Sammy Keyes and the Wedding Crasher (15 page)

I backhand him. “Hey!” Then I ask, “You do believe me, don’t you? That I didn’t swipe your phone?”

“Are you kidding me, Sammy-keyesta? Of course!” Then he frowns and says, “Heather was really ticked about her phone, but I don’t know how she could have pulled off stealing mine.”

“She might have snagged it off the desk on her way out to the drill. Anyone could have, but I don’t know who else
would
have.”

He nods. “She was back in class before me, too.”

“She was?”

“Yeah.” He shakes his head. “But I still don’t think it’s her. I can’t see her getting anywhere near a rat.”

“What do you mean?” I grumble. “She
is
a rat.” But I have to admit—he does have a point. Then I have a thought. “What if …”

“What if what?”

I drop my voice. “What if she’s blackmailing someone else?”

“Like who?”

“Could be anyone, knowing her.” I think some more. “Or what if she’s just
working
with someone else?” But Monet and Tenille were the only two people I could think of who might go along with one of Heather’s schemes, and they weren’t smart enough to pull something like this off. I also couldn’t see either of them anywhere near that nasty rat, even with Heather cracking a whip.

So I shrug and say, “Or maybe Heather has nothing to do with it. Maybe it’s just someone who hates Vince. Or some
ones
.” I snap my fingers. “What if
one
person did the rat and
another
took your phone and did the phone message?”

He looks at me. “Kinda like I did the board but not the rat?”

“Exactly! Maybe it’s like a Die Dude Derby or something, where everyone who thinks Vince is a pain enters the race to leave him a message!”

“A Die Dude Derby?” He pulls a goofy face. “We’ll be Die Dudin’ all year!”

I laugh. “See what you started?” Then I whisper, “Did you tell your dad or Mr. Foxmore about writing on the board?”

He stops. “Are you kidding me? No!”

“Well, you were being so, you know,
cavalier
about it during lunch.”

He starts walking again. “Yeah, well, everyone knows I’m an idiot.” He snorts. “Just ask mah daddy.”

Now, we’re hustling to get to drama before class is completely over, only just before we get there, the door
next
to the drama room opens and Cisco walks out. “Hey,” he says, looking around as he’s locking the door behind him, “did you get yourselves cleared?”

Billy eyes me, and I can tell he’s thinking what I’m thinking:
Man, I hate gossip
.

“How’d you find out?” I ask.

He just shrugs. “I hear things.”

“Well, hear this—we’re innocent.”

He laughs. “Did I say you weren’t? You two are good kids. Anyone can see that.” He grins at Billy. “You’re a clown, but that doesn’t make you bad.”

“Well, whaddya know,” Billy says. “Thank you, Cisco!”

Cisco’s still grinning at him. “You wouldn’t, for example, have target practice on some little princess’s, uh,
muddy
pink phone, would you?”

We both blink at him like, What?

“Hmm,” he says, looking up at the sky. “Then again, maybe if it came right down to it, you would. Maybe
I
would.” He scratches the back of his neck and does a real relaxed one-shoulder shrug. “Every boy in the last two PE classes couldn’t seem to resist.”

I start busting up. “Are you saying … ?”

He’s
still
grinning as he starts to walk away. “I’m saying nothin’. And whatever it is I’m not sayin’, you didn’t hear it from me, got it?”

“Got it!”

So, yeah, Billy and I are totally cracking up as we jet over to drama, but before we go inside, we try to straighten up and act serious. I mean, how good would it look to come to class laughing after being grilled about “death threats” by the VP?

Turns out I was worrying about nothing because since school’s almost out, everyone in the drama room is talking, and it’s super loud inside. Still, we act all serious as we check in with Mr. Chester, but the minute we’re done with that, Heather corners us and says, “I don’t know how you got it, but I know you did. And you are going to pay, you hear me? You’re gonna pay!”

Now, she is right in my face spraying hate spatter all over me, and I’m sorry, but I’ve about had it with her stupid accusations. So I shove her back and say, “No,
you
listen to
me
. I didn’t touch your phone, and I’m not the one having target practice on it. So keep your stupid, unfounded, backstabbing accusations to yourself!”

She squints at me. “
Target
practice?” And then she gets it. “Who … ?”

