Sammy Keyes and the Dead Giveaway

  Now she tells me.

  But anyway, Thursday after school Mr. Pence and his science club were selling supersour suckers to raise money for some Rocket Wars Camp they're attending this summer. And since I love supersour suckers, I broke down and let Marissa buy me one. Normally, I don't let her spend money on me, even though she always offers. I guess you'd say it goes against my philosophy of friendship.

  But they had supersour apple, so I couldn't resist. And since these are big, square, chunky suckers, there was plenty of pucker power left to my sucker by the time I got to Mrs. Willawago's.

  It was trash collection day, so I dragged her empty trash can into her garage, then waited for the mailman, 'cause he was whistling his way up the street.

  When he reached me, he handed over Mrs. Willawago's mail and motioned over to Appliance Andy's. “Do you know if the folks next door are on vacation? Their mail's piling up.”

  I shrugged. “They're probably still in jail.”

  His eyes popped. “Jail?” Then he put up a hand and said, “Never mind—I don't want to know,” and continued toward the Stones', whistling his merry little tune.

  It did seem strange, though, that the Hairy Bowling Pins would still be in jail. Unless they hadn't been able to make bail or something. So I asked Mrs. Willawago about it when I went inside.

  “Oh, lamb,” she said. “I found out this morning that Andy is a swindler! He's wanted in thirteen states for insurance fraud! He's one of those deplorable people you hear about that preys on old people's fears. And imagine—him living right next door! I wonder if he ever phoned me. I get calls like that, you know. They were supposed to put an end to it, but I still get them!”

  So. Appliance Andy was out of the picture. The threats had stopped. Maybe Mrs. Stone was right that it had been Andy making the threats. Maybe he wanted to sell his house and skip town.

  Made sense.

  I guess.

  Mrs. Willawago squinted at me. “Why are your lips all green?”

  I showed her my sucker, which I'd been holding politely by my side. “I'm supporting the science club,” I said with a grin, then popped it back in my mouth.

  She laughed. “I'm going to miss you, you know that?”

  All of a sudden I felt bad. I'd probably miss her, too.

  Just not tomorrow.

  Or over the weekend.

  Or— “I know you have your own life to live … but maybe you can still come over once in a while?”

  “Sure,” I said. “I'll have lots of time this summer.” Then I got the leash, and Captain Patch and I started our last adventure around the big block.

  We went the way Patch always wants to go—west. Only this time he practically killed me, yanking me around the Stones' trash can. “Patch!” I shouted. “Patch, heel!”

  “Yip-yap-arf! Yip-yap-arf!” he barked, wagging and wiggling. Then he smelled something delicious on the sidewalk, and off he went again, following one scent until it led to another, to another, all the way around the block.

  Like always, he lunged for Leland Hawking, Esquire's sign, but this time I let him add a posting while I grinned about the orange CLOSED sign in the front window. It had been there since Tuesday. And as we rounded the corner, it occurred to me just how many secrets had come out in the past week. Mine, Coralee's, Appliance Andy's, Leland Hawking's …

  And then I giggled with the thought that there was one more secret that was coming out of the closet on Friday.

  Heather's!

  So I took a delicious chomp and shattered what was left of my sucker, thinking how nice it was not to be sweating anything out. And as I passed by Appliance Andy's house, it hit me that confessing to Mrs. Ambler might have been one of the hardest things I'd ever done, but it was probably the best thing I'd ever done. I'm not talking goody-two-shoes stuff. I'm talking the best thing I'd ever done for myself.

  Anyway, by the time I made it back to Mrs. Willawago's, all that remained of my supersour sucker was a well-chomped, soggy stick.

  It was pretty gross, let me tell you. And since the Stones' trash can was still at the curb, real near where I'd go in the side gate to put Patch away, I went over, opened the lid, and tossed the stick inside.

  Only as I was closing the lid, my eye caught on something. Something stuck to the inside wall of the can.

  I opened the can again. The inside was wet from trash ooze, which was working like glue on scraps of garbage. And near the rim, one of those scraps was a full sheet of paper.

