Read Online The Venetian Job by Sally Gould - Free Book Online Page B

whispered to Santo in
Italian. Santo and Luca handed over the tubes. One of the men
forced Santo and Luca into the storeroom, locked the door and
slipped the key into his pocket. The two men didn't speak. They
filled a soft black bag with the tubes and left. We waited till we
could hear them go up the stairs before we left our hiding
spot.
    I whispered to Charlie, "The thieves have
got the key."
    "If Santo had a gun, he could blow off the
door handle." He huffed. "If Santo were a real policeman, he'd
carry a gun."
    Through the door, we heard Santo say, "I
heard that."
    Then I remembered that time I picked the
padlock of the shed at home, because Dad had locked my scooter in
there as a punishment. "Let's find a paperclip."
    Within a minute, we'd found a pile of papers
and five paperclips. It'd been ages since I'd picked a lock. Before
it'd taken me days to get the hang of picking padlocks. I breathed
slowly and concentrated real hard. The first and second paperclips
got wrecked. Charlie was annoyed - I could tell by the way he
huffed and puffed. But I knew he couldn't say anything, because he
was hopeless at picking locks. I'd tried to teach him, but he gave
up and said only criminals needed to know that sort of stuff. Only
criminals and a couple of Aussie boys who needed to save their dumb
Italian policeman Uncle, who didn't carry a gun.
    Santo and Luca tried to tell us to go and
get help from André. Lucky we ignored them, because I had the door
open in less time than it would've taken to find André and tell him
what had happened.
    Santo looked stunned as I opened the door.
He looked from the paperclip I'd straightened to me and back to the
paperclip, obviously unable to believe his eyes. Then he snapped
into action. "Let's go!"
    He ran out the door and to the police boat.
Luca, Charlie and me followed. Actually, we had trouble keeping up
with them. Maybe our Mr. Have-a-chat Uncle wasn't totally hopeless
after all.
    We all jumped on the boat. Santo got on the
police radio and yelled into it. I noticed one of the bad guys up
ahead, because of his green Save the Planet T-shirt. They were in a
water taxi, but the guy with the Save the Whales T-shirt was
driving. They must've wasted a bit of time trying to find a boat to
steal. I yelled out to Luca and he revved the engine and took off.
Charlie and me hung on tight.
    I felt like I was going to throw up as Luca
swerved in and out of the other boats on the canal. Soon all the
boats were moving out of our way. It was unreal. Every single
person in every boat on the Grand Canal was gawking at us. I felt
like I was at the center of the universe.
    Way up ahead I could see the water taxi. At
first we narrowed the gap, but then the thieves saw us and so they
did a sharp left turn down a narrow canal. Luca got the police
siren blaring, and Santo kept yelling into the police radio. Then
Luca made the same sharp left turn and somehow I lost my grip. I
was hurled out of the boat, landing in the water with a crash.
    The water was real cold. Far out, I'd freeze
to death. I kept my legs moving and prayed that no sharks hung out
in the Grand Canal.

7. BOAT CHASE ON THE
GRAND CANAL
    L uca spun the boat round
and headed back toward me. Santo stuck his arm out and grabbed me
while the boat was still moving. I felt like a stuntman as he
hauled me over the side. That hurt my stomach, but I didn't
complain. Charlie didn't tell me I was an idiot; instead he wrapped
a towel around me.
    Santo asked, "You swallow any water?"
    I shook my head.
    "Good," he managed to answer before he was
back on the police radio again.
    The boat sped up until we were going real
fast again. Lucky the sun was warm and I dried out a bit. "Has
anyone got a plan?" I asked Charlie.
    He nodded toward Santo. "He's talking to the Carabinieri ."
    Wow, they could chase the bad guys in their
boat and my story for school would be even more exciting.
    Luca yanked the steering wheel right, and
the boat did a sudden turn down a narrow