“Every boy in the last two PE classes, that’s who.” I look her in the eye. “It’s called karma, Heather. What you do to other people winds up coming back on you.”

Then I grab Billy and take off, wondering if what I’d said would ever soak in.

“Wow,” Marissa said after school let out. “Were you and Billy in the office that whole time? What happened?” She looks over her shoulder. “And what did Heather say to you in there? I thought you were going to pound her!”

So I start with the juicy stuff—target practice.

“No!” Marissa gasps.

And then I launch into the story about my mother and how she put on the Perfect Mother Show for the Borschman and Mr. Foxmore.

“She’s still in town?” Marissa asks.

“Apparently,” I tell her, rolling my eyes.

“Well, at least she
helped
you for once.”

“I know,” I grumble, because it’s so much easier to deal with bad when it doesn’t dabble in good.

Now, to make a long story short, Marissa used to ride her bike to school, but over the summer her dad totaled it with his car as he was tearing away from the house. So instead of a bike, she now has a skateboard—one that Hudson got for her for two dollars at a garage sale.

Trouble is, she doesn’t ride very well. She’s wobbly and can’t seem to decide which foot to push with. She keeps switching. And fumbling. And picking up the skateboard and walking.

It drives me crazy. Especially when I want to
move
.

Anyway, on the days she “rides” it, she keeps her board in Mr. Tiller’s classroom, because she has him for homeroom and he’s one of those cool teachers who doesn’t mind. And since I had Mr. Tiller for math last year, and since his classroom is pretty close to the Vincenator’s, that’s usually where I park mine, too.

So
anyway
, we’re heading for Mr. Tiller’s classroom and I’m catching Marissa up on what happened in the office when I notice Cisco. His arms are out like he’s pushing his cart of cleaning stuff, only his body’s leaned waaaay back and his head is twisted to the side so he can look around the corner behind him.

I stop talking, and I stop walking. And when Marissa notices that I’m checking out Cisco, she laughs and says, “It looks like he’s waterskiing with his cleaning cart.”

Now I’m wondering if maybe something new happened in ol’ Scratch ’n’ Spit’s classroom, because it’s right around the corner. So we tiptoe up to where Cisco is, and I whisper, “What’s going on?”

He jerks forward with a “Huh?”

“Sorry! I didn’t mean to spook you.”

He puts a finger in front of his lips and waves for us to have a peek around the corner. So Marissa goes high, and I go low. And when I’ve got my eyeball wrapped around the corner, what do I see?

Mr. Vince arguing with Mr. Foxmore.

“I can’t quite hear,” Cisco whispers. “Can you?”

So I hold my breath, but I can only barely make out Vince’s half of it. “…  how do you expect me to teach? How do you expect me
not
to freak out? … I am
not
overreacting! Don’t you watch the news? There are crazy people in this world! … No, I don’t think it’s them! … How am I supposed to know who it is? This is an open campus. It doesn’t have to be a student—it could be anybody! … No, the best thing is for
you
to do
your
job! You’re supposed to make this a safe school, and if you can’t do
your
job, how do you expect me to do
mine
?”

Mr. Foxmore says something, then starts to move away. So Marissa and I duck back, and when Cisco asks us, “Could you hear?” Marissa nods and gives him a quick run down of what she’d heard—which pretty much matched what I’d heard. Then she whispers to me, “It sounded like Mr. Vince
doesn’t
think it was you and Billy, did you get that?”

I nod. “Miracle of miracles.”

“That
is
good!” Cisco says. Then he pushes forward, saying, “I’d better get moving before someone wonders what we’re doing.”

So he goes one way, and we go back to Mr. Tiller’s room to grab our skateboards, only Mr. Tiller kinda corners me and says, “Please tell me it wasn’t you.”

“It absolutely positively wasn’t me!”

He half sits on the edge of a student desk. “So what
is
going on? The rumors have been really flying this afternoon.”

“About Heather’s phone? Or about Billy and me getting grilled in the office?”

“Both!”

So we wind up hanging out in Mr. Tiller’s classroom for a good twenty minutes while I tell him
my
side of things, leaving out the stuff about Billy writing on the board and Sasha picking up Heather’s phone and Cisco helping us get inside information. And when I’m all done, he shakes his head and says, “It’s been a very strange day. From the fire alarm to all this phone business.…” He stands up and laughs. “It’s
way
too early in the year for this! Usually, we have meltdowns and crises at the
end
of the year.” He starts toward his desk, saying, “Let’s just hope they figure it out soon.”

