Sammy Keyes and the Runaway Elf (9 page)

“Not gossip,” I said, looking up at her. “More like facts.”

She walked an arrangement over to the dining room table and turned it a few times, finding the best angle. Her mouth twitched into a smile as she asked, “And what did Lilia have to say about me?”

My heart was busy doing a war dance, but I tried not to let it show. “Don’t worry about it. It’s not like I’m going to put it in my report or anything.”

She came a few steps closer. “Put
what
in your report?”

I toed at the tile floor with my high-top. “Look, maybe I could just ask you some questions about Fiji? Where is she, anyway?”

“Outside.” She put her hands on her hips and said, “First I’d like to know what Lilia said.”

“Really, Mrs. Hallenback, it doesn’t matter.”

“Tell me!”

I toed the floor some more, then mumbled, “She says you can’t balance a checkbook. That you’re allergic to nuts and smoke on the sly to keep your weight down. That you do a lot of charity work”—I looked up at her—“and that you’ve had three miscarriages.”

Nora’s eyes popped open and she gasped, “She told you that?”

I scuffed at the floor and mumbled really fast, “She also said that you should’ve married an obstetrician instead of a psychiatrist—that it would’ve done you more good.”

“What?” She stared at me a minute with her mouth hanging open, then slammed a flower arrangement onto the mantel over the fireplace. She took another and slammed it on an end table.

“I … I’m sorry, Mrs. Hallenback. Like I said, it’s not like something I would put in my report.”

She spun around. “The nerve of that woman! And after all I’ve done for her!”

“After what you’ve done for her?”

Her hands flew onto her hips. “Fifteen years ago when she came into town, Lilia Landvogt was a nobody with a five-year-old daughter and a pocket full of life insurance money. I hooked her up with a friend of Franklin’s who helped her invest her money. She made an absolute killing on some stocks she bought, and now she’s in that mansion on East Jasmine acting like the queen. Besides connecting her with Franklin’s broker, I’m the one who assimilated her into society. Do you know how many times I’ve had that woman over for a dinner party? Do you know how many functions she’s been invited to because I suggested we include her on the list? She would be nowhere in this town if it weren’t for me!” She whipped a towel over the kitchen counter. “Well, that does it.”

“Pardon me?”

Flames about shot from her eyes. “As far as I’m concerned, Lilia Landvogt can sit in that gaudy mansion and rot.” She started flipping through an address book, saying, “I’m sorry. I’m sure this is not what you wanted for your report. Why don’t you come back some other time. Right now I’ve got some phone calls to make.” She
turned her back on me and started punching in numbers, so I just let myself out the garage door.

On the way home I thought about Nora Hallenback burning up the phone lines, blacklisting the Crocodile, and it hit me that either Lilia Landvogt was going to be very sorry she’d ever tried to blackmail me …

Or I was going to be
dead
by the end of the week.

*  *  *

I hadn’t even thought about Mrs. Graybill until I turned down our hallway. Then I remembered where she was and how I was supposed to deliver her robe. I stood at her door a minute with the key in my hand, but it felt weird. Like by having permission to be there I was breaking some ancient tradition. I decided to check in with Grams first.

The minute I walked through the door, Grams jumped out of her chair and said, “Samantha! I’m so glad you’re home. I’ve got wonderful news!”

Somehow I knew this had to do with the GasAway Lady. “Uh-oh.”

She slapped the couch and said, “Sit, sit!”

I sat.

She held my hand. “Your mother’s coming home!”

I felt like my stomach was climbing up a roller-coaster track. “For good?”

“For Christmas.”

There went my peanut butter and jelly, loop-de-loop. “Ho ho ho.”

“Samantha …!”

“Well, what am I supposed to say to her? ‘Hi, Mom. Long time no see. Gee, I’m glad you’ve got that gas problem under control’?”

“Sweetheart, she’s your mother. When you see her, you two will work it out.”

“And where’s she going to stay? Here? I can’t exactly see her sleeping on the floor.”

