I wanted to talk more about what she was thinking, getting involved in a business like this at her age, but decided to let it go for the time being. She clearly didn’t want to talk about Staples, and I still had to solve the problem I came here about. It wouldn’t have been a good idea to start the negotiation off with a stupid argument.

“Well, there’s this kid who owes you money, apparently. Jimmy Two-Tone,” I said.

Kinko laughed. “Oh, yeah, that guy! He makes me laugh.”

I wanted to say, “What doesn’t make you laugh?” but thought better of it.

“‘Hey, Jimmy needs more time, dude!’” Kinko said, doing a pretty good impression. Then she laughed again.

I laughed, too, this time figuring it couldn’t hurt. The only one who didn’t even crack a smile was old big-n-tall standing behind Kinko.

“So the point is I’d like to make good on his debt somehow. I want to square this thing with you, and I want out, for me, for Jimmy, for our entire school.”

She smiled and nodded. “Oh, cool! Yeah, that sounds awesome. Where’s the money? I can send someone over to pick it up, or do you have it with you?”

I shifted in my seat. “Well, that’s the thing. I’d like to make good on the debt in another way. We don’t have that kind of money. Like, maybe I could work for you for a while or something? I’m pretty okay at this kind of stuff.”

She didn’t say anything right away. Instead she started coloring the next picture in her book. She acted as if she hadn’t even heard me. I glanced at the giant mook of a kid behind her, and he still stood there stone-faced. Was she about to snap and have me “marked” by Michi Oba? Was she thinking about it?

“I like you,” she said suddenly. “You seem like a pretty cool kid. For a Shoobee.”

“Thanks?”

“What I mean is,” she continued without looking up, “$4,334.21 is a lot of money. The kind of money where, like, no matter how much I like you and stuff, you don’t get out of it without paying. Capiche?”

I didn’t know what exactly “capiche” meant, but that didn’t matter; the rest of it had been pretty clear. Besides, I’d heard that word used in some of my favorite gangster movies before so it was pretty cool that she’d picked it up, too.

“You know, where I come from, sometimes favors and services can be worth just as much as money,” I said. “Sometimes worth even more than money.”

She finally looked up and put down her crayons. She took out some little hair piece thing and started fiddling with her hair, looking for a way to secure it with the little feather hair clip or whatever it’s called.

“This isn’t where you come from, though, is it?” she asked, finally settling on a place for the hair clip. She took out a little portable mirror to examine her hair.

“Uh, well, no, but, I mean . . .” I fumbled.

She just smiled and then shrugged. “So here’s the deal. I do like you guys. You and Jimmy Two-Tone are two pretty funny fellas. So what I’ll do is knock the amount down to an even four thousand dollars if you can pay it back to me in exactly one week. How’s that?”

It was pretty fair, actually. I mean, aside from the fact that rounding up four thousand dollars in less than a week was impossible. But at this point it was all I had.

“Can you make it five weeks instead?”

“I don’t negotiate,” she said.

“Okay, one week. What about twenty-five hundred dollars?”

“I don’t negotiate.”

I looked at her blankly. I guessed I was lucky to have gotten a deal at all, even if it was one that we couldn’t possibly deliver on.

“Isn’t that right, Sue?” Kinko asked over her shoulder. “I don’t negotiate, do I?”

“Sue?” I said in disbelief. That behemoth’s name was Sue?

Kinko laughed. “Yeah, apparently his dad was really into this old singer named Jimmy Cash or something, and he has this song about, like, where this dude names his son Sue so that he’ll have to fight a lot and be tough to survive or something. Pretty funny.”

I looked at Sue. He didn’t seem amused. But then he didn’t seem angry either. He hadn’t reacted at all to the question or us talking about his name.

“He doesn’t talk much,” Kinko explained with a shrug. “But he’s a good guy. Right, Sue?”

No reaction.

“See?” Kinko said to me with a grin.

“Okay,” I said. “Four grand, one week.”

I held out my hand. She looked at it and hesitated.

“Well, there is one more little thing I’ll need you to do for me as well. A job of sorts,” she said.

“What sort of job?”

“I want to own your school,” she said.

What was I supposed to say to that? Nothing, right? So I just laughed. Kinko laughed, too.

“Okay, so not, like, literally or whatever. But I want to own everyone there. I want their information, their addresses, grades, disciplinary records, everything. I want you to get me the permanent records of every kid in your school. Electronically, of course, on a flash drive.”

Honestly, getting her the lease to the school might have actually been easier. I was starting to think Staples’s little sister might be insane.

“I don’t think . . .” I started.

“Listen, Mac, you can do it. Want to know how I know? Because I could do it here, no problem. You’re supposed to be good, right? Well, then prove it. If I can take care of not only myself but also every kid in this school all by myself, then I bet you can do this one little task for me, right?”

“What are you going to use it for? I’m not here to get my school out of trouble only to see you mess around with it again.”

“That’s my business. I give you my word, though, that none of your classmates will suffer. At least, not the ones who don’t deserve it.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but I realized I didn’t have any other options. We were this deep, there wasn’t any other way out of it. I held out my hand once again.

She shook it, and I suddenly couldn’t believe I had just made a four-thousand-dollar deal with someone with such small hands.

“Do you like fruit in Jell-O?” she asked.

“Um . . . I don’t know. No, I guess not,” I said.

“I think it’s gross,” she said, making a face. “Our school cafeteria puts fruit in the Jell-O here. It’s so nasty!”

I just sat there, completely dumbstruck.

“Okay, I have business to do,” she said. “I’ll have the Aussie escort you off school property using the tunnels so you don’t get caught.”

“Thanks,” I said, getting up to leave.

“One last thing before you go.”

I turned back. “Yeah?”

“Not one penny less, one missing permanent record, or one day late or all of those little tiny things we’ve done to your school will seem like carnival games compared to what we’ll do next.”

I nodded and once again failed at an attempt to swallow saliva that was basically nonexistent.

The Aussie was waiting for me in the main chamber. He greeted me with a giant lopsided smile.

“Hey, mate, you’re still alive! That’s good to see. And you didn’t even get marked. See? I told you it would all come out good!”

 

“How did it go?” Staples asked as I got into his car.

“Fine,” I said.

“So what’s this Ken-Co guy like anyway?”

I took a deep breath. I thought about telling him, “Oh, well, you know she’s okay, considering she’s as smart and shrewd and psychotic as you are, which I guess isn’t surprising considering it’s your sister.” But the moment I thought about that, I had a vision of him snapping and punching me repeatedly in the face for bringing him such bad news.

“He’s smart,” I said. “We were able to make a deal at least.”

I decided not to tell him just yet. I mean, if he knew his sister was making all the same mistakes he did, that she was following the same path, it might just kill him. Or send him over the edge. Either one would likely end poorly for both him and me.

On the drive back I told him all about the deal we’d made. At the end he glanced at me and then said, “Well, let’s just hope you’re as good as you think you are.”