Sammy Keyes and the Hotel Thief Sammy Keyes

  I check out the picture. “It’s not him.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “You didn’t look at it more than a second, how can you be so sure?”

  “I just am. I’m positive.”

  The Borsch-man wants to give me an argument, but Tall ’n’ Skinny says, “Try the other one.”

  Officer Borsch pulls out another picture. “Take your time.”

  So I’m watching Marissa out of one eye, and I’m watching Mikey out of the other, and then Mikey decides—he’s coming in.

  I hand the photograph back to Officer Borsch. “It’s not him.”

  Mikey pipes up with, “Let me see!”

  Officer Borsch looks at Mikey, then back at me. “Who’s this?”

  I smile and say, so Mikey can’t hear me, “My brother.” I look over at Marissa like Help! because I know that any minute Mikey’s going to give me away and then who knows what Officer Borsch will decide to do with me?

  So what’s Tall ’n’ Skinny do? He turns to Mikey and says, “It’s all right, son. We’re just asking your sister a few questions about someone she saw.”

  Mikey grins at me like boy, has he got something over on me or what, and he’s about to spout off when Marissa comes flying across the room and yanks him back into the hallway. “Maybe we’ll just wait outside...”

  Mikey starts screaming and kicking, but Tall ’n’ Skinny and Officer Borsch just kind of look at each other and shrug.

  I try to distract them by asking, “So, has any more...uh...evidence turned up?”

  Officer Borsch squints at me like he knows I’m up to something, but Tall ’n’ Skinny says, “We’ve just had a purse turn up. It was reported missing almost a week ago and we think it’s somehow connected to the other burglaries on that end of town. So if you remember any details about the man you saw at the Heavenly, please let us know.” He turns to Officer Borsch. “I think we’re done here.”

  Officer Borsch frowns and nods, and they start down the hall. And I guess with all their leather gear creaking and their equipment jingling they can’t hear Mikey, sounding like he’s under ten feet of water, screaming, “Let me out! Let me out!” I cough and excuse myself and cough some more, trying to cover up Mikey’s voice, and the minute they’re outside I race over to Marissa.

  Marissa’s got Mikey locked up in a closet and she’s leaning on it with all her might. She sees me and says, “Oh, thank God!”

  I pop the closet door open and look at Mikey like I’m going to kill him. He tries to charge past me but I grab him by the shirt. “Listen up, Mikey! If you tell anyone about this, Marissa’s going to tell your mom and dad how you ditched school today and how you’ve been spending all your allowance on candy bars. If you keep your mouth shut, then so will we. Think about it, Mike. If your parents find out where you were today and what you’ve been doing with your allowance, you know what they’ll do? They’ll ground you for a month, that’s what they’ll do, and they’ll take away your allowance. You got it? That means no more Fancy Fudge, no more candy bars, and no more Double Dynamos. They won’t let you have anything but broccoli and fish. You hear what I’m saying? Broccoli and fish!”

  He looks to Marissa for help, but she jumps right in. “I hope you do tell! Do you really think Mom and Dad are going to care that Sammy said she lived here? I don’t even know why I’m making this deal with you. You’re the one that’s in hot water, ditching school like you did.”

  “Okay, okay! I won’t tell!”

  Marissa says, “Swear?” like she’s a little surprised.

  Mikey says, “Swear,” and you can tell—for once he really means it.

  Now what I should’ve done was start walking back home right then and there. What I did instead was walk straight to the refrigerator when Marissa offered me some orange juice. Grams was the furthest thing from my mind.

  And then, of course, I had to explain everything. I told Marissa about Officer Borsch grilling me at the Heavenly, and when she found out I’d actually been inside the hotel she said, “Cool!” and wanted to know all about it.

  So I told her about the pope-hat chairs and the guy with the cigar, and pretty soon we’re talking about Gina and her crazy hairdo. And of course crazy hair makes us think about Heather Acosta, and all of a sudden Marissa says, “Say...maybe Gina is Heather’s mother!”

  Well, that makes me bust up so much I can’t help it—I spray orange juice everywhere.

  Now if I’d made it to the part about Mrs. Graybill and the note under her door, I’d’ve thought about Grams. And I’d’ve jumped right up and called her. Trouble is, we got so sidetracked making jokes about Heather being Madame Nashira’s daughter that I completely forgot Grams was home worrying.

