Sammy Keyes and the Wedding Crasher (12 page)

She squints at me like she can’t believe it, then does a sniff of disgust and turns around.

So, fine. She thinks I’m a wimp.

Again.

Whatever. I get busy on the puzzle, but my heart’s not in it, and I keep getting distracted. First by Heather, who seems to be studying everybody in class, one at a time. That, of course, includes me, so I give her a closed smile and the peace sign, which somehow makes her think she should flip me off.

Then Jake Meers can’t seem to quit digging through his backpack.

And Lars Teppler whooshes his hair every time he writes down an answer.

And David Olsen’s foot won’t stop wagging. It’s like a hyper little foot fan. Wag-wag-wag-wag-wag!

Then Heather uses her sweet-as-pie voice to ask, “Mr. Vince? Could we maybe open some windows? It’s really stuffy in here, don’t you think?”

And it is, which is funny, considering Cisco had gotten reamed because there’d been a window open all night.

Mr. Vince grunts an okay, and Heather moves through the classroom like a combination of Miss Congeniality and Biggest Flirt, saying, “I’m sorry.… Can I get by? … 
Thank you! … Excuse me!” as she pushes open windows and props open the door.

She finally sits down in her seat with a little squiggle and an “Ah, much better!” and everyone gets back to the puzzle. But after a while I look up and notice that Mr. Vince is sitting at his desk like he always does when he gives us busywork, but he’s not clicking around on his computer. He’s pushed away from the desk a little and is kind of hunched over.

Now, at first I think he’s having a moment of, you know,
reflection
. But then he sits up, and his right arm pulls back and then moves forward. Like he’s just slipped something into the pocket of his slacks.

Something that seemed to be about the size of a phone.

Right away, I check for Billy’s phone.

It’s still there, by the chicken hat.

So then I’m thinking, Wow—did Mr. Vince have
his
phone out in class? Was he checking messages? Was he
texting
?

How hypocritical would
that
be?

But I couldn’t remember ever seeing Mr. Vince use a cell phone, so maybe it wasn’t a phone. Or wait … wow … maybe he had gotten ahold of
Heather’s
phone?

But how would he have gotten Heather’s phone? He wasn’t even at school when it got lost!

And Sasha sure wouldn’t give it to him.…

Would she?

No, of course not!

But … what if Sasha never really had it in the first place and she was just playing games with me? She
was
a little odd.

A little
extreme
.

So, yeah, I was spiraling into Doubtsville fast. And I knew I was being irrational, but something about Heather’s phone kept nagging at me. It was like I needed to
see
the dead body to believe there
was
a dead body.

Now, I’ve been told more times than I can count that I have an “overly active imagination.” So I was actually in the middle of trying to rein it in, telling myself that I was being stupid and that the Vincenator was either putting his own phone away or doing another one of his disgusting scratch maneuvers, when all of a sudden the fire alarm goes off.

“Aaaagh!” I cry, and jump about six feet in the air.

Heather totally busts up. “Dork,” she sneers across the aisles.

“Fire drill, people!” Mr. Vince bellows from his desk.

I tell you. The guy’s a regular brain surgeon.

But then Mr. Foxmore’s voice comes over the PA. “This is not a drill. File out to your assigned evacuation sites immediately.”

“Not a drill?” everyone says, looking around at everyone else.

“You heard the man!” Mr. Vince snaps. “Get moving!”

So we all hurry to file out, leaving everything behind like we’re supposed to—which feels weird, but those are the rules.

Only apparently Sasha doesn’t know the rules.

“That stays here,” Mr. Vince says, pointing to her backpack.

“But—”

“They lock up,” Angie Johnson tells her. “It’s the rules.”

So Sasha leaves her backpack, but you can tell she really doesn’t want to.

“Our evacuation site is the track!” Mr. Vince calls. He’s standing outside the door now, kind of flagging us along as we all file out. “And don’t think you can ditch this!” he shouts as he locks up. “Roll will be taken!”

So we head for the track. We can hear sirens in the distance, and there’s a lot of scurrying of adults. Mr. Foxmore is touching base with teachers as they file by, Cisco’s giving instructions to the lunch ladies, and even our phantom principal, Dr. Morlock, is out waving students along, telling them to keep moving.

