Sammy Keyes and the Psycho Kitty Queen (23 page)

Now, normally it only takes a few seconds to get a safe break in traffic. But for some reason Broadway was really busy. And then I saw a cop car go by. It wasn't Officer Borsch, but still, between the cop and the traffic, it was enough to make me head down to the corner and use the crosswalk.

Now believe me, I was keeping my eyes peeled. I didn't
like the idea that someone might be watching or following me. And while I was at the intersection waiting for the light to change, I noticed that a guy standing a few feet away from me was dabbing at his upper arm with a Kleenex. Like he'd been hurt or something.

I guess he saw me scoping him out, because he turned and showed me the fierce-looking saber-toothed tiger tattooed on his arm. “Cool, huh?” he said, grinning like a little kid.

“Did you just get it?” I asked him.

“Yeah,” he said, and went back to dabbing it. “Down the street at Tiny's. He's awesome.”

Now, seeing a big cat and talking about Tiny made a little hiccup happen inside my brain—I'd never told Tiny I'd found Dorito. So instead of crossing over Broadway I headed up to the tattoo parlor.

I didn't see my flyer posted anywhere, but I did see Tiny through the window. So I opened the door and called, “Hey. I promised I'd tell you if I found my cat, and I did.”

He smiled and walked toward me. “I know. My janitor saw the flyer and told me, which is why it's down. Don't want you to think I was being heartless.”

“No, I… wait—your janitor?”

“Yeah.”

“Is it Tornado Tony?”

“Exactly!”

“Well, he would know, he's the one who found my cat.”

“You're jiving me. Well, good deal.” Then he leaned
out the doorway and said, “No grandma with you today?”

I shook my head.

“Interested in some body art? Maybe a butterfly? A little ankle rose? I could put it somewhere granny would never think to look.”

I backed away, saying, “No thanks.” But then I added, “You did a nice job on that saber-toothed tiger, though.”

“You saw it? See? I'm good!”

“Still not interested, sorry. But thanks again for being nice about my flyer.”

“Hey, no sweat. Glad you got your cat back. And come see me when you change your mind.”

So I went back up to Broadway, but when I got to the light, I decided to take a little detour into Maynard's. I wasn't 100 percent convinced that T.J.
hadn't
called me from the pay phone, so I thought I'd sneak in, just to see what he was up to.

As usual T.J. was yakking on the phone as he was ringing up a customer. I tell you, we need some competition in the neighborhood. T.J.'s just rude—always on the phone trying to find a shortcut to some quick cash when he's supposed to be paying attention to his customers.

Anyway, by the time the customer was leaving, I'd crawled up to a carousel near the register so I could hear better, but T.J.'s conversation wasn't anything exciting or threatening or at all about cats. It was just, “Maybe next week. You need someone to vouch for you… nuh-uh. Leo's getting me in… yeah, sure. Sounds wild, I know, but I'm hopin' to make a bundle… I'll tell you how it goes.”

Typical T.J. stuff.

Then he saw me in the big shoplifter mirror and yelled, “Hey! Whaddya doin'?”

I stood up and said, “I dropped some change, Teej. Take it easy.”

T.J. knew I was full of it, though. He leaned forward and said, “Scat, ya brat!”

Still. I took my ol' sweet time, stopping at the ice cream cooler on my way out. “Eat up all the Double Dynamos again, T.J.?”

“I said
scat!”

So I scatted right over to the Highrise, making extra sure nobody was watching or following me.

Day five of being thirteen started out great, too. In homeroom the tardy bell rang, we said the Pledge, Mrs. Ambler read the announcements… Heather never showed up. And I figured that maybe she was just late, but I didn't see her strutting her stuff between classes, either. And believe me, if Heather's around, you'll know it. She's not what you'd call low profile.

When there was still no sign of her at lunch, it hit me that she was probably milking the whole “fainting” incident to get a day off from school.

Fine by me.

Anyway, we were having lunch on the grass again when Marissa asked me, “Hey, have you listened to the CDs I gave you?”

