Sammy Keyes and the Dead Giveaway

  So this time I tried the signature first, and when I finally had one that looked pretty pro, I wrote the note above it.

  I checked it over. Good enough. Then I packed everything up, rode back to school, and tried not to shake as I handed the note to Mrs. Tweeter, the office lady.

  She read it and smiled, saying, “Well, you certainly look wide awake now.”

  Was I ever. But I just nodded and asked, “Are we still in first period?”

  She checked the clock. “Yes, dear.”

  So off to class I went, my heart fluttering with excitement.

  I'd done it!

  It was over!

  No one would ever know.

  But later when Marissa saw me, she said, “Sammy! Where have you been?” and since there were other people around, I said, “Uh …I overslept.”

  “Well, you'll never guess what happened in homeroom!”

  So I had to act like I didn't know a thing while she went on and on about Heather getting in trouble for snatching Mrs. Ambler's bird. “You should have seen Mrs. Ambler go after her! She was like a detective!”

  I played dumb. “Mrs. Ambler?” I said with a laugh. “A detective?”

  But Marissa was right — that's exactly how she'd seemed. And it made my stomach queasy again. What if somebody had seen me leave campus? What if they were discussing it in the office? What if they were checking my signature against the one on file? What if they were calling Grams—or, they thought, my mother—to verify? Or what if Mrs. Ambler figured it out a different way? She would think I was the most despicable person to ever walk the halls of William Rose Junior High.

  And believe me—that's saying something.

  So I was in the middle of a total panic attack when Marissa nailed the Vault of Truth closed by saying, “Knowing Heather, she killed poor Tango and hid him somewhere so Mrs. Ambler'll never know what happened to him.” She sighed and shook her head, adding, “This is an all-time low, even for her.”

  It felt like there was a dark spot on my heart. Like a bruise. And it was getting deeper and wider with every lie I told. Marissa was the one person I might have spilled the truth to, but after what she'd just said, there was no way I could tell her what I'd done.

  So I just listened and nodded and acted surprised. And at lunch when Holly asked me, “Are you feeling all right?” I said, “Huh? Oh yeah. Just a little tired, that's all.”

  Heather was gossiping like crazy during science, playing the wounded innocent. She was so, so hurt that Mrs. Ambler had accused her. “I can't believe it,” she moaned. “I just can't believe it. I really liked Mrs. Ambler … and I thought she liked me, too …”

  Class Personality ballots were passed out the last ten minutes of school. The seventh-grade ones were blue, all right, and Heather's name was still on them. So I voted against her, hoping that the rest of the school was doing the same.

  But when Miss Kuzkowski collected them and said, “Can I have a volunteer to take these to the office? They go in Mrs. Ambler's box,” I knew that Heather was going to win both categories. Wherever she was, she'd find some way to get to the office, then she'd slip her filled-in stolen ballots alongside the legitimate ballots that had been delivered to Mrs. Ambler's box.

  Heather Acosta, Friendliest.

  Heather Acosta, Most Unique Style.

  She was a shoo-in.

  When the dismissal bell rang, I just wanted to escape. School, my enemies, my friends …I wanted to get far away from anyone who knew me.

  Or, at least, anyone I'd lied to.

  So when I saw Marissa and Holly at the bike racks where we always meet, I came up with an excuse.

  Scratch that—I came up with another lie.

  “I've got to get over to Mrs. Willawago's early today,” I told them.

  Marissa frowned. “Why?”

  “Uh…I've got to do some yard work for her.”

  “Yard work?” Marissa asked. “Now you're doing her yard work?”

  I forced a laugh. “Not exactly. I, um, I just clean up after Captain Patch.”

  She blinked at me. “So let me get this straight—you're in a hurry to clean up dog poop? For a lady who's not even paying you?”

  “Well, I … I've also got a lot of homework.”

  Marissa's eyebrows shot up. “You're kidding. Who's giving you homework?”

  “Yeah,” Holly said. “I've got none.”

  God. Was I lame, or what? I could feel the weight of the lies stacking up. And all of a sudden they seemed to be smothering me. “Look,” I snapped, “you guys may not have any homework, but I do.”

