Sammy Keyes and the Art of Deception (2 page)

Tony interrupts again with, “Does it have to be a painting? What about all that clay stuff or those wooden jobbies—do those count?”

“Aha!” she says, smiling wickeder than ever. “Jolly good point!”

Jolly good point? We were in some sticky deep doo-doo now.

“What
is
art? That's the other thing I want you to do for me—define art. I want
your
definition of art. Is photography art? Are crafts art? Why? Why not? Give me your thoughts and definitions, and be prepared to defend them in front of a panel of your peers.”

This was going from bad to worse in a hurry. And I could tell—she hadn't thought this out, she was just winging it! Demon dust was stuck in her lungs and it was making her zoom around, faster and faster, while she added more and more things to the assignment. By the end of class, I felt like I'd been through Hurricane Kuzkowski.

When I met up with Marissa at the bike racks after school, she was still flying high, too. Only she wasn't swooping around wildly like Miss Kuzkowski had been. No, she was floating on cloud nine.

Danny, Danny, Danny. That's all she could talk about. And yeah, Danny's cute, but he's not
that
cute. And who cares if he's got a blue backpack some days and a brown one other days? What's it
matter
? I tried to tell her about Miss Kuzkowski and her wicked assignment, but she was only tuned in to one thing—Danny, Danny, Danny. The walk over to the mall never seemed so long.

So I was relieved when she didn't even mention going inside the mall to play video games like she always does. We crossed Broadway, and when I turned off to go to the Senior Highrise, where I live with my grams, she just waved and zoomed off on her bike, calling, “Bye!” For the first time ever, I was glad to see her go.

Now, I
did
start for home, but then I plopped down on one of the mall benches and just sat there, thinking. And the more I thought, the more upset I got. I mean, Marissa has been my best friend since the third grade, and even though she's been zany about Danny Urbanski for years, she's always been able to talk about stuff besides Danny Urbanski. Like softball and what's happening at school and what we're going to do on the weekend. And even though it had only been one afternoon, I could already tell—Danny Urbanski was going to start dominating conversations. More than Heather Acosta
ever
had.

And it's not like I felt jealous because she was meeting a guy at the Faire and I wasn't. I mean, Marissa keeps telling me Casey likes me, but that whole situation is too weird. Sure, he
seems
really nice, and he
has
stuck up for me around his sister—even put his neck out for me in a big way—but I don't know. It's like he's playing some complicated game with me and I'm not sure what the rules are. For instance, he still has my skateboard. That's a long story, but the bottom line is, I can have it back any time—I just have to “ask nice.” Or go over to his house and get it.

See? Is that stupid, or what? It's
my
skateboard. Why should I have to ask nice? Or go clear out to his dad's
house in Sisquane? Maybe if he lived in town at his mom's I'd go. It's a whole lot closer.

Then again, Heather lives at his mom's, so probably not.

Anyway, the point is, why can't he just bring it to school? It's a game, I tell you. A stupid game. And I'm not playing. Period. And if that means I have to walk everywhere, well fine. That's what I'll do.

So, I guess I was feeling kinda lonely because after sitting on the bench for a while, I didn't go home. Instead, I headed back into the wind, back along the mall, past the fire department and police station, over to Cypress Street. And before you know it I'm waving at my favorite old guy in the whole wide world, calling, “Hiya, Hudson!” as I turn up his walkway.

“Sammy!” He swings his boots down from the porch railing and anchors his newspaper on the table with a brick. “How are you, my friend?”

All of a sudden I'm all choked up. I mean,
I
think of
him
as a friend—a great friend. But I'm thirteen and he's seventy-two, and, well, sometimes I think I'm more trouble to him than anything. Like he's the river and I'm the bear, and I get to fish and drink and wash off bugs, and all he gets is churned up and muddied.

So I'm just standing there in the middle of his walkway, blinking away the sting in my eyes, when he asks me, “You okay, Samantha?”

“Yeah,” I tell him.“I'm fine.”

He studies me a minute, then says, “Come on up and have a seat. I'll fetch us some cinnamon cake and tea.” He smiles at me. “Sound good?”

“Sounds great.”

Hudson's porch is the best. Nice and shady in the summertime, dry and woody smelling when it's raining. And in the wacky winds of March, it's like a quiet breezy harbor.

It's also a great place to think. Or watch the stars. Or just look at the world go by. To me, it's a magical spot. A place where even the most confusing things start to make sense.

A lot of that's thanks to Hudson, but the porch works all by itself, too. It's just an amazing place, and if you told me right now that I had to pick one place to spend the rest of my life, I'd say Hudson's porch.

Definitely Hudson's porch.

So when he came back out with a tray of cake and tea and said, “Okay, Sammy, what's got your feathers ruffled, huh?” I didn't even bother to make him coax it out of me. I jumped right in, telling him all about Marissa and Danny and the stupid Renaissance Faire and how I was afraid my best friend was turning into a boy-crazy bore.