So we finally get out of there, and since we’re not allowed to ride skateboards on the walkways at school, we shortcut over to the alleyway that delivery trucks use to bring in food or pipes or whatever, and ride out of school that way. And I’m almost to the alleyway gate when Marissa calls, “Hey, wait up!”

I look over my shoulder as I cruise along and see her jumping off her board, running to catch it. So I stop at the gate and wait while she grabs her skateboard and runs toward me crying, “I hate being so bad at this!”

“Look,” I tell her, “you need to decide on a foot. Just push with your right foot, okay?”

“But it feels weird.”

“So push with your left foot.”

“But that feels weird, too!”

“Well, you can’t push with both.”

“I could if it was a bike!”

I frown at her a minute. “Okay. How about this—close your eyes and pretend it’s a scooter. What would you do?”

So she actually closes her eyes and puts her hands up like she’s holding the handle of a scooter. “I’d push with my right.”

“Yay!”

There’s a big gap between the doors of the gate, so I squeeze through it, backpack and all. And after Marissa has done the same, I take her board from her and put it down at her feet. “Okay. You’re gonna push with your right, and you’re gonna
commit
. No more of this scaredy-cat stuff. You can always jump off, right? So quit worrying about falling off or crashing. Just push like you mean it and enjoy the ride!”

So she gives it a shot. And even though she’s pumping more than she’s riding, she’s actually leaning into it, pushing like she means it. It probably helps that it’s not a real public spot, so she doesn’t have to feel self-conscious about people watching her. Plus, we’re on cement, not asphalt, and there are no dips or curbs or typical sidewalk hazards like, you know, bulging tree roots or dogs or
evidence
of dogs.

The
trouble
is, this kinda unpublic place happens to be the teachers’ parking lot, and all of a sudden I notice taillights.

“Marissa!” I call, because she’s ahead of me, riding straight for an SUV that’s backing up. And it’s backing up
fast
. “Marissa! Car! MARISSA! CAR!”

When she finally looks up, she panics and jumps off
her board, sending it flying forward as she staggers and stumbles and then falls to the side. And before I can even finish blinking, the SUV goes MUNCH, CRUNCH,
THWUMP
right over the skateboard.

The brake lights come on, the driver’s door flies open, and then who comes scrambling out?

The Kid Detester himself.

“What the hell are you doing back here?” Mr. Vince shouts after he sees the demolished skateboard.

I blink at him a minute, then help Marissa off the ground as I tell him, “Thanks so much for your concern, but I think she’ll be fine.”

He snarls at me, then walks around the back bumper, which is chalky-looking and already dinged in at least two places, and has three faded oval stickers on it that say STURGIS.

Whatever that is.

And when he finally decides that we haven’t done any suable damage to his awesome ride, he kicks what’s left of Marissa’s skateboard out from under his car and says, “This is the
teachers’
parking lot, not your little skate park. You’re lucky nobody got hurt.”

Then he gets in his car, slams his dirty blue door, and leaves us in a cloud of burning rubber.

So much for riding skateboards home. After we threw away the scraps of Marissa’s board, we wound up hoofing it out of there some back way that Marissa wanted to go. It was an odd route, too, and finally I ask her, “Why are we going this way?”

She just shrugs and says, “Nobody from school goes this way.”

I snort. “Well, yeah! Why would they?” But then something hits me. “Are you avoiding someone?”

“No!” She laughs. “I just like the trees, don’t you?”

Well, the trees don’t look like anything special to me, but I don’t tell her that. I just walk along wondering what’s really behind our going this way, ’cause I’m getting the feeling it has nothing to do with trees.

She lets out a sigh. “First my dad runs over my bike, then Mr. Vince runs over my skateboard. What’s next?”

I eye her. “Got Rollerblades?”

She laughs. “No, but if I did, I’d leave them in the closet!”

Now, while she’s talking, she’s kinda glancing away from me, looking to the right. And she
keeps
glancing to
the right as we walk along, so I do, too. And I’m sorry, but I don’t see what’s so doggone interesting about a one-story tract house with a sort of patchy lawn.