  It was smaller than binder paper but bigger than a notepad.

  With discolored edges.

  And faded green lines.

  As I reached inside and peeled it off, a tingle ran through me like I'd touched naked wires.

  There was nothing, not one word, written on it.

  EIGHTEEN

  “Sammy?” Mrs. Stone said, coming out of her house toward me. “What're you doin' in my trash?”

  I put down the lid. “I was just throwing away my sucker stick, but then I noticed this stuck to the side of your trash can.” I held out the paper and kept a close eye on her face.

  Captain Patch sniffed the hem of her peasant dress. Her socks. Her sandals. And all the while Mrs. Stone stood stock-still, staring at the paper. No nervous fluttering. No snatching it from me. Some color had risen to her cheeks, but that was it.

  “It's the same weird paper the threats were written on …?”

  Finally, she said, “Where did you find it?”

  “Inside your trash can.”

  “Well, that's odd,” she said, gently taking it from me. “That's very odd.”

  “Indeed,” I said, sounding very English.

  “I know what you're thinkin',” she said. “And I'd be thinkin' the same thing if I was you. But why would I send myself a threatening letter?”

  “Maybe so nobody would suspect it was you sending the letters?”

  “But why would I send Annie one? We're on the same side!”

  “What about your husband?”

  “He's on the same side, too!”

  My mind was racing through the things that had happened in the last week. “Pretty convenient, don't you think, that the rock thrown at your house sailed through an open window?”

  “It could've killed Marty!”

  “According to Marty, right? I mean, did you see it happen?”

  “Yes!” she said. “I mean no! I saw it just after it landed.”

  Now, I couldn't tell if she was covering for her husband or if she was in on it, too. So I said, “Well, I tell you what—why don't we go in and ask him? Why don't we find out why he's making death threats and chucking rocks and pretending like he doesn't want to move when maybe he really does? I mean, according to Mrs. Willawago, you guys hated living here until—”

  “Stop it!” she says, glancing over her shoulder at the house.

  “Are you afraid to? Then maybe I should just call the police.”

  “No!” She covers her face with her hands for a moment, then says, “Look. It beats me why that paper was in our trash. Maybe that jerk on the other side of the Willywagos' planted it there!”

  “He's in jail.”

  “In jail? Still? Well, it really don't matter. Nobody got hurt, right?” She glances over her shoulder again, then says, “I just wanna live in peace. Can you please just leave us alone?” Then before I can say, Uh, no, ma'am, she turns around and hurries back inside her house.

  After standing there for a solid minute, I realized that for once I was in the mood to just let it go. I mean, it was my last day in this dumpy neighborhood, right? And whether her husband was a reformed abusive drunk or not, Teri Stone was obviously still afraid of him.

  But there was one thing that made all the threats a lot more sinister than they might otherwise have seemed.

  The hole someone had dug under the back fence.

  I didn't care what anyone said, I knew Patch hadn't made that hole. And there was only one reason for the hole—someone was hoping
Patch would follow a scent right up to heaven.

  Or at least far enough away that he couldn't find his way home.

  And maybe if the Train House had been stripped of all its precious train stuff while we were at the council meeting, well, it would have made sense for some burglar to spring the dog.

  But why not just let him out the side gate?

  No, someone had tried to make it look like Patch had escaped on his own. And since the Train House hadn't been burglarized, who else would have done it except Teri or Marty?

  But talk about drastic! Did Patch really bug them that much? What was the big deal? Was their garden that precious to them?

  So I didn't just forget about it. I put Patch in the backyard, then went inside to tell Mrs. Willawago what I'd discovered.

  Trouble is, Mrs. Willawago wasn't in the living room. Or the kitchen. Or the front room.

  Then all of a sudden I hear a thump from down the hallway. Not a sinister thump. More just, you know, a regular thump.

  So I mosey down the hallway, going, “Mrs. Willawago? Hello?”

  Then I see that the door to the bedroom where I'd shoved Patch on Flying Rock Day is partly open, so I peek inside and what do I see?

  The bottom half of Mrs. Willawago.

