Sammy Keyes and the Dead Giveaway

  Olivia looked at him like he was a few trinkets short of a real treasure, but Marissa and I shared a grin, then tied bandannas around our heads like do-rags. “Arg!” we said to each other. “Arg!” we said to the guys.

  “Gar!” they said back at us with eye patches on.

  “G'on, wench!” Billy said to Olivia. “Or we'll make ye walk the plank!”

  So Olivia laughed and tied on a bandanna. “Arg!”

  “All right then, mateys!” the driver said. “The Black Pearl is set to sail. Where to, Captain?”

  Danny looked around at the rest of us. “Where do you want to eat? We'd talked about going to the Grill, but—”

  “Arg!” Billy snarled. “And leave the Black Pearl? I say we get a bucket o' bones and sail the seven seas!”

  “Aye!” we all cried, so Danny laughed and told the driver, “Set sail for Crispy Chicken, matey!”

  So that's what he did, and on the ride over Billy lifted his cup and said, “Another round of grog!” and when we all had more cider, he started singing, “Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me!”

  Casey actually knew some of the words to the song, so he threw in: “We're rascals and scoundrels and villains and knaves. Drink up, me hearties, yo ho. We're devils and black sheep —really bad eggs. Drink up, me hearties, yo ho!”

  Then we all joined in, singing, “Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me!”

  “We're beggars and blighters and ne'er-do-well cads. Drink up, me hearties, yo ho! Aye, but we're loved by our mommies and dads. Drink up, me hearties, yo ho!”

  “Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me!”

  The Hummer couldn't make it through the drive-through at Crispy Chicken, so the guys all jumped out and brought back two big buckets of chicken legs. No other parts, just legs. Which, of course, we had to eat like a bunch of ravenous pirates, ripping the meat off the bone, going, “Arg!” and “Gar!” and tossing bones back in a bucket.

  Meanwhile, the driver cruised around town whistling the yo-ho song. And even though we all would have been perfectly happy not to go to the dance, that is where we were supposed to be going. So we headed for school, and by the time we arrived there was no doubt about it— crazy or not, we were going in as a jolly band of pirates.

  Arg!

  TWENTY-ONE

  So at our school dances they don't let you into the gym until a certain time or after a certain time, and then once you're in, you're not allowed to leave until the dance is over. It's Mr. Caan's way of controlling the situation, and believe me, he's big on control.

  Even though there were only about five minutes left before they closed the gym doors, there were still a whole bunch of kids outside when the Black Pearl sailed into the drop-off zone. I guess that's the thing about being controlled—you avoid it any chance you get, even if that means shivering outside when you could be inside out of the wind.

  There were also two other limos ahead of us—both white. Heather, Monet, and Tenille were just getting out of one of them, and they were all wearing dresses. I'm talking spaghetti straps, wraps, jewelry, updos, the whole nine yards. I nudged Marissa and whispered, “Do you wish you had gone with them?”

  “Are you kidding?” she whispered back. “This is the most fun I've had in my entire life!”

  I grinned. “Me too.”

  Anyway, as we eased into the drop-off zone, all the kids shifted their attention from the white limos to the Hummer. It was a total teen magnet.

  Danny made us wait for the driver to open a door for us, and when he did, we all piled out, going, “Arg!” and “Gar!” and “Ahoy there, matey!”

  Real classy, huh?

  Everyone laughed, especially at Billy, who was carrying the bucket of chicken bones, going, “Don't cross us, landlubbers, or this be yer fate! Arg!” as he shook a bone. Then he snatched off the Jolly Roger flag and led us all to the gym, saying, “Come along, buccaneers! Come along, wenches! Time to walk the plank!” So a whole bunch of kids followed the seven of us as we marched toward the gym, singing, “Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me …”

  Now, as we were waiting in line to have our student ID cards checked, Marissa nudged me and cocked her head toward the parking lot. “Look at her,” she whispered in my ear. “She's in a rage already.”

  Sure enough, Heather was talking to Tenille and Monet, hands clenched, face pinched into a frown. Then some girls behind us started gossiping about them.

