Sammy Keyes and the Sisters of Mercy

  I also like going to the Pup Parlor because Vera and Meg like to have me. They always say, “Good afternoon, Sammy!” and after they get done cooing about some new stray they’ve taken in, asking me things like, “You know anyone who wants to take in this darlin’ little fellow?” or “You sure your grandma doesn’t have room for this one? He don’t eat much—he just needs some lovin’,” they make me tell them all about the big bad world of William Rose Junior High School. They actually like to hear about it.

  And I guess maybe I talk a little too much to them because they figured out about me living at the Highrise. I didn’t actually tell them, they just pieced it together. Grams had a fit when I told her they knew—said something about the circle getting too large. But I swore them to secrecy, and I think they’d sooner put themselves out of house and home than do that to me.

  Vera’s the one I like the best. She’s Meg’s mom and she’s about sixty years old and as wiry as a whippet. I’ve never known a lady as strong as Vera. She can get a samoyed in the tub single-handed and can strip an entire husky faster than most people can fix their own hair. She wears an apron, but she’s always covered with dog hair anyway, and you can tell by looking at her hands that she’d as soon use dog clippers on her nails as let them get in her way.

  She does spend time on her own hair, though. She and Meg both wear a little red bow on each side of their heads and I always kind of wonder whether they go to a beauty parlor with a picture of a poodle and say, “I want to look like this,” or if they just get down and do each other’s hair right there in the shop.

  Meg’s a lot like Vera in that she can dip a mastiff quicker than you or I could corner a schnauzer, but she doesn’t really look much like Vera. Even with her hair colored the same as Vera’s and even with those little bows decorating it, Meg looks like a bulldog pretending to be a poodle.

  Anyway, when Nibbles goes charging inside and knocks the HELP WANTED sign out of the window, Vera just puts it back up and says, “Good morning, girls!” She pushes the hair away from Nibbles’ eyes, saying, “Hello there, fella. So you’ve got some nasty critters chewing you up—we’ll take care of that.”

  Meg takes the leash from Dot and says, “Try back at one o’clock. We should have him combed out by then.”

  So Marissa locks up her bike and off we go, walking down Broadway and along Cook Street to the library, around the lawn bowlers and past the kiddie swings to the back end of the ball park. And while we’re walking, we’re talking about Nibbles and the Pup Parlor and how nice Meg and Vera are.

  But the minute we get down to the diamond and start throwing the ball around, Dot says, “I had a dream about her last night,” and right away we know—she’s talking about the Girl.

  I say, “Oh, yeah?”

  Dot throws me the ball. “Yeah. She was on one side of this glass door and I was on the other. And she was acting like she wanted to come through, but she didn’t have a doorknob, and every time I tried mine, the knob kept slipping.” The ball snaps into her glove and she says, “It was really frustrating.”

  Marissa runs her arm in a circle like a windmill. “I wonder where her parents are.”

  Dot says, “Maybe she’s like a juvenile delinquent or something. My mom says some kids are just bad.”

  Marissa and I freeze and say at the same time, “You didn’t tell her, did you?”

  Dot says, “No, no! I didn’t tell her.… I just asked her, you know, how come some of the people at the soup kitchen are so young.”

  Marissa and I groan, but Dot says, “She didn’t have any idea I was talking about somebody. I didn’t say a word about following her to the riverbed or anything. Honest!” She lets out a nervous laugh. “She would’ve killed me!”

  We get back to throwing the ball around and finally I say, “So what are we going to do about it?”

  Marissa knows I’m thinking about the extra bed in her room because she throws me the ball and says, “Sammy, what if she is a juvenile delinquent? I can’t just invite her to come stay with me! She might rob us blind, and then what am I supposed to do? Say, Oh, sorry, Mom, I was just trying to be nice …?”

  Dot says, “I’d talk to my mom about it, but where would she go? We don’t have enough room as it is, and Mom would probably wind up calling Social Services or something.”

  I sigh, “Well I can’t take her in. I’d wind up out there with her if Mrs. Graybill caught on.”

