“What if he's worried?”
“Hrmph.”
“Grams … !”
“I'm not in the mood to hear that I'm overreacting.” I scowled at her and picked up the phone.
She crossed her arms tighter.
“Hello?”
“Sammy?”
“Hi, Hudson.”
“Why on earth did you two leave? When did you leave? One minute you're arguing with that Winters woman, then next thing I know you're nowhere to be found.”
“Well, neither of us felt like sticking around. And you were, uh … a little preoccupied.”
“Listen, let me talk to your grandmother. I feel horrible that she walked home.”
I held the phone out to Grams, but she just shook her head and dug in deeper.
“Hudson? She doesn't want to talk to you right now.”
“She's … mad?”
I eye her and say, “You betcha. Where are you, anyway? You don't sound like you're at home.”
“I'm not. I'm still at the Vault. The police have been taking statements … it's quite an ordeal.”
“How's the damsel?”
“Who?”
“Your damsel in distress.”
Now Hudson Graham is probably the smartest guy I know, but until that moment, I swear he was clueless about why Grams and I had walked home. And I could almost hear the click in his brain as he said, “Ah … oh, dear.”
“Um-hmm. So why don't you call back in the morning?”
Grams' head goes into hyper-shake, and across the line I hear, “But—”
“You know how she gets.”
Grams' jaw drops, so I give her a little shrug and smile like, Well it's true …
“Okay,” he says. “I'll do that. But in the meantime, would you try to convince her that I'm not a dog?”
“Aaarrroooo!”
“I'll talk to you in the morning.”
“Good night,” I told him, and hung up the phone.
Of course Grams wanted to know every little thing he said. And then we had to go and beat the whole evening to death. So when I finally got to hit the couch, well, Zzzzz, I was out.
So I'm seriously snoozing away, in the middle of a really great flying dream—one where I'm sailing over the rooftops of Santa Martina with my arms out, and the bad guys who are chasing me can't fly as high as I can. And I'm getting away, going up, up, over trees and St. Mary's steeple, laughing heh-heh-heh over my shoulder at them— when the phone rings.
One eye snaps open, but the rest of me tries to keep on flying. But what the one eye sees is the little clock on the end table next to me.
Seven-thirty?
On a Saturday?
What kind of moron would … and then I remember— Hudson.
Boy! I thought as I rolled the pillow over my head. He's getting dumber by the minute.
Grams didn't pick up the phone, either. And when it finally quit ringing, she took it off the hook and laid it on the counter. Then when it made a beeping noise and a mechanical lady told us to hang it up, Grams told her to shut her prerecorded mouth and unplugged the phone from the wall.
I never did get back to my flying dream. I got up and had some oatmeal instead.
Now, five-grain oatmeal may not seem like much of a Saturday morning treat to you, but really, it's all in the approach. Grams makes me eat it practically every morning, so I've learned how to love it. All you need is some brown sugar, some maple syrup, and walnuts. Lots of crushed walnuts. Mix it all together, add a little milk, and yum. You'll want seconds every time.
Which is exactly what I was having when all of a sudden there's a knock on the door. At first it's just a tap-tap-tap, but on the third try, it turns into a whack-whack-whack! And I say to Grams, “You've got to answer the door!”
“The nerve of that man! How dare he invade our … personal space!”
“Grams, just answer it, would you? You can't avoid him forever.”
She crosses her arms. “Watch me.”
I get up and say, “Okay, then I'll answer it.”
“Samantha, you can't do that! What if it's not him?” Whack-whack-whack.
“I guess that's a risk I'm willing to take.”
At the last minute, Grams cuts me off and shoos me away to hide in her closet, which is where I always have to go when someone unexpected comes over. But for once I don't dive into Grams' pile of pumps. I just duck behind the bedroom door and peek out the crack as Grams opens the apartment door.
And who comes barging into the apartment all flustery and blustery and out of breath?
Marissa, carrying two bulging tote bags.
