Hours ticked by. People were released from the drunk tank, and people were put in. Soon it was the next day, and neither Max nor Sketchy had seen or heard anything from their friends.

"They're not coming, are they?" Sketchy asked when they were, once again, the only two in the drunk tank. "We're going to be given the death sentence and Moorehead's going to have a public decapitation like they did in England in the Dark Ages," he sulked.

"Relax," Max told him. "There's no way they're giving us the death sentence for ripping off casinos. Plus, even if they did we'd be executed by lethal injection and not public decapitation."

"This is all my fault," Sketchy moaned. "If I hadn't rented Ocean's Eleven from Blockbuster, you never would have wanted to go rob a casino like George Clooney and we would never be in this mess."

"We would have found a way!" Max reassured him. "Dad would have rented The Godfather trilogy or something and we would have wanted to get involved with the mob. Face it, Sketch – we were destined to be criminals. We still would have ended up in jail the last time." She shook her head. "This time it's my fault."

"Why?" Sketchy asked, eager to hear his sister's admission of guilt.

"I don't know!" Max whined loudly. "It just is! Everything's my fault!" She made a sobbing noise and buried her face in her hands.

Sketchy shrugged. "Okay." Max spun around to glare at him. "What?" he asked. "I was just agreeing with you!" Max covered her face with her hands again and resumed her slight rocking. "You know Agent Moorehead's gonna have us in juvie until our great-grandchildren are old."

"I know," Max nodded.

"And they'll never know their great-grandparents because we're old and wrinkled and in prison."

"I know."

"And they'll have to do a family history and they'll ask their parents 'Who were our great-grandparents?' and their parents will shrug and shake their heads because we never got to know them either because we were in prison."

"Oh, I wouldn't count on that."

"And then – " Sketchy looked at Max. "What?"

"What?" Max asked.

"No, what'd you say?" Sketchy asked.

"I didn't say anything," Max said. She pointed to the bars. "She did." She nearly fell off of her seat when she realized that someone was standing outside of the cell. "Syl?" she asked.

"Yuppo," Syl nodded. "OC would have gotten Jondy but – well, if your secret got out it would ruin the family rep wouldn't it?" she asked with a sly smile.

"Brin's totally cashing in on this, isn't she?" Max asked.

"Oh, you'll owe her 'til you're old," Syl grinned, grabbing a ring of keys off of the wall and trying to figure out which key fit. "Man, they still use these things? I thought they'd've switched to keypads and codes by now." She wriggled one key in the lock before switching to another one.

"So, Original Cindy calls us up at half-past-dead on a Sunday morning and guess what she says?" Syl continued. "She says that Joshua's party was evac'd because his dad was coming home, and you two ended up in a car that got slammed for – of all things – underage driving!"

"Hey, that was not our fault!" Sketchy said, standing up. "Bobby Kawasaki never told us he was a middle school mascot!"

"Yeah, well, then she tells us that the police picked up on your prints," Syl tried another key, unsuccessfully. "How many times have I told you guys to sand those damn things off? It's not like they'll grow back! Or at least not very fast."

"Shut up and get us outta here, all right?" Max hissed. "It's not like those NSA-rejects'll be checking out that shootout forever."

"You say that because you don't know the entire plan," Syl said, trying another key. This time she was successful, as the lock clicked minutely. She opened the door and rushed them through. "It's very carefully planned with lots of guns and lots of mascots."

"I'm not gonna like what I'm about to hear, am I?" Max asked.

"Oh, you're going to freak out," Syl said.

In the morning, Agent Moorehead surveyed the scene before her. Twenty-seven policemen had been injured; twenty of them had been at the actual scene of the shootout they'd been sent to investigate (luckily, the "shooters" – a bunch of crazy teenaged school mascots, were firing rubber bullets), and seven of them had been at the station while the rest were gone; the surveillance system had mysteriously shorted out the night before; and of all things a chocolate bar had melted on the system server and they'd lost everything!

And of course, two child criminals were missing from the cell they'd been imprisoned in. Max Lydecker – also known as Max Guevara, and Calvin Renfro - also known as Calvin "Sketchy" Theodore. Why was she even surprised?

"Get Detective Sung on the phone in LA," Moorehead told one of the policemen left standing. "We're going to track down those little brats, one way or another."

She knew they would resurface one way or another. Especially because of one undeniable factor – the bored, caffeinated, over-developed cheerleader that, at thirteen, had so perfectly orchestrated a scheme to rob a casino was now a bored, caffeinated, normally-developed seventeen-year-old. And in a little less than three months were Nationals, the biggest competitive cheerleading event of the season and her last chance at high school infamy.

"Tell him to clear up his schedule for the week of February thirteenth," Moorehead told the cop who was already phoning Sung.

"Where are you going, ma'am?" the cop asked Moorehead as she started to walk out of the precinct.

"I'm going to see a man about a spy," Moorehead said more to herself than anyone else.

Because if there was anything that could flush a cheerleader out, it was Nationals.

Ending Note: How could I not make Max and Sketchy infamous fugitives?

Coming up next: a mysterious stranger from someone's past! (Because I've exhausted every other soap opera cliche but that one.)

Reviews are highly welcome!