Sammy Keyes and the Cold Hard Cash (12 page)

TWENTY-TWO

Casey
has
tried to kiss me before.

A couple of times.

Or at least I
think
he was planning to. What do I know? I’ve never been kissed by a guy.

Well, okay. So there was that one time Billy Pratt kissed me, but that was done on a dare. It was just another one of Heather’s stupid schemes to mess up my life, so it doesn’t count.

Anyway, the problem with the times Casey’s tried to kiss me was that I wasn’t ready. Either I was still freaked out about him being Heather’s brother, or I was too self-conscious about…well, stuff like my lips being dry and chapped and
cracked
from camping in the wilderness.

You do not want your first kiss to be on dry, chapped, cracked lips.

You just don’t.

But in the short window between getting over the fact that Casey was genetically linked to Heather and the fear that he might become
my
brother, I’d sort of shied away from kissing him.

Maybe I was a kissing coward.

Or maybe I still couldn’t believe that a guy as amazing as Casey actually
wanted
to kiss me.

Whatever. As we trudged up the hill to Marissa’s house, I felt really heavyhearted. For months Marissa and Holly and Dot had told me how terrific Casey was and how lucky I was that he liked me, and for months I’d come up with excuses about how come he and I could never work out.

Hudson had once said something about a “self-fulfilling prophecy,” and when I’d asked him what that was, he’d said, “It’s getting what you expect. If you expect the worst, that’s exactly what you’ll get. Instead, you should expect great things—you’ll get
them
instead.”

At the time it all sounded like a bunch of mumbo jumbo, but now it seemed like the situation with Casey was a self-fulfilling prophecy—I’d believed for so long that it couldn’t work out that now, just as I was finally admitting to myself that I wanted it to work out, it was too late. The whole thing was just blowing up—lit fuse courtesy of my self-centered mother.

Fortunately, Marissa’s mother distracted me from getting terminally ticked off at my own. We could hear Mrs. McKenze’s voice through her office door as we tiptoed down the hallway. “Bob, please. Walk away. Just walk away…. Yes, I know you’re on a roll, but…Bob,
listen
to me. You can’t win it all back. You’ll lose what you’ve won. Just walk away!…It’s okay, we’ll work it out. Just come home!…Bob! Bob, no!
Listen
to me! Red may
seem
lucky, but you’ve been drinking, and…Bob?…Bob?…Bob!”

From the cursing that followed, it was obvious he’d hung up on her. Marissa looked at me with wide eyes and whispered, “He went back to Vegas?” She knocked twice on the door and walked in. “Mom?”

“Not now,” Mrs. McKenze said, frantically stuffing things into a briefcase. “I’ve got to go.” She saw me standing in the hallway. “Sammy’s still here? Well, that’s good.” She eyed me. “Just stay out of trouble, all right?” She slid her laptop into the briefcase and turned to Marissa. “Can you check on Michael tomorrow? Tell him I love him?”

“Check on him? Where is he?”

“He’s…he’s staying at Hudson’s tonight.” Marissa’s eyes bugged out, so real fast Mrs. McKenze added, “It’s fine. Everything’s fine. He wanted to stay there, and under the circumstances…I just can’t handle dealing with him right now.”

“Are you going to Vegas?” Marissa asked, her voice small.

All Mrs. McKenze’s frantic motion stopped for a second, then she shut the briefcase lid. “
If
I can catch the eleven-thirty flight.”

“How much has he lost?”

Mrs. McKenze snapped the latches closed. “More than I care to think about.” She came around from behind her desk, gave Marissa a quick hug and kiss, and said, “I’ll get him home and we’ll straighten this all out. Don’t worry. We’ll recover. Everything will be fine.” She hurried down the hallway, calling, “If there’s an emergency, contact Aunt Nola and Uncle Bruce. But
please
don’t tell them we’ve got problems, all right? We don’t need the whole family to know!” She was out of sight now, but right before the door to the garage slammed, she shouted, “And feed Michael’s fish!”

Marissa and I decided the fish could wait.

We
were starving!

So we fed ourselves first, snacking on chips, Oreos, and ice cream. And even though we’d eaten a lot, I was still hungry. It had been a long, incredibly intense day, and I needed something
real
to eat. But that’s the problem with the McKenzes’—there’s
never
anything real to eat. It’s all prepackaged, microwavable, man-on-the-run stuff.

