Sammy Keyes and the Psycho Kitty Queen (18 page)

“Hello?” Gina's saying into the room. And lucky for me, it's a really dimly lit room with black walls, and she doesn't look my way. “Hello?” she says again, this time more firmly. And that's when I realize that she knows someone's still inside her House of Astrology because the bells on the door never jingled a second time, only that first time, when I'd come inside.

Now, if I was trying to hide from Gina I would have been sweating it out. But I only wanted to stay hidden long enough for T.J. to leave. So the second he's gone I pop up and say, “Psssst! Over here.”

“Huh?” Gina whips around, and when she sees me, she clutches her heart and says in her normal voice, “Why do you
do
that?”

“Do what?”

“Sneak up on me!”

“I don't sneak up on you.”

“The last time you were here you scared the livin' daylights out of me, too!”

I laughed. “You're just jumpy.”

“I am not!”

I stood up. “So how often does T.J. come by?”

“More and more all the time.” She grins. “That boy is hooked.”

“You can say that again. And you were sure going for his weakness with all that guy-with-the-money mumbo jumbo—”

“Hey, hey. No insulting Madame Nashira!”

“No, I mean, you're good! You really had him going.”

“Hmm,” she says, and she's not looking too pleased with me.

So I say, “Sorry,” because I do like Gina and don't want her to be insulted.

“Forget it,” she says. “And thanks for staying hidden until he left. Spotting you would've made him quit for sure.” She cocks her head. “So what brings you to the House of Astrology?”

I plop down in the chair again and grumble, “Heather Acosta.”

“Heather Acosta,” she murmurs, tapping her chin. “Why is that name so familiar?”

“Because you just did a birth chart on her. Remember? A rush job for a ‘classy lady'?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah!” she says, snapping her fingers. “So? You know the girl?”

“She happens to be my archenemy.”

She studies me a minute, then sort of sways around. “So…?”

“So Heather's evil. Wicked. Spiteful. Malicious. Deceitful. Dishonest.
Mean.”
I eye her. “Do I need to go on?”

“No, no. I get the picture.”

“She also happens to have the same birthday as me.”

A little light flickers to life inside Madame Nashira's eyes. “And you're wondering…?”

“Well, according to
you
the position of the moon and the stars and the planets and all that determines—”

“Ah-ah, they
influence
—”

“Okay,
influence
who we are.”

“So…?”

“So how can two people who have the same birthday be so completely different?”

She shrugs. “I'd need your birth certificate to answer that.”

“Why? I'm telling you—we were born on the same
day.”

“How many hours apart? Where was the moon? Where am I gonna put your horizon? How do you expect me to position the ascendant?” I just sit there blinking, so she swoops in a little closer. “Why are you so resistant to this? Just bring me the darn thing. I'll do your chart, okay?”

“Okay.”

Just then the door jingles, and one of the guys who was hanging out in front of the Red Coach steps inside. He says, “Hiiii,” and it hits me how amazing it is that you can tell from one little word that someone's ripped out of their mind.

“Yeah?” Gina says, ready to shoo him out.

He slurs, “You got time to read my palm?”

“You got ten bucks?” Gina shoots back.

He wrestles some crumpled bills out of his front jeans pocket, puts together ten bucks, and wags them in the air.

Gina looks at me and rolls her eyes a little, then gives me the time-to-scram nod. So I whisper, “How late you gonna be open?”

“Who knows?” she says through her teeth. “If I'm not here, just bring it to the Heavenly.”

So I leave the House of Astrology and race over to the Highrise because by now I'm pretty late getting home. But when I get inside the apartment, Grams doesn't say, I've been so
worried
, or Where have you
been'?
or What took you so long? She just asks, “So, where'd you go?”

Now, it's not that the question is so different, but the way she's asking it sure is. Instead of wringing her hands or buzzing around me, she's just seated at the table, flipping through a magazine, sipping from a glass of juice.

Then I notice the binoculars. “You were
spying
on me?”

“Hmm,” she says, and takes an endless drink. “I wouldn't call it spying. I was just watching for you.”

“Because?”

She puts down the glass. “Because I was worried that that horrible Heather might have caused you trouble.”

“Clear out here? If you were really watching for that, you'd need binoculars that reached all the way to school!”

“As it turns out, I didn't need binoculars at all. I saw you and Marissa strolling along, right across the street.”

“So? She wanted to check out Slammin' Dave's—so what?”

“My, my. No need to be so defensive. I'm just saying, I could see you. And I watched you try to go into
Maynard's, then cross the street. Marissa went one way, you went the other, and forty minutes later you're finally home.” She looks right at me. “So? Where'd you go?”

I sat down across from her, laced my fingers together, and leaned in. “To Madame Nashira's House of Astrology.”

Her face fell. Then she sighed and said, “I was really hoping you were going to say the mall. But I knew you would have gone with Marissa, so I was afraid it was somewhere … else.”

“Aw c'mon, Grams. Gina's nice.” And before she could argue, I added, “And I want her to do my birth chart.”

“But why? You don't believe in—”

“Because I want her to explain how Heather and I can be so different if we were born on the exact same day.”

“You don't need
her
to tell you that. It's simple—you have different genetics!”

I crossed my arms. “Well, okay. There's my mother—”

“Who called, by the way, and is really happy that Dorito's back.”

I rolled my eyes. “I'll bet she is.”

Grams frowned at me. “She said she'll try to reach you again later, and when she does, you've got to promise me you won't hang up on her.”

“Whatever. The
point
is that if she's the X in my genetic equation, and neither of you will fill in the Y, I can't exactly solve the problem.” I leaned in and slapped the table. “You're not giving me enough to work with!”

