Sammy Keyes and the Hotel Thief (3 page)

FIVE

The morning took forever. Ms. Pilson sat us in alphabetical order and then spent the rest of the period giving us “a taste of things to come” in her English class. She read poems in Old English, which was like listening to someone read in Greek or Russian.

In math, Mr. Tiller sat us in alphabetical order and then tried to get us fired up about the “concept of variables.” We all just kind of stared while he and X danced around the chalkboard.

In history, Mr. Holgartner thought he'd be real tricky and sat us in
reverse
alphabetical order. Then he told us we'd be watching a lot of films in his class and proceeded to pop in a video of an ancient black-and-white movie about settlers of the West. It might have been an okay film, but the narrator's voice kept warbling around and the tracking kept going off. I wanted to put my head down, but Mr. Holgartner was working on something right next to me, so I had to sit there and pretend to be interested.

When lunchtime finally rolled around, I was already tired of being in junior high.

Marissa ran to get a hot lunch while I staked out a table on the patio. When she finally came back, she unwrapped her hamburger and said, “So what were you trying to tell me in homeroom this morning?”

I take a bite of my peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich and say, “You're not going to believe what happened yesterday—” Then I see Heather heading straight for our table. I nudge Marissa with my foot. “Uh-oh. Here comes Scarlett O'Hair.”

“Who?” Marissa turns around to see, then whispers, “She's not coming over
here
, is she?”

Well, sure enough, Heather sits down, right next to Marissa.

Marissa dips a French fry into her catsup and tries to ignore her.

Heather says, “Hey, that looks really good. Can I have some?”

Now the hamburger and fries do not look good. They look shriveled-up and greasy. Marissa looks at her and says, “Where's your lunch?”

Heather lets out a pathetic little sigh. “Mom sent me to school with no lunch money. She wanted me to brown-bag it.” She looks at me. “Like I want to be associated with nerds who do that.”

I pull an apple out of my lunch sack. “Why don't you go ask one of your friends for a loan?”

Heather gives me this catty little smile, then does something really weird—she moves over to
my
side of the table, gets right in my face, and says, “Was I talking to you?”

I stare right back at her. “Maybe not, but I'm talking to you. You don't even know us and you're trying to mooch food?”

She gives me that smile again, then says to Marissa, “I just need a few bucks for lunch. C'mon, you can afford it.”

Marissa looks at me and what she's thinking is, Oh no! Not already! Because when we were in the sixth grade everyone was always asking her for money, and she could never just tell them to get lost.

Marissa whispers, “Taylor.”

Heather smiles and says, “Yeah. He tells me you're loaded.”

I say, “Just bug off, would you?”

Well Heather doesn't bug off. What she does is she gives me another catty little smile; then she sticks me in the butt with a pin.

I yelp and jump about three feet off the bench. Heather laughs, and as she's leaving she says to Marissa, “You gotta dump the deadweight if you want to get anywhere around here.”

For a second there my mouth is hanging wide open, and I'm dancing around because my butt is
burning
and I can't believe what's just happened.

Marissa glances over her shoulder at Heather and then back at me. “What happened? Sammy, what did she
do?
”

Well, my heart's pounding and my palms are starting to get all sweaty, and before I can stop myself I'm off the bench, chasing after Heather. I push through a crowd of people and when I get up to her I turn her around by the shoulder and punch her. Right in the nose.

Blood gushes all over the place and she starts screaming at the top of her lungs. And what do I do? I walk right back to our table and take a great big bite of peanut butter and jelly.

Heather's across the patio, screaming like crazy, and there's a bunch of kids around her trying to get a better look at all the blood running down her face. Marissa says, “What happened?”

“She stuck me in the butt with a pin so I punched her in the nose.”

Marissa's eyes bug right out. “You did
what?
”

“I punched her in the nose.”

Marissa's still dumbfounded and I'm still gnashing away on my peanut butter and jelly when this man in a suit and a scuba watch shows up. He says, “The kids tell me you're the one who punched Heather in the nose. Is that right?”

