Crimes of the Sarahs

Chapter 1 Just like mayonnaise, Raisinets, and milk, every criminal has a shelf life. Either you get caught or you evolve. Much like the amoeba, the other Sarahs and I plan on evolving. Of course, since we're in the middle of a job right now, we're obviously not there yet."Should I go?" Sarah B asks.I view this as a rhetorical question. I'm not the leader. That's Sarah A's position, but she's already inside the store. Sometimes, because I'm the driver, when Sarah A is absent, the other two Sarahs defer to me. Though I don't know why. Among the four of us, I'm the least alpha. I'm not headstrong or decisive or anything. As far as the pecking order, I'm the shortest Sarah. Plus, I struggle with anxiety."Give her a few more minutes," Sarah C calls from the backseat.Had I said something, that would've been my answer too. I always favor inaction over action. Sarah B leans back into the passenger seat and smacks her gum. Then she blows a bubble so big that its circumference eclipses her face.Pop. She peels off the pink film and pushes the gum wad back inside her mouth. Bubbles never stick to Sarah B's face, because every minute of her life, her T-zone is aglow with oil. It's what I call a Teflon complexion. Except I don't say that to her actual face.Pop.A fact that sucks: Sarah B breaks out more than any other Sarah. Another fact that sucks: Her oily skin will age better than my dry skin. When she's eighty, her skin will be the least wrinkly of all the Sarahs. That is, if we all live long enough to reach that geriatric benchmark."Now?" Sarah B asks.I shake my head. It's not just that I favor inaction; in the beginning, we learned quickly that it was best to enter our targeted stores one at a time. It's blatantly unfair, but salesclerks absolutely stereotype teenagers. Even a group of presumably innocent, Caucasian-looking, female teens browsing the aisles of a bookstore on a Sunday afternoon can send up a red flag. Agism is alive and well, even here in Kalamazoo."Now?" Sarah B asks me again. "I feel like it's time."I nod. I don't know if it's time, but there's so much tension and perfume overload in the car that I'm getting a headache and it would improve the atmosphere immensely if the apple-scented Sarah B left."Remember, take the clerk to the board-book display beneath the huge toad cutout. Ask a lot of questions about Sarah Stewart and David Small. Keep the clerk in one area," Sarah C says. She's leaning forward, wedging herself into the rectangle of open space between the driver's and passenger's seat. Her shiny red hair is so close to my mouth that I think I can taste her conditioner.Sarah B opens the car and slings her purse strap over her neck. For as long as I can remember, Sarah B has feared being mugged. I guess being a thief lowers your threshold for trust."I thought it was a cutout of a lizard," Sarah B says."He's a toad," Sarah C says."How do you know it's a guy? Is it anatomically correct? Did you inspect its crotch?" She blows another bubble and sucks it back inside her mouth."First, he's wearing pants. Second, he's a character fromThe Wind in the Willows. It's a guy toad. Trust us."Sarah C kicks the back of my seat."Yeah,The Wind in the Willowsis about a male toad," I say.Sarah B tilts her head and squints at us, like she's thinking really hard. Her soft lips turn downward, which usually means that she's confused."I bet some cultures consider lizards to be a form of toads," Sarah B says. "They both have reptile brains." Not everything Sarah B says makes perfect sense.She slams the car door and enthusiastically walks through the strip mall parking lot, her brown hair bouncing around her tan, bare shoulders. Until last week, Sarah B always wore a Detroit Tigers baseball cap. But after she almost got caught shoving a box of Oreos down her pants at a Sunoco station, Sarah A was adamant that the cap had to go. SheTracy, Kristen is the author of 'Crimes of the Sarahs', published 2008 under ISBN 9781416955191 and ISBN 1416955194.