  And when the phone rang, I still wasn’t thinking about her—I was busting up at Marissa talking in a Texas accent, saying that if Gina was Heather’s mom, then maybe they’re both “hair from outer space.”

  Marissa answers the phone and she’s laughing so hard she can barely say hello. And when she finds out it’s Grams, she keeps right on laughing and just hands over the phone.

  Well, of course I’m not thinking about anything but alien hairdos, so when I take the phone and put it up to my ear, I’m still laughing. Until I hear Grams’ voice. Then all of a sudden I don’t feel like laughing at all.

  She says, “I take it the emergency’s over.”

  “Grams—I’m sorry! I was going to—”

  “Don’t bother. I don’t want to hear it. You realize I’ve been worried sick about you?”

  Now I try to tell her I’m sorry and I try to tell her I’ll be right home to explain everything, but she keeps cutting me off. Finally she says, “Let me talk to Marissa.”

  “But—”

  “Let me talk to Marissa!”

  Now you have to understand—Grams had never shouted at me before. Never. Not when I left the water running in the sink and it overflowed, not when I burned the potatoes so badly we had to throw the pan away, not when I spilled grape juice on her new couch, or broke her favorite teacup. Grams just doesn’t yell. At least that’s what I’d always thought.

  But there she was, yelling at me. And all of a sudden I’ve got this enormous lump in my throat and there’s no way I can talk. I just hand Marissa the phone.

  Marissa says, “Uh-huh...They’ll be home pretty soon...Uh-huh...That’d be fine...Uh-huh...Okay, sure...’Bye.”

  I grab her arm. “What? What did she say?”

  Marissa smiles. “You get to spend the night!”

  Grams isn’t wild about me spending the night at Marissa’s since her parents go out so much, and with me being suspended and all, well, it just seemed kind of strange. “How’d that happen?”

  “Don’t worry about it—this is great!”

  Then it hits me. Grams doesn’t want to see me. She’s so mad at me she doesn’t want to see me. So I ask Marissa if that’s why I’m spending the night. She bites a fingernail and tells me no, of course not, but what she’s really saying is yes.

  I try to call Grams back, only she won’t answer the phone. I know she’s there, watching it ring off the hook, but she won’t answer it. And as I’m standing there listening to it ring I’m feeling like the last one picked for teams—like being stuck with me is worse than being one short.

  Pretty soon the lump in my throat is making it so I can’t breathe, let alone think. I hang up, and before Marissa can stop me I lock myself in the bathroom.

  And sitting there in the middle of the bathroom floor, surrounded by turquoise tile and turquoise towels, I bury my face in my hands and cry.

  TEN

  Marissa’s parents finally showed up around eight o’clock. They put down their briefcases, gave me big smiles, and said, “Why, hello, Samantha, how are you?”

  I lied and told them I was just fine, and wondered if Mrs. McKenze would be mad if she knew I’d used their shower, eaten two of their Lean Cuisines, and was wearing her daughter
’s clothes.

  Mr. McKenze went straight to the phone, to call in about stocks somewhere, I suppose. They’re always on the phone, especially Mr. McKenze. Either on the phone or at the computer. Mrs. McKenze says it’s the only way to stay “on top of the game.” Marissa says they even take a phone to bed and set alarms during the night so they can get up and check on overseas stocks, if you can believe that.

  Mrs. McKenze pours herself some bottled water and says, “Marissa, dear, your father and I are planning to go up to Big Falls this weekend. Can you think of anything you might need while we’re gone?”

  “Can I come?”

  Mrs. McKenze flutters around a little. “Well, dear, you know how much your father and I need a break—I was hoping I could count on you to look after Michael?”

  Marissa looks down. “Oh.”

  “How is Michael anyway?”

  “Well enough to go to school tomorrow.”

  Mrs. McKenze smiles and says, “Excellent! Maybe I should go check on him...” Then off she goes to check on the little faker.

  Marissa whispers, “Let’s go up to my room, okay?” and you can tell—something’s bothering her.