  She is still attached to her top half, but she's standing on her tippytoes on a step stool, reaching into the closet, so all I can see of her is from the waist down. “Mrs. Willawago?” I ask, but she doesn't hear me because she's half buried in the closet, struggling to get something down off the shelf. Or put something away. I'm not sure which. So I say it again, louder. “Mrs. Willawago?”

  Her arms stay up, but her head whips out of the closet, her eyes enormous. And I'm about to say, I didn't mean to startle you! when all of a sudden stuff comes tumbling off the closet shelf. A hat, a doll, a wreath…and as Mrs. Willawago tries to stop the avalanche, something else crashes to the floor.

  A metal box.

  Mrs. Willawago screams as it busts open, spilling gray-ish sand everywhere. I rush to help her, but she turns on me and shouts, “Get out! Look what you've done! Get out!”

  She's not hurt, but the sand's made a mess, and since I don't feel right just leaving, I ask, “Do you want me to get the vacuum cleaner?”

  “No!” she screams, scooping the sand back into the box.

  And that's when I realize that this sand is too dusty to be regular sand.

  It's more like … ash.

  But…Mrs. Willawago didn't have a fireplace …and besides, why would anyone keep ashes in a closet?

  Then it hit me.

  These were ashes.

  Her husband's ashes!

  She hadn't scattered them in her backyard—she'd just said that to get sympathy!

  Man, talk about having a skeleton in the closet—this was the real deal!

  Well, the powdered version of the real deal, anyway.

  I left her alone, but I didn't leave the house. I sat in the front room thinking. Brooding. She had totally lied. To me, to the reporter, to the city council… And why? Did she think that was the only way to get people's sympathy about her property?

  So what else had she lied about? What other secrets was she keeping?

  The longer I sat there, the creepier I felt, and when she finally emerged from the bedroom and said, “Why are you still here?” I gave her a hard look and said, “You and the Stones were in on this together, weren't you?”

  “In on what together?”

  “The rocks, the letters … they were just for getting sympathy, like telling people you'd scattered your husband's ashes in the backyard.”

  Her face pinched into a pious frown. “I find your accusation to be brash and insulting. I had nothing to do with the threats.”

  I stood up. “Yeah, that's what Mrs. Stone said, too. But I found a piece of paper in her trash can that's just like the paper the threats were written on. And when we talked about it, she pronounced your name Will-y-wago, which goes with the way your name was spelled on the envelope of the letter you got. And wasn't it convenient that the rock crashed through your window when the reporter was here? Nice way to get yourself bumped up to the front page, wasn't it?”

  “How dare you! I had nothing to do with the threats.”

  I scowled. “Yeah, and your husband's ashes are scattered in the backyard, too.”

  She pointed to the front door. “Leave.”

  I didn't hop to or anything, so she actually pulled me by the arm and started shoving me out the door, saying, “It is time for you to leave.” She wasn't hobbling, either. And she was surprisingly strong.

  After she'd thrown me outside and closed the door, I just stood on her porch for a minute, stewing. I'd walked her dog for a full month, I'd saved her bacon at the council meeting, I'd helped her get back at her archenemy, and after all that, I make one little logical accusation and she tosses me out on my ear?

  Well, fine! If that's how she was going to be, what did I care? It's not like she'd been doing me any favors.

  I stormed off, telling myself that it'd be a windless day in Santa Martina before I set foot back on Hopper Street.

  The trouble with my brain is, it won't shut down. It can tune out fine. Like when Mr. Holgartner's talking about, well, about anything, or Vice Principal Caan's holding us hostage in the gym to lecture us about trash on campus, or Miss Pilson starts her little spiel about how we need to find a passion for something other than ourselves and that the work of Shakespeare is a very good place to begin…I can tune out quicker than you can click your remote. But turning my brain off ? I haven't quite figured that out yet.

