Swindle (novel) - Plot

Plot

Griffin, "The Man With the Plan", as his best friend Ben Slovak calls him, gets an idea to sleep in the old Rockford house before it's demolished. The boys lie to their parents about where they are having the sleepover. While Ben is asleep, Griffin wanders through the old house and randomly opens a drawer. In it he finds what looks like an original Babe Ruth baseball card. Hoping it's real, they take it to pawnshop owner S. Wendell Palomino, nicknamed "Swindle"; they ask him to appraise it, but Palomino lies to them, claiming it's a cheap replica card, which he gives them $120 for. Griffin’s parents are almost broke, because his dad's invention, an automatic fruit picker, called the Smart Pick. Griffin finds out his family is going to have to move to a smaller house, away from the neighborhood and his friend Ben.

Later, from a news broadcast, the boys find out the Babe Ruth baseball card was actually real when they hear that Palomino is planning to sell it for millions. They decide to break into Palomino's store and get the card from the safe. They pack themselves into a large crate and set it up so that Tom Duffer, the store's employee, moves it inside before closing up shop. Later that night, when the boys are sure they are alone in the store, they discover that the safe is gone. They escape the store and find out Palomino moved the safe with the card to his home. Griffin and Ben plan another break-in at Palomino's house, but they are going to need a few sixth graders to help.

Logan, an aspiring actor, takes care of Palomino's nosy neighbor. Pitch is a climber, and they need her to get up and through the bathroom skylight. They ask Savannah, an animal lover, to keep the guard dog calm and they get Melissa to take care of the security system. Suddenly, Darren Vader, Ben and Griffin's sworn enemy, hears about the plan and blackmails them into letting him join in for a share of the money. They need Swindle to leave so the job can go forward. Knowing Swindle is a thief, the boys get a New York Rangers hockey game ticket and "accidentally" mail it to him in a birthday card that's not for him.

On the night of the heist, Pitch sprains her ankle, Ben falls asleep while hiding in the bushes, and the entire operation is almost ruined. Thinking there was only one guard dog, they discover two in the house. They eventually find the safe, but the card is not in it, so they search the entire house. Suddenly, Griffin remembers that during the television interview the reporter asked why the card was so cold. He then runs to the freezer and finds the card. Suddenly, the security alarm is mysteriously tripped and the team hears the police coming. While everyone stands in shock, Darren grabs the card and runs outside. He loses his grip on the card's case and it ends up stuck in a tree. Griffin remembers his dad’s invention, the Smart Pick, and runs home to get it.

They manage to retrieve the card, hide it, and get away from the house before the police arrive. Unfortunately; they are later caught, since Pitch left the climbing harnesses behind at the scene. Later, Griffin goes back to retrieve the card, when Detective Fizzing arrests him. Swindle doesn't want to press charges (so he won't risk getting in trouble for cheating the boys earlier). Winifred Rockford Bates, the last surviving member of the original Rockford family, gives the Babe Ruth baseball card to her youngest relative, Darren. Earlier, Darren had claimed to be related to the Rockford’s. Darren's parents force him, though, to donate the profits from selling the card, $974,000, making it the second most expensive collectible ever.

In the end, no one got any money from the card, though all the talk about the heist caused Griffin's dad to have the Smart Pick patented. Griffin and his family no longer have any financial problems.

As of 2009, a movie deal on Swindle and Schooled (another Gordon Korman book) was made public. The movie will be a Nickelodeon made-for-television movie schedueled for release on September 10, 2013, although it was previously scheduled for release in 2014.