Sammy Keyes and the Curse of Moustache Mary (13 page)

I scoot out from under the truck holding my forehead. “I'm fine.”

“Are you
sure?
”

I sit there on the ground and say, “Yeah. But I think they could build a ski resort around this bump on my head.”

He tries not to laugh, but he can't help it. “You're a mess!”

I get up and look in one of the elephant-ear mirrors, and sure enough, I'm a mess. Not only is Mount Everest erupting on my forehead, but it's smudged black with oil and grime. And then there's the splat, which has nicely run all the way down my cheek to my jawbone, leaving a faint pink trail. I wipe off some of the splat with my fingertips and rub my thumb against it, trying to figure out how a truck like that could possibly contain anything
pink,
when Casey asks, “Is that tranny fluid?”

I wipe off some more and say, “I don't know.”

So he comes right up, swipes my cheek with a finger, rubs it against his thumb, then holds it up to his nose and
smells
it. “Yup. Tranny fluid.”

I take a whiff, too, and it does smell different. Kind of sweet. “Is that from the transmission?” “Yeah. Ben's truck leaks all
kinds
.” He stretches the sleeve of his flannel shirt over his palm and cleans my cheek with it, but I still feel greasy and grimy. “Thanks, but I think I ought to wash this stuff off. Is there a bathroom I can use?”

“C'mon, I'll show you.”

As I'm following him back to the house, I notice that his flannel's got dust and little pebbles stuck to it, so I say, “Hold still,” and swat off his back. He does the same for me, only I guess I'm a bigger mess than he was because he
starts swatting off my sleeves, too, and before I can stop him, he whacks my sore arm.

I jump away with a yelp, and he says, “What? What? Did I
hurt
you?”

I pull up my sweatshirt sleeve and show him my bandaged arm. “From this morning…?”

“Oh yeah…! Sorry.” He grins and says, “You've had a real couch-potato day, haven't you?” then leads me into the house.

I lock myself up in the bathroom, get the water really hot, then scrub my face down. And as I'm drying off, I realize that the voices I'm hearing through the wall aren't party voices—they're angry voices.

I scoot up close to the wall behind the toilet, but I can't make out any words. Just muffled, angry sounds. So I put my ear smack-dab against the wallpaper. And now I
can
make out bits and pieces, but nothing that makes any sense. And after a minute of this, I tell myself I'm being stupid. I mean, why do I care what they're fighting about? If it's not about my skateboard, then it's none of my business, right? So I arrange my bangs over Mount Everest, then switch off the light and head out.

And who's waiting for me in the hallway?

Nobody.

Then I notice the heel of a boot sticking out from around the corner at the end of the hall. And I stand there a minute trying to decide whether I should go down the hall to see if it's Casey or back to the party to find Marissa.

I wind up inching down the hall, and when I get close
enough, I see that it's Casey, all right, and he's positioned like a sprinter, leaning way around the corner with his ear against a door.

He sees me and snaps upright,
boing!
then tries to act casual. “Looks like you got it all off.”

I nod and ask, “What are they arguing about? I could hear them clear through the bathroom wall.”

Casey shakes his head. “You got me, but you're right— they're raging in there.”

“Who is it? Taylor and his brother?”

“No, it's Karl and Ben. I got that much.” He snorts and says, “And I don't think now would be a very good time to ask either one of them for the key!”

The door flies open, then slams shut. And even though no one came out, it felt like the hall had been blasted by a blowtorch of angry words. Casey whispers, “Let's jam,” and we hightail it out of there.

When we get to the rec room, Casey spots Taylor playing Pac-Man with Marissa and says, “Hang back for a minute. I'm going to straighten this with Taylor. This whole thing is getting really stupid.”

Holly and Dot are off in a corner, looking at a gallery of team pictures hanging on the wall, so while Casey goes to talk to Taylor, I zip over to Holly and Dot. Right away they attack me with, “Where have you
been?
We were starting to think you'd left!”