She put up a hand.

“So tell me who my father is.”

“You know I can't do that.”

“Then at least give me my birth certificate so Gina can do my birth chart—which, by the way, she's been offering to do for free since September.”

Grams stared at me for a solid minute.

I stared right back.

Finally she pushed away from the table and said, “Fine.”

“Fine?”

“Yes. I see no reason why you can't see your own birth certificate.” She headed into her bedroom, saying, “If your mother has a problem with that, well, tough.”

I couldn't believe my ears. I also couldn't believe she had my birth certificate in the apartment. Believe me, I know every square inch of the place, including the closet. So I was dying to spy on her and see where she had it hidden, because if she had my birth certificate stashed in her bedroom all this time, what else did she have hidden in there?

But I made myself just sit and wait, and about a minute later she was back with a little white piece of paper.

“That's it?” I asked when she handed it over. It seemed really… plain. I was expecting a scroll. With special seals and fancy writing and maybe even a little ribbon. But this was just a kinda rumpled piece of white paper—probably only one-third the size of a regular sheet of paper—with typed-in boxes and a couple of signatures.

“That's it,” Grams said, then pointed to an embossed seal. “It's the original, too. Not the copy your mother changed.”

I read it over and over again. I guess I was hoping to find out something about myself, but there wasn't much I didn't already know. The
Father of Child
box said “Unreported,” which I guess about summed it up. And at least they hadn't been keeping me from a twin brother or sister or anything—Box 3A stated I was a “single” birth. And there in Box 4B was the time of birth: 0959. On a 24-hour clock, that meant I was born at 9:59
A.M.

I read every box three times, and finally I said, “Thanks, Grams.”

Now, I guess it came out kind of choked up, because Grams asked, “Are you all right?”

I nodded. “Sure.”

She reached over and held my hand, saying, “I will encourage her to talk to you about your father, okay?”

I nodded some more. “I just don't get what the big deal is.”

She sighed. “I think it's your mother who isn't ready to discuss it, not you.”

“So why don't
you
tell me?”

“Because it's not my place, and you know it.”

“Neither is having to raise me, and you know
that.”

She sighed again. “Well, I hope the certificate is enough for now.”

I nodded. “Thanks, Grams.”

“So,” she said, standing up. “How's the homework situation?”

“Moderate.”

“Do you have time to help me with dinner?”

What I really wanted to do was zip over to the House
of Astrology with my birth certificate. But instead I said, “Sure.”

So I helped fix dinner, and after we ate, I did the dishes and started on my homework. But really, my mind wasn't on factorials or lowest common denominators. I wanted to get over to Gina's to deliver my birth certificate. I wanted her to get going on my chart. Any explanation was better than the one I had—even if it came from a crazy star “scientist.”

I kept peeking at my birth certificate, too. There wasn't anything else it could tell me, but it did make me feel somehow more connected. Maybe I didn't actually know any more about myself, but it felt like the answers were somehow closer.

It also made me feel like, okay—I wasn't found in a Dumpster. I wasn't adopted. I really was who I thought I was.

Which is something most kids never question, but with a mother like mine you learn to wonder.

So I was racking my brains for an excuse to get away from homework and over to the Heavenly—or the House of Astrology if Gina wasn't home—when the phone rang.

Grams answered it, but ten seconds later she was holding it out to me. “It's Holly. She needs help with her homework.”

I took the phone and said “Hey” into it.

Holly whispered, “Sorry I kinda lied to her, but is there any way you can come over?”

“Uh…”

“He's here again. And he was nosing through our trash!”

“Who?” I whispered.

“El Gato!”

I looked over my shoulder. Grams was back in the living room, but still, I kept my voice down. “Your trash is empty, isn't it?”

“Pretty much, but he was pawing around in what
is
in it.”

“I'll be right over.”

I hung up, stuck my birth certificate in my pocket, and went into the living room. “Grams, I need to go over to Holly's for a minute. She's… she's got questions that I can't answer over the phone.”

She looked up from her book. “Do you want me to check the hallway?”

“Nah. I'll be careful.”

“Call if it gets late.” She tapped her wristwatch. “No excuses.”

I laughed and held up my wrist. “If the bat swings past the ball, I'll call.”

She laughed, too. And with that I slipped out of the apartment and down the hall, wondering why El Gato was on the prowl.

Holly was waiting for me at the Pup Parlor door. “Come on!” she said. “He's still there.”

“Meg and Vera aren't home?” I asked as we charged upstairs.

“No! They're at some Groomers Club meeting in Santa Luisa.”

Except for a light in the hallway, the apartment was totally dark. Holly led me into the kitchen, where we had a clear view of the alleyway. Slammin' Dave's back door was propped open, Tornado Tony's van was parked off to the side, and El Gato was back against the wall, lighting a cigarette.

Or at least trying. The cigarette didn't seem to want to light. And he kept checking the back door. “He's acting kinda amped, don't you think?” I whispered as he tossed down another match.

“He is so weird,” Holly whispered back. “Why doesn't he just take off the mask?”

He threw down another match, and I said, “He's sure not acting like a smoker.” Then I had an idea. “Maybe smoking's a diversion?”

“A diversion from what?”

“Got me. He's just not acting natural.”

“What's natural about wearing a cat mask and spandex shorties?”

“Good point.”

El Gato finally got the cigarette going, but he didn't puff on it. He just held it between his fingers and headed for Tony's van.

“Now what's he doing?” Holly whispered.

El Gato looked over both shoulders, then tried the driver's door. It was locked, so he shielded out the alley light with his hand and looked in the window.

“It looks like he's casing the van!” I whispered.

“What's he expecting to get out of a janitor's van?”