Sammy Keyes and the Search for Snake Eyes (15 page)

“I wouldn't do something like that! It's …
stupid
.”

He eyes me skeptically and says, “Well, then we have stupid people on our campus as well.”

“What do you mean?”

“Bruster got egged yesterday.”

“So?”

“So?”

“Well, egg washes off, doesn't it?”

He frowns. “It's a pain in the neck once it dries!”

Uh-oh. “Don't look at me like that….
I
didn't do it!”

He hurries toward the admin building and I race to
homeroom and manage to slide into my seat just as the bell finishes ringing. Heather sees me and sneers. “Up all night messing with your hair?”

“Pretty much, yeah,” I tell her, trying to act cool about it. But I did feel self-conscious. It had been
days
of looking like I slept in the gutter.

But school itself actually went better than normal. I turned in the assignments from the day before plus that day's, and I think I caught some of my teachers off guard, because they were really nice about it. Especially Mr. Tiller, when I turned in my math. “Well, Sammy!
This
is what I like to see in a student. Responsibility. Conscientiousness. Follow-through.” He was dying to ask what had gotten into me, I could tell, but he stopped himself. “Keep this up and you'll ace this course.”

I went to my desk and Henry Regulski whispered, “Kiss-up,” but I was feeling good enough that it didn't bother me.

Then in history, I was trying to feed Marissa bits and pieces of what had happened the night before when Billy Pratt comes waltzing into class with a message in his hand. He acts all cool, nodding and slapping five on a few of his friends as he makes his way to Mr. Holgartner at the front of the classroom.

Mr. Holgartner stops writing on the board and scowls at Billy. “Are you here to entertain us or deliver a message, Mr. Pratt?”

Billy struts up to him and says, “I try to do it all, sir.”

The class laughs while Mr. Holgartner's frown digs in deeper. But Billy just grins as he slaps the slip in
Mr. Holgartner's hand, then spins around,
whoooooosh
, a full 540, and struts to the door, nodding and slapping five on his friends again on his way out.

Mr. Holgartner takes a deep breath and shakes his head, then opens up the note and says, “Sammy, you're wanted in the office.”

Like a dork, I point to myself and say, “Me?”

He sighs and says, “The only Sammy here,” like he can't believe how much of his thimbleful of patience I'm making him use up.

So I grab my backpack and head off to the office, wondering what in the world I've done wrong
now
.

On my way to the office, I couldn't come up with anything I'd done that could qualify as an expellable offense. Or even something that would land me in the Box for detention. I hadn't bitten at anyone's bait—not even Heather's! I'd been as good as I know how to be the whole entire day.

Mrs. Tweeter gave me a soft smile over the top of her glasses as I opened the door to the administration building, and then I saw him, looking like an overstuffed doughboy in one of the waiting chairs. “Officer Borsch!” I said. “Are you here to see …,” I point to myself, “… me?”

Mrs. Tweeter and Officer Borsch exchange looks, and then he says, “Who else?”

I can see my envelope sticking out of his back pocket. And I'm thinking that maybe he's here to tell me what an absolute moron I was for going out to South Pinos last night, but hey, he didn't have to pull me out of class to tell me that! I already knew it, and I'd
told
him so in my note.

He wasn't looking mad, though. He was looking…
quiet
. Serious. He turns to Mrs. Tweeter and says, “Is there a conference room or office we can use?”

I knew there was a conference room. I'd been in it once before. With Heather. And her mother. And Grams. And Vice Principal Caan. I've actually got fond memories of the place. Red fur went
flying
.

Anyway, Mrs. Tweeter leads us there and closes the door behind us. Then very quietly, Officer Borsch says, “Have a seat.”

I'd never heard him sound this way before. Normally he's gruff as a billy goat, but now he sounded tired. Weak.

“Officer Borsch, what's
wrong
?”

He slaps my letter on the table as he takes a seat, then sucks in a deep breath and holds it. Finally, he lets it out and says, “Sammy, you worry me.”

“I know it was stupid! I
told
you it was stupid. Believe me, I'm not going to do something like that again, okay?”

He sucks on a tooth, then says, “I also know you're concerned about that little girl, so I wanted to tell you what's going on.”

I sat down, saying, “What is going on?”

“Well, presently Tito Moreno is cooling his heels downtown.”

“Meaning?”

“He's been arrested.”

“For … child abuse?” “No, for assaulting a police officer with a deadly weapon.”

“Holy smokes!” I say, jumping out of my chair. “What did he do? Try to knife you?”

“Sit down, Sammy. I'm fine.”

“Well what? What did he do?”

“He attacked me with some refried beans.”

I blinked at him. “With some …
beans
?”

He pulls a face. “A
can
of them, Sammy.”

I sat back down. “Oh. Right. A can.”

He's still frowning at me. “He's got a wicked arm, Sammy.”

“I believe you!” I tell him, then add, “So what did you do to set him off ?”

“Well, I went there with a woman from Social Services.” He eyes me. “Just to check things out.” His top lip pulls tight, practically disappearing for a minute before he says, “No kid should have to live like that. The location's bad enough, but the place is a pigsty! Broken doors, trash everywhere. Unbelievable.”

“So when did he start throwing beans at you?”

He squints at me.

“I'm serious!” “When I started ‘harassing’ him about his older daughter.”

“Lena? Did he say anything?”

“Yeah. That he's not hiding her.”

“
Hiding
her? Why would he be hiding her?” “Because,” he says, taking another deep breath, “I found out this morning that your friend Lena Moreno is wanted for murder.”

My jaw dropped, my eyes popped, and I'm sure I looked like some sort of pine-faced puppet when I clacked, “What?”

“You heard me.”

“Are you
sure
?”

“Oh yeah.”

“Well who'd she kill?”