Now the man looks like he could be a professional wrestler if he'd let his hair grow out and get a suntan. And it seems kind of dangerous lying to him, so I swallow the last bite of sandwich, then nod and say, “That's right. But I only did it because she stuck me in the butt with a pin.”

“Mmm-hmm. Come with me.”

As he's marching me away from the patio, I look over my shoulder and ask, “What about Heather?”

“The nurse is attending to her. I'll have a talk with her when I'm done with you.”

So I follow him to an office with a big brass plaque on the door that reads:
MR. CAAN, VICE PRINCIPAL
. We go inside and it's finally dawning on me that I'm in some pretty serious trouble.

Mr. Caan sits me down and tells me how nobody saw Heather do anything to me but that everybody saw me pop her in the nose. He lectures me about maturity and “brawling” on his campus, and when he finally asks me if I have anything to say for myself, I say, “Yes!” and tell him how Heather's been picking on me the whole day. And when I'm finally done and he's still looking like he doesn't believe me, I stand up and offer to show him the spot where Heather tattooed me.

He stutters a minute and winds up saying no, that won't be necessary. Then he hurries me out of his office, straight to the Box.

The Box is a room that's even smaller than Grams' closet. It's got nothing on the walls but paint, nothing but a light on the ceiling, and in the middle of all that nothingness is a rusty metal chair. That's it. Basically it's just a big box where they stick you when you've been bad.

Mr. Caan didn't call it the Box, though. He called it the Reflection Room. What he said was, “Samantha, I think you should spend a little time in our Reflection Room thinking about what you've done today. Spend some time reflecting on why hitting Heather was not a good solution to your problem with her.” When I stepped inside he said, “I'll be back for you in a little while,” and then closed the door tight.

I spent some time looking around at the cinder-block walls, wondering how in the world I could've gotten into so much trouble on my first day of junior high. Then I started thinking about Heather. I mean sure, I'd punched her in the nose, but I wasn't the one who'd started it. Why was I “reflecting” in the Box when Heather was out roaming around? And what kind of lies was she out there telling about me? And why did they believe her and not me?

The longer I sat there, the more positive I was that a punch in the nose was exactly what Heather Acosta had coming to her. I decided that if it ever happened again I'd punch that snotty little nose of hers all right, only this time I'd do it twice.

When Mr. Caan finally came back he stood there, kind of tapping the face of his watch. Finally he says, “Samantha, I'd like you to come back to my office for a few minutes. There are some things I'd like to discuss with you.”

So I follow him to his office, thinking that it's going to be really hard for me to tell him I'm sorry about hitting Heather when I'm not.

Trouble is, he doesn't ask me anything about Heather or the punch in the nose. What he does is sit me down in his office and say, “Samantha, I just got off the phone from a very strange conversation…”

All of a sudden I really
am
sorry that I punched Heather in the nose. All of a sudden I'm feeling kind of sick to my stomach, wishing I could go back in time and take it all back. I know exactly what he's going to say. It's all over—Grams couldn't take it anymore and wound up telling him everything.

But what comes out of his mouth is “...with your mother.”

“With my…mother?” I say, and then for once in my life I shut up. I mean, did he think Grams was my mom? Did he get Grams to give him my mother's number in Hollywood? Did Grams pretend to be my mom? I didn't know what to think. Grams had told me that if anyone ever called the apartment looking for my mom she would just tell them she was taking care of me while my mother was visiting her sick sister. My aunt Veronica...or was it Victoria? I can't remember. Lady Lana doesn't
have
a sister, so it doesn't really matter; it's just that that's what Grams told me she would do. And since Mr. Caan was sitting there behind his desk playing with his diving watch, not saying a word about anyone's sick sister, I didn't know what to think.

He studies the band of his watch. “Yes, Samantha, your mother. She sounded a bit...odd. Is she ill?”

Ill? How am I supposed to know? I don't even know who he talked to. I look down. “Ummm...some days are better than others.”

He “hmmm”s and “uh”s for a minute and then finally says, “Is it serious?”

