At the Senior Highrise, it was barely odd.
And lucky for me, Mrs. Wedgewood was putting on a show of politeness and Rex Randolf was obviously just wishing I would leave. So I did a sort of stiff-legged waddle over to the bathroom and slammed some cupboard doors around with one hand while I checked the picture of Rexy-baby with the other.
It was a three-quarters shot and plenty good enough.
“Find anything?” a voice behind me said.
The voice was low and calm.
And it shot me right out of my skin!
The trouble with jumping out of your skin is that you do it before you can stop yourself. And then trying to crawl back inside your skin as you pretend you never jumped out in the first place can be very tricky.
Especially if you’re thirteen trying to crawl back inside old-lady skin.
“I’m just tryin’ to bang him out!” I say, slamming the cupboard door some more with one hand as I hide the camera in between the folds of my skirt with the other. “He’s in here someplace, Rose!” I call in a warbly voice. “There’s droppings behind your toilet!”
“That’s exactly where he was!” she cries from her sunken spot on the sofa. “You tell Vince you found evidence! You tell him to get rid of this infestation once and for all!”
I ease my way past the Jackal, keeping my face down and turned away, then I slip the camera back in the purse and force myself to move slow and creaky as I go toward the front door. “There’s obviously still a problem,” I call over to Mrs. Wedgewood. “I’ll tell him what I found, dear. Don’t you worry!”
I half expected the Jackal to grab me by the scruff of my neck and rip off my wig, but he didn’t. He just let me out and closed the door.
So there I am, in the clear, about to dart down to the fire escape, when all of a sudden I notice something.
Our apartment door is cracked open.
And there’s an eyeball behind glasses peeking out.
I’m being spied on by my own grandmother!
Grams backs away when she realizes she may have been spotted, and I just stand there for a second not knowing what to do. Part of me wants to just go home and tell her it’s me, but then I’d have to explain why I’m dressed up as an old lady.
Another part of me wants to make a mad dash for the fire escape, but if she saw that, she’d know it was me.
What I do not want to do is creak my way over to the elevator or the regular stairs. It’s the long way, for one thing, and my ugly tan granny shoes are starting to kill me. But also, I don’t know how long the Jackal will stay at the Wedge’s apartment, and I sure don’t want to come face to face with him again.
Once was scary enough!
And it sure didn’t seem like he’d be at the Wedge’s apartment for very long. I mean, why was he there at all? How long would it take for him to realize he’d hit the big dead end of information?
But really, I had no choice—our apartment door was still cracked open, and I could feel Grams watching.
So off I go, hobbling past our apartment, looking straight ahead, feeling like a really sneaky, creepy granddaughter.
By the time I made it to the elevator, my feet were in pain, and as I’m punching the elevator’s call button, I’m thinking that I can’t wait to get back into my high-tops. But after a couple of minutes go by, I decide, Forget the stupid elevator! Like everything else in the Senior Highrise, it’s old and slow and might pick this very moment to break down for good. So I abandon that route out and limp on over to the inside stairs. My shoes are chomping on me, and my fakey stomach’s starting to sag, but I keep on limping on until I’m down on the fourth floor.
At this point, my foot is bleeding, and really, walking all the way along the fourth-floor hallway and down the fire escape in crabby shoes is going to be pure torture. So I take a minute and rip off those petrified toe-chompers, then check the hallway and head for the fire escape, rubbery shoes in one hand, pea green purse in the other.
But just as I get near the elevator, it dings.
I come skidding to a halt ’cause in a flash it hits me—it might be the Jackal!
I’d called the elevator to the fifth floor.
What if it had arrived in time to give him a quick ride down?
I start backpedaling like mad, but it’s too late.
The elevator door’s already sliding open.
TWENTY
There was nowhere to duck, nowhere to hide. So I did the same thing I did the night I scared Buck Ritter to death.
I sucked up against the wall.
Only this time I’m in a flowered dress.
Carrying ugly tan shoes.
And I’m in a lighted hallway!
Sure enough, it’s the Jackal who steps out of the elevator. And maybe I should have made a mad dash back to the inside stairs, but for some reason I just stood there like a great big granny splat against the wall, my heart machine-gunning in my chest.
And then the weirdest thing happens.
The Jackal steps out and turns his head a little to the left, then turns right and walks down the hall away from me.
I just stand there, splatted against the wall.
How could he not have seen me?
I mean, old-guy eyes are one thing—this was like he was blind.
Whatever. I tiptoed out of there, keeping one eye on him as he walked in the opposite direction, and when I was safely around the corner, I watched him stop and knock on an apartment door. He knuckled it four times, then two, and a few seconds later the door whooshed open and he disappeared inside.
I waited another minute, then tiptoed over to the apartment the Jackal had gone into.
It was number 427.
Four-two-seven, I told myself. Four knocks, two knocks, lucky number seven.
Now, I’m not about to stand there with my ear to the door or anything. My nerves are totally fried and I just want to get out of there! So before something else happens, I race down the hallway, slip out the fire escape door, and fly down the stairs.
