Sammy Keyes and the Runaway Elf (14 page)

She closed her eyes and took a really deep breath, then little by little, she let it out. She mouthed, Thank you, and then closed her eyes.

I watched her, lying there in her dirty pink robe, her chest going up and down, up and down. And I wanted to leave, but somehow I couldn’t. I just sat there with my hand in hers, watching her, thinking about the things we’d been through, the things
she’d
been through, and I wondered. About Billy McCabe. About Mrs. Graybill’s sister. About her mother. About her life. And somewhere in all that thinking I realized that something about Mrs. Graybill was different. Her hand was still cold, and there was still a drop of drool at the corner of her mouth, but something was different.

Then it hit me. Her chest wasn’t going up and down anymore. It was just still. I shook her a little and whispered, “Mrs. Graybill?” Her arm was limp. “Mrs. Graybill!” I stood up and shook her shoulders. “Mrs. Graybill!”

I don’t know what happened to me. I’d never felt like that before. Ever. I started shaking and panting for air and running back and forth, trying to figure out what to do. And in the middle of all that, tears started running out of my eyes because I knew—Mrs. Graybill was dead.

I ran into the hallway calling, “Mrs. Keltner! Nurse!
Anybody!
”

Elyssa was right there, sitting on the floor. She jumped up and said, “What’s wrong?”

“Mrs. Graybill … she’s … she’s …”

Elyssa’s mom came charging down the hall. She took one look at me and said to Elyssa, “Sit down. Right here. Everything’s all right. Just sit.”

“But Mom …!”

“Sit!”

Elyssa sat, and her mom and another nurse and I went into the room. They went straight to Mrs. Graybill and checked her out, and it wasn’t long before Elyssa’s mom was putting her arm around me, whispering, “I’m sorry.”

“Is she … is she …”

Mrs. Keltner tried to smile. “She’s in a better place now. You’ve just got to let her go.”

I couldn’t take it. I stumbled my way down the hall and out the door, and when I got to the curb I sat down and cried. And I cried so hard it almost felt like I had the flu—my stomach was wrenching, my body was shaking, and I couldn’t stop. I just couldn’t stop.

Then all of a sudden there’s a hand on my back and a little voice saying, “I’m sorry she died.”

I shook my head.

Elyssa watched me dripping in the gutter a minute, then asked, “Why are you crying? Isn’t she in heaven now?”

I slapped some tears away and shook my head. “Who knows where she is. She’s
dead
.” Then I stood up and said, “I gotta get out of here.…” and left her standing there, watching after me.

I tried calling Grams from a gas station. The phone must’ve rung a hundred times before I gave up and stumbled my way over to Hudson’s.

He wasn’t home, either. And it felt weird, sitting on his porch all by myself, but I was too upset to go anywhere else. At first all I could think of was Mrs. Graybill, but after a while a lady went by trying to power-walk her Pekinese and I remembered: Mrs. Landvogt and Mr. Petersen and Paula Nook. And I felt like saying, Just forget it. It was hopeless. I was never going to get my hands on that blasted bald dog. And really, in the scheme of things, what did it matter anyway?

But thinking about Mrs. Graybill got me crying all over again, so I forced myself to think about the Cyclops. What was she doing with the Stinkbug? And why were they so spooked when they spotted me? It all seemed to come back to the Crocodile. Maybe they were ransoming the dog, or maybe she was blackmailing them. Maybe both. One thing was for sure, it wasn’t neither.

So I went back and forth between crying about Mrs. Graybill and fighting to focus on big bugs and Cyclopes and creatures from the swamp. And when my brain was
exhausted from its mental tug-of-war, I knew I had to get up and
do
something.

What I decided to do was head back over to Paula Nook’s house. I mean, she probably had a gun, too, but I hadn’t actually
seen
it yet, so I figured my odds of survival were better than nosing around Petersen’s Printing.

