There was a moment of silence, then T.J. said, “Well, ya just missed, lady. This is the pay phone outside the market.”
“Ya don't say! Now, isn't that somethin'?” I forced a laugh, then said, “I'll look it up again, thank you,” and hung up before he could say anything.
I jetted into Grams' bedroom, snagged the binoculars again, and looked down the street. Sure enough, T.J. was hanging up the phone. I watched him, thinking it was too bad he was such a pain in the glutes. I mean, if he and I were even halfway friendly, I'd race down and ask him if he'd seen anyone using the pay phone earlier.
But what if T.J. had called our number? What if he was… but that didn't make any sense, either. Why would he pick up the phone if he'd just placed a threatening call. He'd stay away from it. I mean, he had to know about *69.
Didn't he?
Besides, T.J. didn't have anything to do with bulldogs or cat dudes or missing kitties.
Did he?
Then all of a sudden I remembered how protective he'd been of his garbage. At the time I'd just thought it was T.J. being T.J., but now I started wondering.
I mean, had there been cats in his trash?
Grams' voice about shot me through the window. “I thought we agreed you wouldn't do that anymore.”
I spun around. “I was… I was just looking down at Maynard's.” I tried to relax. “T.J. was out front having a smoke.”
“Oh, fascinating.”
I put the binoculars back under her bed. I wanted to tell her what had happened, but all of a sudden I was just too tired. There's nothing more exhausting than having your grandmother cross-examine you about things you don't really understand yourself.
“So,” she said, “I've been meaning to ask—what's that on your shoe?”
“Uh… it's a lucky horseshoe,” I said, making my voice all perky. “And guess what? It works.”
“Oh, pshaw.”
“Seriously! I aced my math test and got a homework pass from Mr. Tiller, Heather got caught copying homework, and I found five bucks.”
“All today?”
“Yup!” I scooted out of her bedroom, hoping she wouldn't ask me where I'd gotten it. “Marissa says I am now a lucky charm.”
“Well! So much for thirteen being bad luck, huh?”
“I don't know about that.” I eyed her over my shoulder. “I've got three hundred sixty-two days to go!”
* * *
The next day wasn't exactly lucky, but it still wasn't bad. Actually, I have to admit—it was really good. And believe it or not, it was good because of Heather.
She was totally and ridiculously tweaked over my horseshoe.
Now, if it had been a ring or a necklace or, you know, something serious, then yeah—I could see why she'd be a little spun up. Given how rational she is and all. But a bent piece of holey metal strapped to a worn-out sneaker? She was worried that what? This was a romance?
Please.
And I couldn't help thinking it was funny I mean, Heather's not on the honor roll or anything, but she probably could be if she'd study even half as hard as she schemes.
What Heather is, though, is clever.
Wickedly clever.
And I don't know if she just happened to be clean out of cleverness or what, but when it came to the horseshoe, she couldn't seem to act anything but lame.
It started in homeroom, where she scowled at my foot and said, “What's up with that stupid horseshoe anyway, loser?”
I wiggled my high-top at her and smiled. “It protects me from evil.”
She sneered at me. “Oh right.”
“Heath-errr,” Mrs. Ambler warned, because by now teachers know—they're supposed to keep her away from me.
“See?” I whispered. “It's working.”
Now, instead of just acting cool or like she didn't care, Heather had a mini spaz right there on the spot. Her nose wrinkled, her eyes sizzled, and from her neck up everything quivered. Her ears, her earrings, her hair, her cheeks—everything sputtered and spattered. Like her head had been dipped into a deep fryer.
“Sammy?” Mrs. Ambler asked, and she was starting to look worried.
I put my hands up and said, “I'm in my seat, Mrs. Ambler.”
“Heather!” she snapped. “Sit down.”