The cool air feels great, and before I’ve even reached my backpack, I’ve got my wig and glasses ripped off. And as soon as I’ve got my backpack out of the bushes and I’m safe and sound in my little hiding place by the Dumpster, I pull on my jeans and tear off my disguise, stuffing it all in CeCe’s plastic shopping bag.
Then I hide the bag in the bushes where my backpack had been and hurry up the stairs. But halfway up I happen to notice my hand.
It’s still covered in spots.
Which means my face is, too!
Holy smokes!
So I flip a U-turn, race back down the stairs, find a spigot, and use one of my socks to scrub my face and hands the best I can and then go up to the fifth floor.
“There you are!” Grams says when I come through the door, and before I can even say I’m sorry for being late, she closes the door and whispers, “Strange things have been going on around here!”
“Really?” I ask, plopping my backpack down like it’s just my same old backpack instead of something that’s got a couple thousand dollars, a digital camera, and some cool new clothes in it.
“Very strange.”
“Like what? Objects moving through space?” I ask all nonchalantly as I head for the bathroom to check myself out in the mirror.
“No!”
“Hang on,” I tell her, closing the door, ’cause I really need to use soap to clean my fake old-lady spots all the way off.
When I come out, Grams starts in about everything she was able to overhear and oversee with Mrs. Wedgewood and “that handsome Mr. Randolf” and “a strange woman with the ugliest shoes you’ve ever seen,” and she’s in the middle of telling me about “an awful, banging, clanging racket” when all of a sudden the phone rings.
She interrupts herself to pick it up, and after a minute she says, “Just a moment,” then hands me the phone, whispering, “It’s Marissa. She sounds very upset.” Then she adds, “Oh! And Casey’s called four times looking
for you!”
My eyebrows shoot up, but she just shrugs. So I turn to the phone and say, “What’s up?”
“Ohmygodyou’renotgoingtobelievewhat’shappened! Mylife’sadisaster!” And even though I could kinda decipher that part, pretty soon she’s bawling her eyes out and talking at the same time, which just sounds like, “Brawthwo breeeth a boosta neeeeeee!”
“Marissa! Marissa! Calm down! Are you all right?”
“No! My life’s a…a—hic—disaster!”
“Is anybody dead?”
“No! But almost!”
“What? What do you mean, almost?”
“My parents got into a—hic—awful fight! My mom was—hic—screaming at my dad! It was even worse than when Mikey—hic—broke the Kraval!”
“Do you know why?”
“It has to do with money, but—hic—she won’t tell me!”
“Did you ask your dad?”
“He’s gone. He tore out of here so fast he—hic—totaled my bike!” She starts bawling again. “Please come over! Please! I feel like my whole world is falling apart!”
Grams is looking at me like, What is going ON? So I pull a face and cover the phone. “Can I go spend the night at Marissa’s? She’s having a meltdown.”
She nods. “Just call me when you get there so I know you’re safe.”
So I get off the phone, grab my backpack, my skateboard, and my toothbrush, give Dorito a quick kiss on the nose, and head for the fire escape.
Again.
On my way over to Marissa’s, my head felt like a bubbling, steaming kettle of soup.
Scratch that.
It felt like a whole cauldron of stew.
Yeah, that’s it. My head was full to the brim of Problem Stew. I’d been adding stuff to the mix so fast, and things were heating up so fast, it felt like the whole mess would just boil over if one more little thing got put in.
At least for once it wasn’t all my problems. But I think that’s what was making my head feel like it was about to boil over. Besides giving Buck Ritter from Omaha, Nebraska, a heart attack and hiding the money from…well, everybody, Marissa and her problems with Mikey and Danny and Heather and now her parents were also swimming around in my brain, and I couldn’t seem to keep the lid on any thought. I felt all mushy-headed. Like I couldn’t keep one thought from splattering into another.
Normally when I’m in a stew, I wind up at Hudson’s. He’s really good at giving advice without you knowing he’s giving advice. He’s kinda tricky that way. He listens, says a few things, and somehow makes you feel like you’re the one who’s figured it all out.
But I didn’t really have time to stop by Hudson’s about my poor stewed-up, splattering head. It was late and I had to get to Marissa.
When I arrived at the McKenzes’, the first thing I saw was Marissa’s bike at the side of the house, totally demolished. And before I was even at the front door, Marissa came flying out of the house and threw her arms around me. “I’m so glad you’re here!” she sobbed. “I don’t know what to do.”
I eyed the bike. “About your parents?”
“About anything! My life’s a disaster!”
“Hey,” I said, holding her out a little and looking her in her bloodshot eyes. “Your parents have gotten into fights before, right? They’ll get over it.”
“Not like this! Nothing like this!”
“But it’s about money, right? Not about something, you know…irreversible?”
“Yeah,” she whimpered. “Yeah, I think so.”
“So they’ll fix it. They’re money wizards! Everything’ll be fine!”
Her chin started quivering. “But it doesn’t feel like it’s going to be fine. It feels…horrible!” Her chin quivered and twitched faster and faster until it looked like it was full of Mexican jumping beans. Finally she blurted, “And Danny kissed Heather!”
She lunged at me and bawled into my shoulder. “How could he have kissed Heather?”
