When ever Joshua Jackson and the other guy are "picking the lock" when they are going to steal the mascot(which is the snake) you can hear the keys jingling and you can kind of see them in his hand.
Actually, you are mistaken. If you watch the director's narration over the entire movie, (on DVD) he even says that they had a professional guy come in and actually teach Josh Jackson how to pick a lock! So he was actually doing it himself and it wasn't a key.