“But—”
“And excuse me, but a motorcycle does not make a very good getaway car. Besides, if this is the first time ol' Helicopter Ears has seen the brother, then they can't have been in cahoots. You can't exactly sneak around on that Harley!”
“You're just not seeing this right, Samantha. It's all for publicity! It's all for—”
“Grams, that doesn't make sense! Just admit it, would you? You want it to be her 'cause you're jealous.”
Now Grams is about to say something back, but Hudson cuts in with, “What are the two of you whispering about?”
“Nothing,” Grams snaps.
He looks at me, so I just shrug and sort of roll my eyes. But then I decide to toss him a bone. “You didn't notice Flannel Man coming to Grams' rescue when she fell?”
He gives me a really puzzled look. “You mean that Pete fellow?”
“Uh-huh.”
He turns to Grams. “Rita, you fell?”
“Hrmph,” she says, and picks up speed.
He looks at me, completely baffled, so I pat him on the shoulder and say, “Hudson, you're the smartest guy I know. I can't believe you're not getting this.” He just stares at me, so I shake my head and say, “C'mon, let's go.”
Grams made me sit up front on the way home. And it was weird—I wasn't mad at either of them, but they both seemed mad at each other and me. I tried breaking the ice by asking them stuff like, “Why do you think squirrels like rotten nuts?” and, “Where do you suppose that road goes?” and, “Is anyone else starving to death?” but all I got was a bunch of grumbling.
By the time I met Grams back at the apartment, she was in the strangest mood I'd ever seen. She raided the dregs of my Christmas candy, poured herself a big glass of my 2% milk instead of her fat-free stuff, and sat down at the kitchen table with a yellow pad of paper and a jar of colored pencils. Then she stuffed her face with chocolate, peanuts, and caramel and started scratching out a chart. “Why anyone else can't see this is beyond me,” she muttered. “You want facts? I'll give you facts.” And when I asked her, “You want me to make dinner?” she just ripped into a Three Musketeers and said, “Sure. Fine. Whatever you want.”
Whatever I want? Well, this was a first. So while she scrawled away, I cooked up something Grams would normally never eat—some blood-cloggin', vein-stoppin' Pasta of Ill Repute.
That's right, I made us some mac 'n' cheese.
And when I brought two bowls of it to the table, she blinked at it, then at me, and said, “I can't eat that!”
I picked up her Three Musketeers wrapper and read, “Calories: 260. Calories from fat: 70.” I grabbed the Snickers wrapper. “Calories: 280. Calories from fat: 130.” And I was reaching for the PayDay wrapper when she said, “All right, all right! You've made your point. But could we at least have some kind of vegetable to go with it?”
“I am not mixing in peas or tuna or anything else, Grams. I—” and then I remembered something. “Salsa!”
“Salsa?”
I flew back to the refrigerator. “You know, tomatoes, onions, peppers … ?” I grabbed the salsa jar, a spoon, and an extra bowl and sat back down.
“Salsa is not a vegetable!”
“That's right, it's vegetables. Full of all those wonderful antioxidants you're always pushing me to eat.”
“You're putting that in your macaroni?”
“I've heard it's really good. Actually, I've heard it's god-like.”
“God-like?” She watched me mix up a little batch in the extra bowl, her face crinkled in disgust. “From whom?”
Actually, that was exactly what I was trying not to think about. I mean, I'd picked up this little tip clear back in January, so at this point I could easily have forgotten where I'd heard about mac 'n' salsa, right?
“Samantha?”
A lie flashed through my mind. A meteor shower of lies flashed through my mind. But since I'd recently made a pact with Grams that I wouldn't lie to her if she would try to trust me again, well, I didn't lie. I just shrugged like it didn't matter and said, “Just someone at school.”
“And that someone's name is … ?”
“Casey,” I said, then took a bite.
At first my mouth went into shock. Nothing moved. Then all of a sudden my tongue and teeth and palate and gums went crazy. Like they were jumping up and down for joy.
Casey was right.
It was god-like.