Before I had the chance to answer, Casey sat down beside me and said, “What CDs?”

That's the cool thing about Casey. Or at least one of the cool things. He's just… comfortable. It's like nothing weird had ever happened—we were just friends. So I hid the whole Easter-Egg Eyes incident in a distant, grassy corner of my mind, and laughed. “You don't want to know.”

“Sure I do—let's see.”

“Okaaaay,” I said, then dug through my backpack and handed them over.

“Uh-huh,” he said, looking at the first one. “They're okay,” he said about the second one. But when he saw the Darren Cole CD, he said, “Now,
this
is cool.”

“You've heard of him?” I asked.

Marissa seemed surprised, too. “How'd you know about him?”

He grinned at me. “I guess I'm a fan of Troublemakers.”

“Hey!”

He laughed and read through the song titles. “‘Waitin' for Rain to Fall.'” He tapped the case. “One of my all-time favorite songs.” Then all of a sudden he starts
singing.
“Maybe it's all been hard on you, Pushed against the wall, But there's no need to close your eyes, Waitin' for rain to fall…” Then he goes,
“Waah-waah-waaaaaaaaaah, waah-waah, whoa-whoa-waaaaaaaaah-waah-waah,”
like some blues guitar. He looks at me and laughs. “See? Cool song.”

Well, we were all just staring at him, so he laughs again and says, “I guess you've got to listen to the real thing.” He starts handing over the CD but does a double take and pulls it back. “Is this a real autograph?”

Marissa bounces a little and says, “Yeah, it is! My mom and I saw him in concert in Las Vegas.”

He cringes. “He's doing
Vegas?”

“Yeah. But it wasn't schmarmy or anything. It was a real good concert.”

“Wow,” he says, shaking his head. “My mom would be green if she knew.”

“Your
mom
?” I ask him.

“Uh, I should have kept that little piece of information to myself, huh? Forget I said it, okay?
I
think he's good.” He hands back the CD. “Just listen to ‘Waitin' for Rain to Fall,' you'll see.”

So he's sort of getting up to go when Holly whispers, “Aren't you going to tell him about…,” and then she makes a little scissors motion with her fingers.

I pull a face at her like, No! Because really, I don't need to go squealing on Heather to her brother. I can take care of her myself.

But Casey picks up on it and says, “About what?”

“Never mind.”

But when Marissa whispers, “Sammy, tell him!” he sits back down and says, “Yeah, Sammy. Tell me!”

I roll my eyes. “It's no big deal. And believe me, you don't want to be in the middle of me and Heather.”

“Like I'm not already?”

“Well, you don't want to be there any worse than you are.”

Now
he
rolls
his
eyes. “Would you just tell me?”

So I explained what happened in science and how we
spotted Heather trailing us after school. And I did try to play it down, but Marissa and Dot and even Holly kept pumping it back up, saying stuff like, “Tell him what she did then” and “Tell him what she
said”
and “Wait, wait, you skipped the part where she said…” So in the end he got the Technicolor version instead of the black-and-white sketch I was planning to draw.

And you know, he didn't seem too happy. “She
said
that? And she was crawling on the floor with
scissors
?”

I nodded.

“This is so stupid I can't even believe it.”

“Forget I told you, all right?”

He stood up. “No!”

“Look,” I said, standing up, too. “She short-circuits around me, that's all. And I guess she thinks there's something, you know,
magic
about this horseshoe. Like it's really giving me good luck.”

“Well, what if it is? The point is, she's got to stop messing with you.”

He was walking away, so I grabbed his arm and said, “Casey, I can handle Heather.”

“But why should you have to?”

I laughed. “Good question. But you talking to her will just make her madder.” I let go of his arm. “Besides, she's absent today.”

He looked right at me, which instantly mowed down the tall grass in the corner of my mind. “She is?”

My eyes broke away from his, and I tried to forget about all things chocolate. “Uh-huh.”

“Are you sure?”