“Marissa?” Grams gasps as she snaps the door locked behind her.
“Don't worry!” she whispers. “I came up the fire escape. And I did try to call you, but first no one answered, then the phone was busy!”
“Did you … did you try very early this morning?” Grams asks her.
Marissa's face scrunches up into a cringe. “Did I wake you up? I'm so, so sorry! I just wanted to find out if Sammy could go before she took off somewhere else.”
“Go?” I ask her, coming out from behind Grams' door. “Go where?”
“To the Faire!” she says, then starts yanking clothes out of a tote bag. “Look at this! Check these out.”
“Marissa, stop right there.”
She looks at me, one arm up, a dark red velvet dress with puffy sleeves and some kind of white lace-up contraption of a blouse draping clear to the floor.
“I hope you're not thinking what I think you're thinking, because you can just quit thinking it.”
“But my mom told me kids under fifteen don't have to pay if they're in costume. And since I know you won't let me pay for you, I figure—”
“It's a dress, Marissa.”
“And hel-lo, you're a girl … ?”
“Not that kind of a girl,” I say, pointing to the ruffles and frills. “You can't ride a skateboard in something like that. You'd kill yourself.”
“Well you don't have a skateboard to ride, now do you?”
She was giving me an evil little grin, so I told her, “Shut up.”
“Samantha!” Grams says, looking all stern at me.
“You have no idea what she's implying, Grams, so don't start sticking up for her.”
It's like Grams didn't even hear me. She just spreads the skirt of the red dress Marissa's holding and says, “This is quite lovely.”
Marissa hands the dress over to Grams, then out of the other tote bag she yanks a royal purple dress that's even frillier than the red one. “Look at the bodice on this,” she says to Grams. “Isn't it gorgeous?”
“Oh, my!” Grams says. “Where on earth did you get these?”
Marissa grins. “Yolanda's closet, of course.”
“That cinches it,” I tell her. “I am not wearing that thing!” 'Cause the last time I borrowed something from her mother's closet, it turned out to be a designer sweater that I, well, destroyed.
“She's the one who brought it up. She says it's fine!”
“But—”
“Just don't put out any fires with it, okay?”
“But—”
“She doesn't care, Sammy. It's been in the closet for, like, twenty years. Here!” she says, and tosses me the red one.
“That's all beside the point anyway! I don't want to go to the Faire.”
“Sure you do! Everyone says it's loads of fun.”
“You must be talking about the Renaissance Faire?” Grams asks Marissa, and when Marissa nods, Grams turns to me and says, “Samantha, you'll love the Faire. Why, I remember I went to one years ago … it was delightful. And I was wishing I'd had a costume to dress in. Everyone was in period outfits, talking in Old English, singing, dancing … I felt like a wet rag in regular clothes. You certainly should go. It's like taking a trip back in time!”
“Grams, you don't get it. Marissa doesn't want to go because she wants to be transported to a bygone era. She wants to go
because Danny Urbanski is going to be there.”
Marissa crosses her eyebrows at me, while Grams' fly up at her. And she asks Marissa, “Do your parents know this?”
“It's not like that! And I don't need a chaperone, I need a friend!”
We're all quiet a minute, looking back and forth at each other, and finally Grams says, “Well, Samantha, I think you should be a friend and go.”
I mutter, “Doesn't anyone care that I don't want to go?”
Marissa comes right up to me and whispers, “Please? Please?”
I look down and say, “What about Dot? Or Holly?”
She shrugs. “They wouldn't understand. They haven't known me since the third grade.” She scoops up my eyes with hers. “The third grade! Please, Sammy. I don't want to go without you.”
“I don't want to hang around when you're with Danny … !”
“I'm not going to run off with him or anything. Besides, he said he's going with some friends. There'll be lots of people you know. Let's just go together and have fun, okay?”
I crinkle my nose at the dress and say, “Would I really have to wear that thing?”
“Yolanda gave me thirty dollars. We can spend twenty getting in, which will leave us ten for food—and that means we won't eat much. Or we can wear these and get in for free and have thirty dollars to spend.”
