Sammy Keyes and the Sisters of Mercy (15 page)

Holly gives the dog another hug. “Hi, Lucy.”

The rain was coming down again, hitting the window like a shower of nails. Vera gets up and says to Meg, “Let’s talk about this in private.”

So Holly and I sit there for the longest time, not saying much. And watching Holly with Lucy, well, she doesn’t seem at all like the girl who about ran me through with her whaling spear. She seems like a nice, normal girl. Finally, I ask, “Do dogs always take to you like this?”

She sighs. “Dogs are the best.”

“You’re going to love it here, then.”

She puts Lucy down on the floor. “They don’t want me to stay here. You know it and I know it, and it doesn’t really matter.” She stands up and says in kind of a tough voice, “I’m gonna get going.… Thanks anyway.”

Before I can say, Wait! Vera and Meg come back into the room. Vera says, “Don’t run off, dear, we want to talk to you.”

Holly kind of eyes me and you can tell—she’s afraid to hear what they have to say. But Lucy comes up and nuzzles her leg, so Holly picks her up and sits back down.

Meg says, “You can stay under these conditions—” but Vera interrupts with, “What Meg’s trying to say, dear, is that we’d like to try having you stay with us, but there’re some things we’re a little worried about.”

Holly hugs Lucy a little tighter. “Like?”

Meg says, “Like breaking the law. I don’t want to get into a lot of hot water for taking you in, and I don’t think it’s fair for you to spend what’s left of your childhood working in the shop.” She takes a deep breath. “We have a spare room that you could use. We’d give you your meals, and you’d work downstairs with us three or four days a week … after school.”

Holly’s eyes pop wide open. “School? But—”

Meg says, “No buts about it. You go to school or the deal is off.”

Very slowly, Holly nods.

Vera sighs and says, “What we haven’t figured out yet is what we’re going to do about registering you at school. But we’ll think of something.” She smiles at Holly. “So what do you say, dear? This ain’t the presidential palace,
but at least you’ll be warm and comfortable. And you have my word—we’ll never lock you in the closet.”

Holly lets out a long, choppy sigh. “I won’t be any trouble, I swear.” And when she gives Lucy another hug, she doesn’t look suspicious or angry or scared.

For the first time since I met her, Holly Janquell looks almost happy.

We were in the middle of homeroom when Holly showed up. The office lady, Mrs. Tweeter, walks her in, says a few words to Mrs. Ambler while she gives her Holly’s add slip, then disappears.

Holly looks just the same, only drier and cleaner. And she’s standing up there like every kid that’s ever been stuck in a new school in the middle of the year, kind of looking at no one and hugging her binder like she’s afraid it’s going to fall.

I want to call out, “Hi, Holly!” but I’m way across the room and I don’t know if that’s going to make her feel better or worse.

After a minute of Mrs. Ambler talking privately to her, she puts her arm around Holly and says, “Class, this is Holly. She comes to us from Albuquerque, New Mexico. I know you’ll make her feel welcome.” Then she looks around and says, “Let’s see.… There’s a seat, right behind Heather.” She smiles at Heather. “Maybe you could help Holly out with her schedule and introduce her to a few friends.”

Heather smiles back at Mrs. Ambler, but what she’s thinking as she’s checking Holly out is there’s no way she’s going to help out a kid in high-tops. And sure
enough, when the dismissal bell rings, Heather jets off without a word.

I go up to Holly and say, “I can’t believe you’re here already!”

Holly shakes her head. “Me neither. I think they were up all night plotting their strategy.”

“But you like it there okay?”

She shrugs and says, “We’ll see how long it lasts. French toast for breakfast, though, and Lucy gets to sleep with me.” She looks down and toes the ground. “Uh, Sammy?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.”

I smile. “Sure. I hope it works out.” I look at her schedule and say, “Classes today are really short ’cause of the softball game.”

“What softball game?”

“The last hour and a half of school everyone goes out to the field to watch the playoffs. You’ll see.” I hand her schedule back and say, “We’ve got three classes together, so don’t worry about getting confused. I’ll help you. Right now we’d better get over to English and listen to Miss Pilson read to us in a foreign language.”

She gives me kind of a puzzled look, but after we’re in English listening to Miss Pilson read Shakespeare, she grins at me because she knows
exactly
what I’m talking about.

At lunch Holly sat out at the patio tables with us and pretty much just listened to us talk about the game and what the field was going to be like after all that rain. When the bell rings, she says, “Good luck today, you guys,” and you can tell that she really is excited for us to win.

When game time finally rolls around, Dot, Marissa, and I zip off to our own little corner of the locker room, and we’re pretty happy, whispering and giggling about how we’re going to win. Then, while Marissa and Dot fix their hair, I run off to the bathroom. And I’m not gone for more than two minutes, but when I get back my mitt is not where I left it.

At first I think they’re playing a joke on me. I mean, they’re right there, you know? Who’s going to run up and steal my mitt with them standing there? So I say, “All right, you guys, give it back.”

Marissa looks at me through the mirror. “Give what back?”

“Ha, ha. Very funny. Now, give it back.”

They both turn around. “Give
what
back?”

Well, looking at their faces, I can see they don’t have a clue what I’m talking about. So I look under the bench and inside my locker, and then I run back to the bathroom and check, even though I know I didn’t take it with me.

When I come back, I say, “It was right here on the bench with yours. What could’ve …?” Then I see Tenille and Heather huddled up in a corner, looking like they’ve just snuck in the
EXIT
doors at the movies.

I go up to Heather and say, “Hey, that’s really not cool—give it back.”