I toss a look in Casey's direction and say, “We've been trying to get my skateboard back.” Casey pulls Taylor aside, so I wave Marissa over and say, “But I don't think it's going to happen.”

Dot asks, “Why not?”

Now I'd have answered her right away, only as I turn to tell her, I notice someone in a picture on the wall, right over her shoulder. He's standing by a swimming pool with a great big grin on his face, holding up one end of a trophy while Karl Briggs holds up the other. And I know it's him, because I'd recognize him anywhere—bundled in ski clothes or streaking in Speedos—it's Marissa's cousin Brandon.

And what's weird about seeing him in the picture is that it feels like he's watching me. Like he's grinning at
me
. I move a little to the left and back to the right, but no matter which way I shift, there he is, grinning away, right at me.

Dot says, “What are you doing?”

“Huh…? Oh, nothing.”

“So why isn't it going to happen?”

“Why isn't…what?”

“Sammy! You were telling us you weren't going to get the skateboard back. Why not?”

I turn away from the picture and say, “Because it was just Marissa bait. My skateboard's in Taylor's brother's truck. Apparently it's been there all day.”

“So?”

“So nobody's scraped the paint off, nobody's seen my initials, and nobody's planning to return it. Taylor just said that to get Marissa to come to the party.”

Marissa stares at me and I stare at her, and finally she says, “Well, if that's true, let's get out of here!”

Taylor and Casey seem to be having a pretty serious
discussion over by the Pac-Man game, but it's easy to see that Taylor's the one calling the shots. And I'm thinking, Yeah, let's just forget it and go, when I notice Heather whispering with Tenille, kind of blocking the door to the kitchen.

Going through them would be like trying to walk through barbed wire, and really, I wasn't up for that. I'd been beat up enough for one day already. Then it hits me that there
is
another way out. I just have to step over the Edge of the World to get there.

Dot sees me looking toward the backyard and says, “Oh, Sammy, no. Let's not go that way.” I nod at Heather and say, “You'd rather go out
that
way?”

Holly says, “There are four of us and two of them. And Tenille doesn't even really count, so let's just plow 'em over.”

They're right, of course. Four against one and a half weren't bad odds—what was Heather going to do? Throw earrings at us? Still, I had scars to prove that tangling with her could leave you seriously gouged, and I wanted to get out of there in one piece.

But suddenly it's too late anyway. Casey and Taylor are right beside us, and Taylor starts laying it on, thick and sweet. “Sorry about the misunderstanding. I guess Jake's kind of flakin' out. I don't know what the deal is with the skateboard. Maybe we'll get it from him tomorrow.”

Marissa just looks down, so Taylor says, “That doesn't mean you have to leave. Why don't you stay and ring in the New Year?”

At first, Marissa doesn't say anything. She just stands there with her arms crossed and her eyes to the ground. Then, very quietly, she says, “Why'd you lie to me?”

He wasn't expecting that. No one was expecting that. And while we're all looking at Marissa with our eyebrows up and our jaws down, Taylor takes his first swing. He stutters, “Lie to…why do you think I…I didn't lie to you!”

Strike one. She looks straight at him and pitches another. “Then get the skateboard.”

He swings again. “Okay, but I…I've got to clear it with Snake first.”

Strike two.

She keeps right on looking at him. “Why? I thought this was his idea.”

“Well, it was
our
idea, but—”

“But he doesn't know anything about it, right?”

“No…I mean…sure he does. But I can't just give it to you without telling him first, right? I mean, it's his board.”

Strike three, and we are out of there. Marissa says, “No, it's
Sammy's
board.” She pushes past him saying, “Silly me to think you were trying to do the right thing.”

He says, “I…Look, I…,” but it's too late. There's no way he's going to make it to first base with Marissa.

The rest of us stand there for a few seconds, stunned, while Marissa marches away. We snap out of it and chase after her, and I want to slap a high-five on her for what she's done, but by the time I catch up to her, we've got the Guerrilla Girls to deal with.

Marissa says, “Heather, please. Get out of the way.”