“Oh, I'm sure!” I wiggled my foot at him. “I figured it was just my lucky horseshoe, doing its thing.”

He laughed and said, “Maybe so.”

“So don't sweat Heather, okay? Just leave her alone and she'll eventually self-destruct.”

He gave a little snort. “If you say so …”

“Trust me—it's the only way.”

As it turns out, though, I was wrong.

If I'd been thinking at all, I'd have put two and two together. But there was so much else going on that I just chalked Heather's absence up to being lucky.

And, of course, I was dying to listen to “Waitin' for Rain to Fall.” I wasn't expecting to love it or anything. I was just interested. I mean, usually kids hate the bands their parents liked, but Marissa said this guy was good, and Casey
really
seemed to think so.

So since Marissa had left school early for a dentist appointment and Holly was working at the Humane Society, after school I waved bye to Dot as she got into her dad's truck, then put on my headphones and hit the sidewalk.

I didn't search for “Waitin' for Rain,” I just started at track one. And by the time I got to the fourth song, I had to admit—this Darren Cole guy was pretty good!

Then “Waitin' for Rain to Fall” started, and from the opening chords, I got goose bumps. I didn't even know it was “Waitin' for Rain” until the chorus. I just knew it had that magic combination of sweetness and pain. Then the chorus broke out of the verse, and I understood what Casey had been trying to explain. He was right about the
guitar part, too—it was like a voice, squeezing all sorts of emotion out of one bending note.

So okay. I'm embarrassed to say—the song bowled me over. I cranked up the volume and listened to it again and again. And I was busy trekking across the mall lawn, listening to it
again
, when all of a sudden someone sneaks up from behind and
tackles
me. My skateboard goes flying, my headphones jolt off, and I smack the ground hard under the weight of my backpack.

I turn my head and there's Tenille jumping up and down next to Heather. And I can hear Monet yelling from down by my feet, “It's here! It's right here!”

“Well, get it!” Heather yells, then moves in to hold down the top half of me. But before either of them can do anything, I kick back with both feet like some kind of donkey-fish and smack Monet
hard.
And when she cries, “Oooow!” and lets go, I wrestle out of my backpack and jump to my feet.

So now I'm face to face with Heather. I don't want to fight her, but I can't exactly run—they've got me surrounded. So I keep my eyes locked on Heather, turning as she circles me. “Heather, you're making a huge deal out of nothing.”

“Shut up.”

“Look. You can't really believe the horseshoe's lucky…”

“I said shut up!”

“And it doesn't mean Casey and I are going out—”

“I said
shut up!”

“Why are you so bent out of shape over this?”

“Why am I so… “ She snorts. Then her neck vultures forward and she spits out, “As if you weren't a big enough pain already, you had to go and steal my birthday—”

“Wait! I didn't—”

“Then
you steal my brother—”

“I didn't steal your brother, either!”

“And then your
mother
steals
my father
—”

“My mother barely talked to your father!”

She looks vicious. Crazy. Like a caged animal starved for blood. Or freedom.

Or both.

Then, one syllable at a time, she spits out, “He said she was en
chanting
!”

“But—”

“She ruined my birthday!
You
ruined my birthday! It was
my
day!
My
day! You stole it from me!”

“Hey, hold on! You think I like sharing
my
birthday with
you?”

“Grab her!” she shouts at Monet and Tenille. “Grab her
now.”
And before I can think of what to do, Monet and Tenille each grab an arm and Heather dives for my feet, pinning them down with her knees. And in the middle of all that, the school buses go by with kids hanging out of the windows, shouting, “Cat fight! Cat fight!”

I don't know how to explain the way that made me feel. Worse than suffocated. Suffocated and
angry.
It was a fierce, burning kind of angry, too. Like they were holding a branding iron to my soul.

In a flash my right elbow shoots backward into Tenille's stomach, which caves in like a giant marshmallow, gooey
and soft. And as she groans and begins to double over,
whack
—my fist flies back and cracks into her face.