  So we just stand there in a triangle, throwing the ball around and finally Marissa says, “Look, we can’t do anything about it right now. What we can do something about is Monday’s game. Everybody’s expecting us to choke, and I want to get out there and prove them wrong.” She looks right at me. “Sammy, we’ve got to work on our signals, and I’ve got a couple more I want to show you. Dot, we’ve got to work on drilling them home from third. You tend to throw them a little outside, and that can make it hard for Sammy to make the tag.”

  When Marissa McKenze gets down to business, you get down to business, too. She’s not bossy, she’s just serious. And you don’t mind her telling you you need work on your signals or throwing from the hole—she knows what she’s doing and you listen. At least I do, and so does Dot. The eighth graders seem to think she’s got a little too much salt on her popcorn, but that’s their loss.

  So we got down to work, and for a couple of hours I forgot about the Girl and concentrated on beating Heather’s team. And when Marissa finally breaks into a grin and says, “Okay! Now we’re clicking! What do you say we go to Juicers and get a couple of dogs—my treat,” Dot and I say, “Yahoo!” and off we go to the mall.

  And I’m laughing about how we’re going to rake Heather’s team through the chalk, when I see Marissa’s cousin Brandon. I don’t know what it is about Brandon, but whenever I’m around him my words get all twisted up and I spend a lot of time looking at my high-tops and acting like I’m about six years old. And it’s not like I have a crush on him or anything. I mean, he’s cute and all, but he’s a hotshot on the high school swim team, and the last thing in the world I’d have is a crush on a hotshot.

  It’s probably just because he’s so nice to me that my tongue gets all mixed up. I mean I am Marissa’s best friend and he is her cousin, so he just acts like I’m one of the family, which is nice, but my tongue would be a lot happier if he’d just ignore me.

  We get up to the counter and he says, “Hey, cuz. Hi, Dot,” and then, “Hiya, Sammy!” to me. And he’s about to ask me, “How’s life?” like he always does so I can sputter like an idiot, but then he notices my mitt. He reaches over and takes it from me. “Cool!” He pounds his fist in it a couple of times and says, “It’s kind of big for you, isn’t it?”

  I just shrug and say, “No.”

  See what I mean? What kind of a stupid answer is No?

  He hands me back the mitt and says to Marissa, “Mom says you guys made it to the playoffs. You’re the underdogs?”

  Marissa starts talking a mile a minute. “Yeah, but we’re gonna show them. We’ve got strategy, we’ve got speed, Sammy and I are clickin’. We’re gonna close them out on Monday—you just wait and see.”

  Brandon grins and says, “Well, I’ll be rooting for you.” Then he looks us all over. “Is this a social visit or can I get you something to eat?”

  Marissa orders us hot dogs and drinks, and when we’ve polished off every last bite and slurped up every drop, we wave bye to Brandon and head back to the Pup Parlor.

  What I notice first when I walk in the door are the bows in Meg’s hair. They’re all cockeyed, and one of them’s dangling from a single hair. She sees us and calls, “They’re here, Mom!”

  Vera pops up from behind the counter, shaking her head, and even though her bows are nice and tidy, she’s looking very, very tired. She says to Meg, “I’ve tried every key on this chain. None of ’em work.”

  I can see Nibbles panting away in a drying cage, and it doesn’t look like they’ve had any trouble dipping the woolly beast, but
from the angle of Meg’s bows and the look on Vera’s face I know something’s gone wrong. “What happened?”

  Meg shakes her head. “That dog ate the key to our safe.”

  Dot’s hand flies up to her mouth. “He ate what?”

  Vera says, “The key to our safe. We don’t have an extra one and I don’t know how in the world we’re going to get the thing open. We’ve got a week’s worth of deposits in there!”

  “How did he get the key to your safe?”

  Meg says, “He broke away from Mom, and the next thing you know he’s got the place turned upside down and he’s eating the key.”

  Vera holds up a plastic dog-bone key chain like it’s a prize-winning trout. The key end is missing, and the dog bone is looking pretty mangled. “I pried this out of him, but the rest is gone.”

  Well, I know it’s not funny, but I can just see Vera with her hand halfway down Nibbles’ throat, diving in for that key, and I’m having the hardest time not laughing. Then Meg says to Dot, “You’re just going to have to look for it.”