  And the other trouble is, usually when I'm tuning out, I'm switching over to the puzzle channel. So even if I tell myself that I'm through thinking about something, my brain has this way of overriding that, and I find myself stewing or brooding or just running through different scenes in my mind. Like Coralee being in Mrs. Willawago's house. Or Appliance Andy and the Old Lady being cuffed behind the fence. Or Mr. Stone chasing after me with a hoe. Some things I play in slow motion, some I go through in double speed. And I find that the ones that I keep coming back to have something in them that doesn't quite feel right. Usually I don't even know what that is, but it's like my subconscious knows and it's trying to relay it to my conscious mind.

  So that night I tried to get some sleep, telling myself, Forget about it! You're through with Mrs. Willy-whatchamacallit and her wacko neighbors! It doesn't matter anymore. Who cares who sent the letters? Who cares who threw the rocks? Who cares who dug the hole? It's over!

  But my mind had a mind of its own. It kept going back to Hopper Street. Kept telling me, Play it again, Sammy. Look at everything all over again.

  So whether I wanted to or not, I did. And the funny thing is, I didn't spend much time thinking about Mrs. Willawago and her powdered skeleton—I sort of chalked that up to desperate times and desperate measures. It was the things Mrs. Willawago had said about the Stones that my mind kept drifting back to. The cancer. The quitting drinking. The changes in Mr. Stone.

  If he'd become a better person, why was Mrs. Stone still so afraid of him?

  Did he threaten her with a hoe?

  Mrs. Willawago had said she'd heard screaming and crying, and had seen bruises, but all that had stopped when the drinking had stopped.

  But maybe it hadn't really. Maybe Mr. Stone was just sneakier about it. I'd heard of men who were really controlling of their wives—didn't let them have friends or talk to the neighbors or even stay connected to their family— but I'd never actually met one before.

  And I didn't understand her at all. She seemed scared of him, but she was protective of him, too. Why protect him? Was she embarrassed? Did she think she was to blame? Why was she hiding the way he treated her? Why had she put up with it all these years? Why didn't she just leave?

  So my mind was swimming with questions, wading through scenes from my encounters on Hopper Street. And the last vision I had before drifting off was of
Mr. Stone.

  Coming at me with a hoe.

  NINETEEN

  The next morning the phone rang early. It was Marissa, cock-a-doodle-dooing a list of instructions for me. “I was thinking we should bring hand towels. And mittens! You know, for when we go ice-blocking? And do you think we should get some special pens or something? For signing yearbooks? And what about a disposable camera? I don't want to bring a real camera, but a disposable one could be cool! And don't forget a jacket. You can borrow one of mine if you want, but if you don't want to, bring your own because if the fog comes in, it'll be cold! Especially if we're sitting on ice! Do you think we should bring extra pants? Or maybe a hair dryer for if our bottoms get wet?”

  “Marissa?”

  “Uh, yeah?”

  “Have you been thinking about this all night?”

  “Yes! Absolutely! I got like, no sleep. How about flash-lights? Do you think we should bring those?”

  “Why? You want your block of ice to have a headlight?”

  “No! But what if we go ice-blocking somewhere really dark …”

  I sighed. “Marissa, we don't need all that stuff. Don't overpack, okay? If you come out with a giant suitcase, it'll be embarrassing.”

  “But … what if we need stuff?”

  “Look. I'll talk to you at school, okay? I haven't even taken a shower yet.”

  I could practically see her jaw drop. “You're just getting up? Just now?”

  “Yup.”

  “Are you packed?”

  “I didn't know I had to pack.”

  “How can you be so nonchalant?” Then she added, “Whatever, whatever. You can borrow from me. Just hurry up, okay? You're going to be late! Oh! And don't forget your student ID!”

  “Okie-dokie,” I said.

  “Okie-dokie? Okie-dokie? A day like today and you okie-dokie?”

  I laughed and said, “Yup. Now toodaloo!” and hung up the phone.

  All week Mrs. Ambler had been one cool customer. So much so that I was actually starting to wonder if something had gone wrong with our little plan. Maybe Mr. Caan had nixed the idea of exposing Heather at the dance. Maybe the ballot numbers hadn't worked out right. Maybe … who knows what? With adults it can be anything. They say we don't worry enough about consequences, but if you ask me, they worry too much.