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gamely.
    When she was gone, Curtis said, “It’s Gladys Kravitz! I bet she’s the bank robber!”
    “Who?” I said, confused.
    “That bank manager who looks like the nosy neighbor on Bewitched ?”
    We all looked back over at the bank. From the window of the coffee shop, we had a good view inside.
    I’d never really watched Bewitched , but I could tell by the name that Gladys Kravitz was frumpy, and one of the bank managers fit the bill. You could almost see the curlers in her hair.
    “What makes you think it’s her?” I asked.
    “Something about her eyes,” he said. “Shifty.”
    I laughed, but Victor said, “I think we need a little more to go on than that.”
    “This is amazing ,” Curtis said, still staring over at the bank. “You can see everything from here.”
    He wasn’t kidding. Thanks to the glass windows of the bank, this coffee shop was the perfect spot to observe what was going on across the street. It was like looking into an ant farm, except with lazier workers.
    “That’s it!” Curtis said.
    “What’s it?” I said.
    “This coffee shop is where we can do our stakeout! We can sit right at this table until we know for sure that Gladys Kravitz is the bank robber. We could even take shifts.”
    “Yeah, and we could call each other on our walkie-talkies,” Victor said bitterly. “Except—oh wait! We sold those at our pointless garage sale.”
    “How would that work?” I said to Curtis. “Even if Gladys Kravitz is the bank robber, Victor was right when he said it might be weeks or months before she strikes again.”
    But Curtis’s eyes were still locked on the bank. “Guys?” he said. “There’s something going on over there.”
    Victor and I both turned to look, but I didn’t see anything strange.
    “What?” Victor said.
    “That woman!” Curtis said. “Not Gladys Kravitz. The one with the orange pants and the big butt.”
    I zeroed in on the woman with the orange pants (she really did have an enormous rear end). She stood in a tiny cubicle on the far right side of the bank, behind the loan officers’ desks. It was a little office area with a copy machine and fax. Like all the work spaces, it had cubicle walls, but they were higher than the others. The only way we were able to see her was because we were on the outside looking in through the window.
    Even so, I didn’t see what the big deal was. She was talking on her cell phone.
    “What about her?” I asked.
    “It looks like she’s whispering ,” Curtis said.
    Needless to say, Curtis has a tendency to jump to conclusions. Still, it did look like the woman in the orange pants was whispering. It was something about how she was hunched over.
    “And why is Happy Pants talking on a cell phoneanyway?” Curtis went on. “There’s a phone on the desk right next to her.”
    This was also true.
    “Maybe they don’t allow personal calls on company phones,” Victor said.
    “It looks like she’s hiding ,” Curtis said.
    Curtis was right about this too. She was crouched down behind the office divider, but she kept glancing back toward the main office area.
    “Maybe they don’t allow personal calls on company time,” Victor amended.
    Suddenly Gladys Kravitz stood up from her desk and walked toward the copy machine.
    Happy Pants spotted her coming and punched off her phone, sliding it into her purse. When Gladys Kravitz entered the copy area, Happy Pants fumbled for the stapler. You could almost hear the stilted small talk as she did her best to act casual.
    I was wondering where this stapler was! she seemed to be saying. I’ve been looking all over for it because, you know, I really need to staple something!
    She was nervous . But why?
    Curtis looked at us as if to say, Well?
    It seemed an impossible coincidence that we’d see something even vaguely suspicious after staking out the bank for ten minutes. I mean, what were the odds?
    Still, we spent the rest of the afternoon watching the bank. We didn’t see anything