  “Why are they dressed like they're going to the prom?”

  “Why'd they get a limo? Aren't they all seventh graders?”

  Pretty soon a lot of people in line were talking about them, making the typical cutting junior high remarks.

  Now, part of me was surprised by this. From the way I'd been processed through the gossip machine for most of the year—thanks to Heather—I figured kids just bought what she sold.

  But now here I was listening to the machine turn on her, and I couldn't help feeling a little … sorry for her. And Casey. I mean, he was standing right beside me and could hear all the acidic remarks, too. And even though he always acts like Heather is a pain, she is his sister, and how could you not be embarrassed by what everyone was saying?

  But when I looked at him like, Ouch! he just rolled his eyes and said, “I tried to warn her, but you know Heather.”

  Then he looped an arm around my waist and smiled. “You're the last one who's supposed to be feeling sorry for her, y'know?”

  I tried not to jerk. Tried not to look totally freaked. But his hand was warm. And heavy. And all of a sudden it felt like everyone was watching and whispering about us instead of Heather.

  But then we were in the foyer and it was our turn to show our IDs, so his hand dropped away.

  The people checking IDs and handing out yearbooks turned out to be Mrs. Ambler and Vice Principal Caan.

  “There you are!” Mrs. Ambler says to me, but when she sees who I'm with, her eyes sort of bug. She recovers quickly, though, and says, “Well!” as she checks a list. “Sammy ordered a yearbook,” she says to Mr. Caan, “and Mr. Acosta …gets one, too.”

  So Mr. Caan hands over two yearbooks and two pens and says, “What's with the pirate theme tonight? I had to confiscate Mr. Pratt's hook hand and his ‘bucket o' bones.’”

  “We sailed in on the Black Pearl, sir,” Casey tells him. Then he hitches a thumb toward the parking lot and says, “Courtesy of Danny's mother. Check it out when you get a chance.”

  “Well, have a good time,” he says, then eyes me with a sigh. “And promise me you'll stay out of trouble tonight, all right?”

  “Arg!” I say with a little squint, then laugh and add, “Of course.”

  So into the gym we went. The lights were off except for a disco ball in the middle of the room, some light-up palm trees, and spillover lighting from the foyer and the locker-room hallways. There were chaperones posted at every exit, and balloons, streamers, and painted butcher-paper signs that said FAREWELL 8TH GRADERS and HAVE A GREAT SUMMER decorated the walls. Music was thumping through speakers on either side of some tables where a DJ had set up, but no one was dancing—they were all gathered in little groups off to the sides, poring over their yearbooks.

  Billy had already attracted a covey of girls and was entertaining them by pretending to converse with his parrot, while Marissa and the others were standing near a light-up palm tree, checking out their yearbooks.

  “Come on!” Casey said with a smile, then grabbed my hand and led me over to the others.

  Now, Casey has held my hand before. Actually, he's kissed my hand before, but that was at a Renaissance faire when he was playing the part of some Renaissance guy. It didn't mean anything, but my hand was freaked out about it for a week anyway.

  So what I'm confessing here is that my hand is real good at making a huge deal out of nothing. Like one time Brandon McKenze let me borrow his catcher's mitt, and my hand thought it had died and gone to heaven.

  Stupid, sweaty appendage.

  And now with
the way Casey had grabbed it and was pulling me along, well, you'd think that I'd stuck it in an electrical outlet or something. There it was, spazzing away, while the rest of me was too paralyzed to yank it free.

  Luckily, you need two hands to look in a book, so once we were with the others, our hands just sort of went their separate ways. We all wound up sitting on the floor in a circle, checking out our yearbooks, laughing at the wacky collage pictures and how dorky we all looked in our beginning-of-the-year photos. Then we passed our books around, signing each other's, which was easy for me to do in Nick's and Olivia's because I barely knew them:

  It was fun getting to know you aboard the

  Black Pearl. Arg!

