Forgery

Evasive Manuvers

Inside the tunnel once more, the Lions walked over to the broken ladder. How ironic, Smart thought, that just a few hours ago he had been pulling Speedy down from where he was now encouraging him to climb. "Smart?" Speedy called down from the ceiling of the cavern. "You still have that paper right?" He did. Climbing the first few rungs, Smart handed the crackly yellowed paper to Speedy. Speedy's eyes flitted between the paper and the emblem for a couple of seconds, then set his fingers to work, turning pieces, pulling them out, pushing them in, until finally the vault-like door gave way with a satysfing ka-chunk. The brothers pulled themselves one after another into the supply closet above.  Complete darkness. Speedy flipped a light switch on the wall and a dangling bulb flickered on Grey dug through his jeans pocket and pulled out the key to the door of the closet. As Grey opened the door, a silhouette in the neighboring security office quickly sat up, awakened by the light streaming in. "Quick!" Smart hissed. "Turn the light off!" Speedy ran over and flicked the switch off, but the security guard  was awake and pacing, quietly cursing herself for falling asleep again. Grey slowly lowered himself to the ground, laid on his stomach, and started to crawl. Smart and Speedy followed suit, staying close to the wall. The security guard gazed out her long window, saw nothing, and turned her head. Grey got up from the floor and dusted himself off. Speedy began to jog into the statue room, but Smart grabbed him by the shirt. "Wait."  Smart searched through his knapsack and pulled out exactly what he had been looking for: Baby powder. Speedy stifled a laugh.  Grey looked at him reproachfully. Smart ignored them both and started scattering baby powder through the air. "See those red lines?" He asked. His brothers nodded. "Security lasers." "Will they cut off our limbs?!" Speedy asked fearfully. "No! Speedy, you watch too much television. No, but they will put a stain on our reputation if we run into one. Stay close to the walls, and when we cross the room sideways to get to the door, stay behind the statues as the lasers pass. When they do, run like a bat out of Hades to the exit. And they did. The next room was the painting room,and there it was. The Scream. " Now we just wait here all night and catch the thief red-" Suddenly the front door on the floor below burst open. "Hands up! You are under arrest!"