  And with that I jumped on my skateboard and tore out of there.

  Mrs. Willawago may live in the coolest house I've ever seen, but it's flanked by other houses that are pretty dilapidated, and it's on Hopper, the funkiest street in Santa Martina. Hopper's got no sidewalks or curbs or gutters, just a four-foot strip of asphalt that's all worn through, cracked, full of holes, and runs right alongside the railroad tracks.

  Now, I don't know what the railroad tracks are actually used for anymore. Lights still flash and bells still clang when the safety arm lowers across certain streets in town, but all that ever seem to go by are locomotives. No boxcars, no cabooses, just one locomotive pulling another locomotive backward. They don't even switch tracks. They just toot-toot as they hold up traffic and take turns pulling each other across intersections.

  Anyway, if all the roads in that part of town were like Hopper Street, you'd think the area was just poor, or “economically challenged,” as my English teacher, Miss Pilson, likes to say. But since Hopper Ts off McEllen — which is a wide, pristine street that has the great big municipal pool complex, lawn bowling, and the fire station on one side, and the library, the historical society, and city hall on the other—well, discovering Hopper Street can be a bit of a shock.

  But anyway, I wasn't shocked because I'd been visiting Mrs. Willawago every day for three weeks. What I was, was out of breath. I'd ridden my skateboard really hard the whole way from school, and actually, being out of breath felt good. Like I'd cleansed my lungs of lies-and-deceit pollution.

  Now, since you can't exactly ride a skateboard on what's left of Hopper Street, I popped up my board and headed down the road on foot, passing by the abandoned Santa Martina Railroad Office, where Mr. Willawago used to report to work.

  “It was the cutest office you ever saw,” Mrs. Willawago told me. “Oh, there were desks and the like, as any old office has, but the boys built a miniature railroad that went around the walls, complete with trestles they'd fashioned above the doors. If someone came into the building, chuga-chuga-chuga-whoo-whoo, it would trigger the train. Praise the Lord, what a sight! It would take a trip clear round, then come to a rest until the next person went through the door.

  “They had the place decorated with pictures of the men working the line, crossbucks and a gantry, a semaphore, steel gangs and spikers … all manner of railroading paraphernalia. Frank adored the place, which is how we got our start collecting and decorating in here. It was a real ferrophiliac's delight.”

  Now, I didn't know what half the things she'd mentioned were, but ferrophiliac? I couldn't let that one slide. So I asked, “Uh …ferro-what?”

  She laughed. “Ferrophiliac. Someone who loves railroads.”

  Before Mrs. Willawago told me about the railroad office, I thought it was just another old building ready for the dozer. There's chain-link clear around it, and all the windows and doors are boarded up. And slashed all over the plywood and the building's brick are layers and layers of graffiti. It was hard to imagine it ever being anything cute or, you know, vibrant.

  But now that I knew its history, it made me kind of sad every time I walked by. It felt like the tomb of the railroad guys. A place where they'd spent their lives. A place that was now just fading memories.

  Anyway, I walked by the railroad office, then the weedy vacant lot next door, past two houses with more car parts out front than a wrecking yar
d, past another weedy lot, and then the Stones' house.

  The only reason I knew their name was because they lived next door to Mrs. Willawago, and she had joked that they were just a “Stone's throw away.” Their house was definitely weathered, but at least their front yard wasn't a car-parts graveyard. It didn't have flowers and a white picket fence or anything, but it did have the finest lawn I'd ever seen. Not fine as in great—fine as in fine hair. The blades were thin and delicate and cropped really close to the earth. Actually, the first time I saw the lawn, I thought it was fake, but even in Santa Martina most people don't mow fake grass, and that's exactly what Mr. Stone was doing as I walked by.

  He was pushing a little antique lawn mower. You know, no seat, no motor… just a handle and a wide spiral blade. And he was wearing the same thing he always seemed to wear—blue coveralls, work boots, cop-style glasses that turn dark in the sun, and one of those ball caps with the built-in safari cloths in back.