Grams took off her glasses and started buffing them with the hem of her skirt. “We’ll make room.”

I studied her a minute. “Oh, I get it. She gets the couch and
I
get the floor.”

Grams popped the glasses back on her nose. “Never mind about that now. The important thing is, she’s coming home.”

I rolled my eyes. “I can see the headlines now: GasAway Lady Returns to Santa Martina—Brings Lifetime Supply to Senior Highrise.”

“Samantha, that’s enough. Show some respect!”

I closed my eyes and whispered, “I don’t want to talk about her, okay?” I took a deep breath and said, “I thought you might want to know—I found Mrs. Graybill today.”

“You
found
her? Where?”

“In a nursing home.”

“A nursing home! How on earth …? How did you find out?”

“Elyssa’s mom works there.”

“Elyssa? Oh, that’s the girl you’re walking home?”

“Right.” So I told her all about the home and how I’d run into Daisy half-asleep in her bed. And when I started
talking about how awful the place smelled and how everyone in there looked so gray, she pinched her eyes closed and shook her hands in the air to shut me up. Finally she whispered, “What on earth is she doing in a nursing home?”

“I don’t really know. All Mrs. Keltner would say was that she’s not well. I don’t think she wanted to talk about it in front of her daughter.” I held up Mrs. Graybill’s key. “She asked me to bring her her robe.”

“Daisy did?”

So I told her all about what Mrs. Graybill had said and how it felt really strange, her asking me to help her out. I turned the key over in the palm of my hand. “Would you come with me?”

She nodded. “Of course.”

I don’t know why, but we tiptoed down the hall. And the minute we were inside her apartment we looked at each other and kind of shivered. Grams whispered, “This is so eerie,” and it was. The apartment was laid out just like Grams’, but it didn’t feel a thing like it. Everything was faded. Old and faded. Like it had been left out in the sun too long, only you could tell—it had been left in the
dark
too long.

In the living room there was one chair, one couch, and an old television. Next to the couch was a basket of wool with crochet hooks, and across the back of the couch was a five-inch stack of afghans. I pulled them back, one at a time. There were dozens of them, all beautifully made. All colorful. It felt like I’d uncovered a vein of gold in a coal mine.

Grams whispered, “We shouldn’t snoop.”

I mumbled, “I’m not snooping, Grams.”

She pulled on my arm and said, “We should get that robe and get out of here.”

So I went into the bathroom and sure enough, there was her dirty pink robe, hanging on the door. I took it off the hook, and when I came back out I did a double take. There was my grandmother in Mrs. Graybill’s bedroom, snooping.

“Grams!”

She jumped and then said, “Look at this.”

It was a black-and-white photograph of two girls in floppy hats with their arms around each other, laughing. Grams pointed to the taller girl and whispered, “That’s Daisy.”

I held a corner of the frame and said, “No way!” I mean, the girl was about seventeen with long shiny hair and narrow ankles. Now, I’ve seen Mrs. Graybill’s ankles. A million times. There’s no way the ankles in that picture belonged to her.

Grams whispered, “She was beautiful, wasn’t she.”

I looked at the laughing eyes in the picture and said, “That can’t be her!”

“Oh, it is. I’m sure of it. Look at the teeth. Look at the cheekbones. That’s Daisy.” She pointed to the other girl in the picture. “And I would bet this is her sister.”

I stared at the photograph for a long time, and it struck me how the name Daisy fit the girl in the photograph. Like springtime. Like sunshine. It just fit her. And as I handed it back to Grams, I wondered how the Daisy in
the picture had turned into the crabby old woman that I knew.

All of a sudden I wanted out of there. I whispered, “C’mon, Grams. Let’s go.”

It wasn’t until I was locking up the apartment that I noticed Grams still had the photograph. She handed it to me and said, “I think maybe Daisy would like to have this, too.”

I was still wrapped up in thinking about Mrs. Graybill when we got back to our apartment and heard the phone ringing. Grams hurried to answer it, then called, “Samantha? It’s for you.”