So that was homeroom. Then later in the day Holly spotted Heather and her friends Tenille and Monet following us. Seriously, they were lurking in the shadows, hiding around the corner, spying on us between classes. Heather by herself might have been able to get away with it, but with Monet, and especially Tenille? What a joke. We ducked into the media center, zipped out a side door, and looped around. And while Heather and her friends were looking in the media-center door whispering frantically about where we'd gone, we were standing right behind them.
Finally I said, “Looking for someone?”
Heather spazzed out again.
I just laughed.
Then at lunch Marissa, Dot, Holly, and I found a nice shady spot on the front lawn and ate there. Everyone's supposed to be at the lunch tables or in the cafeteria, but it was so… springy out that we didn't want to eat in the cafeteria or be surrounded by cement. The grass was soft and cool, and smelled so good, plus there were other kids there, too. And since we were quiet and picked up our trash and all, nobody came and shooed us away. For thirty whole minutes the four of us caught each other up and totally forgot that we were in the middle of a school day.
It was nice.
Then on my way to science Casey ran up to me all out of breath, saying, “Hey, I thought maybe you were absent.” He checked my foot, and when he saw the horseshoe was still there, he grinned and said, “So? Is it working?”
I stopped dead in my tracks. “Is this some voodoo magic horseshoe?”
He laughed. “Should I take that as a yes?”
We started walking again, and I said, “I don't believe in good luck charms or any superstitious stuff like that, but man, I had the best day yesterday.” So I told him about the quiz and the homework pass and the money and the CD player, and I had to give him the super-speedy version because we were already in front of Mr. Pence's room, and Heather was lurking around.
“See?” he said, laughing. “What'd I tell you?”
“Yeah, yeah, right. If you ask me it's all a coincidence, but—”
He grabbed me by the shoulders and looked right into my eyes. “Sammy, you are lucky. L-U-C-K-Y. Believe!”
Now, in all the times I'd talked to Casey, I don't think—no, scratch that—I know I'd never been that, uh, face to face with him. And in all the times I'd talked to him, I'd never noticed that his eyes were brown. They could've been purple for all I knew.
But they're not purple. They're brown. A milk-chocolate brown, with maybe a little bittersweet mixed in. And they're clear. No specks at all. No yellow ring. Just a real smooth chocolaty brown.
And now I was definitely noticing them. There wasn't much room not to notice them—they were, like, six inches away from mine.
And you better believe, my brain was screaming, RUN, but as usual, the rest of me wasn't listening—I couldn't seem to blink, I couldn't seem to move, I couldn't seem to breathe. Then my mouth went dry, my lips pruned up, and my heart started duking it out with my chest.
I finally managed to say, “Lucky. Right. I'll remember that.” Then I pulled away from him and beat it into the classroom.
So okay. I was a little spaced-out during science. My stomach was all, you know, fluttery. Not in a good way, either. More in an on-deck way, when the other team's pitcher is throwing a hundred miles an hour. You're afraid to swing ‘cause you'll probably miss and totally embarrass yourself. And if you do actually connect, well, the force of the ball is going to send shock waves down the bat straight to your hands and arms.
Translation: it's going to hurt.
And then there's always the possibility that the ball will go wild and hit you in the head. Helmet or not, it'll probably kill you.
So no, I was
n't really focusing on the worksheet Mr. Pence had passed out. And no, I wasn't paying attention to what was going on around me. I was too busy ducking wild pitches in my head. But then I crossed my legs, and whack, clang I kicked something that slammed into the metal table.
I looked underneath the table, and there, holding her head with a pained look on her face, was Heather.
“What are you doing?” I whispered, and Mr. Pence heard, because he came around from behind his desk, looked at the floor, and said, “Heather?”
She held her jaw and gave me a real lethal look as she backed out from under the table.
“Heather, what were you doing down there?” Mr. Pence asked.
“Uh…” She held her head with one hand as she slipped something into her back pocket with the other. “I… I dropped something—”
“Clear over here?” he asked.
She checked her hand for blood. “It was a… pearl…”
“A pearl?”
