Sammy Keyes and the Runaway Elf (10 page)

“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?”

I just kept staring her down.

“Get away from my desk!” She looked at me, then at the cupcake, then threw the cupcake in the trash. Just like that.
Thunk
.

I glared at her some more, then opened my desk.

She pushed it back down. “You don’t think I’m stupid enough to let you poison me, do you?”

I leaned forward and made a tick-tocking sound with my tongue, then I gave her that evil little smile and whispered, “It’s almost time …!”

The tardy bell rang. And Heather must’ve thought it was a bomb going off, because she about spiked the ceiling, then threw her hand on her heart like she was trying to keep it from popping out of her chest. She gave me a really dirty look and turned her back on me, but all through homeroom her eyes kept darting in my direction.

I didn’t notice until I was getting my books out of my desk that I got a present, too. An ornament. It was a white angel dangling from a red ribbon, and at first I didn’t realize that it was made out of uncooked noodles. A piece of manicotti for the body, a piece of bow-tie pasta for the wings, and macaroni for the arms. The face was painted with a felt-tip marker and looked like it was caroling.

I peeked around the classroom to see if anyone was giving away that they were my KK. I figured I could eliminate boys right off. I mean, no boy would be caught dead leaving pretty painted pasta in someone’s desk.

Brandy Cavaletto was looking in my direction, and she looked away, all right, but she might have been checking out Derrick Stern next to me. It was hard to say.

Tawnee Francisco smiled at me, but she didn’t look
caught
or anything. And besides, Tawnee smiles at everyone. Cassie Kuo was looking at me through her bangs, but Cassie’s kind of shy and always looks at people that way. Even when she answers questions, she does it right through her bangs.

Then there was Monique Halbig, staring straight at me. And the minute I caught her eye, she gave me a fluttery little smile and looked away. So I figured, okay. It was probably Monique. I took one last look at the pasta angel, put it in a safe corner of my desk, and closed the lid. Then I went back to staring at Heather.

After homeroom I followed her again. All day. And any chance they got, Marissa and Holly did it too, giving her steady, angry stares. And whenever she’d see me, I’d make that tick-tocking sound—like the crocodile in
Peter Pan
stalking Captain Hook. Then I started doing it
before
she spotted me, which worked even better. She’d hear me ticking, then grab on to Tenille or Monet like they were buoys in the ocean, and dive into a classroom.

At lunchtime we caught Dot up on what had happened that morning, and we all agreed that we should keep harassing Heather. So we went into the cafeteria to make her nervous from across the room, but she wasn’t there. We checked the patio tables, but she wasn’t there, either. Finally we split up. Holly and Dot went to look behind the bleachers, and Marissa and I went to check the locker room.

The side door to the locker room was wide open, so we tiptoed in, and right away I knew they were there. I could smell the cigarette smoke. We sneaked past two sections of showers, then ducked into an alcove of lockers. There was a full-length mirror across the corridor, and we could see the reflection of Heather huddled up in a corner with Temile and Monet, passing a cigarette around. Heather was saying, “She knows. I tell you, she knows!”

“So what?” Monet squeaked back. “What can she do about it?”

Tenille laughed at Monet and said, “You don’t know Sammy very well, do you?”

Heather dragged on the cigarette, then passed it to Monet. “She’s working on something. Something big.”

Monet took the cigarette. “Oh, what’s she gonna do—put acid in your gel?”

I looked at Marissa like, Oooo, that’s a good one! and she about busted up.

“I’m talking something big. Really big.” Heather took the cigarette back from Tenille and whispered, “I think she’s planning to kill me.”

They both blinked at her. “
Kill
you?” Monet added, “Like with a knife or something?”

“I don’t know! How am I supposed to know? She’s acting so weird!”

Tenille snickered. “Yeah, even for Sammy.”

Monet shook her head. “
Kill
you? Isn’t that kinda like … drastic?”

“Well,
you
tell me what she’s up to, then!” Heather snuffed out the butt. “She’s way over the edge, and I’ll tell
you what—I’m staying away from her. Miles away from her. Don’t wait for me between classes—don’t even look for me at lunch. I’m going to eat in the library or in Mr. Caan’s office … somewhere she’d never think to look for me. I’m not going to go anywhere I usually go—I’m going to do the opposite.”

