Chapter 9
After a grueling week of schoolwork that made Parents’ Weekend seem like a dream, another weekend rolled around. In Saturday mode, I staggered into the strangely quiet common room, my jammies sagging and hair sticking up. First thing that happened was I tripped over a pile of rope heaped on the floor.
“Watch it, Mac,” mumbled Brookie.
“What is all this stuff?” I asked. I looked down at my feet. I carefully threaded my way through a minefield of equipment so I could collapse in a chair. Brookie was sitting on the floor, coiling the ropes into neater bundles. He wouldn’t answer me.
“I repeat, what is all this stuff?” I said, kicking a pile of carabiners.
“You’re not showing enough enthusiasm for my latest idea, Mac, so no comment,” said Brookie sourly.
Prakash swiveled around, rested his head on his laptop, and looked at me with pity in his brown eyes.
“Brookie is a rock climber, Mac. When he’s not enjoying one of his many other newsworthy pursuits . . .”
I turned to Brookie with despair in my heart. “I know, I know, you’ve gone over it before. But let me guess how you imagine it, Brookie. You’re going to do a James Bond–style climb up the walls into the museum, photograph that book we saw while we were on the tour—that same book that has all the details about the art object, the location, and name of the donor—and escape, and spend the rest of the night at a cocktail party with a gorgeous blonde to establish your alibi. In reality we’re going to get worked, totally shredded, and thrown out of school.”
“I do not plan to get worked, Mac. I am planning to get in and out with a minimum of trouble, bringing with me the evidence of exactly what piece of St. Rupert’s property Harley is planning to steal and the name of the original donor. That is exactly what I plan to do, Mac. Except for the fact that St. Rupert’s Academy is short of beautiful blondes and I don’t know of any cocktail parties going on, I wouldn’t mind establishing my alibi that way.”
Brookie scooted backward on his behind and rested his head and back against the wall, dangling his hands between his upbent knees. “Look, this is a three-day weekend, and the campus is going to be dead quiet. Everybody’s gone from our floor but us. So as far as I’m concerned, it is a perfect weekend for breaking and entering.” He waggled a camera at me. “I even got a better camera for close-up photography, Mac. Come on,” he said coaxingly.
But I wasn’t going to be lured into a felony by any of his new technology.
“Hey, most people are either visiting their parents or their friends. Ian is off touring colleges this weekend. Just you, me, and Prakash. We couldn’t ask for a better opportunity.”
I sat down next to Brookie, looking at him earnestly.
“Ms. Kent did give us a free rein, Mac.”
“I don’t think she gave us that much free rein, Brook. We’re talking crime here. Don’t they have alarm systems where you come from in Canada?”
I reluctantly helped him assemble the ropes and carabiners in a backpack. I didn’t mean to be sarcastic, but I was feeling out of sorts.
Prakash didn’t mind being sarcastic at all.
“May I point out, Brookie, that your hobby of rock climbing is a perfect blind. You will be seen lugging all this gear around, across perfectly flat terrain, through perfectly flat flower beds in the middle of the night. I’m sure nobody will suspect that you plan to use it for climbing the wall of a building.”
Brookie ignored Prakash without a blush. “Did you notice any alarm systems at St. Rupert’s, Mac?”
“If you mean the little stickers on the windows, no.”
“Brookie means a little box with numbers on it, Mac. When you walk in the front door of the museum, you can enter a secret code and turn the noise off.”
Brookie shook his head and stared at us in amazement. “Haven’t you Yanks ever been to a museum? What kind of security do you think they have?” He had to needle us for the Canadian crack I’d made earlier.
“I’m not a Yank. I’m Bengali,” countered Prakash.
Brookie ignored him some more. “Security. Cameras. Guys. Listen up. They have these motion detectors, pressure sensors, and electronic-eye things all cleverly disguised in the exhibits.” He closed his eyes a moment, lost in contemplation of a future career in espionage at its most high-tech. He sighed as he ditched his fantasy and went back to being practical. “Anyway, there is no security in St. Rupert’s Museum. I looked when we were there.”
He handed me some rope to untangle. We worked in silence for a while. But Brookie couldn’t stay quiet for long.
“Too bad we can’t get you to go along with us, Prakash. It would be good for you.”
“Look, Brookie,” said Prakash, turning to face us, putting his brown hands flat on his knees to emphasize his point, “if you get caught, it’ll be bad enough. If I get caught . . . face it, I’m a foreigner, from a Moslem country, and automatically suspect. I’ll be in a whole different kind of category of ‘in trouble’ than you will. Dark-skinned and wealthy is still dark-skinned in the American criminal justice system.”
I looked at Prakash with sympathy. I got up to stretch my legs, going over to stand next to him, putting my hand on his shoulder to show my solidarity.
“That’s why you want to be a lawyer, right, to defend the rights of the oppressed?” I was mammoth proud of him.
He quickly slayed my illusions. “Actually, I just want to get rich quick selling real estate,” he growled. He turned back to his laptop and went back to work, ignoring us. He was still hoping for a break on his Internet research, some inkling of what could make Harley want to break into the academy museum.
Brookie smiled at me, turning on all his charm, which he usually kept carefully hidden from us.
“Look, I know you don’t want to do this, Mac, and you don’t have to,” he pleaded. “But I do need both of you to help me. Prakash, if you’ll just stand by, look out the window, and keep your cell phone handy, in case you spot anyone around the back door of the monastery while we are inside, we’ll be really, really grateful. And MacDonough, if you can keep watch inside while I photograph?”
It sounded simple enough. I nodded, getting sucked in by the sheer force of Brookie’s audacity. Could this kid really believe it was that simple? I guess I was going to find out.
Prakash just threw us an “Okay, okay, whatever” over his shoulder.
But I tried one last time. “Can’t we just ask one of the monks what this 1929 acquisition is and who the donor was and where it is kept?” I begged.
“We can’t. The Head’s out of town, and we don’t know who else to trust. There’s the accomplice in the monastery. We want solid evidence of what Harley is planning to steal and where it is located in the monastery so we can protect it. Hopefully without him knowing about it. Who knows, maybe we can even catch Harley and his accomplice red-handed while they are stealing it. We want him done, man. For Ms. Kent.” There was a genuine appeal in his voice.
He knew which of my buttons to push. Protecting Ms. Kent’s job could be handled quite nicely by getting Harley put away for stealing. I was ready to sign up. I replied with gusto, “Right, Brookie. And once we know just what it is Harley is after, then we’ll move forward and catch him with his hands on the goods. Not enough information is all we have right now.”
I couldn’t believe I was agreeing with Brookie after all. He grinned like he knew he’d had me the whole time.
“Good to have you along, Mac.” Brookie clapped me on the back. Prakash sniggered at me, for being a chump.