Sammy Keyes and the Power of Justice Jack (25 page)

“Maybe they’re actually smart. Maybe they had a bunch of dilapidated cars and the neighbors complained about the mess but it was too big to clean up so they put up a fence and a sign and started making money instead!”

“Maybe not,” she snaps.

“You know,” I tell her, “you always get testy when we’re about to take a shortcut.”

“I’m not being testy,” she says in a totally testy way.

I laugh. “Oh, right. But the point is, we don’t
have
to take a shortcut.”

“Look, I want to
get
there already. This is taking forever! If I had known—”

“I told you it was a long way!”

“But why’d you have to go to math lab!”

“See? Testy. I’m not the one who wants to go here. I’ve
already been here twice. I know all about it. I’m also not the one without a bike or a skateboard. So if you want to go back, I’m all for it!”

“Sorry,” she says with a little frown.

We’re nearing the end of the junkyard property, so I say, “What’s it gonna be? Shortcut or no shortcut?”

She doesn’t say a word for about ten steps, then finally grumbles, “Shortcut.”

So we turn in when we get to the end of the fence, and pretty soon we’re zigzagging through the trees, going deeper and deeper into the eucalyptus forest.

“Are you sure you know where you’re going?” Marissa whimpers after we’ve walked awhile. “It’s really eerie in here.”

“As long as we can see the junkyard fence, we’re fine. There’s this little, like,
seam
in it, and once I find that, I’ll know where we are.”

“What do you mean, a seam?”

“It’s this twisty thing that holds two parts together.”

She hurries to catch up to me. “How do you know about a twisty thing that holds two parts of a junkyard fence together?”

But then I see something.

Something that does not belong in a eucalyptus forest.

I stop cold and it doesn’t take long for me to realize that there’s only one sensible thing to do.

Grab Marissa and hide!

I drag Marissa behind a big tree, and she gasps, “What are you doing? What’s wrong?”

I peek around the tree and watch as a truck moves carefully through the forest.

It’s a shiny red tow truck with a flatbed, and even though we’re too far away to read the fancy white lettering on the side, I know what it says.

TONY’S TOWING
.

“That’s the same tow truck Billy and I saw the first time we came out here. The guy stopped and told us the road was a dead end.”

“So?” Marissa says as we watch it do a careful three-point turn, and that’s when I notice that the truck has wide double rear wheels.

Duallies.

“So it’s going to back up to that seam in the fence.”

We watch, and sure enough that’s just what it does. Then a big guy with curly black hair gets out of the driver’s side, and in no time flat he’s got that twisty thing twisted off the fence and has enough room to squeeze through the opening.

Marissa shakes her head a little. “Why would someone want a secret after-hours entry to a
junkyard
?”

All of a sudden the piece of buzzy meat that Casey and I had seen makes sense. “The dogs,” I mutter. “He’s trying to avoid the dogs.”

“If he wants to avoid the dogs, why doesn’t he just stay out of the junkyard? It’s a
junkyard
. What’s to steal?”

And that’s when it hits me. The weird footprints. The gouge in the ground … Someone had dragged something heavy backward.

My heart starts pounding in my chest. “He’s not stealing.”

“Then what?”

“He’s retrieving.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Come on,” I whisper, and hurry forward from tree to tree, closing in on the truck.

So there we are running along, thinking it’s just us and Tow Truck Tony, who’s long gone inside the junkyard, when all of a sudden a door slams.

We duck behind a tree and look at each other like two electrified owls. “Was that the truck?” Marissa whispers.

I nod. “Must’ve been.”

“So is there another person?”

My heart is whacking away. “Must be.”

“Do you think they saw us?”

“Must have.”

But nobody shouts, Hey, you! and we don’t hear any leaves crunching our way. So finally we hold our breath
and peek around the tree, and sure enough, there is a second person.

Someone I know.

Like lightning, the things Officer Borsch had said about Justice Jack flash through my mind:

Petty crime has gone way up since he’s decided to “help out.”

Up, not down!

There have been ten stolen bicycles in the last two weeks!

Everywhere I turn, there’s Jack!

I let out a little whimper.
“No.”

Marissa looks at me. “Do you know her?”