After our class is assembled on the track, Mr. Vince barks through the roll sheet. But I notice he starts with Tracy Arnold, not Heather Acosta, and when I look around, I don’t see Heather anywhere.

So I snicker, “Figures,” and just kind of shake my head, because if I know Heather, she kissed up to him for a bathroom pass so she could suck down a cigarette. And come on. I mean, how pathetic is it when you’re Scratch ’n’ Spit’s pet?

Anyway, when Mr. Vince is done with roll, he hands the sheet over to the teacher next to us and tells us, “Mrs.
Ambler’s in charge. Don’t cause her any trouble! I’ve got assigned duties to get to!”

Mrs. Ambler’s a pretty cool teacher, so right away the whole class relaxes and breaks away into little groups. And since some of us were in her class last year, she starts asking us how the new year is going and what we did over the summer and all that stuff. But after a while everyone looks around like, What’s taking so long? I mean, usually the all-clear bell rings almost right after we’ve reached the evacuation site. So finally I ask Mrs. Ambler, “Is there really a fire?”

“I heard there was a call from off-site. Someone spotted smoke.” She shakes her head. “It might be a false alarm, but they still have to clear all the rooms and bathrooms … everything.”

We’re already way into fourth period, and apparently the wait’s a little too long for some people, because only a really desperate person would ever use the Porta-Potty by the track. It’s not even an option as far as I’m concerned. I stepped inside it once, and boy! I got out of there quick. It wasn’t just the smell, either. It was the, uh,
level
. It was flat-out revolting.

But Rudy Folksmeir—who’s obsessed with dirt biking and not exactly worried about personal hygiene—comes blasting out of it, only he’s not choking or dying or gasping for air.

He’s jumping for joy like he’s just won the lottery.

“Heather!” he shouts. “Where’s Heather Acosta?”

I’m tempted to shout back, “Holed up with the
Marlboro Man!” but it’s a good thing I didn’t because just then Heather emerges from the far end of our group. “Right here,” she calls with one hand up. But then when she realizes who’s asking, she shouts, “What do
you
want?” across the track at him.

“A hundred bucks!” Rudy shouts. “I found your phone!”

“Really?” she asks, but then immediately goes pale. “Wait. You found it in
there
?”

“Yeah! And you are
not
gonna want it back!” he calls. “But I found it, so pay up!”

I look right at Sasha, but she gives me a totally cold stare. Like she is done with me, and she’s going to deny anything I think I know.

So much for complimenting her on the brilliance of her disposal. Instead, I focus on Heather, who’s just standing there not believing what she’s hearing. And you can tell—she does
not
want to go in and see for herself what Rudy’s talking about. “Well … get it out of there!” she yells at him.

He laughs. “
You
get it out of there!”

“Are you sure it’s mine?”

He shrugs. “Pink sparkle, right?” He starts back toward the outhouse. “Come on, check it out!”

Heather’s not the first one to brave the Hunny Hut, though.

Billy is.

It only takes him a minute, but when he emerges, he’s got a great big grin on his face. He holds the door open
for Heather and makes a grand, sweeping motion with his hand. “Your phone awaits!”

Well, Heather
does
look inside, but it’s quick, and she starts squealing and flapping her hands through the air, going, “Eew! Eew! Eew!” as she escapes. And on her way back to the track, she tells Rudy, “I’m not paying you! It was a reward for
recovering
it, not just finding it!”

“Hey, you said it was a hundred bucks for
finding
it!”

“No, for recovering it!”

Rudy is ticked off. “Yeah? You want it recovered? Okay, I’ll recover it!”

“You wouldn’t!” she shouts as he heads back to the outhouse.

“For a hundred bucks? Sure I would!”

Everyone around me goes, “Eeeew!” and Heather yells, “You’re gross! And there’s no way I’m paying you a hundred bucks for that!”

Right then the all-clear bell sounds, and Mrs. Ambler shouts, “Back to class! Everybody, report to your
third-
period class and stay there! Rudy, get to class! And make it quick. We only have ten minutes before lunch!”

So we scatter back to class, and we don’t do any of this follow-the-teacher stuff, either. I break away from my group and race around all over the place until I finally find Marissa, who is with Dot and Holly, coming off the soccer fields. “Guess what?” I gasp. “Rudy Folksmeir found Heather’s phone in the Porta-Potty by the track!”