And then Marissa, who’d just finished putting two Pop-Tarts in the toaster, suddenly gasped and punched the bright blue eject button on the toaster. “What am I
thinking
?” she said, snatching the Pop-Tarts out of the slots. “I’m wearing a
two
-piece tomorrow!”

“Oh, good grief.” I took a Pop-Tart out of her hand and chomped down. “Forget the stupid two-piece. We’re playing water hoops!”

She punched open the trash compactor with her foot and chucked the other Pop-Tart inside it. “Not the whole time….”

One look at her pathetic pout and I understood. “Aw, Marissa, come
on.
”

“It looks really good on me,” she said, her eyes doing a total puppy-dog plead.

“Yeah, it does.”

“And he
is
going to be there.”

I sighed. “We really need to find you a new crush.”

But then she said, “And
she’ll
be there, too.”

I choked on a chunk of Pop-Tart. And after a coughing fit, I said, “Who? Heather?”

“Of course Heather.”

“Why would
she
be there?” But suddenly I realized that of course she would be. Heather had been at the ballpark when Brandon had called out that everyone was invited. “Oh, maaaaan!” I chucked the rest of my Pop-Tart into the compactor. “Talk about ruining a party.”

Marissa pulled a face and shook her head. “I can’t believe you hadn’t thought of that.”

To me this was like visiting Disneyland with a sniper on your tail. Heather wouldn’t actually get in the pool and
play
water hoops. Oh no, she’d act all cool and superior and snipe from the sidelines. She wouldn’t just sun herself or enjoy the food or hang out and be
normal,
she’d find some way to make us miserable. Anything to make us miserable.

“Look, Marissa,” I said once I was over the shock of it, “you do not want to compete for Danny’s affections like that. Your best bet is to ignore him and ignore her.”

“Oh, I’m going to ignore him, all right!” she said. “And I’m going to make sure I look good doing it.”

I groaned, but I knew there was no talking her out of it.

The phone rang, and after Marissa picked it up, she said, “Okay…okay…okay…I will…. Okay…okay…okay, bye,” and hung up.

“Your mother?” I asked.

Marissa nodded. “She made the flight. She says I shouldn’t worry, not to eat junk food, and to feed the fish.” She eyed me. “She also wants me to keep you away from matches.”

“Matches? Why matches?”

She laughed. “Some vision about you burning down the house.”

“I do
not
deserve that.”

She laughed again and said, “Come on. Let’s go feed the fish.”

Now, since we were both wiped-out tired, no one had to tell us to go to bed. We just wound up in Marissa’s room and dived for the covers. “What a day,” Marissa said with a yawn. “Softball…spying on Heather…riding Mikey’s bike downtown…my parents…your mother…. Holy smokes.”

I propped up on an elbow and looked at her. “That softball game was this morning?”

She laughed. “Yeah.”

I plopped back down. “Holy smokes is right!” Because between all the things Marissa had listed, I’d also run around town
buying
stuff and infiltrated the Highrise as Old Lady Superspy.

No wonder I was wiped out!

“G’night,” Marissa mumbled after a minute.

“Good night,” I said back.

“My family is such a mess,” she said, the words all slurring together.

“Mine too,” I chuckled.

“Yours has
always
been a mess. Except for your grandmother. She’s a rock.”

I nodded in the darkness. Grams was definitely a rock.

“Wish I had a rock,” she mumbled. “My parents have always been more into work than spending time with me or Mikey. And now my dad’s got a gambling problem?” Her voice was totally drifting off now. “Money makes you do weird stuff. It controls you. Once you have it, it’s hard to let it go.”

She may have been talking herself to sleep, but I was now wide-awake.

Money
did
make you do weird stuff.

Since I’d hit the dead-guy jackpot, I’d done some
really
weird stuff.

Desperate, almost.

Besides being paranoid about my backpack, I’d lied to Grams, lied to Marissa, kinda lied to Casey, lied to Mrs. Wedgewood, lied to André…. Who
hadn’t
I lied to since I’d found the money?

And talk about money making you do weird stuff—how much weirder can you get than sneaking around dressed up as an old lady?