“It rolled and I… “ She was feeling her head again, keeping her back turned away from me so I couldn't see her pocket. Then all of a sudden she turns on the doe eyes and says, “Oh, Mr. Pence, I feel like I'm going to…,” and crumples into his arms.
He holds her for a second as she pretends to be all limp. “Heather?” He looks around, not knowing what to do, then eases her to the floor.
“Ooooh,” she goes, all drama-queen-like. “What happened?”
“You fainted, Heather, now just stay put. Where did you hurt your head?”
“Right… here,” she says, taking his hand and putting it on her head. “Ooooh, that hurts.” Then she gives him the total damsel-in-distress routine, batting her lashes and looking at him like she's oh-so-grateful that he's saved her.
Now, I don't know if anyone in the class bought her act, but I can tell you this—Mr. Pence did. His scientific brain turned to mush. And yeah, I believe Heather hurt her head, but there's no chance her act was for real. The only reason Heather was being swoony was because she was trying to get out of having to explain what she was doing crawling around on the floor.
And what was she doing, crawling around under my table? And what had she hidden in her jeans?
When Mr. Pence finally helped her to her feet, she acted all wobbly and hung on him for support, but in the middle of all that she forgot to keep her backside turned away from me. And that's when I saw two little purple arcs peeking out the pocket of her designer jeans.
Scissors.
What was she doing with scissors?
Then it hit me. My horseshoe! She was planning to cut my laces and steal my horseshoe!
I looked down quick and let out a sigh of relief. It was still there. Good thing, too, ‘cause I'd have tackled her sorry backside and shown her just how unlucky stealing someone's lucky charm can make you.
But I didn't have to tackle her. I just had to watch the Swoon Show with the rest of the class until finally Mr. Pence decided to have Vanessa Pylor escort her to the office for medical attention.
Medical attention. Right.
But she was gone and that was fine with me. And the more I thought about Heather crawling around in her pricey jeans on the science room floor, the more I had to laugh. Do you know what gets spilled on the science room floor? Frog guts. Owl pellets. Acid. Talk about stooping low to get what you want!
But hey. All that got my mind off Casey's Easter-egg eyes. And gave me lots to laugh about with Holly and Marissa on the way home from school.
“She was seriously going to cut your laces to get it?” Marissa asked when we stopped at the intersection of Broadway and Cook.
“That's my theory.”
Holly laughed. “Heather Scissorhands!” Then when the light changed, she looked at me and said, “You're coming with me to pick up the pictures, right?”
“Right.”
“Are they at the mall?” Marissa asked.
“No. They're at Speedy Photo.”
“That place up on Main? Clear past Miller?”
“Right.”
Marissa sighed. “Well, I can't go. I've got to get home. I promised Mom that—oh!” She looked at me all wide-eyed, then started digging through her backpack.
“What?”
“I can't believe I forgot to give you these….” She popped up with three CDs in her hand. “These two are from me…. “
I checked them over—boy bands. “Uh, thanks,” I said, as cheerfully as I could.
She scowled. “Give them a chance, would you?” Then she handed over the other CD and said, “And this one's from my mom.”
“Your mom?“ I asked. Then I looked at the CD and it made sense.
Darren Cole—Mr. Las Vegas.
Whoopee.
“She bought, like, ten of them.” She tapped on the jewel case. “It's autographed, see?” Then she dropped her voice and grinned. “I think my dad wants them out of the house.”
“Well, tell her I can't wait to hear what makes her go tick tock.”
Marissa laughed and took off for home, and Holly and I headed up to Speedy Photo.
We were totally unaware that we were being followed.
The Santa Martina Town Center Mall has parking nearly clear around it. Some of it's regular parking-lot parking, and some of it's parking-structure parking. And to buffer the ugliness of all those cars and cement, there's a wide area around the whole mall that's landscaped with a windy walkway, little grassy hills, pine trees, and bushes. They've even put park benches along the walkway for people who get tired of circling the mall, trying to figure out how to get inside.