“I'd rather pack peanut butter and jelly.”
“Peanut butter and … Samantha!” Grams says, shaking her head. “Get into the spirit of it, would you? They didn't have peanut butter and jelly in merry old England. If you can save ten dollars wearing that dress, wear the dress!”
Grams' fixed income didn't leave me much to argue with. She wasn't forking over any cash, and even if she had money to spare, I don't think she would've offered.
She was finally going to see me in a dress.
I scowled at Marissa, then Grams, then the dress. And finally I said, “Okay, but I'm wearing my high-tops.”
“Yes!” Marissa cried, pumping the air with her fist. Then she gave me a giant hug and said, “I owe you! I owe you big time!”
It's hard enough sneaking down five flights of fire escape stairs in broad daylight in jeans and a sweatshirt. But in our pouffy purple and red dresses, we must've looked like a couple of hot-air balloons descending on Santa Martina. And the whole hike over to the fairgrounds, people honked and whistled and yelled stuff out their car windows at us. They weren't really making fun of us—and Marissa didn't really seem to mind, waving back and even curtsying once—but I kept worrying that someone from school would see us.
Someone like Heather.
Then we got to the fairgrounds, and all of a sudden everyone was wearing weird clothes. There was a man right ahead of us at the turnstile who had on yellow-and-black knickers and tall black boots. His shirt was green and gold, broad at the shoulders and belted around the waist. He had a really wide accordion collar, a dagger hanging from his belt, and on his head was a hat with a plume. I'm talking the biggest, puffiest white feather I had ever seen.
The woman he was with was wearing a gold dress that was way fancier than ours. The skirt was really full and flared way out, and the top was laced on so tight, she looked like some sort of giant dinner bell waiting to be rung.
So by the time we went inside, I was already feeling a lot less geeky. And talk about being transported to a bygone era! It didn't take long to forget I was in Santa Martina. There were tents up everywhere. Not the camping kind, either. These were white canopies with bright little pennant flags perched on top. And everywhere you looked there was straw. Spread out on the ground, wrapped in bales, stacked as walls—everywhere. And the air was full of voices. Not like the buzz of people talking, but of individual voices. Loud ones. Calling to each other in a language I recognized, but then didn't.
“Good morrow, rennie! From where comest thou?”
“South Bay, good lord.”
“Ah, the fair shire of South Bay, yes! I know that area well! Pray, what bringst thee to our Chipping-Under-Oakwood?”
“The blood of John Barleycorn, o'course!”
“Aye! To John Barleycorn, then!” “Cheers!”
Then off they went in different directions, calling out to other people. And as we wandered deeper and deeper into the fairgrounds, past jugglers and minstrels, dancers and goats, I started feeling like some sort of bit player in the middle of a huge production that had the whole fair-grounds as its stage.
When we passed by a banner that said TOURNAMENT FYLD, Marissa suddenly pointed and cried, “Look, they're jousting!”
Sure enough, inside the arena there were jousters on horses all dressed up in armor and shields, charging each other with poles. “Wow,” I said. “You don't think they're really going to …,” and then down one of the jousters fell. Just thump, clank, ka-plunk, he was on the ground, rolling away from his horse while the crowd cheered for the winner.
Marissa said, “Cool!” And since she wanted to go inside and see the next round, that's what we did.
I have to admit—it was cool. I'd never seen actual jousting before. And these “knights,” as all the people around us kept calling them, were very intense about knocking each other over. They'd set up at opposite ends of the field, a man dressed like Robin Hood would drop a flag, and then the horses would charge, their hooves thundering and their tails flying. Then the jousting poles would tangle and a knight would fall, or they'd miss each other entirely and turn around and charge again. And right before the jousters rammed each other, everyone would hold their breath, so all you'd hear was the pounding of hooves.
And after each round, the winning knight took off his helmet and got a kiss from a lady with long curly blond hair, all dressed up like Guinevere.