  Marissa’s room is more like a fancy hotel suite than a bedroom. She’s got two beds, a window seat full of teddy bears, and her very own bathroom. Marissa’s bathroom is always a mess. The sink has toothpaste in it, the floor’s covered with dirty clothes, and there’s not a glass figurine in sight. It’s the best room in the house.

  The minute we close the door, Marissa flops down on the bed, hugs a pillow, and sighs. I flop down on the other bed and say, “What’s the matter?”

  All of a sudden Marissa’s crying. “Why can’t we go with them? We never get to go anywhere together! It’s not like they’re actually going to relax up at the lake—they’ve got two phone lines and a computer up there! And it’s not like I’d be in the way or anything.”

  So I say, “Maybe they—” but before I can get it out, Marissa lets out this scream. I jump up. “What? What?”

  She points to the ceiling, all bug-eyed, and whispers, “What is that?”

  I look at the ceiling and what do I see? Nothing. “What’s what?”

  She points again. “That!”

  I stand on her bed and take a close look at where she’s pointing, and sure enough, there it is: the teeny-tiniest spider on earth. I look at Marissa and laugh. “How did you even see it?”

  Well, she’s not laughing. Not one bit. “Is it a spider?” All of a sudden it drops and she screams and holds her face just like in an old black-and-white movie.

  I reach up and slap the spider between my hands and when I open them up, there’s barely even a smudge on my palm.

  I go rinse my hands off while Marissa tries to recover from the heart attack she gave herself. When I get back she says, “They are so creepy!”

  “It was microscopic!”

  She shivers. “Little spiders grow into big spiders.” She plops back down on the bed and sighs, and a second later she’s forgotten all about the spider. “All I really want is for them to be home once in a while. I’m so tired of frozen dinners and Pop-Tarts. They always tell me I’ve got to be home for dinner, and then they don’t show up until eight o’clock or something. I can’t believe how lucky you are.”

  I shake a finger in my ear like I need my hearing checked. I mean, here she is in her very own bedroom with her very own bathroom on one of her two beds in a gigantic house she shares with both parents, calling me lucky. Marissa’s never had to worry about which way to sneak into the house or how to pay for some little thing she decides she wants at the mall. Never.

  So I say, “Lucky? Me?”

  “Yeah, you. Your grandmother’s always home. Any time you want to see her, there she is, waiting for you. If I want to get ahold of my mother, I have to go through about twenty ‘Please hold’s before I can talk to her, and then she’s usually in the middle of some deal and winds up telling me she’ll see me when she gets home. Thanks a lot, Mom.”

  “But Marissa, you do get to see them every day. And they’re really nice to you—they give you anything you want!”

  Marissa makes a face. “Yeah. ‘Here’s some money, kid, now leave me alone’—I just hate it!”

  “The money?”

  “Yes, the money! The stupid money.” She looks straight at me. “You’re the only friend I’ve got. The only one. You’re the only one who’s never asked me for money. You won’t even take it when I try to give it to you!” She whacks a pillow with both hands. “Every time I think someone’s being nice to me ’cause they like me, what do they do? They ask to borrow money. It’s always the money.”

  Well, I think about this a minute. I mean, even though Marissa has everything in the whole wide world, I’ve never actually wanted to be her.

  We were quiet for a long time, just lying there on our beds. And I’m in the middle of wishing I could be at the Senior Highrise sneaking past Mrs. Graybill so I could give Grams a hug and sleep on her couch, when Marissa does something I’ve never heard her do before: she snores.

  I watch her for a while, lying there flat on her back with her mouth wide open, snoring. Then for some reason I think about a spider dropping from the ceiling right into her mouth, and I bust up.

  Marissa doesn’t wake up, though. She just keeps right on snoring. So I chuckle about the spider some more and then get up to turn off the lights.

  And when I go back to bed I stare out the window at the moon, wishing for morning so I can get home and explain everything to Grams.

  ELEVEN

  In the morning, Marissa offered me a ride on her handlebars, but I figured out a long time ago that Marissa McKenze is not someone you should accept a ride from. The one time I did she about killed me, wobbling all over the place, telling me to duck so she could see where she was going, putting on the brakes so fast that I fell off and almost cracked my skull. No, it’s much safer to walk, even with the world’s biggest blister telling you to ride.