  Good luck in high school,

  Sammy

  But Danny's was harder 'cause what I really wanted to say was, Don't trifle with the affections of my best friend, dude, or there'll be hell to pay, but I knew that Marissa would kill me if I did. So I made some dopey comment about how lucky he was to be getting out of junior high jail before us and just passed it on.

  Marissa's I couldn't do right then and there. We'd had such a wild year that I didn't even know where to begin. So I made a border design around an entire autographs page in back and wrote SAVED FOR SAMMY on top of it. Then I started writing stupid stuff in Casey's. I thanked him for being different from everybody else I knew, and for standing up for me when it could have gotten him in a lot of trouble, and for being funny and calm and patient and protective—even though I didn't need him protecting me—and for making junior high a whole lot more enjoyable than it would have been.

  I didn't want to say a bunch of mushy stuff—like how he's got the most chocolaty eyes I've ever seen, or how he's noble and dashing and strong, or how I wear the little lucky horseshoe he gave me everywhere 'cause it makes me happy to know I have a friend like him.

  Nope. Sure didn't want to say any of that.

  So I was trying to figure out how to wrap it up when I noticed that everyone else was already done.

  So … what had Casey put in mine?

  Have a nice summer. Be cool?

  God, was I being embarrassing, or what? I was taking this whole yearbook-signing thing way too seriously.

  So real fast I wrote a bunch of Arg!s and Gar!s and Ahoy!s and signed off, “Drink up, me hearty, yo ho!” and scrawled my name.

  Then the DJ cut into the end of the song he'd been playing and announced, “All riiiight! Enough with those books, it's time to get this party started!” He cranked up the volume and “Get the Party Started” came thumping over the P.A.

  “Let's put the books in our gym lockers!” Marissa shouted over the music.

  “Good idea!” we all said.

  So the boys went to the boys' side, and we girls went to the girls' side, and since Olivia was an eighth grader, she went to her section of the locker room while Marissa and I went to ours.

  And of course, the first thing we did when we were alone was paw through our yearbooks to see what Casey and Danny had written.

  “That's it?” Marissa said when she found hers. She seemed crushed, so I looked to see what he'd written.

  Hope you had a good time at the dance.

  Danny

  She turned to my book and said, “What did Casey say in yours?”

  Now, I could tell that if Casey had written something equally boring in mine, Marissa would somehow feel better about what Danny had written. So I said, “I haven't found it yet, but I don't think he wrote much, either.”

  “Guys,” she grumbled. “I tell you.” But then she spotted it. “Wait! Go back!”

  I didn't want to because I'd glimpsed enough of it to know that it was not going to make her feel better. But she flipped the page back herself, and we both read what he'd written:

  Sammy—

  You're amazing!

  Love, Casey

  “Ohmygod!” she whispered. “That is so …romantic!”

  “Stop it, Marissa,” I warned.

  “Sammy, he worships you!”

  “Stop it!” I said through my teeth.

  “And he signed it Love.”

  I shoved the yearbook in my locker and slammed the door shut. “STOP IT!”

  Just then a voice snakes into our alcove. “You losers having a little problem?”

  We both whip around, and there's Heather and her sidekicks, sneering at us through way too much lipstick.

  “Let's go,” I say to Marissa.

  But the three of them spread out, blocking our way out of the alcove.

  “What's with the do-rags, losers? Tryin' to look like gangsta girls?”

  “Lighten up, Heather,” Marissa says. “We're just having fun.”

  “What you're doing is looking dumb.”

  “Fine,” I tell her. “We're looking dumb. Now will you please just step aside?”

  But she doesn't step aside. She sneers and says, “I heard you went to Crispy Chicken for dinner.” She snorts. “Hot date.”

  Now, I'm trying hard not to get caught in a war of words with her, but Marissa's already a little backcombed because of what Danny had written in her yearbook, so she snaps, “It's not where you go, it's who you're with,” as she tosses looks at Tenille and Monet.

  So, good friend that I am, I can't let Marissa wage war alone—I pull the pin on a little word grenade and toss in, “Yeah. Where'd you guys go to dinner? Sour Krauties? Oh wait—that was for your facials.”