“That’s Justice Jack’s mom.”

“His
mom
?”

“Maaaaaaan …!”

“Why are you so upset?”

“Because this means Justice Jack is a fraud.”

“It does?”

And that’s when the little puff of smoke that had been snuffed out days ago sparks to life and fireballs through my brain.

“It was all a setup! Every bit of it! The mayor didn’t call him at Buckley’s! It was probably
that
guy pretending to be the mayor.”

“Well, who
is
that guy? Justice Jack’s dad?”

I shake my head. “Jack’s dad died. Maybe he’s the mom’s boyfriend?” My brain races as we watch Mama Jack do something that makes the bed of the tow truck tilt. “I should have known! I mean, what a coincidence—Jack’s at
Buckley’s with the Hollywood guy and the
mayor
calls? What are the odds of that?”

“What makes you think it wasn’t the mayor?”

“I heard the real mayor on TV. He didn’t sound anything like whoever called Justice Jack when he was at Buckley’s.” I shake my head. “Why didn’t that click?” Then I add, “
Boy
, he’s a good actor.”

“Who?”

“Jack! None of what he did was for making the world a better place—it was to get a reality show! Stealing the statue must just be part of that.”

“Wait—you’re saying Justice Jack stole the statue?”

I nod toward where Mama Jack is now pulling on a large metal hook to unwind a cable that’s anchored to a big red W-shaped brace at the back of the cab. “I bet they’re here to get the statue out of its hiding place.”

“Why not just hide it out here in the trees?”

“Anyone could stumble upon it out here. Someone walking their dogs … someone shortcutting home from school … And the junkyard’s like a really secure prison. With man-eating dogs! Besides, you sure wouldn’t want to get
caught
with that thing, right? And who’s going to look in some back corner of a junkyard?”

Marissa shakes her head. “That statue seems like a crazy thing to steal!”

“Yeah, but it was the perfect thing to steal for publicity, and that’s what they’re after. They probably couldn’t land a reality show by rescuing kittens and returning bicycles. They needed something bigger.”

“But … to break into City Hall? That’s risking a lot.”

And that’s when something else clicks. “Officer Borsch said the alarm didn’t go off.” I think a minute. “He said there was a broken window, but the alarm didn’t go off, but …”

“But what?”

I hold my head. “
Billy
was the one who said, ‘City Hall!’ when Jack got the call at Buckley’s.”

“Did he see the caller ID?”

“Yes! Jack showed it to him.”

“So … maybe it
was
the mayor?”

All of a sudden it feels like my brain is stumbling over big blocks. Like it wants to race but it can’t because there’s too much stuff in the way.

Could
it have been the mayor?

And then Marissa says, “Or … maybe Billy’s in on it?”

I look at her, horrified. “No!”

“Come on, Sammy. Can’t you see Billy going along with something like this? He probably thinks it’s funny.”

“No. N-O, no!”

She shrugs and rolls her eyes, and we both sit there a minute thinking, until finally she says, “What if one of
them
works at City Hall?”

“Oh!” I look at her all wide-eyed. “Do you think
any
phone from
any
office over there would show City Hall on the caller ID?”

Marissa shrugs. “Probably.”

I think about it another minute and something about it just
feels
right. “Thank you. That makes total sense.”

It’s definitely dusky now, but we can see movement on
the junkyard side of the fence. “There he is,” I whisper. “And he’s dragging something really heavy.”

“He looks like a giant waddling penguin,” Marissa whispers back.

We watch while Tow Truck Tony takes the hook from Jack’s mom and loops the cable around something big that’s wrapped up tight in a brown tarp.

“That’s about the right size, don’t you think?” I whisper.

“It seems kind of small to me,” Marissa says.

“You’re used to seeing it on the base.”

“So they stole just the brass part?”

“Right.”

She nods. “Okay. Then maybe so.”

Once Tow Truck Tony’s got the cable hooked on and secured, he goes over to the passenger side of the truck and pretty soon a noise starts and the cable pulls up, up, up, hauling the big tarp-wrapped thing onto the bed like a wrecked car.

“That
must
be the statue,” I mutter. “What else could it be?”