I sighed. “He’s a jerk, that’s how.”
“She’s the jerk!”
I rolled my eyes and took a deep breath. I felt like we’d already covered this ground, but obviously we were back at square one.
“How would you feel,” she sniffed, “if you saw Casey kissing…I don’t know who! Anyone! Tenille! Amber! Anybody.”
I tried, but I couldn’t really picture it.
“Never mind,” she said with a great big pout. “Casey would never do that.” She turned and marched for the house. “You’re right. Danny’s a jerk. I should hate him.”
“There you go!” I said, chasing after her. “Say that again.”
“He’s a jerk and I should hate him!”
“Louder!”
“He’s a jerk and I should hate him!”
“Louder!”
“HE’S A JERK AND I HATE HIM!”
“LOUDER!”
“HE’S A JERK AND I TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY HATE HIM!”
“Okay!”
But we were now at the front door, and Mrs. McKenze was coming out. “Stop that!” she hissed. “He’s your father and you are not to shout things like that! This is our business, not the whole neighborhood’s!” She pointed at me. “Stop egging her on!”
“But—” Marissa said, but her mother had already stormed back inside. And really, what could she say? There’s no way she was going to tell her mother about Danny and Heather!
“See?” Marissa said, throwing her hands into the air. “See what I’m having to deal with?”
“See?” I said with a grin. “She’s sticking up for your dad—they’re gonna be fine.”
When we were inside the house, we headed straight to Marissa’s bedroom.
Well, as straight as you can go in the McKenzes’ house.
We passed by their “casual” living room, which is full of highly polished everything, turned a corner, and passed by the kitchen hallway and the big double doors that lead to the room where the Kraval used to reign supreme. And we were just going around another corner to head upstairs to Marissa’s bedroom when we heard the phone ringing.
It was snatched up, and two seconds later Mrs. McKenze’s office door flew open. She seemed startled to see us there, but right away she drilled me with her eyes and said, “Do not give out our number as your place of contact!”
“I didn’t!” I said, all defensive-like.
“So why are boys calling here?”
My brain went, Casey?
My mouth went, “I have no idea!”
She stared at me a second, then without a word she pulled back into her office and slammed the door.
And as we’re heading up to Marissa’s bedroom, I’m thinking, So…was that Casey? I mean, who else could it be? But why was he calling the McKenzes’? Him calling the apartment was a new thing. Him calling the McKenzes’? He’d never done that before.
Once we were safely in Marissa’s bedroom, I said, “I promised Grams I’d call and let her know I was okay.”
So Marissa got me a phone, and when I called home, Grams informed me that Casey had called again. “I don’t know what’s going on, but he seemed almost frantic. You really need to call him back.”
“Okay. I will.”
So I got off the phone and punched in Casey’s cell phone number.
He answered the phone with, “Sammy?”
“Sorry I didn’t call you back sooner. My life’s been crazy.”
“Can you get down to the Landmark Broiler? Like, now?”
“The Landmark Broiler? Why?”
There was no answer.
“Casey?”
No answer.
“Hello? Hello, Casey?”
I punched off and redialed his number.
Right away it switched over to voice mail.
“What’s wrong?” Marissa asked.
“Come on,” I said, grabbing her by the wrist.
I had to get to the Landmark Broiler.
Like, now.
TWENTY-ONE
; “The Landmark Broiler? But it’s dark out!” Marissa said as I dragged her through the house.
And that’s when I remembered—her bike was totaled.
Now, even if there was a skateboard somewhere in the house, Marissa would never be able to use it. She’d be a bag of broken bones way before we reached downtown.
But since the Landmark Broiler was miles from Marissa’s house, I needed her on something with wheels ’cause I sure wasn’t going to leave her behind.
“Do your parents have bikes?”
Her face scrunched up. “Are you kidding?”
“Does Mikey?”
“No.”
“There’s got to be something with wheels. Anything with wheels!”
“What is going on?”
“I have no idea, okay? But something is. Something big.”
“How big could it be?”
“I don’t know,” I said, looking around the garage. “But Casey sounded really spun up. And the phone went dead!” Then, just to get her to help me look, I kinda slyly said, “Maybe it has to do with Heather.”
She totally perked up. “Heather?”
And that’s when I spotted a bike tire peeking out from behind big collapsible party tables that were leaning against the wall. “Hey!” I said, pointing. “That’s a bike!”
But when I pulled it out, I discovered that it was a small bright yellow banana-seat bike with high handlebars that had yellow and blue plastic streamers sticking out of them.
It also had training wheels.
“I can’t ride that!” Marissa cried. “Mikey got it when he turned five. He rode it, like, once!”
I studied it for a second, and after doing a quick search of the garage for other choices, I said, “It’s better than nothing.” I pulled it forward. “I’m not leaving you here to mope, okay? Just get on the bike and let’s go.”
She grumbled a minute, then tested the tires with her thumb. They were low, so she grumbled some more as she pumped them up, and off we went.
Now, it’s kind of a long story, but let’s just say that before I got my skateboard back from the jerk who stole it, I used to get rides on the handlebars of Marissa’s bike.