“One Joey Martinez.” “Joey?
Joey?
She killed her own husband?”

“Husband? Where'd you get that?”

“From Tippy! She said Lena married a guy named Joey.”

“Well. I don't know about that. All I know is she's wanted for his murder.”

“How did she …”

“A drive-by on the north end. There were several witnesses, including Martinez's brother.”

“I…I don't believe it.” “Well, it makes certain things make sense.”

I nodded and whispered, “Like why she was so afraid of me going to the police.”

“Look, Sammy, I'm sorry to interrupt your school day, but I thought you should know.” He eyes me. “I also am asking you
once again
to stay away from the situation.”

“I will,” I mumbled.

“I know you've got a soft spot for that little girl, and I can just see you running over there, trying to see how she is. Don't. Do you hear me?
Don't
.”

I nodded. “But what's going to happen to her?”

“That's in the hands of Social Services now and something will be done. I don't like to see that sort of thing either, you know.”

“Did you ask them what Snake Eyes was doing there last night?”

“Oh, sure. I got nowhere with that, either. He knows nothing about nothing, if you know what I mean. The mother, too.”

“But Officer Borsch, we have to do
some
thing. Lena called home. She's looking for help!”

“
We
don't have to do anything.
You
need to stay out of it completely, you hear? And maybe she's looking for help, and maybe she's not. The mother says she never got a call.”

“But Tippy said —”

“She's a little kid, Sammy.”

“But —”

“Look. I'm going to try and get a log from the phone company. We'll see what it turns up.”

All of a sudden my heart starts racing. If they had a log showing who called the Morenos, Grams' number would be on it.
I'd
called the Morenos. From the
Senior Highrise
.

What kind of idiot was I?

Officer Borsch was saying, “Outside of that, there's really not much I can do at this point. No one's reported her missing —”

“
I
have! And Pepe would if he could!” I was trying hard not to panic about the phone log. Trying to stay focused on finding Lena.

“But those aren't, well, they're not —”

“We don't count? Is that what you're saying?”

He shrugs. “Not legally, anyway.”

“But Officer Borsch —” “Keep in mind, Sammy, we've been looking for her for about a year already.” He sighs, then stands and says, “I know this is going to be hard for you to do, but try to just put it out of your mind, okay? At this point, there's nothing more you can do.” He gives me a halfhearted grin. “Now get to class before people around here start thinking you're tangling with trouble again.”

“Me?” I grumble. “It wouldn't even cross their minds.”

I went back to class, all right, but all I could think about was Pepe's mom. Wanted for murder?
Murder?
How could that be? I tried to picture her, driving up Broadway, looking for Joey, and then
blam!
blowing him away. And the more I thought about it, the more I thought that there had to be more to this than the police knew. I mean, a year ago, Lena wasn't even old enough to drive a car. How could she do a drive-by? Did someone else drive? And if so, who? Something about all of this didn't make sense.

Didn't
feel
right.

And I couldn't push the whole phone-log mess out of my mind, either. What was going to happen with that?

Then at lunch, I did find myself tangling with trouble. Not murderers or gangbangers. A sneakier kind of trouble.

The junior high kind.

All the Sluggers' Cup players had to meet in the locker room to paint banners for the tournament. And when we
broke into groups, our snotty new shortstop came over to our alcove to work with Marissa, Dot, and me.

This made me nervous. Very nervous. But I couldn't figure out what Heather was up to, and since it would've looked real bad for me to tell her we didn't want her helping us, I just tried to work as far away from her as I could.

But she was acting so weird. She kept
crowding
me. When I'd move away, she'd move right beside me. When I'd paint with yellow, she would, too. When I switched to green, she did, too.

Then Ms. Rothhammer comes out of her office, announcing, “I've got permission! We'll be practicing out at the high school today. Anyone whose parents might have a problem with that, see me ASAP.” She ducks into our alcove and says, “Did you hear that back here?”

Marissa says, “Yeah! That's
great
, Coach!” while Ms. Rothhammer does a double-take. And instead of jetting off to check on the other girls, Ms. Rothhammer stands there a minute, giving us a great big smile. “Say!” she says. “Looking good, girls.” But what she's thinking is, Wow, Sammy and Heather working together? Now
this
is a miracle!

Heather smiles real big and says, “This is, like, the best thing that could have happened to us, Coach.” Then she turns to me and says, “Huh, Sammy?”

Well, no kidding she's putting on a show for Ms. Roth-hammer. But I can't exactly say, “No, you sneaky faker!” so I just stare like my head is full of dust.

Then, the minute Ms. Rothhammer's back is turned,
Heather dips her sponge in the pot of green paint, and with it fully loaded, she squishes it all
over
my right hand.

Her eyes get real big and she gasps, “Oh, Sammy! I'm so sorry!” Then she flutters around, pretending to look for a rag.

Paint is running down my hand, dripping on our poster, getting everywhere. And I'm plenty mad to begin with, but when Heather's sponge drips on my
high-top
, well I just about splat her across her nasty red head to even the score.

In a flash, though, I see her plan. She's baiting me. She
wants
me to whale on her because if I do, there's a good chance I'll get suspended.

And if I'm suspended, I can't play.

It's the rules, and everyone knows it.

So I take a deep breath, take some paper towels that Marissa's snagged for me, and force myself to swallow the whole incident without splatting her back.

It's the most self-control I think I've ever shown.

And while Heather's fussing all over me, making the spot on my shoe into a big nasty smudge, I'm saying, “I've got it, okay? Just leave me alone, would you?”

Then I saw it—that evil, sneaky light in her eyes. “Sure,” she says, and all of a sudden she's gone. Over to work in a different alcove with some eighth graders.

My hand's a complete mess. Even after ten minutes at the sink, it's still green, especially around and under my fingernails.