Rundell - The Good Thieves

Praise for THE GOOD THIEVES

An amazing adventure story, told with sparkling style and sleight of hand

Jacqueline Wilson

A new Katherine Rundell book is always an event, but this is another triumph and then some. A wickedly exciting heist with heart, I can but marvel at this new delight from one of my favourite storytellers ever

Kiran Millwood Hargrave

A total showstopper of a story. Rundells finest yet

Emma Carroll

I love the way Katherine puts Impossible on hold while she tells her wild, warm, shimmering stories

Hilary McKay

The Good Thieves is a storytelling spectacle it glitters with adventure, family, friendship, and an irresistible sprinkling of impossibility

Catherine Doyle

A truly excellent book. Stolen castles, daring heists, prohibition, pickpockets, animal adventure, the circus, a truly terrifying villain, and four of the best protagonists Ive ever encountered. Plus Katherine Rundells glorious prose

Katherine Webber

Katherine Rundells writing is always beautiful, but The Good Thieves hits a whole new level for me. Its just dazzling! I adore fierce, vibrant Vita, and the plot is SO compelling

Stephanie Burgis

Books by Katherine Rundell

The Girl Savage

Rooftoppers

The Wolf Wilder

The Explorer

The Good Thieves

For younger readers

One Christmas Wish

BLOOMSBURY CHILDRENS BOOKS

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

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This electronic edition published in 2019 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY CHILDRENS BOOKS and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

First published in Great Britain in 2019 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Text copyright Katherine Rundell, 2019

Illustrations copyright Matt Saunders, 2019

Katherine Rundell and Matt Saunders have asserted their rights under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author and Illustrator of this work

All rights reserved
You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-4088-5489-1 (HB)
ISBN: 978-1-5266-0813-0 (TPB)
ISBN: 978-1-4088-5490-7 (eBook)

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To Ellen Holgate, my editor,
and Claire Wilson, my agent.
What luck, to work with two such women

CHAPTER ONE

Vita set her jaw and nodded at the city in greeting, as a boxer greets an opponent before a fight.

She stood alone on the deck of the ship. The sea was wild and stormy, casting salt spray thirty feet into the air, and all the other passengers on the ocean liner, including her mother, had taken sensible refuge in their cabins.

But it is not always sensible to be sensible.

Vita had slipped away and stood out in the open, gripping the rail with both hands as the boat crested a wave the size of an opera house. So it was that she alone had the first sight of the city.

There she is! called a deck hand. In the distance, port side!

New York climbed out of the mist, tall and grey-blue and beautiful; so beautiful that it pulled Vita forwards to the bow of the boat to stare. She was leaning over the railing, as far out as she dared, when something came flying at her head.

She gasped and ducked low. A seagull was chasing a young crow across the sky, pecking at its back, wheeling and shrieking in mid-air. Vita frowned. It wasnt, she thought, a fair fight. She felt in her pocket, and her fingers closed on an emerald-green marble. She took aim, a brief and angry calculation of distance and angle, drew back her arm, and threw.

The marble caught the seagull on the exact centre of the back of its skull. The gull gave the scandalised cry of an angry duchess, and the crow spun in the air and sped back towards the skyscrapers of New York.

*

They took a cab from the docks. Vitas mother carefully counted out a handful of coins, and gave the driver the address. As close as we can get for that, please, she said, and he took in her carefully mended hems and nodded.

Manhattan sped past outside the window, bright bursts of colour amid the storm-beaten brick and stone. They passed a cinema, its walls adorned with pictures of Greta Garbo, and a man selling hot lobster claws out of a cart. A tram thundered past at a crossroads, narrowly missing a van advertising The Colonial Pickle Works. Vita breathed in the city. She tried to memorise the layout of the streets, to build a map behind her eyes; she whispered the names: Washington Street, Greenwich Avenue.

When the money ran out, they walked. They went as fast as Vita could go in the ferocious wind, suitcases in hand, along Seventh Avenue, dodging pinstripe men and sharp-heeled women.

There! said Vitas mother. Thats Grandpas flat.

The apartment building on the corner of Seventh and West 57th rose up, tall and stately in brown stone, from the busy pavement. A newspaper boy stood outside, roaring the headlines into the wind.

Across the road from the apartment block was a light-red-brick building, its facade arched and ornamented. Flagpoles protruded from its wall, and two flags flapped wildly. Above them, picked out in coloured glass, were the words Carnegie Hall.

It all looks very smart, said Vita. The apartment block appeared to purse its lips at the world. Are you sure this is the place?

Im sure, said her mother. Hes on the top floor, right under the roof. It used to be the maids apartment. Itll be a squeeze, but its not for long. Their return ticket was booked for three weeks time. Enough time, said Vitas mother, to sort out Grandpas papers, pack his few things, and persuade him to come home with them.

Come on! Her mothers voice sounded unnaturally bright. Lets go and find him.

The lift was broken, so Vita half ran up the stairs to Grandpas apartment, jerkily, as fast as her legs would take her. Her suitcase banged against the walls as she raced up narrow flights of stairs, ignoring the growing pain in her left foot. She came to rest, breathless, outside the door. She knocked, but there was no response.

Vitas mother came, panting, up the final flight of stairs. She bent to pick the apartment key from under the mat. She hesitated, looking down at her daughter. Im sure he wont be as bad as we feared, she said, but

Mama! Hes waiting!

Her mother opened the door, and Vita went tearing down the hall; and then, in the doorway, she froze.

Grandpa had always been thin; handsome and lean, with long fine hands and shrewd blue-green eyes. Now he was gaunt, and his eyes had drawn back into his skull. His fingers had drawn inwards into fists, as if every part of him was pulling back from the world. A walking stick leaned against the wall next to his chair: he hadnt needed a walking stick before.