Tenille said, “She’s still gonna find you.”

I thought Heather was going to strangle her. “I just want to make it to Christmas, okay? After Friday I won’t have to worry about her for three whole weeks. By then she should’ve forgotten about it.”

They started moving in our direction, so we scrambled to the back of the alcove and held real still as they walked past us. When they’d ducked out the door, Marissa said, “She sure is feeling guilty about something.”

I nodded. “And if it’s not the cats, I don’t know what it is.”

Marissa said, “Okay, so how are we going to get her to crack?”

I could feel an idea start to tingle in the back of my brain. “Do you still have a Polaroid camera?”

Marissa rubbed her hands together. “Oooo! You’ve got a plan! Tell me!”

So I gave her a rough sketch of what I was thinking and then said, “Let’s go find Holly and Dot. This is going to take all of us!”

We ducked out of the locker room, met up with Holly and Dot, and by the time the end-of-lunch bell was ringing, we had a plan that—with a little help from Officer Borsch—would make
anyone
rip up floorboards.

Even Heather.

*  *  *

After school I made myself forget about Heather and concentrate on what I was going to tell Mrs. Landvogt. I picked up Elyssa, and when I got to the home I was chickening out about seeing Mrs. Graybill again. It was too weird. But Mrs. Keltner wouldn’t deliver the things for me. She said, “You’ve got to go in and see her. Just for a minute.”

“But I—”

“Please, Sammy. She’s been asking for you. She won’t eat. She’s pretty despondent. I think it’ll help.”

So I went in. And Mrs. Graybill took one look at me and let out a long sigh. “Samantha …” she said, like I was her long-lost friend.

I laid her robe across the foot of her bed and whispered, “Hi, Mrs. Graybill.”

She wiped the drool from her cheek, then motioned to the chair next to her bed. “Sit, sit!”

I didn’t want to sit. I wanted to give her her stuff and get away from there. Away from the lilacs and chlorine. Away from the gray.

She noticed there was still something else in the bag. “What have you got there?”

“Oh, I hope you don’t mind.… Grams thought you might like to have this.”

She took the picture, and for a minute there I thought the Mrs. Graybill I knew was going to jump right out of bed and smash the thing over my head. Instead, she buried her face in her hands and started crying.

I whispered, “I’m sorry!”

She took another look at the picture, then hugged it to her chest, sobbing.

I didn’t know what to do. I stood there like an idiot, watching her matted head bob up and down, wishing I’d never brought the picture. Finally I said, “I can put it back if you want.”

She hugged it tighter and looked almost scared. “No!”

“But …”

She looked at the photograph again, then touched the glass gently, as if it might burn her. “We were so young. So young.”

I watched her drift back in her mind. “Angelique was always the baby. She was only a year younger, but Mama always called her Baby.” She tilted the picture toward me and whispered, “Wasn’t she beautiful?”

I nodded. “You both were.”

She gave me a sad little smile, then lay back against the pillow and closed her eyes. A little stream of tears started running across her temples, and before you know it, she was sobbing again. Finally she wiped her eyes and looked at me. “I was such a fool.”

Now, I knew she wasn’t talking about all the times she’d chased me down the hall or the way she’d trapped me coming up the fire escape stairs, or even the phone calls she’d made about me to the manager. It was like none of that had ever happened. She was talking about something big. Something that had made the Daisy then into the Daisy now.

Very gently I asked, “Did it have to do with Angelique?”

She looked at the picture and nodded.

“Do you want me to call her?”

She shook her head. “She’s gone off to be with Mama.” She touched the picture again and sighed. “And Billy McCabe.”

“Who?”

She sat up a bit. “Billy McCabe. He was a boy in my class. He asked me out for malts and I went, even though I didn’t particularly like him. When he brought me home, he took one look at Angelique and that was it. They were in love.”

“But if you didn’t particularly like him …”

She choked out a laugh and said, “I thought that she should’ve found someone in her own class. But what I thought didn’t matter a hoot to her. She went off and became Mrs. Billy McCabe. And while she was picking out china and linens, I was working in a factory canning apricots. And the more those rotten yellow things came rollin’ down the belt, the more I started hating Angelique.