“Samantha?” Grams was looking worried. “Go on— spit it out!”
“Oh!” I started chewing like crazy. “Oh, Grams! This is so good, you won't believe it!” I spooned a bunch of salsa into my bowl and mixed, then grabbed her fork and gave her a bite.
“Say!” she said after chewing a minute. “That's wonderful!”
“Here.” I passed her the salsa. “Have some veggies.”
She laughed and mixed her own, then said, “So, who's Casey?”
Uh-oh. I stuffed my face. “Just somebody at school.”
Now I could tell Grams was getting ready to sniff down a whole new trail of clues, so I reached over, snagged the pad, and said, “Let's see your ‘facts.' ”
Across the top she'd written SUSPECTS, but she'd only listed one—Diane “Lizzy” Reijden. And beneath her name she had:
Fainted during heist to cause diversion
Recognized bandit
Wanted to create reasons for the L.A. Times to write about her paintings
Was in no hurry to meet the reporter—knew he would be over to see her soon enough!
Dislikes Tess Winters
Does not want the police to investigate
Has a mysterious, black-sheep brother (who rides a Harley)
“Who rides a Harley? I guess that makes him guilty right there, huh?”
“Take it from me, Samantha, you can't trust a man on a tricked-out Harley.”
“Well, the guy who kicked me in the jaw was wearing tennis shoes, not biker boots. Thank God.”
She scowled at me. “Most people have more than one pair of shoes. And I don't know … maybe a Harley doesn't make for a quiet getaway, but who says he wasn't planning to just strap them to the sissy bar and blast out of there?”
To the sissy bar? The sissy bar? Who was this woman?
I shook my head. “Wouldn't that be really, really conspicuous?”
“Perhaps, but you did notice he only took four of them, right?”
“He couldn't carry all eight of them! Not under one arm!”
“Ah-ah-ah,” she said, looking at me like she had the key to the universe. “He couldn't carry them all on the back of a Harley.”
“But he could carry four? Gra-ams!”
“Okay, okay!” she grumbled, but then brightened. “So maybe he's also got a car.”
“Not if he just came into town. Admit it, Grams. Your theory just doesn't hold up.”
She crossed her arms. “I stand by my clues.”
“Your clues.” I shook my head and snagged her pad and a pencil. And while she ate zippy mac 'n' cheese, I made columns of my own. One for Tess Winters, one for Austin Zuni, and one for Jojo Lorenzo.
“Jojo Lorenzo?” Grams said, reading upside down. “Why on earth did you list him?”
So I told her all about seeing him at the Renaissance Faire and how he gets fifty percent of anything that's sold while it's at the Vault. “Diane's only showing her paintings there for three weeks, so he's got to move fast.”
“Pshaw.”
I blinked at her. “ ‘Pshaw,' Grams?”
“You know—nonsense. Ridiculous. Absurd. Preposterous—”
“I know what pshaw means, Grams. I just didn't think it was something people actually said.”
“Well, I just did, and that's my exact assessment.”
“Okay, well, what about the fact that Jojo ‘forgot' to call the police the night of the robbery? Don't you find that a little odd? Maybe he was trying to give the squirt gun guy extra time to get away? Ever think about that?”
; She waves it off. “That's perfectly in keeping with the way that man is.” Then, just like that, she drops the only decent clue I've got and points to the paper, saying, “I know you've got things against that Winters woman, and heaven knows anyone would relish seeing her tried and convicted, but I place my money on Miz Liz.” She wags her fork at me. “Intuition, child. You've got to trust it.”
“Well, my intuition tells me Tess could very well have done it.”
Grams shrugs. “List me some facts, then.”
So I did.
1) Kept watching the front door.
“He came in the side door.”
“Well, she was expecting some one.”
“The reporter, most likely.”
I scowled at her and wrote, 2) Needs publicity
“Any more than Diane?”
“Yes! Jojo says she hiked up her prices to be in the same ballpark as Diane's.”
“Oh, pshaw.”
I blinked at her, and then I couldn't help it—I cracked up. And when I quit laughing, I said, “You'd better not start using that all the time, all right?”
