Sammy Keyes and the Power of Justice Jack

PROLOGUE            

The city of Santa Martina has some odd ducks swimming in its waters. There’s Madame Nashira, the fortune-teller who lives in the Heavenly Hotel. There’s the Elvis impersonator who works nights at Maynard’s Market. There’s the Psycho Kitty Queen, who used to be a beauty queen but now has a gazillion cats and looks like a ninety-year-old Barbie.

We’ve also got a cockeyed taxidermist, a whole school of pro-wrestling maniacs, Dusty Mike, who hangs out at the graveyard, and a hunched old lady who likes to walk her two-hundred-pound pet pig.

And that’s not even taking into account all the bikers and gang guys and—Oh yeah! How could I forget?

Heather Acosta.

So, really, I thought I’d seen it all. I thought this crazy town couldn’t surprise me with anything new.

And then I met Justice Jack.

Dot DeVries is Dutch.

Well, at least that’s her heritage. She was born here, but her parents are from Holland and they speak with an accent and say
ja
a lot.

And even though Dot acts like an everyday ordinary eighth grader most of the time, when the calendar flips over to December, the Dutch girl in her cannot be contained.

“Here!” she said before school on Tuesday, forcing a small chunk of what looked like black rubber into my hand. “Sinterklaas came last night!”

According to Dot, Sinterklaas is the Dutch version of Santa Claus. He’s a big man with a long white beard and he brings gifts to good boys and girls, only instead of using eight reindeer and a sleigh, he rides just one big white horse, and instead of putting lots of presents all at once under a tree, Sinterklaas gives a few little presents spread out over five days, and he puts them in your
shoes
.

Dot gets
way
into Sinterklaas, but this was the first time she’d shared anything from him with me. “What is it?” I asked her, staring down at the rubbery black nugget.

“Dutch candy!” she says, popping one in her mouth. “It’s delicious!”

“Really?” I ask, ’cause, honestly, it looks like someone diced up an old tire.

“Really!” she squeaks. “Yesterday was the first of December, so before bed we put our shoes by the fireplace, left apples for the horse, and sang the Sinterklaas song, and this morning we had treats in our shoes!”

I still wasn’t convinced, but she was so excited, I figured, What the heck? and put it in my mouth.

It was rubbery.

And bitter.

And
bleeeechhhh
.

“You don’t like it?” Dot says, ’cause
bleeeechhhh
is written all over my face.

I look around for someplace to spit it out.

“Give it a second!” she says. “Really! It’s delicious!”

But I can’t take it another second. It doesn’t just taste like something that’s been inside a shoe, it tastes
like
a shoe! I hock it like a big black nasty loogie into a bush and wipe my lips on my sweatshirt sleeve. “You seriously
like
that?”