“Like, down the john?” Marissa asks.

I nod and actually
giggle
.

Their eyes pop wide, and they all cry, “No!” and totally crack up.

“Gotta get back to Vince’s,” I call, and take off running, because his classroom is clear across school and I do
not
want to get in trouble for being the last one back.

Turns out I’m
not
the last one back.

Mr. Vince is.

“Where
is
he?” Tracy finally asks, because there’s now only a couple of minutes left in class, and we have no idea if we’re supposed to stay or check into fourth period or just head to lunch. “And why was the room open if he wasn’t in it?”

Nobody seems to have an answer for that, either.

And then Billy says, “Hey! Where’s my phone?” He’s got his chicken hat, but the phone’s nowhere to be found.

Heather snorts. “Now you know what it’s like, stupid. Go check the outhouse!”

All of a sudden Sasha’s digging through her backpack, checking to make sure everything’s still there. And since there’s no teacher around, Heather acts like
she’s
in charge. “Which one of you put my phone in the outhouse, huh?” she demands. “Whoever did it, you’re a disgusting pervert!”

Lars swishes his hair and grumbles, “You sound like Vince.”

She squints at him. “What?”

“You do,” he says with another swish. “You have no idea who did it. Maybe somebody after school found it. Maybe the janitor did.”

“And threw it in a Porta-Potty?”
she screeches.

Before he can answer, Mr. Vince walks in.

“Was there a fire?” Jake Meers asks him.

“False alarm,” he says. “Complete waste of time.”

“Hey, Mr. Vince?” Billy asks, going up to him. “Do you have my phone?”

Mr. Vince frowns at him. “No.”

“Well, it’s not on your desk. Someone took it!”

But Mr. Vince doesn’t care. He just shouts, “Finish the puzzle at home, people!” over the lunch bell and kicks Billy out of the room.

When I met up with Marissa, Holly, and Dot at the lunch tables, they were having a little gloatfest about Heather’s phone. “You guys!” I whispered, because they were really getting carried away. “Be cool. I do not want her thinking I had anything to do with it, okay? Besides, Billy’s phone’s disappeared, and I think she might have it.”

They all snapped to face me. “What? How?”

So I’m in the middle of telling them what happened before the fire alarm went off when Billy joins us.

“Did you find it?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “I bet Heather’s got it.”

I scowl. “I bet she does.”

“Why would Heather take it?” Marissa asks, looking at Billy. “I thought you guys were ‘friends’?”

He cocks his chicken head at me and says, “You didn’t tell them?”

Marissa, Holly, and Dot turn to me. “Tell us what?”

I throw my hands in the air. “Oh, good grief.”

“Sorry,” Billy says, pulling a face.

“I can’t believe you’re holding out!” Marissa says. “On
us
.”

“He made me swear I wouldn’t say anything, okay?” I give Billy a fierce look. “And you’re an idiot if you’re telling people!”

“I’m not!” Billy says. “But I thought for sure you’d tell
them
.” And even though he doesn’t say it, what’s implied is that of course I told them because they’re trustworthy and reliable and know how to keep a secret.

“Yeah,” Marissa says, and she’s obviously miffed. “Of course you’d tell
us
.”

I stare at Billy and shake my head. “Remind me why I swore I wouldn’t tell? Something about you being in boiling hot water if anyone found out? Something about your life being over if anyone found out? Something about getting expelled from school if anyone found out? Something about—”

“Found out
what
?” Holly says. “Just tell us already!”

So I eye Billy, then lean in and whisper, “Smart boy here let Heather talk him into writing ‘Die Dude’ on Vince’s whiteboard. Then she takes a picture of him in the act and blackmails him with it. And
then
when somebody
else
leaves the rat in Vince’s drawer, she really puts the screws to him.”

Dot looks at Billy. “So you put the message on the board but didn’t leave the rat?”

“Who’s ever going to believe
that
?” Holly asks.

“Exactly!” I tell them. “And since the rat is kinda … 
sick
—”

Marissa cringes. “Totally nasty.”

I nod. “—and since the little dog tag detail was so
Billy
 …”

“He gave in to her blackmail,” Dot says.

“What if she’s got a copy of the picture on her computer or sent it to someone else?” Holly asks.