“Well...she doesn't really like to talk about it.”

“I see.” He goes back to studying his watch. Finally he says, “What do you suppose she had to say about what happened here today?”

I look down at my high-tops and say, “It depends. Did you tell her about Heather sticking me with a pin? Or”— I look up at him—“did you only tell her about me hitting her in the nose?”

He just sits there playing with his watch some more, so I plow right ahead. “Besides, I didn't even hit her that hard—”

He looks straight at me. “Young lady, Heather was in such pain that they've taken her to the doctor.”

His voice is getting a bit loud, but does that stop me? “Well, I'd rather be at the doctor's than stuck inside that stupid box for an hour!”

That does it. He stands up and says, “It is obvious that you haven't spent enough time reflecting on why hitting someone is
never
a solution to a problem. Your mother has been informed that you will be suspended tomorrow, and when you come back to school, you are to shake hands with Heather and put this whole incident behind you. Is that clear?”

I stare at him.
“Suspended?”
I mean, I haven't even been in school a whole day. How can he suspend me? People get suspended for starting fires in the bathroom or for passing out cigarettes. But me? Suspended? For this? “You've got to be kidding!”

That makes him even madder. “This is no joke! And when you come back, I'd darned well better see an attitude adjustment, young lady!”

He practically pushed me out of his office, and then he made me sit in the front hallway for the rest of the day. When school was finally over, I didn't even bother to go back to homeroom for my backpack. I just ran home.

*                  *                  *

I'd gotten clear over to Maynard's Market when Marissa caught up with me. She swings off her bike and pants, “Sammy! Sammy, why didn't you wait?”

I shrugged. “I was too mad.”

She walks next to me, pushing her bike, and I don't know why but she
whispers
, “Everyone's saying you got suspended!”

“Yeah.”

“Cool!”

I stopped walking. “Cool? What do you mean, cool?”

“You don't have to go back to that zoo tomorrow. You get to do anything you want—that's cool!”

I rolled my eyes. “Right. I'll probably get grounded or shipped off to live with my mother. Real cool, Marissa. If you think being suspended's so cool, why didn't
you
punch Heather in the nose?”

“Aw c'mon, Sammy. She didn't stick
me
with a pin...” Then she says, “But I did go in and talk to Mr. Caan after school. I told him everything that happened.”

“And...?”

She looked down. “And he says it doesn't matter who started it, you're not supposed to go around hitting people.”

I just shook my head and punched the “Walk” button on the stoplight.

Marissa says, “Hey! Let me buy you a Double Dynamo.”

Now normally I would've just said, “Nah, that's okay.” I don't like Marissa buying me stuff, even though she tries to do it all the time. But I thought about it a minute and decided that, yeah, she could buy me an ice cream cone. It was hot, I was hungry, and it was on account of Marissa's not being able to tell Heather to bug off that I was in so much trouble—well, sort of anyway. So we turned around and walked into Maynard's Market.

And standing at the counter, with her mountain of hair looking extra shellacked, was the lady from the Heavenly Hotel.

SIX

I yanked on Marissa's sleeve. “
That's
who I've been trying to tell you about all day.”

“Her? What about her?”

We duck behind a carousel of spicy pork rinds and I whisper, “She got robbed last night. Over at the Heavenly.”

“Wow…”

“Yeah. And I saw the guy who did it through my binoculars.”

Marissa's eyes bug out. “Cool!”

“Not exactly...He saw
me,
too.”

“No! How did he see you?”

I give her a crinkly smile. “Would you believe I waved at him?”

Marissa's hands flew up to her mouth. “You
waved
at him? What were you
thinking?
”

“Apparently I wasn't.”

We go back to watching the lady. She's wearing layers. I don't think you'd call it a dress, or a top and a skirt. It's just layers. Like she went to the fabric store, rolled around in a few bolts of flimsy fabric, then checked out.

Marissa whispers, “She looks like a Gypsy or something.”