  I waved because it seemed pretty stupid not to, seeing how I was walking right by, but I might as well not have because he pretended not to see me.

  No big surprise. Mr. Stone's a bit of an odd duck, if you ask me. His weight's all in the middle, plus he's got an overgrown brown-and-gray moustache that curves around his mouth. So between that and the shades and the hat, he looks like a dressed-up walrus.

  He's also not very friendly, but Mrs. Willawago says he's actually nicer than he used to be. Apparently he injured his back at work, but she says she thinks he's been humbled by other medical problems—like skin cancer.

  Whatever. Humbled or not, he's still not very friendly.

  Anyway, it was trash day, so I moved Mrs. Willawago's empty bin into her garage, then picked up her mail and opened her front door. She likes me to just call hello and come in because it saves her from having to hobble over to answer the door. But this time I kind of choked on my hello because she was standing right there, flushed and flustered, clenching some papers in her hand. And she was breathing funny. Sort of shallow and panty.

  If she had been alone, I would have worried that she was having a heart attack. But there was another woman standing right beside her. A very patriotic-looking woman, which somehow made her seem, I don't know, safe. The lady was wearing a royal blue skirt, a white blouse, and a red blazer that had a blue-and-white scarf peeking out of the little scarf pocket. Even her feet looked patriotic in blue-and-white pumps with little red buckles across the tops.

  Something about this woman seemed familiar. Not like I'd met her before, but like I'd seen her before … maybe on TV? But before I could figure it out, Mrs. Willawago grabs me by the arm and says, “Oh, Sammy, come in!” like she's never been so relieved to see anyone in her whole entire life.

  “Are you all right?” I ask, looking from her to the patriotic lady, trying to imagine what this woman could have done to Mrs. Willawago. I mean, she was probably about as old as Mrs. Willawago and way too beauty-parlored to look threatening. Her hair was all pouffy and dyed, her nails were a perfect candy-apple red, and her face was covered in pressed powder. But where Mrs. Willawago was casual and friendly, this patriotic lady had definite airs. Like a politician who pretended to be one of “the people” but really thought “the people” were a breed beneath them.

  “I'll be all right,” Mrs. Willawago was saying, but her voice was definitely shaking, “as soon as this woman gets out of my house.”

  “This woman?” Blue Butt says, her penciled-on eyebrows arching high. “Annie, honestly, I'm here as a friend to warn you, is all. It's going to happen whether you want it to or not.” She laughs softly, but it's a slick laugh. A practiced laugh. Then she tags on, “You know what they say—you can't fight city hall.”

  And that's when it hits me—this woman is a politician.

  Someone Mrs. Willawago hasn't seen in years.

  Someone she would live happily ever after without ever seeing again.

  Someone who, it turns out, had just delivered some very bad news.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked ol' Blue Butt, and let me tell you, I didn't ask it nicely.

  She ignored me. “I'll be going now,” she said to Mrs. Willawago. “But honestly, Annie, look at the bright side.” She spread her arms a little, hands up. “Surely you'll wind up someplace better than this!”

  “OUT!” Mrs. Willawago shouted.

  I whipped open the door, and as she crossed the porch and started down the cowcatcher ramp, I said, “And feel free to stay away.”

  “Oh, I'll be back.” She laughed. “To cut the ribbon.”

  I closed the door quick and said, “That was Coralee Lyon, wasn't it?”

  “The Devil herself!” Mrs. Willawago said, hobbling into the kitchen.

  I chased after her. “What ribbon was she talking about? Why was she here?”

  Mrs. Willawago didn't answer me. She just thumbed open a worn leather address book, her hands shaking. Then she picked up the telephone that was mounted on a wall near the kitchen sink and muttered, “She will not get away with this!” as she dialed.

  She stretched the phone cord so she could see out the kitchen window toward the street, so I looked, too.

  No Blue Butt.

  No Mr. Stone to tell her to take a hike.

  Rats.

