them here, and if I didn’t explain things to them, they would keep robbing people, and someone would get hurt.

I set out through the neighborhood, peering at people’s lawns as I rode by. Would Robin Hood try to find a place like Sherwood Forest?

We didn’t have any forests around, but a lot of trees grew in yards.

Maybe the men had climbed some and were hiding there. I looked up at every tree I passed but I didn’t see them. Maybe they had found a deserted building. I headed toward the center of town, riding through street after street, searching for any sort of clue.

Everything seemed normal.

Navigating around downtown was hard. Cars zipped past me impatiently, driving by so closely that I kept jerking away from them.

After a while, I headed into another neighborhood. There was nothing unusual there either, except for me, riding aimlessly around in the dark. I was getting tired. I stopped my bike to rest and took the pathetic-o-meter out of my purse. “Look,” I told it, “I need to find Robin Hood before he runs somebody through with a sword or the police shoot him. Can you help me?”

As I watched, the lettering changed on the dial. I held my breath, thrilled for the magical help, until I read the new sentence: Talks to inanimate objects.

I was now 83 percent pathetic.

“Great,” I said. “Just great.” I shoved the pathetic-o-meter back into my purse. “See if I ever speak to you again.” I didn’t check to see if yelling at inanimate objects had made the pathetic-o-meter go up. I might as well head home. I didn’t have the stamina to keep pedaling for much longer.

I rode back to town sullenly, mumbling Chrissy’s name every once in a while. I wasn’t sure how her job interview as a muse had gone, but she certainly wasn’t inspiring anything but stomach ulcers for me.

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As I passed a Walgreens I saw them. I was so used to looking up in the trees that I scanned the roof without thinking about it. One of the Merry Men lay up there, bow drawn back, ready to shoot anyone who threatened him. My gaze dropped to the parking lot. There, crouched among the parked cars and moving in, was Robin Hood and the rest of his men. He should have looked ridiculous—a guy in a tunic squatting behind a parked car—but somehow with his muscular frame and handsome features, the tunic thing worked.

I rode my bike slowly up to them. “Robin!” I whispered.

He turned and saw me. “Not now, wench, we’re about to liberate some wealth from the gentry.”

I climbed off of my bike and wheeled it over to him. “My name is Tansy, and you can’t hold up this store.” He raised an unimpressed eyebrow in my direction. “I read your Robin Hood book, but I refuse to believe it.”

“Yeah, well, I’m having my doubts about it too.”

“It says I die because a nun poisons me. A nun.” I had forgotten about that, but he glared at me as though I had written it into the book myself. “So avoid nuns from now on. They’re easy enough to spot—long black dresses and wimples. Very few of them sneak up on people.”

He went back to staking out the parking lot. “Women,” he said with disgust. I wasn’t sure whether he was referring to me or nuns.

I lowered my voice. “We need to talk. You see, you don’t need to rob anyone here. We have agencies that take care of the poor, and if you keep holding places up, someone will get hurt.” He didn’t look at me. He waved at some of the men, and they ran forward, still crouching and darting between cars. “Never worry, no harm shall come to me. I am more than a match for the menfolk here.

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My arms will remain unbound and will hold you in their embrace soon enough, just as you wished.”

Several of the men chuckled knowingly at that.

My cheeks burned from embarrassment, but I kept my voice even.

“I’m not worried about you—I don’t want you to injure anybody else.

You’re attacking people who don’t carry weapons.”

“Such foolishness is astounding,” he said. “But a fool and his money are soon parted. Our swords only speed the process.” The first two of Robin Hood’s men had reached the Walgreens’

front entrance. They pressed themselves against either side of the door, looking inside.

“Robin, this isn’t stealing from the rich and giving to the poor; this is just stealing.”

Robin Hood glanced at the building behind us, a Laundromat. On the top of it, a Merry Man lay on his stomach, a bow in his hands. “Ah, but you’re wrong. Everyone here is rich, and my men and I are poor.

It’s fitting we should relieve your village folk of some of their goods.” He motioned to the men nearest him, and then he and the men left their hiding places and sprinted toward the store doors.

They timed their surge wrong, piling up at the entrance, and had to wait for the automatic door to open all the way before they rushed inside.

I leaned my bike against a car and strode after them. When I walked into the store, Robin Hood already had his sword drawn and held it only inches away from a startled store clerk. He was a thin teenage boy who’d gone completely pale. The Merry Men walked along the aisles, dumping things into their sacks. A small group of shoppers were lined up, hands in the air, by the photo counter.

Maybe some stories have more sway than fact. Maybe they carve themselves into our minds and slant the way we see things. Because 77/356

even then, I saw Robin Hood as a hero, as someone who cared about right and wrong. I marched over and tried one more time to make him understand. “You’ve got to stop. This is wrong.” Robin Hood didn’t take his eyes off the clerk. The muscles in his arm flexed. “Hold your tongue, wench. I asked not for your blessing.” He moved his sword tip close to the clerk. “Your jewelry, my good man, hand it over forthwith.”

The teenage boy held his hands up higher. “I don’t have any jewelry,” he croaked.

I took a step closer to Robin Hood, frustration banging around inside of me. “You were supposed to be the good guy, the defender of the common people. But you’re not—you’re terrorizing innocent shoppers.”

“Your beauty notwithstanding,” Robin Hood said, glancing at me for a moment before he turned his attention back to the clerk, “you had best hold your tongue before I’m tempted to hold it on the blade of my sword.”

I let out an incredulous gasp. “You’re threatening me?” Friar Tuck snorted as he dumped a box of Snickers into his bag.

“The lady is quick-witted as well as beautiful.” I opened my mouth to say more, but someone took hold of my arm and yanked me sideways. I turned, expecting to see one of the Merry Men. Instead Mr. Handsome Undercover Policeman had a hold on me. In his jeans and T-shirt, he had blended in with the rest of the shoppers who stood over at the photo counter, and I hadn’t seen him before. The police guy towed me over to the counter, keeping his gaze not on me but on Little John, who stood nearby. He held a sword loosely in our direction while he walked along an aisle, shoving Dori-tos into his bag.

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I hated that I noticed, at a moment like this, that the hot police guy was every bit as tall and good-looking as I’d remembered. He was probably six foot two. His wavy brown hair looked mussed, and his deep brown eyes were intent, serious.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“I’m being held up like everyone else, and I suggest you leave the crazy men alone.”

That’s when the reality of the situation hit me. I was as powerless to stop Robin Hood as everyone else who was being held at sword-point. “This can’t be happening,” I said numbly.

The police guy’s gaze slid over me. “You’re brave; I’ll give you that. But right now it’s better to stay still. I know these guys’ MO.

They’ll take a few things and go. There’s nothing here worth risking your life for.”