“But what are they going to
do
with it?”

“Plant it somewhere and have Jack miraculously find it. Billy said there was something big going on tonight—this must be it.” I hit my forehead. “Snakes in December—I knew there was something weird about that!”

“Wait—snakes? What?”

“Never mind,” I grumble. “You think
you’re
an idiot?
I’m
the idiot. I can’t believe I let myself get sucked in by Justice Jack. I actually
believed
him.”

“So, what are we going to do?”

A bunch of ideas flash through my head, but the only smart one is something I can’t do. “It’s so stupid that neither of us has a phone.”

She snorts. “Tell me about it.” Then she eyes me and says, “But speaking of stupid, I sure hope you’re not getting any ideas about jumping on the back of that truck.”

“It did cross my mind.”

“No! You hear me? No! We don’t even know that it’s the statue!”

We watch as Tow Truck Tony levels the bed and then has Mama Jack help him connect some fat straps across their junkyard load. And when the straps are snugged down tight, Tony twists the secret entry closed and the junkyard sneaks get back in the cab.

I whisper, “If we jumped on the truck, we could look under the tarp and then we’d
know
.”

“Oh, sure. How are we going to do that?”

“They’ll be coming right by us to get out of here. It would be easy.”

“How do you know they’ll be coming this way?”

I point to an island of dirt just a few yards away. “See the tire tracks? Casey and I followed them last night. That’s how we found the seam in the fence in the first place.”

The truck engine fires up and Marissa starts to squirm. “You want us to jump on board like we’re jumping a train?”

“They won’t be going very fast. And there’s no back window for them to see us. It’ll be easy.”

“But
why
?” she asks as the truck starts toward us. “Why put ourselves in danger over a stupid statue?”

Real casual-like, I say, “Did you know there’s a reward?”

She snaps to face me. “A
reward
?”

I nod. “Five thousand dollars.”

“You’re kidding!” She blinks at me. “Do you know what I could do with five thousand dollars?”

I laugh. “Who says you’re getting five thousand?”

She hesitates. “Well, twenty-five hundred.” She looks at me, worried. “Right?”

I shrug. “Sure. But if we don’t know where they’re taking it and Jack magically discovers it before we can call the police, we’ll get zip.”

“But what if it’s not the statue?”

“Then we’ll jump off before they even know we’re there.”

Marissa’s face sets up. Like all of a sudden the cement of a decision has
hardened
. She snugs down the straps of her backpack and looks at me. “I’m in.”

I don’t have one of those fancy backpacks with the skateboard clips, so real quick I loosen my backpack straps all the way and get Marissa to help me wedge my skateboard between my pack and my back so my hands are free.

The truck rumbles closer.

And closer.

I yank down my backpack straps and adjust the skateboard so it’s not jabbing me so much. And as the truck rumbles by, I take a deep breath and say, “Ready?”

Marissa’s fidgeting like crazy. “What if they see us in the side mirrors?”

“I think they’re too busy driving through a maze of trees.” I look at her again. “You in?”

She nods. “Let’s do it!”

Then we jet out from behind the trees and run like mad to jump the truck.

Even though the tow truck wasn’t moving very fast, getting on board was hard.

And
painful
.

That was probably mostly on account of my skateboard gouging my back and banging my arms as I ran and jumped and stumbled, because Marissa seemed to do okay but I was like, Ow! Ooooh! Aaaah! when I finally crashed to a halt beside her.

“You okay?” she asked.

I told her, “Yeah,” but I must’ve been looking pretty pained, because she said, “You sure?”

I nodded. “I just hope they didn’t hear us.”

“They would have stopped by now, don’t you think? And this rig isn’t exactly quiet, so I think we’re okay.”

It must’ve been the reward money giving her guts, because normally Marissa would have been shaking in her shoes. But I liked her being calm, because I sure wasn’t.

“Help me get this skateboard out. It’s killing me.”

“You sure?”

“I can jump off fine with it in my hand,” I told her, struggling to get it out. “Come on. Help me.”

So there we are, wrestling with my skateboard as we ride through the eucalyptus forest, rumbling along on the back of a tow truck, when I hear the jungle whistle.