She snickers and says, “Since when do
you
know anything about being cool?” She tightens the laces of her cleats. “Besides, I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

My heart’s beating pretty fast, and I’m dying to throw
her against the lockers, but I just stand there and try one more time. “Heather, you’re not going to win the game by stealing my mitt. Now, c’mon. I know you’ve got it, just give it back and let’s play each other fair and square.”

She gives me a sour little smile. “ ‘Play each other fair and square, play each other fair and square.’ Isn’t that just like you, you little cheater.” She puts on her glove, punches it with her fist, and says, “Good luck, Sammy. You’re gonna need it,” then turns her back on me.

I march straight up to the phys. ed. office. And when I tell Ms. Rothhammer what’s happened, she says, “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

She grabs her keys and comes flying down the steps into the locker room, then corners Heather and says, “I’d like you to open your locker for me. Right now.”

By now all the eighth graders have figured out that something’s going on and they’re all huddled up in pockets, whispering to each other. But since they can’t figure out exactly what’s happened until they break down and ask a seventh grader, they just watch while Heather goes over to her locker and pops it open.

Heather says, “See? I don’t have it. She’s just trying to get me in trouble again.”

Ms. Rothhammer mutters, “Yeah, like the way she forced you to spit on her after the last game.” Then, without missing a beat, she turns to Tenille and says, “Open your locker.”

Panic whitewashes Tenille’s face. She stutters, “Ms. Rothhammer, I … I don’t have it—really!”

Ms. Rothhammer puts her hands on her hips. “Open it. Now!”

So we go over to Tenille’s locker, and while she’s flipping the combination around, I see the eighth graders on our team break down and wave Marissa and Dot over so they can find out what’s going on. So the rest of my team’s in one corner of the locker room and I’m with Ms. Rothhammer in another, and when Tenille finally gets her locker open, all Ms. Rothhammer finds is some dirty socks and a pack of cigarettes.

She takes the cigarettes and says to Tenille, “I’ll deal with you about these later.” She turns to the rest of the players and says, “I want this locker room turned upside down. You know what Sammy’s mitt looks like. Find it!”

My team does just that, but Heather’s team only pretends to look. And after ten minutes of us finding nothing, Ms. Rothhammer comes back with one of the school’s gloves. “This is the best I can do, Sammy. I’m sorry. We’ve got to get out there—we’re already late.”

Now, the glove isn’t a catcher’s mitt. It isn’t even a first-baseman’s mitt. It’s a glove that barely covers my fingers. And running out to the field with the rest of the team, I’m thinking that I’d be better off bare-handed.

Miss Pitt tries to fire us up during warm-ups, but Marissa’s pretty worried and I’m really upset, and I guess it’s kind of contagious, because we can hear Mr. Vince’s team count off better than we can hear ourselves.

We’re up first, and while Dot’s getting in some warm-up swings, I try getting used to the glove I’ve got to use. But the more I work it, the more it feels like I’ve got a
porcupine stuck in my throat, and hard as I try, I can’t keep my eyes from dripping.

Then the strangest thing happens. It’s like a flash going through my brain. I see Father Mayhew staring out the window of his office, crying. And all at once I know, way down inside, how he feels about his cross being stolen.

I stay there for a few more minutes, sniffing and dripping, but pretty soon Dot’s in the batter’s box and I’ve got to get on deck, so I swallow the porcupine, hurl the mitt under the bench, and head out.

The crowd’s sounding like a giant Morse code machine, chanting, “Dot-Dot-Dot!” and even though she swings at the first pitch and misses, she practically cracks the bat slamming out a line drive on the second one. But it’s a line drive straight to Gisa Kranz, and even though Dot flies over to first, she’s out.

When I get up to bat, I eye Babs Filarski’s mitt and I guess she knows I’m thinking maybe I can borrow it, because she snorts, “Dream on!”

I didn’t even connect. When Babs called, “Swing!” I swung, and before I knew it, it was Xandi’s turn to bat and I was back riding pine.

And after Xandi struck out, well, it was basically all over. No one seemed to be able to hit, and when we were in the field, I couldn’t catch, I couldn’t throw—I could barely remember the signals. In the last inning Heather drove in the final run and we got shut out, 5–0.

Afterward, Mr. Vince’s team was more than happy to shake our hands, and Heather was more than happy to sneer at me and say, “Good game!”

I didn’t spit on her, but let me tell you, I wasn’t standing there feeling sorry for her, either. I was mad. Mad at her for taking the one thing that made me feel like somewhere I really
did
have a dad, and mad at myself for not being able to play without it. And standing there watching her sneer at me, I knew—she and Tenille had ditched a whole day of school so they could figure out a way to get me to blow the game.

I looked her straight in the eye and said, “Maybe you won the game, Heather, but anyone who’d steal someone else’s mitt is a loser. A big loser.”

She thinks that’s pretty funny. She throws her head back and laughs, “
I’m
a loser?” and pretty soon her whole team’s laughing and nudging each other, and by the time we’re back in the locker room that porcupine’s back and no amount of swallowing is making it go away.

On the walk home Marissa’s going on and on about how embarrassing the game was, and when she says, “Did you hear him out there? ‘Go, Marissa! C’mon, Marissa!’—Danny was actually cheering for me and I couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn!” I yell, “Stop it! Just stop it! The whole thing’s my fault. You know it, I know it, the whole team knows it! I’m sorry, okay?”

Marissa shuts up for a second and Dot says, “C’mon, Sammy. It wasn’t your fault. Everybody made mistakes.”

I look at her and just shake my head because no matter what she said, no matter what anybody said, it wasn’t going to change the fact that I’d let Heather get to me.

Get to me big time.