If you ask me, the best thing about the mall is the winding walkway. Give me a skateboard and a roller-coaster walkway over trendy clothes and household gadgets any day of the week.
Anyway, it was while Holly and I were carrying our skateboards across the little grassy hills to the winding walkway that I noticed we were being followed. “Psssst,” I said to Holly. “Don't look now, but the Horseshoe Hustler and her posse are on our trail.”
She started to look back but stopped. “Heather?”
“Yup. With Tenille and Monet.”
“Where?”
“On the other side of Broadway.”
“Are you sure they're following us? Maybe they're just going to the mall.”
I bent down and retied my shoe, peeking under my armpit. The traffic light had changed, and Heather and her friends were moving fast across the street.
“Their eyes are glued on us,” I said. “They're definitely up to something.”
“So what do you want to do?”
The school buses roared by, blocking them from view, but I didn't want to make a break for it—I wanted to know what they were up to. So I stood up and said, “How about we ride slow for a little while and see if they follow us.”
Holly shrugged. “I'm game.”
So when we got to the windy walkway, we got on our skateboards and coasted along. And sure enough Heather and the others ran after us, Tenille carrying her shoes and Monet lagging behind, holding her side.
“We've gotta slow down,” I said to Holly, “or we'll lose them.”
“Don't we want to lose them?”
“Not yet.”
So we rode along until we got to a place where the walkway takes a sharp right into a little amphitheater area and then goes up and around to Main Street. And the minute I knew we were out of view, I said, “Now!” and pushed hard through the amphitheater. Then right past a park bench on the other side I said, “In here!” and dove for some big bushes. Holly plowed in right beside me, then we both caught our breath and waited.
It seemed to take forever for Heather to come around the corner, and when she did, she got all snappy with the others. “See? They're gone! Why do you have to be so slow?”
“How are we supposed to keep up with them?” Monet panted. “They have skateboards!”
“And my feet are killing me,” Tenille cried.
“Besides,” Monet said, gasping for air, “you'
ll never get it with Holly there.”
“Yeah,” Tenille said. “She's tough.”
“Oh shut up, both of you.” Heather took off running and said over her shoulder, “Stay here—I'm gonna see where those losers went.”
She came back a couple of minutes later, looking really disgusted. “They're gone,” she said, and plopped down on the bench right in front of us.
Tenille shook her head. “Why do you want it so bad, anyway? It's ugly!” Then she added, “If you ask me, your brother's weird.”
Heather snorted. “Like this is news to me?”
“So?” Monet laughed. “Sammy and him make a perfect couple.”
“He's not that weird! And they're not a couple! And they're not going to be a couple!”
“Is that why you want the horseshoe so bad?” Tenille asked. “So they're not a couple?”
“They're nota couple!”
“But,” Monet said, “if you get it away from her, won't he just give her another one?”
Heather crossed her arms. “Look. If you don't get it, just shut up.”
So Monet and Tenille sort of shuffled around the bench until Monet finally asked, “You don't really think it's magic, do you?”
“Or giving her luck?” Tenille asked.
“How many times do I have to tell you? She aced a test, she got out of homework, she found five bucks, and who knows what else? I got caught copying homework, flunked my English test, dropped my lunch tray, and banged my head!” Then she scowled and said, “Why'd he give it to her and not me? It's totally not fair.”
“But…”
“So…”
Monet and Tenille looked at each other like they were out to sea on a very patchy life raft.
“Whatever,” Heather said, standing up. “Let's get out of here.”
When the coast was clear, Holly and I crawled out of the bushes. And as Holly was dusting off, she said, “That girl's got issues.”
“No kidding.”
We headed out toward Speedy Photo, slowly clicking along the walkway, side by side. “So what are you going to do?” Holly asked.
I shook my head. “I don't think it's the horseshoe or the luck. I think it's that Casey gave it to me.”
“I agree.”
“Why does everyone have to make such a big deal out of it?”