So off I went, and when I got to Paula’s cul-de-sac, I stood across the road for a few minutes and just watched. There weren’t any pickup trucks parked on the street, so at least I was safe from Hero. The curtains were all drawn, and the trash was rolled out to the curb, and even though it was still daylight, the porch light was on. It looked to me like the Cyclops wasn’t home.

I went up and banged on the door, and when no one answered I got down on my hands and knees and peeked through the mail slot. All I could really see was dirty tan carpet and the metal legs of two kitchen chairs. I put my mouth up to the slot and called, “Marique! Here, girl!” and then looked inside.

No bald dog ran up to see me.

I tried it again, only this time I called, “Ribs! C’mon, boy!”

Again, no bald dog.

I hurried over to the garage and kind of knocked on the door, whistling and clapping and calling, and I was just about to duck around to the backyard when a scratchy voice came from the house next door, “She took him with her.”

I jumped a bit and tried to find the voice, but all I could see were windows with dirty screens over them. It came
again. “You some relation?” I wasn’t sure, but I thought it was a woman’s voice.

“I’m … I’m her niece. She asked me to come over and feed Ribs tonight.” I felt like I was lying to a house.

I spotted a window moving further open behind its screen. “Her niece? Paula’s never mentioned a niece. ’Course, Paula don’t talk much. Especially since that bum Marcus took off.”

I forced a laugh and said, “She sure doesn’t have much good to say about Marcus anymore.”

“No kiddin’! What a piece of work, carryin’ on with two other women at the same time. And the way he stiffed her. No alimony, no nothing. Just a piece of that stupid bar across town.”

I nodded like I’d heard it all before. Then I tried, “My mom says that Lance guy isn’t much better, but I’m hoping he is.”

“Oh, I’m afraid your mama’s right. Paula’s just repeatin’ history with that fella. And I tell you what, if his freak dog pisses on my roses one more time I’m gonna hose him down. I got one of them water blasters settin’ on my hall table
loaded
with ammonia. I’m just waiting.” Then she said, “Oh! There’s the timer—gotta go to my brownies!” and slammed the window.

I wasn’t about to hang around and wait for the house to start talking again. I peeked over the backyard fence, called for Marique a few times, and then took off. And as I was crossing the road, I looked back over my shoulder and noticed Paula’s trash can again, parked on the curb outside her house. And that’s when I got the notion that
inside that trash can might be some pretty good information. Maybe even evidence.

I ran back, took off the lid, and tried to find something important. Like dog hair or dog food cans—anything. What I found was garbage. Sacks and sacks of stinky garbage. But I started digging through it anyway. And somewhere between black bananas and beer cans I found a soggy ad flyer with a hole cut out of it. Now through my brain flashed Mrs. Landvogt’s ransom note, and all of a sudden I knew I was onto something. So I started digging deeper, and pretty soon I had a fist full of smelly flyers with holes cut out of them.

Then all of a sudden something kicked the side of the trash can,
clang!
I popped up, and there she was, as big as a bear, with a pan of brownies in one hand and a water blaster aimed straight at me in the other. She said through a mouthful of chocolate, “I’d wager you’re about as related as a bullfrog. What are you after, girl?”

My brain was racing around for a decent lie when out of my mouth pops, “I was just looking for a piece of paper to write her a note.…” I started edging away. “Really.”

“You’re lyin’. I can see it in your eyes.” She bit a chunk of brownie right out of the pan.

I held up the ads. “Look! That’s what I’ve got. Paper.”

She wagged the blaster at me. “Give ’em here.”

“No, I … I …”

“Give ’em here!”

“But I …” I turned around and ran. As fast as I could, as hard as I could.

It wasn’t fast enough. She blasted me in the rear end
with ammonia and called, “That’s right, girl,
run!
And don’t you
ever
come back!”

Believe me, I ran. Clear out to Main Street. And while I was waiting for the light to change I checked out my pants. They were soaked and they
smelled
. I really wanted to get out of them, but when I looked through the flyers I decided that I couldn’t just yet. The apartment was one way, the Landvogt mansion was another, and I
had
to see that ransom note.

