort of . . . elf?

  Freddie opened the front door.

  The person on the doorstep was not an elf, luckily, though that would have been fun for a while.

  The person on the doorstep was the most perfect babysitter anyone could have dreamed up, even if they’d eaten a lot of cheese the night before.

  She was just old enough to be grandmotherly but spry enough to run after children who had just committed a bank robbery. Her eyes were a lovely shade of brown—the color of cocoa or a really friendly dog. She seemed warm and loving, but she had an air of mischief about her—good, wholesome mischief, Imogen thought, as though she might make you a midnight feast or let you stay up late to watch TV or let you name your teddy bear “Fartypants.” And the little velvet hat perched on her perfect graying curls made her seem like someone from a different, more innocent time, when everyone was polite to one another and no one framed anyone for a crime they hadn’t committed.

  Imogen loved her at once. She wanted the babysitter to run her a hot bath and plait her hair and then maybe adopt her. But instead, she held out her hand and said, “Pleased to meet you. I’m Imogen Crim.”

  “The pleasure’s all mine!” said the babysitter, with a wonderful, crinkly smile. “I’m Henny Teakettle. Would you like me to take off my shoes before I come in?”

  Imogen had never heard a more comforting name or a more comforting voice or more comforting words. “Definitely don’t take your shoes off,” she said. “You might step on a toy car or brass knuckles or something.”

  Imogen and Freddie led Mrs. Teakettle through to the living room, where she sat down in an armchair with a satisfied “Oof!”

  “So,” said Freddie, looking at his list of questions. “Tell us a bit about yourself.”

  “Well,” said Mrs. Teakettle, folding her hands on her lap. “Where to begin? I’ve looked after children all my life. I used to be a teacher, and then when I retired, I looked after my own grandchildren—they were ever so naughty at first, but I straightened them out. Now they’re all grown up, and I just miss having young people around. I love children.” She laughed a lovely laugh, like the sound an apple crumble would make if it could.

  “Have you heard anything about these particular children?” Imogen asked.

  “Ooh, no,” said Mrs. Teakettle. “I’m new in Blandington—I decided it was time for me to sell my house and move into a nice little flat. My husband died, you see.”

  “Oh,” Imogen and Freddie said sympathetically.

  “But I’ve just bought a puppy!�
��

  “Ah!”

  “But I do still get very lonely.”

  “Oh.”

  “But you can’t be lonely around children, can you?”

  “No,” said Imogen. She braced herself. “You know you said your grandchildren were naughty? How naughty are we talking—won’t-keep-quiet-during-math sort of naughty? Or . . . can’t-be-trusted-around-knives sort of naughty?”

  “Oh, they were little tearaways,” said Mrs. Teakettle, smiling fondly. “But I like challenging children best of all—they’re the most rewarding. What they really need is a mix of love and boundaries—”

  That was enough for Freddie. “You’re hired,” he said, picking up the other CVs from the pile of papers next to his chair and throwing them into the wastepaper basket.

  “Thank you very much!” said Mrs. Teakettle. She heaved herself out of the armchair and shook hands with Imogen and Freddie. “Would you like me to start on Monday?”

  “Tomorrow, if you can,” said Imogen as Freddie led the way to the front door and opened it.

  But then Imogen looked over Mrs. Teakettle’s shoulder into the front garden—and saw something moving.

  “Freddie,” she said, grabbing his arm. “What’s that?”

  “A fox?” said Freddie.

  Whatever was in the front garden tripped over something and swore.

  “Foxes don’t use four-letter words,” said Imogen.

  “Allow me,” said Mrs. Teakettle, whipping a flashlight out of her handbag and shining it into the garden.

  There, frozen in the beam of light, were the Horrible Children, all dressed in black, staggering under the weight of a pinball machine. They were all wearing the balaclavas Aunt Bets had knitted for them, but it was still easy to tell who was who—Delia’s curly hair was escaping from beneath hers, Henry’s balaclava was riddled with burn holes, Sam’s Adam’s apple was visible beneath his, and the twins’ eyes reflected the flashlight identically.

  “So these are the little darlings,” said Mrs. Teakettle.