But, I told myself, I wasn’t
addicted
to the money. I didn’t have a
problem
with money. It’s not like I
needed
it.

I just…liked it.

I liked being able to slip money in Grams’ wallet or leave a present for Hudson on his porch.

I liked being able to buy my own big salty pretzel at the mall or spring for the movies or Juicers.

Was that so wrong?

Marissa let out a deep, quiet breath. “
You’re
my rock, Sammy.” She rolled over. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

A minute later I could tell she’d fallen asleep. And I should have felt great about what she’d said, but I didn’t. How could I be her rock when I was keeping secrets from her and lying?

I was, like, a
fake
rock.

One of those phony movie boulders.

And that’s when it hit me that I was living a double life. There was my secret life with money, and the normal one without.

The awful thing being, I couldn’t see giving either of them up.

TWENTY-THREE

I might have drifted off thinking about life with money versus life with no money, only a thought flashed through my mind that jolted me totally awake.

The Jackal’s picture!

I’d been so detoured by Marissa’s call and Casey’s call and my mother with his father and all of that, that there’d been no place in my mental stew for what I was going to do with the Picture.

But now here I was, wide-awake in the dark, wondering what I
should
do with it.

And after a good fifteen minutes of thinking out different scenarios in my head, I finally decided that what I needed wasn’t some little image on a screen—what I needed was a real hold-in-my-hands picture.

Now, I could have asked Marissa to print it for me in the morning, but I didn’t want to have to explain who the Jackal was or why I had a camera.

Same thing with Hudson.

Or anyone else I knew with a computer.

And after spending about ten seconds running through all my printing choices, I snuck out of bed, picked up my backpack, and tiptoed down to Mrs. McKenze’s office.

Five minutes later I discovered that her office computer required a password. So I tiptoed into Mikey’s room, told his fish, “Shhhh!” and booted up his computer.

No password required!

It took me about half an hour to figure out how to get the image of Rex-the-Jackal-Randolf from the camera to the computer and then crop it so it was mostly face and hardly any background. But when his sneaky mug was finally coming through the printer, I pumped my fist and whispered, “Yes!”

When I was done, I shut everything off, hid all my stuff inside my backpack, and eased back into bed. I was awake for quite a while, though, thinking about ways I could use the picture to find out what was going on with the Jackal and the Sandman. And the plan I finally settled on involved freaking them out a little. Nothing major—just enough to get them to quit trying to track down the money.

Anyway, the next morning when the phone rang, it felt like I’d just fallen asleep. Only there was light coming through the window. And Marissa was already up, her hair wet from a shower.

“Hello?” she whispered into the phone.

“I’m awake,” I mumbled, wrapping a pillow over my head.

“Everything’s fine,” Marissa said into the phone. “Uh-huh…Uh-huh…Why?…That’s not very nice!…Fine. Whatever…. Okay! Fine!”

After she hung up, I unwrapped the pillow and eyed her. “Let me guess. She’s on her way home with your dad and she wants me out of here.”

Her jaw dropped. “How’d you know that?”

I snorted and sat up. “Educated guess.”

“I’m sorry, Sammy.”

“No big deal. I’ve got a bunch of stuff to do before the pool party, anyway.”

“Like what?”

I laughed. “Like go home and sleep.”

“I’m
really
sorry, Sammy!”

So we made a quick breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast, and I took off. And I must’ve been on autopilot, because I was planning to go straight to the Heavenly Hotel to enact my little freak-out plan, only I wound up at Hudson’s.

“Sammy!” Hudson called from the porch as I clicked along the sidewalk. And since I couldn’t exactly say, Uh, sorry, I wasn’t really planning to visit, I turned up his walkway and said, “Hey, Hudson!” like I was totally glad he was out on his porch, stopping me from getting where I wanted to go.

I plopped down in a chair next to him and eyed his hot tea and muffin. Maybe it was residual hunger from the day before, I don’t know, but even though I’d just eaten, my stomach was totally growling at the sight of Hudson’s blueberry muffin.

“Where are my manners?” he asked, getting up and disappearing inside.

“Where are
mine
?” I said with a laugh as I scooched his tea and muffin over to my side of the table.