So I started hiking out to East Jasmine. And somewhere along the way I stopped thinking about brownies and ammonia and started thinking about Mrs. Landvogt. How mean she was, and for what? She had everything.

Then I thought about Mrs. Graybill and Billy McCabe and that whole lifelong disaster, and I felt tired—like my brain was back walking in quicksand, trying to get from one thought to the next.

When I got to the Landvogt mansion, Tina let me in, and the first thing she said when the door had
bo-beep
ed closed was, “What is that
smell
?”

I felt like a sewer rat crashing a party at the White House, but I didn’t even care. I looked straight at her. “Ammonia.”

“Ammonia?” She wrinkled up her nose. “It smells awful!”

“Yeah, I know.” I looked around. “Where’s your mom?”

“Watching the stock market.” She led me to the den and whispered, “Can I wash those for you or something?”

“I’ll make it quick.”

The Crocodile’s nose was already twitching. She looked over her shoulder and said, “Is that
you
making that stench?”

I took a few steps closer. “Yeah, it’s me. I need to see that ransom note.”

She fanned the air in front of her. “Oh, that’s awful!”

“Look, I got hosed down with ammonia trying to dig up some clues at Paula Nook’s house.” I held up the ads. “I just want to compare these to the ransom note.”

The Croc powered back a few feet. “Hosed down with ammonia?”

“Yeah.”

“Paula did that to you?”

“Her neighbor did. Look, I’ll get out of here as soon as you show me the note.”

She pulled the black book from beside her in the wheelchair and whipped out the ransom note.

My hopes fell the minute I saw it. The note hadn’t come from the ads—the letters weren’t even close. I muttered, “Rats!”

Tina said softly, “It looks like she was just cutting coupons.”

“Then what are these holes?” I handed her a sheet. “No coupon is this size.”

“No, but if you’re using a box-cutter, you’ve got to pad, and you wind up with little holes like that.”

I looked at her, wondering when on earth Tina Landvogt had ever had to cut coupons. She smiled at me like she’d read my mind. “College. I got pretty good at it.”

Just then a noise came out of the Croc like she was being strangled. We both looked at her, glued to the TV, and Tina whispered, “Another bad day on Wall Street.”

The Croc snapped, “Tina, get me a Scotch,” then looked at me and pinched her nose. “And get that rancid waif out of here!”

When we got to the front door, Tina said, “Sammy, I really don’t think she’ll call the housing authority … not unless you make her really mad about something.” She laughed. “And look at you! I mean, it’s not like you’re not trying.”

“Well, what’s going to happen on Friday if I don’t find Marique?”

“Don’t tell her I said this,” she whispered, “but she’ll pay it.” She shook her head. “It’ll about kill her, but she’ll pay it.”

“That’s a lot of money for a dog!”

She looked over her shoulder at her mother in the den. “She’s in there right now, trying to decide which stocks to sell.”

“Tina!”

Tina rolled her eyes. “I’d better go get her that Scotch.” The door
be-boop
ed as she opened it for me. “Don’t sweat it so much. As long as she gets Marique back alive, everything’ll be all right.”

That did make me feel a little better. I didn’t quite believe it, but I did feel better. And walking down their circular drive I realized that I was never going to make it home if I didn’t get out of my jeans. The backs of my legs and my rear end were burning, and in the time it was going to take me to get home I’d be raw. I went over to the McKenzes’, praying that Marissa was home.

She was. She took one look at me and said, “What
happened?
”

I stepped into the house and said, “Got caught digging through garbage, chased by a human bear, and hosed down with ammonia … you know, the usual.”

She laughed. “Silly me. I thought you’d just been run over by a truck.”

“I was hoping I could maybe take a shower?” I practically got on my knees. “Pleeeease?”

She laughed, “Yes, please! I’ll get you some clean clothes.” As I followed her down the hall, she said, “Don’t let my mom see you. She’ll call the exterminator.”

“She’s home again?”

“Miracle, huh? She’s doing something in there with broccoli and pine nuts.”