“You think?” I said snidely.
“Hurry,” the Gasman said.
I hit the withdrawal button.
PLEASE ENTER THE AMOUNT YOU WISH TO WITHDRAW.
I hesitated. “Sixty dollars?” That would buy a lot of food, right?
“He was a total jerk,” said Fang. “Take him for all he’s got.”
I grinned. “You are evil. I like that.” I worked my way through the account balances, and we all stared and whistled.
“Oh, yeah, oh, yeah,” Nudge sang, doing a little dance. “We’re ri-ich, we’re gonna buy a ca-ar, oh, yeah.”
; You might not know this, but ATMs have a built-in limit of how much dough they’re willing to give you at one time. So our plans to buy our own country crumbled. However, it was willing to give me two hundred bucks.
Once we punched in our access code again, for security purposes.
“Oh, no,” I groaned. “Did anyone see it?”
“I heard it,” said Iggy slowly.
“I think if we put in the wrong code more than twice, the whole thing shuts down and swallows the card,” said Fang.
“Can you do it?” I asked Iggy.
“Um, I’ll try . . .” Iggy hesitantly put his hand over the keypad. His sensitive fingers oriented themselves to the keys.
“It’s okay, Ig,” said Fang. “Just give it your best shot.” Sometimes the Fangster is incredibly supportive, just not with me.
Iggy punched in five numbers, and we all held our breath.
ACCESS DENIED. PLEASE CHECK YOUR PIN AND TRY AGAIN.
“Try again,” I said tensely. “You’ve got the best ears on the planet.”
Once again, Iggy’s pale hand hovered over the keyboard. He concentrated and punched in five numbers.
Nothing. My heart sank down into my stomach.
Then the machine started whirring, and soon a stack of twenties shot out.
“Yes!” said Fang, punching the air. “Freaks rule.”
“Grab it and go!” I said as Nudge began pulling out bills and stuffing them into her pockets. We were turning to run when the machine beeped again.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR BUSINESS. PLEASE TAKE YOUR CARD.
“Okay, thank you,” I said, grabbing the card. Then we ran back to the woods. Well, we ran and flew.
54
For some reason, I didn’t feel too bad about taking that guy’s money. Maybe because he seemed like such a jerk. We were like his karma getting back at him.
I don’t know. I do know that I wouldn’t have stolen even a jar of peanut butter from Ella and her mom. Never. Nothing.