He was back outside a minute later. “Do you know anything about a gift that was left on my porch?”

“A gift?” I asked all nonchalantly. “What kind of a gift?”

“It’s a wonderful framed photograph.”

I bit into what was now my muffin. “No card on it?”

He laughed, “Yes, but it was from a ‘secret admirer.’”

“Oh, Grams is gonna love that!” I said, ’cause Grams and Hudson have been on-again, off-again for almost a year.

Hudson raised a bushy eyebrow my way. “Michael seemed to think it was from you. He said the
e
’s were just like your
e
’s but I told him you certainly didn’t have the means to buy a gift like that.” He took a bite of his muffin and grinned at me. “He suggested that maybe you stole it.”

I snorted. “Oh, right,” I said, trying to act cool, even though the thing with the
e
’s had me in total shock. “Like I’d give you a stolen present?” I sat up a little. “Besides, I don’t steal stuff! Or play with matches!”

“Matches?”

“Never mind,” I grumbled, slouching back into my seat.

He took a sip of tea. “I think it was probably the McKenzes. I wish they wouldn’t feel that they have to do something to thank me for having Mike here.”

Now, it was one thing for him not to know who the present was from, but it kinda bugged me that he thought the
McKenzes
might have given it to him.

They seem to think I steal, egg people on, and play with matches.

So I said, “I kinda doubt it was the McKenzes. They’re in total crisis mode.”

“Hmm,” he said. “I could tell there was something going on when I spoke with Mrs. McKenze last evening.” He dropped his voice a little. “While Mike’s still sleeping, could you give me a few details about their situation?” He looked over his shoulder toward the door. “That poor
boy
is the one in crisis mode.”

I almost said, Why? ’Cause you won’t let him have Twinkies? But at the last minute I bit my tongue and whispered, “Because he doesn’t want to be here?”

Hudson shook his head, but it wasn’t the usual calm wag back and forth. His head quivered, his eyes twitched, and thoughts just seemed to be sputtering around inside his head. “He told me some things last night—I just can’t imagine.”

“Things?” I sat up a little straighter. “Like what things?”

“Like how badly he’s teased at school.”

I wanted to snort and say, For what? Being a whiny, tattling, annoying monster? but I could tell that Hudson really was upset. And even though I’d known Mikey for years and Hudson had only known him a couple of
days,
I didn’t want to come across as a know-it-all jerk. So I just said, “For…?”

“For being overweight! He broke down and cried last night, Sammy. He is terrified of school starting up again. It was heart-wrenching.”

I kinda shrugged and nodded. “Kids can be really mean.” I pulled a little face. “Especially when someone’s a whiny tattletale.”

“But…what came first? The name-calling or the whining? Nobody should be called Chunky Monkey, or Fatty McWide, or Chubby Cheese, or Blubber Butt, or the Flab-o-Matic, or Tub-o-Chub, or Lardo….” His voice trailed off as he shook his head.

I just sat there a minute, blinking. “He told you all that?” But then I decided that Mikey was making stuff up for sympathy. You know, pulling an old guy’s chain.

Mikey McKenze is the
master
of pulling people’s chains.

Hudson let out a puffy-cheeked sigh. “What bothered me most was Jab-the-Flab.”

“Jab-the-Flab? What’s that?”

“At recess, kids poke him and run.” He shook his head. “And of course he can’t catch them. Recess must be a nightmare.”

For the first time in my entire life, I felt a strange wash of sympathy for Mikey.

Jab-the-Flab?

Not even
he
would make that up.

“So,” Hudson was saying, “any insight would be very much appreciated.”

I took a deep breath. “This is top-secret, okay? Mrs. McKenze doesn’t like other people knowing their business.”

He nodded, so I gave a quick rundown of the situation, and when I was done, he just sat there, quiet. No philosophical thoughts, no musings; he just sat there, quiet.

So I finally got up and said, “Sorry, Hudson, but I’ve got to go. I’ve got a million things to do before Brandon’s pool party this afternoon.”

He snapped to. “A pool party? Well, enjoy yourself!”

“Thanks!” And as I hit the sidewalk, I called, “Say hi to Mikey for me!”

Which was weird.

Never in my life had I wanted anyone to say hi to Mikey for me.

Never.