She grinned and scraped out her bowl, then eyed me. “It would be interesting to know whose paintings actually sell. Do you suppose that Winters woman has ever sold a painting?”
“Jojo said she sells a lot of them.”
Grams quit licking her fork. “You can't be serious.”
I nodded. “But that was at a price way lower than what she's charging now. He's not sure they'll move at the new price.”
“Well, what about Austin Zuni? Why do you suspect him?”
“Jojo started to say something about him at the Faire.”
“Like … ?”
“I don't know. There seemed to be something about him he didn't like. Didn't trust.”
“Oh, that's concrete evidence.” She smiled and shook her head. “Nope, the only real suspect is lovely Lizzy.”
“Boy, Grams. She really bugs you, doesn't she?”
Grams scowled. “She's probably played off those eyes her entire life.”
“What do you mean?”
“Why do you suppose her nickname's Lizzy? You can't very well get that out of Diane, now, can you?”
“So … ?”
She shakes her head at me like I'm dense as dirt. “Lizzy is short for Elizabeth? As in Elizabeth Taylor?”
“Oh come on, Grams. Who would do that?”
“Diane Reijden, apparently.” She snags back the paper. “Now tell me about Casey.”
“Casey?”
“You don't think I missed how your cheeks rosied up when I asked about the macaroni and salsa, do you?”
“I didn't blush!”
She took her glasses off, then huffed and buffed them.
“The name Casey could be a boy's or a girl's.” She popped her glasses back on her nose. “From your reaction, I'd say this Casey is a boy.”
“So?”
“So who is he? How do you know him? Does he have a last name?”
I hesitated, then leaned forward and said, “Yeah, he has a last name: A-cos-ta.”
She blinked. Once hard, then about ten times rapid fire. Then she leaned forward and whispered, “No … !”
“Yup. Casey is Heather's brother.”
“They're not evil twins, are they?”
I laughed. “More like complete opposites. And he's in eighth grade.”
“But still! You can't be—”
I shoved back and cleared our bowls. “Don't worry, I'm not about to get tangled up in a mess like that.”
She just sat there, watching me rinse the dishes. And when I came back for the salsa and napkins, she gave me the same look she'd given me when I'd told her Diane hadn't set up the robbery. So I said, “Don't start thinking stupid thoughts, okay?”
“Then tell me why you blush every time you talk about him.”
“I don't blush!”
She gave me a little grin. “Pshaw.”
“Stop that!”
She grabbed my hand and said, “You can talk to me about this, you know.”
“I know, Grams. But there's really not much to talk about. He's Heather's brother.”
She kept her eyes locked on mine. “One's heart is not always as smart as one's head.”
I laughed. “In your case, I think it's kind of the opposite.”
“Samantha!”
“Seriously, Grams. You're completely deluded if you think Diane Reijden's an evil, scheming witch. Why can't you just admit you're jealous?” She looked really hurt, so I sat down across from her and said, “I'm sorry, okay? But I think it's true.”
She sighed, then held her notes out in front of her and sighed again. “I wish I could prove it.”
“So you can show Hudson what a blockhead he's being?”
She was quiet a long time, then said, “I guess it all just hits a little too close to home. I will never understand how your grandfather could have abandoned us for that Harley hussy.”
“I'm sorry, Grams,” I told her softly.
She got up and sighed again. “I think I'll go rest for a bit. Suddenly I'm very tired.” She gave me a halfhearted smile. “But thanks for dinner. Tell Casey it was really quite good.”
I shrugged. “If I see him.” She eyed me skeptically, so I added, “I swear, Grams, I hardly ever run into him.”
So she went off to her room and I cleaned up the kitchen. And while I scrubbed out the macaroni pan, I hoped really hard that I wouldn't run into Casey. Heather had probably told him everything Marissa had said at the Faire, and it wasn't something you could exactly explain away in the middle of a bunch of junior high kids. No, I'd just avoid Casey. Act like it was no big deal to me, 'cause it was no big deal to me. There was no way I was going to let a stupid little kiss on the hand make a fool out of me!