Now the lady's up at the front counter talking to T.J., only T.J.'s not really listening—he's looking for us. T.J. is Maynard's son. He works there about half the time, and Maynard's there the rest of the time. T.J.'s not as grumpy as Maynard, and usually he's too busy talking on the phone to pay much attention to you, but he likes having kids in the store about as much as Maynard does.

He calls out, “What are you two up to back there?”

I straighten up. “Oh, nothing. Just had to tie my shoe.” I head over to the freezer and say, “We're just going to get a couple of drumsticks.”

He leans to the side, watching us. “We're out of the Double Dynamos.”

Well, then they're out of drumsticks as far as I'm concerned. And I know why they're out. T.J.'s why. He's always eating them. Grams will send me down for a quart of milk, and there he is at eight in the morning, chomping down a Double Dynamo. If you go there at night and it's all of thirty degrees outside, there's T.J., slurping up a Dynamo.

Marissa says, “Shoot!”

The lady notices me. “Hey! You're the girl from last night!” She turns to T.J. “If it wasn't for her, those cops wouldn't have done diddly-squat.”

He nods like he couldn't be less interested.

“She saw the guy. Through binoculars.”

He raises an eyebrow at me, then turns back to the lady. “So, are we on for tonight, or what?”

“Don't think I can, Teej. I've got a client coming at six.”

“Aw c'mon, Gina. How long can that take?”

Gina gives him an annoyed look. “At least a couple hours. If you'd ever break down and let me do yours, you'd know that.”

“You charge too much.”

“I'd give you a deal.”

He slides her a pack of cigarettes. “It'd still be too much. I can't believe people pay you for that mumbo-jumbo.”

“It's not mumbo-jumbo. It's science.”

T.J. rolls his eyes. “Science.”

She passes him a ten-dollar bill. “Laugh all you want. It's not like I'm reading palms, and it sure beats working for my daddy.”

He slams the register drawer. “Look, Madame Nashira, I'll be out of this hole before you. In a few years I'll be living out on Jasmine and you'll still be slumming at the Heavenly.”

“In your dreams, honey.”

Now when T.J. said, “Madame Nashira,” Marissa's eyebrows popped way up and so did mine. See, there's a place on Main Street with zodiac signs all over it that says,
MADAME NASHIRA, HOUSE OF ASTROLOGY
. It's a few blocks down from the mall and Marissa and I have dared each other to go inside, but neither of us ever have. For one thing, it's got these dusty old drapes and you can't really tell what's inside, but also, it's kind of wedged between a bar and a pool hall. Grams would kill me if she ever found out I was even
walking
on that side of the street, never mind going into Madame Nashira's.

Marissa takes a step closer. “You're Madame Nashira?”

T.J. laughs. “Ooh, Gina—you got a fan!”

She scowls at him, then smiles at Marissa. “That's me, honey.” She rips the cellophane off the cigarette pack and says to me, “What was your name again?”

“Samantha. Sammy. This is my best friend, Marissa.”

Marissa says, “What do you do, tell fortunes?”

She snorts, “Only when I have to. I hate telling fortunes—it's so bogus. Guys'll come over from the pool hall or the Red Coach and want their fortunes told. What am I supposed to do? Tell 'em, Nah. I don't want your ten bucks? I gotta pay the rent.” She lights her cigarette, blows smoke into the air, and says in T.J.'s direction, “So when I got a serious customer who wants their birth chart done, I'm not gonna just blow 'em off.”

T.J. rolls his eyes again and lights a cigarette of his own. Gina says, “Hey, I thought Papa Bear didn't like it when you smoked in his store.”

“Get out of here, would you?”

Gina laughs, “I'm gone,” and flows out the door, trailing smoke.

T.J. shakes his head, then glares at us. “You two gonna buy something, or what?”

Marissa whispers, “Let's go try and find Oscar, okay?”

I nod, so T.J. says, “Well then get out of here. Scram!” He picks up the phone. “I've had enough female chat for a while.”