  So off she went, racing down East Jasmine, waving and wobbling, calling over her shoulder, “Wish I’d been suspended!” and off I went, wishing I’d drained my blister.

  When I finally got home, I let myself in, and what I’m expecting to see is Grams on the couch reading the paper or doing a crossword puzzle or watching the morning news. But what do I see? Nobody. I call out, “Grams, I’m home!” and what do I hear? Nothing. So I peek into her bedroom and say, “Grams...?” and then check the bathroom. “Grams?” Finally it dawns on me: Grams is not home.

  Now this had never happened before, and it struck me how quiet it was. And then I started to worry. I moved around the apartment from place to place, not really going anywhere. First I sat on one side of the couch; then I sat on the other. Then I moved across to a chair and just sat there with Dorito in my lap, staring off into space. I wondered where in the world Grams could be. I mean, what if something had happened to her? Maybe she was in the hospital. Maybe Mrs. Graybill had come after her with a curtain rod or something. Maybe…maybe she hadn’t answered the phone when I’d called last night because she was in trouble.

  Then I had a terrible thought: maybe the hotel thief had come back looking for me and wound up tying Grams up and stuffing her in the closet.

  Now I tell myself that’s stupid; it couldn’t have happened. But the more I think about it, the more I can just see her, tied up with duct tape, her glasses all crooked, shoved in the back of the closet.

  So I get up. And very slowly I move to Grams’ closet. And I’m standing in front of it, feeling like I’ve got X-ray vision because I can just see her in there, and I take a deep breath, yank open the door, and...there’s nobody there.

  Well, I feel pretty stupid, and before you know it I’m back in Grams’ favorite chair, worrying. And when I’d had just about as much worrying as I could take, I got up and started vacuuming. I vacuumed the whole apartment. Even the baseboards. All that noise helped me think. And what I decided was that if Gra
ms was home in the morning, then she was probably all right. If she hadn’t been home all night, then there really was something to worry about.

  I shut off the vacuum cleaner and headed for the kitchen. I checked out the sink, which was empty; then I looked inside the dishwasher. The bowl on the top rack had been rinsed, but when I looked at it real closely I could see some oatmeal stuck to one side. I checked the glasses and there was a spot of pink on the side of one of them. Grams’ grapefruit juice.

  So I closed the dishwasher and went into the bathroom. Sure enough, Grams’ toothbrush was wet. So was the bottom of the bar of soap. Well, I felt a lot better. Grams was fine, no doubt about it. And I was just about to leave the bathroom when I noticed something in the wastepaper basket. I bent down and picked it up, and sure enough, it was what I thought it was—tissue paper with lipstick dabbed on it.

  Now I’ve only seen Grams wear lipstick for real special occasions, so it was strange, finding the shape of her lips on that piece of tissue paper. And I couldn’t help thinking I missed something. I mean, what was the special occasion? Where had she gone?

  So I started sweeping up the kitchen, scrubbing down the sink, cleaning out Dorito’s litter box, just keeping busy while I was trying to figure it out. But after all that cleaning I still didn’t have an answer, so I sat down and had a big glass of milk and waited. And waited. And waited some more. And pretty soon I’m sick to death of waiting and I’m thinking about what in the world I can go do. Going to the mall doesn’t sound like any fun. The Pup Parlor would be all right, but I don’t really feel like it. Then I remember how I really should get some gum to replace the masking tape on the fourth floor, so I head to Maynard’s.

  Nobody’s in the market but T.J. And since he’s on the phone with his back turned, I decide to check out the comic books. And I’m back by the magazines when I hear him say, “What do you mean the crop froze? How can the crop freeze? It’s always ninety degrees in Florida!” He listens for a second, then says, “Hugh! Buddy! You told me it was a sure thing! ‘Double your money overnight,’ that’s what you said....I know there are risks, I know you can’t guarantee...but you said it was a sure thing! No no no, you don’t understand. I borrowed it from my old man. I’ve got to make it back by the end of the week or I’m out of a job, out of a home, out of...” He listens for a long time, then shakes his head. “Man, you said that last week about coffee beans. You said that Friday about oranges! Now you’re talking pork bellies? Give me a break.” He listens for a long time. Finally he sighs. “You better turn this thing around, Hugh....Yeah, go ahead. I’m in for the pork bellies.”