“She was always writing me, telling me that I’d find somebody someday and be as happy as she was. And I could tell that she really wanted me to so she wouldn’t have to feel guilty anymore about stealing Billy from me.”

“But—”

“So I decided I
wouldn’t
find someone. Why on earth would I find someone just to make Angelique happy? Suitors would call, and Mama would tell me to go out with them, but I wouldn’t. I’d sit down and write Angelique a letter instead. I wasn’t about to let her off the hook for what she’d done.

“Well, one day I turned around and I was thirty, and suitors weren’t knocking anymore. Shortly after that Mama died, and after we buried her I only heard from Angelique on my birthday and at Christmas. And then it was usually just chitchat about the weather.” She looked back at the picture. “She got Billy and I got nobody.”

“But … what about
Mr
. Graybill?”

She shook her head and sighed. “There is no Mr. Graybill. Never has been. You get to an age where everybody assumes you’re married and they start calling you Mrs. even if it’s supposed to be Miss. It’s not the kind of thing you want to constantly go and correct people on.” She looked at me. “My name’s Daisy Lorraine Graybill. Always has been, always will be.”

Well, let me tell you, I had shivers running all through me. Creepy, scary shivers. And I think she saw me shudder, because her lips tried to crack into a smile as she said, “I know what you’re thinking, Samantha, and you’re right. But there’s nothing I can do about it now.” She put out her hand for me to hold. It felt rough and cold. “All these years I thought I was justified. All these years I blamed every misfortune on her.” She closed her eyes and then, from deep inside her throat she whispered, “I’m sorry, Angelique. I was such a fool.”

I sat there, frozen, not wanting to pull my hand away but not wanting to leave it there, either. In a little while her grip loosened and a bit of drool ran out of the corner of her mouth. I whispered, “Mrs. Graybill?” She didn’t answer, so I slipped my hand free and tiptoed out of there.

And it’s not that I was in a hurry to get to the Landvogt
mansion. I wasn’t even thinking about Mrs. Landvogt. I was thinking about Mrs. Graybill and her sister and Billy McCabe. And for some reason I started running. Hard. And I kept right on running—down the road, across the street, past the supermarket—as fast as I could. And the whole time I was running I was checking back over my shoulder at the nursing home. Like I was running from something that was chasing me.

Something that would kill me if it could catch me.

I thought Tina was going to fall down and kiss my feet. “Oh, thank God you’re here! Mother’s beside herself.” She let me in and the alarm
bo-beep
ed as she closed the door behind me.

I asked, “Is that thing
always
on?”

“The Tattler? Twenty-four hours a day.” She gave me a wry little smile. “Mother began her paranoia phase when I went away to college.” She did a double take at the Christmas tree. “Oh, look at that,” she said, then switched the lights on. “It’s dismal enough around here without forgetting to turn on the tree.”

“Went away to college? But I thought you lived at home.”

She laughed. “Yeah, I guess so,” and then added, “That’s been temporary for about a year now.”

I guess I still looked puzzled, because she leaned in and whispered, “I’m a disgraceful dropout.” She led me toward the kitchen, saying, “Mother’s managed to spread her stuff out over the entire top floor, so I’ve been sequestered to the servants’ quarters.” She scowled and said, “Which under the circumstances seems apt, don’t you think?”

I didn’t even want to touch that, so I just followed her into the kitchen and watched as she put a glass of water on a little silver tray. She shook her head and said, “Personally,
I think Mother should ask her doctor for a sedative. Of course, I also think she should tell this friend she has on the police force about Marique, but she won’t do
that
either.” She rolled her eyes and smirked. “You can see that what I think doesn’t count for much around here.”

I was following her out of the kitchen when she said, “Oh!” and turned back around.

“What’s the matter?”

“If I don’t want this thrown in my face,” she said with a frown, “I’d better do it right.” She put down the tray and said, “Right there in the pantry … could you get me a lemon?”

The pantry was like a walk-in closet for caviar. There were fish eggs and fish eyes, pickled eel and smoked partridge. I moved over an aisle and saw grape leaves, gingered garlic, ostrich paté, candied rhubarb, and then a whole bunch of stuff I couldn’t even pronounce.