I should have known Heather Acosta would have other plans.
ELEVEN
I'd been on campus all of two minutes when I heard it.
A symphony of lip sucking behind me.
Don't turn around, I told myself. Don't turn around! Smooch-smooch-smooch! Squeak-squeak-smack! “Oh, Romeo! Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?” Squeeeeeeak-smack!
I kept lugging Marissa's tote bags along, my eyes glued straight ahead. But then all of a sudden Heather and her wanna-bes zoom around and block my path, their lips sticking out like a school of smoochy fish.
I roll my eyes and say, “Excuse me, Heather, but I think this is a violation of your, uh, parole. Twenty-five feet, remember? Unless you're trying to get expelled … ?”
It's kind of a long story, but after six months of Heather's lies and tricks and—as Grams says—shenanigans, this is Vice Principal Caan's latest brainchild: a “safety zone.”
I guess he thinks you can fence out chiggers with chicken wire.
Anyway, Monet and Tenille are still making kissing noises, but their lips aren't sticking out quite so far, and they're starting to check over their shoulders for Mr. Caan.
Heather doesn't budge. “My brother says you're a liar, loser. Says he'd rather kiss a codfish!”
“He'd rather kiss you?” I wiggled my nose at her.
“Didn't you take a shower after the Faire? Or is that your putrid personality passing gas again?”
She was about to shove me, but Monet grabbed her in the nick of time, saying, “It's the Caan Man!” And sure enough, Vice Principal Caan was making a beeline toward us.
Heather and her friends cut across the grass acting like everything was cool, but Mr. Caan wasn't fooled. “What was going on here?” he asked me.
“Just the usual,” I said. “I want to know what she said.”
“Look, Mr. Caan. It's all right. I can take care of myself.”
“I know that, Sammy. But I've promised you we'd be on top of her, so I want to know—did she threaten you? Because if she did, she's out of here.”
Boy. Was this tempting, or what? But the fact was, she hadn't threatened me. And I suppose I could've told him all
about her teasing me, but then I'd have had to explain about the kiss and really, I didn't want to get into it. Talk about embarrassing! So I just said, “She didn't threaten me. She was just being, you know, Heather. Don't worry about it, okay? It'll just get worse if you try and talk to her about it.”
“You're sure?”
“Yeah. But thanks, Mr. Caan.”
So I ran off to class, only the minute I walked into homeroom and saw Marissa's face, I knew something was wrong. I put her tote bags by her seat and said, “Hey, what's up?”
She eyed my desk.
And that's when I saw it. Lying under my desk, wheels up, purple patch showing. “My board!” I yipped, and charged across the room.
Marissa followed me, whispering, “You're happy about this?”
I was all over my skateboard, flipping it around, checking it out, whipping the wheels, zoom, zoom, zoom. “Of course I'm happy! God, I want to go ride.” I tossed it on the floor and hopped on.
From behind the rulers and feathers and magnifying glass in her pencil jug, Mrs. Ambler barked, “Samantha! You can't ride that anywhere on campus, and certainly not in my classroom!”
I popped it up and called, “Sorry, Mrs. Ambler,” then said, “Wa-hoo!” to Marissa.
Marissa leaned against a desk next to mine and said, “Don't you understand the significance of this?”
“Yeah! This means I don't have to walk everywhere I go. I can ride!”
The bell rang as she grabbed me by the shoulders and shook. “Sammy! The significance of this is that Casey isn't holding it hostage anymore.”
“He should never have been holding it hostage!”
She threw her hands in the air. “You're hopeless.”
“No, I'm not. You just read too much into everything. Danny says maybe he'll see you at the Faire and you—”
“Shhhhh!” she hisses, looking over her shoulder at the kids filing in.
I whisper, “—think it's a hot date. Casey's all caught up in being a thespian—”
“A what?”
“An actor! And you think he's kissed me for real.”
Just then Heather struts through the door. And the instant she sees me she makes that stupid kissing sound. Squeeeeeeak-smack.