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will. I promise.”
    But the guy in the mask says, “She’s coming with me.”

Chapter Nine
Daniel
    It’s weird. I’m scared. I can tell because my shirt is wet under my arms and my mouth is dry. Also, I have this spaced-out feeling, as if what’s happening is something I’m watching, not something I’m actually in the middle of. For the first little while, my eyes refuse to move from the gun. I’ve never seen a real one. For sure I’ve never seen one this close up, held by a jittery guy in a mask who means business. But that’s only for a little while. Then that spaced-out feeling gets stronger. The stronger it gets, the less I look at the gun and the more I feel like I’m floating above the man in the mask, Rosie, her father, even myself, watching everything unfold. A crazy calm takes over. Yeah, it’s weird.
    I’m no expert. I’ve never been in a situation like this before. But if you ask me, the guy in the mask is an amateur. He seems to be letting Mr. Mirelli take the lead. Not that that doesn’t mean we’re all afraid. We are. I see Mr. Mirelli’s hands shake when he takes the cash out of the drawer. Rosie’s hands shake just like her old man’s when she picks up the money like she’s told and lets the guy in the mask snatch it from her.
    More evidence that he’s new at this: he didn’t lock the door or put up the Closed sign. And now, instead of taking off with the money, he wants to take Rosie with him, which I’m sure the cops will see as kidnapping. A thousand bucks, and instead of being smart, he’s making it even worse. If they catch him, he’ll be locked up for a long time.
    He says the girl is coming with him, and Mr. Mirelli and Rosie both say the same thing at the exact same time. They say, “No.”
    Mr. Mirelli doesn’t want the man to take his daughter. He’s actually saying no to a man who has a gun pointed at him. Even more surprising, Rosie says no to a man who has a good grip on her and who, if you ask me, can do pretty much whatever he wants.
    Does the guy in the mask get angry? Does he threaten Mr. Mirelli and Rosie? Does he remind them that, in case they didn’t notice, he has a gun?
    No. Instead, he looks surprised, even with that mask over his face. It’s his eyes that give him away. They pop open like kernels of popcorn.
    â€œShe’s coming with me,” he says again and stops abruptly because their response has surprised him so much that he’s forgotten himself and has slipped into a normal voice. He sucks in a deep breath. He lowers his voice again to disguise it. “She’s coming with me,” he says for the third time.
    I don’t even notice what Rosie does after that. I don’t look at her father either. I’m staring at the guy in the mask. I’m thinking about those four words that he said in his normal voice. I look him over, taking in every detail.
    He’s tall—much taller than Rosie, but not quite as tall as me. There’s not a lot of meat on him. I’m slim, but I’m all muscle. Maybe he’s all muscle too, but I’m willing to bet he’s mostly string bean. Besides the mask, which is really one of those hats you can wear when you’re skiing on a cold day and can pull down over your face so that the only things that show are your eyes through two eyeholes and your mouth through a mouth hole—besides that, he’s wearing gloves, a long black coat like the guy in The Matrix , black jeans and black boots. The boots have worn-down heels and a triangle-shaped nick on the right instep.
    They make me think of my next-door neighbor. He saved up for months to buy a pair of boots just like those. The second day he had them, one of his brothers, the younger one who, it turns out, wears the same size boots, borrowed them without asking and got into a fight while he was wearing them. When he returned