I put down Mrs. Graybill’s stuff and headed into the kitchen. “Is it Marissa?”

Grams frowned and shook her head. “It’s Mrs. Landvogt.” She covered the receiver and whispered, “What ever happened about her dog?”

My knees were shaking before I even took the phone. “I’ll tell you later,” I said.

I put the phone up to my ear like it might hurt me. After all, I had whacked a stick at a hornet’s nest when I’d been at Mrs. Hallenback’s. There wasn’t much chance I could avoid getting stung.

I didn’t have to say hello. She knew I was there. “You’ve got until Friday,” she snapped.

“Friday?”
I whispered. “That’s not enough time!”

“Friday’s a luxury! Those goons called and demanded the money
tomorrow
, but I managed to put them off until Friday. I want to know everything—who you’ve talked to, what you’ve found out—everything.”

I looked over my shoulder at Grams. “Uh … that’s not possible right now.”

She was quiet for a second and then said, “Ah … you haven’t told your grandmother about our little arrangement.”

“That’s right.”

“Then come over so we can talk.”

“I could probably do that tomorrow after school.”

“You’ll do it now!”

I looked at Grams, watching me. I said, “I’ll see you around four o’clock tomorrow,” and hung up.

Before Grams could grill me, I crossed my fingers and said, “She wants me to help distribute flyers about her dog.”

“It never came back?”

I shook my head.

Grams took some snapper out of the refrigerator and said, “That’s a shame. I hope she gets it back.”

I took down the rice and a measuring cup, thinking that that was the understatement of the century.

*  *  *

I didn’t sleep very well that night. My brain was too busy trying to move through quicksand. I thought about Lance Gigoni and Paula Nook and stupid ol’ Hero trying to pee on me. I thought about Mrs. Hallenback and her tiger lilies, and I wondered how many people she’d already called and told about the Crocodile. Then I thought about Mr. Petersen. How he’d yelled at everyone at the parade and how he’d probably yelled just the same at the illegals working in his print shop. And lying there in the dark, thinking about cranky ol’ Mr. Petersen, I wondered if there was a picture on his dresser of him looking young and happy. And somewhere between thinking about Mr. Petersen and the Crocodile and Mrs. Graybill at seventeen, I realized that I had to figure out
why
they had turned out the way they had.

There was no way I ever wanted to look back at a picture of myself at seventeen and not recognize me.

*  *  *

I wasn’t thinking about Rudy Folksmeir or dirt or even Heather Acosta when the alarm went off. I was thinking about sleep. I felt like I had spent the night trying to run, but in my dreams I couldn’t even lift my legs. I dragged through breakfast and getting ready for school, and it
wasn’t until Grams was shoving me out the door that I remembered Mrs. Graybill’s robe.

I hurried back inside and stuffed it with the picture in a paper sack. Grams said, “Why don’t you let me take it over?” which made sense, but something about it didn’t feel right. So I said, “No, Grams. I told her I would.” Then, as I’m charging down the hall again, I remember Rudy. “Oh no!”

“What is it?”

“Rudy Folksmeir! I’m his KK, and I’m supposed to bring him something. I completely forgot!”

“A present?”

I started digging through cupboards. “Just some kind of snack or something.”

“How about a few shortbreads?”

I gave it a nanosecond. Pecan shortbreads are dry and crumbly—the closest thing to dirt we had in the house. I threw a few in a Baggie, kissed Grams good-bye, and flew out the door.

When I got to homeroom, I snuck them on Rudy’s desk and then noticed that someone had put a beautiful Christmas tree cupcake on Heather’s. Now, I don’t know why, but my feet walked me right past my own desk, and before you know it, there I was, sitting at Heather’s.

When Holly walked through the door, I motioned her over. She sat down in the desk next to me and whispered, “Why are you sitting in Heather’s seat?”

I grinned. “I’m just warming it up for her.”

Then Marissa walked in, so I waved her over, too. She said through her teeth, “What have you got—a death wish?”

Then Heather walked in. I stood up slowly and stared at her.