*                  *                  *

Oscar's usually not too hard to find. He follows the same path every day; it's sort of a figure eight around the mall and up through the neighborhoods near St. Mary's Church. Once you get to know Oscar you've got to like him. He's just amazing, the way he pushes that cart of his around and sells ice cream to people. See, Oscar's blind.

Now not only is Oscar blind, he's also pretty deaf. So buying ice cream from him can be kind of complicated. You've got to shout out what you want, and then you can't give him anything bigger than a one dollar bill. When it comes to coins, though, you can give him any combination. He wears one of those coin dispensers around his waist and he's really good at pushing levers and making change.
Chinga-chinga-chinga
. He's fast, and he always gets it right.

Anyhow, when we stepped out of Maynard's we spotted Oscar almost right away, pushing his little cart along Broadway near the mall. We ran across the street, and when we were close enough to hear his bell jingling, we slowed way down so as not to startle him.

When we're close enough, Marissa calls out, “Hiya, Oscar! We'd like two Double Dynamos.”

He stops his cart and then straightens out this old blue fishing hat that he wears to keep his head from burning. He pushes his dark glasses farther up his nose, cups his ear, and says, “A Double Dynamo, did you say?”

Marissa calls, “Two, Oscar. Two. It's Marissa and Sammy.”

He smiles and moves his head a bit like he's sunning his face. “Well, good afternoon, ladies. Two Double Dynamos coming up.”

He flips open the freezer and gropes around a bit, and when he comes up with two Double Dynamos, my mouth starts to water. Marissa pays him, and
chinga-chinga-chinga
, he gives her some change.

He says, “Nothing like a Double Dynamo. Enjoy 'em, ladies,” and starts jingling his way down the sidewalk.

Now a Double Dynamo is not just an extra-big drumstick. It's basically two scoops of ice cream double-dunked in dark chocolate and then rolled in peanuts until every last bit of it's coated. It's so big that they put a plastic protector around the top of it and wrap the cone in a nice fat napkin because there's no way you can eat the thing without making a mess.

So we sit down on the nearest patch of grass and get busy inhaling our ice cream. And just as I'm getting down to the cone, Marissa jumps up and says, “Is that
Mikey?
”

I look across the street and sure enough, there's Mikey coming out of Maynard's with a bunch of candy bars in his hands. I laugh. “Is there any doubt?”

“I don't believe it! Mom let him stay home from his first day of school because he was sick! C'mon!” Marissa starts racing back to Maynard's calling, “Hey! Hey, Mikey!”

Well, Mikey's picking up his bike, trying real hard not to drop any of his candy bars, when he hears Marissa yelling at him. He starts prancing around like he doesn't know which way to run, then jumps on his bike and takes off. Trouble is, he's so busy looking over his shoulder at us running toward him that he crashes into a newspaper stand and falls into the street.

By the time he's got everything picked up, Marissa's grabbing him by the collar and yelling, “I can't believe it! You ditched your first day of school!” She shakes him. “Boy, are you gonna get it when Mom finds out you were clear out here buying junk food.”

“It's not junk food!”

Marissa rips the candy out of his hands. “A Hershey bar, three Reese's cups, a Snickers...Mikey,
this
is junk food!”

“Well, I wanted a Double Dynamo but they were all out.” He gives her a hopeful look. “They're not junk food. There's milk in those.”

Marissa shakes her head and throws the candy bars—
thunk
—into a trash can. “Get on your bike—we're going home.”

To tell you the truth, between finding out Gina was Madame Nashira and eating a Double Dynamo, I'd actually forgotten about getting suspended. But when Marissa calls over her shoulder, “Don't worry about school. Everything'll work out,” it all comes flooding back.

And all of a sudden I'm real worried about Grams. I mean, I'm already late, and she's probably been waiting for me all afternoon.

So I start running. And in no time I'm pounding up the fire escape stairs, telling myself that Grams'll understand why I punched Heather in the nose if she'll just give me a chance to explain, when I get to the fifth-floor door and open it.

And there, sitting in a folding chair with her arms crossed, waiting, is Mrs. Graybill.