“Wow,” Marissa says as we're leaving the field. “Isn't this whole place … romantic?”
“Hmmm,” I tell her. “So, where are you supposed to meet Danny?”
“It's not like that.”
“Well … what is it like?”
She shrugs. “He just said maybe he'd see me here.”
I grab her arm. “Wait a minute. You're telling me that you made me put on this ridiculous dress and dragged me clear across town because he said maybe he'd see you here?”
“Well he didn't say it like that. It was more like, ‘I'll be looking out for you there,' or, ‘It'd be really great if we'd run into each other there.' ”
“But what he said was, ‘Maybe I'll see you there'?”
She shrugs again, looking around. “You had to be there.” She skips a few steps, then smiles and says, “But aren't you having a great time? I mean isn't this the coolest?”
From a small stage across the way, a man in a belted poet's shirt and a feathered black hat holds up a pewter mug and starts singing:
“Well, I'll tell you a story that happened to me,
One day as I went out to Cork by the sea.
The day it was hot, the sun it was warm;
Says I, ‘A quick pint wouldn't do me no harm.'
I went in and ordered a bottle of stout.
Says the barman, ‘I'm sorry, the beer's all sold out.
Try whiskey, young Paddy, ten years in the wood.'
Says I, ‘I'll have cider; I've heard that it's good.' ”
Then a fat man in brown tights hops next to him on-stage and they both clink mugs and sing together,
“But I'll never, no never, no never again,
If I live to a hundred or a hundred and ten.
Well, I fell to the ground and I could not get up
After drinking a quart of the Johnny-Jump-Up.”
Then a third man joins them and they start up on the next verse, mugs held high, voices booming.
“After downing the third, I went out to the yard,
Where I walked into Brofie, the big civic guard;
‘Come 'ere to me boy. Don't you know I'm the law?'
I let loose me fist and I shattered his jaw.
Well, he fell to the
ground with his knees doubled up
'Twas not I what hit him, but the Johnny-Jump-Up.”
The man in the black hat calls into the crowd that's gathered around, “Oh-hoy there, lad! Come join us!” And up on the stage jumps a boy in a Robin Hood cap, pirate pants, and a swashbuckler's vest. And as he raises a beer mug and starts singing, “But I'll never, no never, no never again, if I live to a hundred or a hundred and ten …,” well, my jaw drops and my eyes pop because I know this guy.
He's an eighth grader at our school.
One with “cute freckles” and a tint of red in his hair.
And from the twinkle in his eye, I can tell—it's too late to duck and hide.
He's spotted me, too.
FIVE
Marissa, of course, grabs my arm and says, “Sammy, look! Isn't that Casey?”
“Let's go,”
I tell her.
“But he's singing to you!”
“Oh, great,” I tell her. “He's serenading me with a song about being drunk.”
“What?”
“Haven't you been listening?”
By now they're in the middle of another verse.
“… Well, about twelve o'clock and the beer it was high.
The corpse sits up and says he with a sigh,
' ‘I can't get to heaven, they won't let me up,
'Til I bring 'em a quart of the Johnny-Jump-Up.' ”
“Ohmygod,” Marissa says as the whole crowd joins in with, “But I'll never, no never, no never again, if I live to a hundred or a hundred and ten; well, I fell to the ground and I could not get up after drinking a quart of the Johnny-Jump-Up!”
“Let's go, okay?”
“No, look! He's grinning at you.”
“All the more reason to get out of here.”
Then all of a sudden the man with the black hat stumbles backward and falls down on the stage. And he yells, “Ya beslumbering beef-witted barnacle! Watch what 'cher doin'!”
“Me?” yells the big man in brown tights. “Ya dare call me a beef-witted barnacle? Yer naught but a bawdy beetle-headed bum-bailey!”
“Ay!” calls the third man. “'Tis true!”
“Nay!” calls ol' Black Hat. “I'm a gent. But you! Yer but a churlish common-kissing clotpole!”