Day 22: 40,667 Words and the plan somehow works

So, I am trying to wrap up the Great Book Heist part of my novel, which is actually based on a true story. Happy to have passed the 40,000 mark, hopefully it's all downhill from here. I find the helpful thing about memos is you can summarize a lot of stuff without ever having to explain it happening, so I might go with that tomorrow. Anyway, here are a couple of excerpts. First, I loved a line from Indigo's blog so much I had to include it in my novel:

“What are you doing?” Berto scream whispered, to no avail. Cass ignored them. Gordon, who has an uncanny ability to hear a scream whisper even in a crowded, carnival-like atmosphere did hear, and with a mere glance, completely understood the situation. He, like Berto, had the romantic comedy formula encoded into his DNA. The situation was dire. Gordon pranced to the centre of the room, turned his back on Cass, and then spun around quickly, his cape flaring in the dim flickering light of the bar. “What are you doing?” He scream whispered.

Second, the 'air tight plan' goes off without a hitch:

It turned out that the suburbanites were otherwise occupied, perhaps obsessing over their neighbours’ lawns, or breaking into their neighbours’ basements looking for dead bodies. Crew Two, composed of the Rock, Vin Diesel, and James Van Der Beek, were probably not even needed. They had parked a block away, careful not to park Vin Diesel’s 1970 Charger R/T within two feet of anyone’s driveway. “Are you out of your damn mind?” The Rock had snarled when it looked as though Vin Diesel might do just that. “You want to bylaw officers to show up?” No one wanted that. No one.

There were surprisingly few passersby to greet, what with it being a school night. There had been one moment of excitement, when everyone thought that Vin Diesel had blown their cover when he greeted a late night dog walker by saying “top ‘o the morning, my good sir!” in his best British accent, which was about as good as you’d expect, which is to say not very good at all. But the accent wasn’t the problem. Everyone knew that suburbanites loved a good game of fake accents. The problem was, it was not morning, and they all knew it. The man walking his dog stared at them suspiciously, taking in their stylized hard hats and safety boots. The Rock was reaching for his ear piece, and was about to scream “Abort, Abort!” when the man replied “Oy! Throw another shrimp on the barbie!” in what the celebrities could only assume was an attempt at an Australian accent. With a wave, the man continued on his way. The celebrities breathed a sigh of relief and exchanged glances.

“Let’s practice our accents another time, Vin,” James helpfully suggested. Vin Diesel smiled sheepishly in response.

Crew Four also had an uneventful night. There had been so much concern about the cops being called but that also was apparently a non-factor, so luckily for everyone, Justin Bieber was able to preserve his reputation as a serious grown-up.

Logan, Cass, and Sam found two wheelbarrows at the construction site and were able to quickly and quietly load the books into the car, and before they knew it, the riskiest part of the Great Book Heist of ’25 was coming to a close. Somehow, though to Cass it seemed to defy the laws of physics, the books had fit inside the Impala, though the three passengers were forced to carry large stacks in their laps and around their feet.

As they prepared to drive away, Tanner gunned the engine. His hair: tousled. His jaw: set with determination. His forearms: gripping the wheel tightly and attractively. His sleeves: absent. Where did his sleeves go? Cass wondered, sure that he had been wearing a T-shirt earlier. As they drove away, Tanner looked over his shoulder at the rear passengers and said: “Ain’t my first time outrunnin’ bad decisions.” Cass was sure of two things. First, that that was true. Second, that he had done a Chat GPT search of ‘cocky but calm things to say when driving a getaway car’ while they had been inside the school, loading books onto the wheelbarrows. As a high school teacher, she had an ear for such things.

As anyone who knew teachers might have predicted, the most unruly part of the plan occurred as they were parked in the back alley behind Jackie’s Place, distributing the books among the teachers. Ben Jones had been the first to arrive, and he grabbed a stack of whatever he could get his hands on and ran off into the night.

“Those were copies of ‘Pride and Prejudice’!” Cass yelled at the Science teacher, who did not even slow down as he yelled “I need books!!!” over his shoulder and disappeared into the darkness.