  Sure enough, Heather explodes. “You guys think you're so hot, coming to the dance with eighth graders in that butch-mobile! Well, I've got news for you — you're nothing but classless losers!” She sneers at Marissa. “Danny's mom thinks you're a real good connection for her son 'cause you're rich” — she turns to me — “and my brother's just trying to get me mad by going out with you! You may think you're smart and hip and cool, but nobody on this campus likes you. Neither of you got nominated for anything. You're just a couple of dorky losers!”

  Marissa's number one weak spot is her parents' money. She's had a real problem with friends because she can't tell whether they like her for her or for her money. So what Heather said struck where it hurt. And combined with the detached thing Danny had written in her year-book, I wouldn't have been shocked to see Marissa just break down in tears.

  But I learned right then that Marissa's not the same timid person that she was at the beginning of the school year. Instead of backing down, she takes a step forward and says, “Nominated? Oh, you're talking about the Class Personality categories.”

  All of a sudden the situation feels like it's slipping out of control. I look at her like, Don't say anything, Marissa. Don't! but it doesn't do any good. She says, “I heard there was a problem with the ballots.”

  I'm looking at her like, SHUT UP! but she's not seeing me. She's too ticked off at Heather and Danny and junior high life.

  She takes a step closer to Heather. “Uh-huh. I heard there was a problem with someone cheating.”

  Heather backs down a little, her face doing tiny twitches. Like a marshmallow on a stick held above a fire. Roasting. Sizzling. Melting on the inside. Getting ready to burst into flames.

  “What's she talking about?” Tenille whispers, and Monet adds, “Do they know something we don't?”

  Marissa snorts, then gives Heather a deadly look as she says, “Count 'em and weep, loser.”

  Then she pushes past Heather and out of the alcove.

  TWENTY-TWO

  I chased after Marissa and whispered, “Do you have any idea what you just did?” sounding just like her talking to me.

  “I don't care, okay? I don't even care.”

  “But now she's going to think we ratted her off.”

  “I tell you—I don't care.”

  “Marissa!”

  Her head snapped to face me. “We didn't lie and steal and cheat and deceive! She did. And if she wants to get in a brawl over it, well fine. Bring it on.” She looked over her shoulder and snarled, “Coming in here like she's some pr
om princess, putting us down…give me a break!”

  “Marissa,” I whispered. “You may feel that way, but I don't!”

  Her face scrunched up. “Why not?”

  “Does the name Tango ring any bells?”

  Her eyes got wide. Her mouth became a little, Oooh! Then she grabbed me by the arm and said, “I'm sorry! That was really, really stupid of me! I forgot about that part of it!” Then she tried to be optimistic, saying, “She'll never figure it out.”

  “Heather's not stupid, Marissa. I mean, who was absent the day Tango went missing?”

  She cringed. “You. But don't think about it. Don't worry about it. Look, if anyone takes the fall for it, I will.”

  I let out a long, puffy-cheeked breath. “She really got to you, didn't she?”

  Her eyes welled a little with tears. “Because I think it's true.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he has said stuff about how I live in a mansion and how my parents can afford stuff …” She looked down. “But mostly it's what he wrote in my yearbook — it's so lame.”

  Now, if Marissa hadn't had a heart-stopping crush on Danny since elementary school, I would have told her to take a step back and that time would tell. But she was so emotional about him that I really did feel sorry for her.

  So instead, I said, “Do you think what Heather said about Casey is true?”

  “No!”

  “But see? I've spent a lot of time wondering if that is his motivation for hanging around me! And if I let myself, I could get all worked up about it right now. But that's how Heather operates—she uses poison, and if you just go ahead and swallow what she says, it's bound to make you sick.”

  She stood there nodding and blinking and thinking. “You're right. You're absolutely right.” Then she about floored me by saying, “And you know what? I'm not going to let her ruin tonight. Time will tell what Danny's real feelings are. For now, I'm just going to take a step back. There's no way I'm going to be some dopey, star-struck fool.”