  Dot stares at her. “Look for it? What do you mean?”

  Meg shrugs and says, “It’ll come through—probably late today or tomorrow—and when it does, just clean it up and bring it back.”

  Now, Dot’s thinking, There’s no way, but what comes out of her mouth is, “Have you called a locksmith?”

  “Yeah, and they want an arm and a leg to open and key it.” She shakes her head. “It’s no big deal. Just check for it when you clean up after him, and scrub up good when you’re done.”

  Dot looks at me like, Help, so I say, “What about the combination? Isn’t that written down anywhere?”

  Meg pulls the dangling bow out of her hair. “That died with Dad. All we’ve ever had’s the key.” She pops the bow back in her hair and says, “Look, you can pay for the locksmith if you want. All we’re asking is that you check for the key.”

  We all kind of look at each other, not saying anything. Finally, Dot’s eyes crinkle closed and she says, “Okay … okay. I’ll look for it.”

  Dot pays them for dipping Nibbles, and when Vera clips his leash on and hands him over she says, “He’s a nice one, even if he is a bit of a maniac.”

  As soon as we get outside, Marissa whispers, “Are you really going to do it?”

  Nibbles starts walking Dot down the street and she calls over her shoulder, “What choice do I have? Maybe Dad’ll pay for the locksmith, but I doubt it.” She yanks on the leash and mutters, “Stupid dog!”

  So Dot goes to report the big news to her parents, and Marissa heads back to the mall to play video games. And I was planning just to go home and check in with Grams, but about halfway up the fire escape stairs I got the bright idea that I might know someone who could save Dot from having to dissect dog poop.

  At least, I thought, it was worth a shot.

  Hudson Graham likes to talk about himself. He does it all the time. But what I’ve been noticing lately is that even though I know a lot about his seventy-two years, there’s also a lot I don’t know. And it seems there are some things I’ll ask him but never really get an answer for. Like, What are you doing with so many tape recorders? and Why do you have dictionaries in so many languages? He’ll start telling me some interesting story, but lots of times it winds up not having anything to do with my question. The better I get to know Hudson, the more I think that maybe he worked for the CIA. Either that or he was a politician, I haven’t quite decided. Either way, I figured that if anyone knew how to crack a safe, it’d be Hudson Graham.

  He was sitting on his porch with his boots kicked up on the rail, reading a magazine, and his dachshund Rommel was curled up next to his chair. Rommel flipped his tail a few times when he saw me coming, which made Hudson look up from his reading. “Sammy! What a nice surprise.”

  I ruffled Rommel’s ears and ducked down to see the name of Hudson’s magazine. “Large Format … what’s that about?”

  Hudson sits up, then flips the magazine closed and shows me the cover. “It’s about view cameras and large-format photography.” He can tell I don’t know what he’s talking about so he says, “Instead of a negative the size of a cracker, large-format photographers deal with negatives the size of this magazine.”

  “Is that why you’ve got a darkroom?”

  He grins and says, “I’ve been known to dabble,” and then changes the subject. “So, I was thinking about asking Rita to church with me tomorrow. Do you think she’d be interested?”

  Now, my grandmother likes to go to church, all right, and she doesn’t like to go alone, which is how I usually get dragged into it. And since I’d been spending so much time at St. Mary’s after school, I sure didn’t want to go there on Sunday. So I say, “Sounds like a great idea to me!”

  Hudson kicks his reptile-looking boots back on the rail. “What do you think? The ten o’clock mass?”

  I plop my high-tops right next to his boots and say, “Good choice. Ten’s when she likes to go.”

  He points to my shoes. “You got new ones!”

  I laugh and say, “Yup,” and then point to his boots. “So did you! Let me guess—alligator?”

  He laughs, “Guess again.”

  “I don’t know … snake? Boa constrictor?”

  “You’re stabbing at it, child. Take it slow—color, texture, pattern. Try again.”

  I reach over and touch them and they don’t feel soft like snake. They feel rougher, more sturdy. “Okay, it’s some kind of reptile.”

  “Go on.”