And when I'm all done baring my soul about losing Marissa to the nefarious black hole of love, you know what he does?

He throws back his head and laughs. “You're laughing at this?” I ask him. “It's like goodbye, Marissa—hello, Blather Brain.”

“Blather Brain?” He shakes his head. “Aren't you being a little hard on her?”

“You should've heard her! She said his eyes sparkle like
diamonds.
His chin juts like
granite.
” I lean in. “Hudson,
she said his teeth are like little glaciers rising through a sea of minty freshness!” I stop right there and just look at him. I mean, if he doesn't get it after hearing about the Sea of Minty Freshness, he's never going to get it.

“Hmmm,” he says, then chuckles and takes a big bite of cake.

“What?”

“She's got it bad, Sammy.”

“No kidding!”

He chewed for the longest time, then washed the cake down with some iced tea. “Just let her be infatuated, Sammy.”

“Well, it's not like I can
stop
her.”

“That's true.” He was quiet for a minute, then smiled at me. “Just try to be patient with her. Relationships at this age don't last. Friendships do.”

We were both quiet for a minute, and it's funny—all of a sudden I felt better. A lot better. This blather-brain stuff was temporary. A phase. I'd just have to hang in there until she came back to earth. Besides, even though I'd never gone blather-brained on her, she had stuck by me through some pretty tough spots. Some
really
tough spots.

“Feeling better?” Hudson asked.

I dug into my cake and nodded. “Thanks.”

“So how's the rest of school going?”

“It was crazy! It's the wind, Hudson. I swear it's the wind. Everyone's kinda wacky. Even the teachers! You should have seen Miss Kuzkowski today. She was … she was
wild.
”

“How so?”

So I told him all about her electric hair and her insane assignment and how she's telling everyone they should go to the Renaissance Faire to look at art.

“The Renaissance Faire? For
art
? Sammy, everything you'll see there is going to be … how do I say this politely … B-grade, at best. You're not going to get any sense of true art at the Renaissance Faire.” He shook his head and said, “I'm surprised she didn't encourage you to go to L'Artiste or the Vault or someplace like that.”

“Never heard of them.”

“They're local galleries, Sammy.”

“The only gallery I've ever heard of is the one in the mall.”

“That's not a gallery. That's mass-market junk.”

“They have van Goghs and stuff there.”

“Those are not van Goghs, Sammy.”

“Yes, they are.”

“They're reproductions.”

“So?”

“So?”

His eyebrows are flying high, let me tell you. But before he can bend my ear about why van Goghs aren't van Goghs, I cut him off. “Well, she started to say something about some kind of artist reception, but then Trinity Jackson let out an earth-shaking burp, so she switched to talking about the Faire instead.”

“A burp, huh?” Hudson yanked the
Santa Martina Times
from underneath the brick and started rustling through the Lifestyle section. “Was your classmate sent to the office?”

“For
burping
?”

He sighed, then shook his head and kept turning pages. “I think I read that … yes! Here it is!” He folded back the paper and stuck it in front of me. “I'll bet this is what your teacher was going to tell you about.”

We both read the ad:

Hudson slapped the paper with the back of his hand and said, “Forget the Faire. Forget the mall. I'm taking you to see some real art.”

“But—”

“Go home, have some dinner, change your clothes, and—”

“My clothes? Hudson, I'm not going if I have to dress up.”

He frowned. “That attire is not appropriate for an artist reception.”

“But Hudson—”

“Neither is burping, in case your teacher didn't make that clear.” He practically yanked me out of my seat.
“Meet me in front of your building at seven sharp. And tell your grandmother I'd love for her to join us, okay?”

“But Hudson …”

“No ifs, ands,
or
buts. This will be way better for your art education than the Renaissance Faire, believe me.”

I grabbed the rest of my cake and wolfed it down, then glugged some tea. And as I was jetting down his steps, I grinned at him over my shoulder and let out a burp that would have made Trinity Jackson proud.

Then I headed straight for home.

What I didn't know was that in about three hours we'd all be headed straight for trouble.

TWO   

An artist reception may be no place for high-tops, but I wore mine anyway. Grams had switched out of her usual A-line skirt-and-blouse into a longer A-line skirt-and-blouse. Not a drastic difference, believe me. And even though she grumbled plenty about the way I looked, getting me out of my sweatshirt and into a pink angora sweater was not going to happen. Nuh-uh. “Better to be cultured than look cultured, I suppose,” she sighed as we met up at Hudson's car. “But once, just
once
, I'd like to see you in something a little more feminine.”

Hudson was wearing some peach-and-black snakeskin boots and a little black bow tie. Not one of those stiff jobbies—this was a thin black ribbon, tied in a bow. “Nice boots,” I told him. “Cool tie.”

“Thank you,” he said, but from the way he was checking me over, I could tell what he was thinking. So I said, “Better to
be
cultured than look cultured,” and climbed in back.