  Then someone on the other end picked up, and Mrs. Willawago said, “Teri? It's Annie. Next door? I just learned that despite our protests, the city is moving forward with their plans!” She relaxed the tension on the phone cord and turned away from the window, saying, “You did? Why didn't you call me? …Oh, oh, that's right. I was at the physical therapist.” There was a long string of “Uh-huh's” and “Yes, I know's,” and finally Mrs. Willawago said, “Why don't you and Marty come over and we'll discuss what to do… Fine. Fine. That'll be fine.”

  When she hung up, I asked, “What is going on?”

  She frowned. “Our illustrious city council had decided to seize all the properties on Hopper Street.”

  “To seize them? As in take them?”

  “That's right. If they pass a ‘resolution of necessity,’ my property becomes theirs in as little as three days!”

  “But … how can they do that? Don't you own this house?”

  “Heavens yes, I own this house! And the Stones own theirs, as do the Quinns next door that way! And the lawyer on the corner owns his, too! He's put a heap of money into renovating that place! But the city council has decided to exercise eminent domain to acquire all of them!”

  “Eminent domain?” It sounded vaguely familiar, but more like the end of the world than something you exercise. “What's that?”

  “A law. A very old law. And it was designed to be used in national emergencies or times of war or some such. It certainly shouldn't be used to expand a sports complex!”

  “Wait—what are they planning to do?”

  “They want to tear down all the buildings on Hopper Street, pull out all the lovely pines that divide us from the ball fields, and put in batting cages, a sports café, and a community rec center. Instead of my house they want batting cages!”

  A rec center? A sports café? Batting cages?

  It sounded great!

  “They offered piddles because that's what they say the house is worth, but that's really irrelevant—I am not going to sell. Not for a million dollars!”

  I'm afraid Really? was written all over my face, because she frowned and said, “It may not seem like much to you, but this home took a lifetime to create. It's my honeymoon cottage, the place my three children were raised…I have countless memories here, and …and… Frank's ashes are scattered in the backyard!”

  “I didn't—”

  “When I think of the painstaking care he put into the additions … You can't just buy a Pullman parlor car anymore, you know.” She pointed across the house. “And that one was a positive wreck when we got it. Frank restored it completely! It took him years to track down all the parts, not to mention refinishing and installing them.”

>   The doorbell rang and she said, “That'll be the Stones. Do you still have time to walk Captain Patch?”

  “Sure. And I'm sorry, Mrs. Willawago. I didn't mean to be — ”

  “Never mind,” she said, waving it off. “A million dollars sounds like a lot, I know. Especially when you're young. But you can't let money erode your principles or you'll wind up with nothing.”

  It sounded like something my friend Hudson Graham would have said. Hudson's seventy-two, and I've learned that if I'll just take a second and actually hear the things he tells me, his advice can be really good. And since this felt like one of those Hudson statements, I found myself just standing there for a minute, letting what she'd said sort of sink into my brain.

  Then Mrs. Stone stepped inside the house, saying, “Marty has to rest. His back's flared up from mowing the yard,” and since I had a dog to walk, I grabbed Patch's leash and headed for the French door that leads from the living room to the backyard.

  Before I was even outside, Patch saw me through the glass and started wagging and wiggling like crazy, spinning in a circle. I laughed and said, “Hi, boy!” then latched him to the leash and let him drag me through the side gate, out to the street, and up Hopper the way I'd come.

  He kept his nose to the ground, sniffing his way along, and when we got to McEllen, I pulled him back, trying to get him to quit yanking on the leash. But he wiggled and wagged some more, yippy-yapping at me like, C'mon! You can't be tired yet!

  So up McEllen we ran. Only as we were passing by the municipal pool, I heard someone call out, “Sammy!”

  I skidded to a halt and looked around.

  “Over here!” the voice called.

  Then the body that went with it stepped out from under the pool entrance awning.

  “Brandon?”

  He looked taller.

  Older.

  Cuter.

  How could that be?

  My heart started bouncing around a little as he came toward me, saying, “It's been ages!” He broke into a blinding smile. “I ask Marissa about you whenever our families get together … she always has some wild story to tell.”