  “Too tough for snake and too soft for alligator or crocodile.”

  “Go on.”

  “It’s something in between—like maybe a lizard.”

  He just sits there smiling at me.

  I study them some more. “Is that the natural color? I’ve never seen a green lizard.”

  “Keep your mind open, Sammy. Keep it open.”

  Suddenly, it clicks. “It’s iguana!”

  He gives me a great big smile, “Panamanian iguana—good girl!” He gets up and says, “I’m going to give your grandmother a call. Should I tell her you’re here?”

  Well, I think that’s a real good idea because it’ll keep me from having to explain to her why I’m there. And since Hudson doesn’t know yet, he can’t tell her. I say, “Sure. And tell her I won’t be home for a couple of hours, okay?”

  He raises one of his bushy white eyebrows at me, but then just ducks inside. When he comes back a few minutes later, he says, “We’re all set.” He kicks his lizard feet back up on the railing and grins. “And guess who’s chaperoning?”

  It takes me a second, but finally I get it. “Oh no! Why?”

  Hudson’s still grinning. “She insists.”

  I roll my eyes and mutter, “Like I haven’t spent enough time there this week.”

  He gives me an Oh? kind of look, so I tell him about how I’m working off my detention scrubbing the church down and helping out in the soup kitchen, and that the last thing I want to do is spend my day off listening to Father Mayhew talk about finding the high road to Heaven.

  Hudson runs his hand along Rommel’s back. “Hmm. That’s got to be a fairly enlightening experience—working on the inside of the temple of God.”

  I laugh. “You sound just like Sister Bernice!”

  He looks at me. “Sister Bernice? I only know Josephine and Mary Margaret.”

  So I tell him all about Bernice and the Sisters of Mercy, and how they’re doing a fundraiser for St. Mary’s. When I’m all done, he laughs and says, “This I have got to see. Do you think they’ll be at church tomorrow?”

  “I don’t know. All I know is they’re supposed to give these big performances at the end of the week, and Monday I’ve got to help them stuff envelopes.”

  Hudson studies me and says, “So what’s on your mind, Sammy?” He taps my baseball cap. “I can feel a question cooking up there. What is it?”

  I take a deep breath. “Don’t think I’m being nosy here, okay
?” He gives me a little nod so I say, “I was just wondering whether you knew anything about safecracking.”

  He raises an eyebrow, then smoothes it with a finger as it comes back down. “Why do you ask?”

  So I tell him. All about Dot and Nibbles and the key to Meg and Vera’s safe, and how Dot’s going to have to spend the next couple of days dissecting dog poop.

  He eyes me and says, “So you’re thinking maybe I can take a stethoscope to the safe, twist the knob a few times, and poof, it’ll open right up?”

  I kind of shrug. “I don’t know. I thought maybe you had some, uh, you know … experience?”

  He throws back his head and laughs, and I’m expecting him to shake his head and say, Sammy, Sammy, Sammy … like he does when I’m being dopey, but when he stops laughing, he says, “It just so happens I do know a little about safecracking, but—”

  “You do? Can you go over there and crack theirs open?”

  Hudson laughs, “Whoa, whoa! Slow down there a minute, Sammy. There are some things you need to understand about your options before you decide on the best course of action.”

  I wait while he dusts some imaginary dirt off the tip of his boot. Then he looks at me and says, “On your typical S&G lock you’ve got a dial with hash marks that run from zero to ninety-nine. If you took every configuration of those numbers for a three-number combination, you’re looking at a million possible combinations. Literally. So setting out to try every one would take ages. But on most dials there’s a considerable margin of error. For example, if one of the numbers is two, then three and four will probably work if you overshoot in one direction, and zero and one will probably work if you overshoot in the other. Depends on how sloppy the mechanism is. So really you only need to try one out of five numbers—like 0, 5, 10, 15, 20, and so on. Let’s say the combination is 3–23–56. Or 4–23–56 or 5–23–56 or 6–23–56. 5–25–55 will probably work for all of them or any other combination within the mechanism’s margin of error. You get the idea. So now the right combination isn’t one in a million, it’s about one in seven or eight thousand. Something you could do in a day or two.”