Tenille's trying to act all tough and together, but really she looks seasick swaying there in her platform shoes. Heather smirks at Marissa like, Make me, but she doesn't say a word, she just stands there.

I take a step forward and say, “Look, I thought you wanted us to leave. Why don't you—”

Out of nowhere, Casey grabs my hand and pulls me up the steps behind him, saying, “Jesus, Heather—get out of the way!” And when we're past the doorway, he keeps right on holding my hand, then turns around and says to Heather, “Would you work on not being such an embarrassment?”

Now I've seen Heather mad before. Lots of times. I've also seen her upset and shocked. But I've never seen her mad, upset,
and
shocked, all at the same time.

She was, though, all three. And for once her eyes weren't shooting darts at me. She was looking from Casey's hand to his face, and for the first time since I've known her, Heather Acosta was dumbfounded.

Casey guides me through the kitchen and down the hall, saying, “This whole situation's jacked. I can't even believe it.” He turns to me. “It might not happen tonight, but I'll get you your skateboard. I promise.”

All of a sudden we can hear gears grinding and tires squealing out of the driveway, and then Karl comes slamming into the house through the front door. He practically plows us over going down the hall, and as we watch him go, Casey says, “Not a good time to be asking to get in the truck.”

I laugh. “No kidding.”

He walks us outside and says, “Not that we could anyway. That must've been Ben peeling out of here.” He looks at me. “But if I do manage to get your board, how can I get ahold of you?”

Now
my tongue's acting normal. I can't think of a thing to say. I mean, what am I supposed to do, give him Grams' number? That would fly like a zeppelin with her. So I'm standing there like an idiot, not knowing what to say, when Dot comes to my rescue. “You could bring it over to my house. Sammy's spending the weekend. It's right up the road, on Meadow Lane. Just follow the signs to DeVries Nursery.”

“DeVries Nursery?”

“That's right.”

He nods and looks real serious when he says, “Okay, I will,” then gives me a little wave and says, “See ya.”

The minute he goes back inside, all three of them grab me and say, “What is going on!?”

“What do you mean?”

“Sammy…he was holding your hand!”

I blush. Completely. Dot says, “Well…? Do you like him?”

“I don't know! I don't even know him!”

Marissa says, “Then why did you let him hold your hand?”

I look straight at her. “This from the girl who let
Taylor
put his arm around her?”

Now it's her turn to blush. “Sorry.”

I kind of scowl and say, “Me, too.” Then I get on my
bike and sigh. “It's all just…confusing. Casey's…I don't know.
Nice
.”

I said it to regret it. Dot practically squeals, “She
does
like him!” and since she's riding right beside me, I give her a little punch in the arm. But all that does is make her wobble and say, “You
do!
I can tell!”

They teased me the whole way home. And I kept telling them to shut up, but it was no use; it only made them tease me more. And by the time we turned down Meadow Lane, I was really sorry I'd ever gone to Taylor's. I mean, my skateboard meant a lot to me, but life was confusing enough without getting tangled up with, you know…

Boys
.

THIRTEEN

Lights were still on when we rode up to Dot's house. We parked our bikes around by the carriage house and I asked, “Are we in trouble for getting back so late?”

Dot said, “We shouldn't be…,” and I'm just thinking, Wow, that's amazing! because I'd be in a whole lot more than trouble if it were Grams waiting up, when Dot adds, “I called them from Lucinda's house.”

“You
did?
”

She looks at me like I'm squirrel bait. “Of course.”

“When?”

“While you were getting the diary…?” She shakes her head and says, “They'd have been worried sick if I hadn't. I promised them we'd be home before midnight, so we're okay.”

To tell you the truth, I'd forgotten all about Moustache Mary's diary. But I had the copy right there in Hudson's saddlebag, and with everything that had happened at Taylor's, well, the thought of reading about a gunslinging woman in a moustache seemed like just what I needed. I said, “Wait for me, okay?” then raced inside the carriage house to stash the diary with my stuff.