Sammy Keyes and the Art of Deception (29 page)

ONE   

I have to admit that it didn't
start
with my mother. It started on Hudson's porch. Hudson Graham is my favorite old guy in the whole wide world because he's got great stories, great advice, and he knows how to listen.

He's also got the coolest porch you'd ever want to hang out on, and when Hudson's home, it's usually equipped with iced tea and cake.

“Sammy!” he said when he saw me turn up his walkway on my skateboard. “How are you?”

“Starved!” I grabbed my board and trotted up the steps, eyeing the crumbs on his plate. In a flash I knew it had been a piece of his mega-maple upside-down cake.

He took one look at my face and laughed. “Your grandmother let you out of the house without breakfast?”

“She was preoccupied. And besides, I wasn't hungry then — now I am!”

“Why don't I fix you some eggs and toast. Then cake.”

“Aw, come on, Hudson. It's Saturday.” I plopped down in the chair beside him.

He looked doubtful. “Somehow I don't think your grandmother would approve. And you know I've been working hard to get out of her doghouse …”

“Forget the doghouse. If she asks, I'll just tell her it was an early piece of birthday cake.”

“Birthday cake? When's your birthday?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” He jumped out of his chair. “Why didn't you mention it before?”

I shrugged. “I don't really like my birthday, that's why.”

“You don't
like
it?” He was hovering over me. “Why not? Kids your age love their birthday!”

I kicked my feet up on his railing. “Well, let's see … When I turned twelve my mother celebrated by taking me to McDonald's, which is where she broke it to me that she'd be leaving me with Grams while she went off to Hollywood. Then, when I turned thirteen, she didn't even bother to call or send me a card or
any
thing. She finally called two days later gushing excuses, but it was pretty obvious she just forgot.”

“Yes, but Sammy, I thought you had gotten past resenting your mother.”

“I know, I know,” I sighed. “I guess I just have negative associations when it comes to my birthday.” I swung my feet down and laughed. “So could you help me get over it? I want some cake!”

He laughed. “Coming right up.”

I followed him inside, saying, “Actually, Grams always tries to surprise me with a really nice cake on my birthday. She goes all out and is totally secretive about what she's concocting. I'll bet that's what she's doing right now.”

Hudson handed over a giant piece of mega-maple cake. “So you're double dipping, huh?”

I laughed. “I'm entitled, don't you think? I mean, given the circumstances and all.”

He chuckled and opened the fridge. “Can I at least insist on milk?”

“Perfect!”

When we were seated back outside, he said, “So catch me up. What's going on at school? And with Heather! You haven't said anything about her in a while.”

“That's because there's absolutely nothing going on with Heather.” I laughed and took a bite of cake. “Can you believe it?”

Actually, I was finding it hard to believe myself. Ever since my first day of junior high, Heather Acosta has worked hard to make my life miserable. That rabid redhead has done everything from jab me in the butt with a sewing pin to frame me for vandalism. But for the last couple of weeks, there's been nothing.

Well, nothing serious, anyway. I don't count glaring and sneering and catcalls. That's just junior high stuff that everyone goes through. I'm talking diabolical, evil, twisted plots to take over the world. Or at least the school. Elections aren't for another month, but she's already angling to be elected William Rose Junior High's “Most Popular Seventh Grader,” or “Class Cutie,” or whatever other stupid category she can con the rest of the seventh graders into believing she should win.

Too bad they don't have a “Most Likely to Psycho.” I'd vote for her in a hot second.

Hudson shook me from my thoughts, saying, “Two
months until summer vacation. Is that what you're thinking about?”

I laughed. “Actually, I wasn't.”

“Aren't all kids in countdown mode by now?”

“It's only the first week of April!”

He gave a knowing nod. “Ah. Maybe I'm confusing the kids with the teachers.”

I said, “Huh?” but then he said, “So what else have you been up to?” and I remembered what I had come to tell him about. “Oh!” I said, swigging down some milk. “Holly and I have been checking out Slammin' Dave's. Hudson, I've got a whole new perspective on pro wrestling.”

He raised a bushy white eyebrow. “You do, do you?” Then he grumbled, “I still can't believe that Bargain Books is now a pro wrestling shop —”

“Slammin' Dave's is not a
shop
, Hudson, it's a
school
.” I almost added that having wrestling dudes across the street from where I lived was a whole lot safer than having a bookstore, seeing how the guy who used to own Bargain Books got hauled off to jail for theft, attempted murder, and arson, but I didn't. I just said, “And Slammin' Dave takes his
school
very seriously.”

Hudson grinned. “Can I deduce from your apparent knowledge base that you've been spying on him?”

“I wouldn't call it
spying,
” I said through a mouthful of cake. “Just, you know, watching.”

“Through binoculars?”

“No! You can't see anything from the apartment. I just go down to the school and look.”

“Doesn't that place have heavy black curtains covering the windows?”

“Well … yeah.”

He grinned at me. “So they let you just stand in the doorway and watch?”

“Hudson, quit it!”

He laughed. “I just want you to be able to admit it, that's all.”

“All right, all right,” I grumbled, scraping up cake crumbs with the back of my fork. “I've been snooping, okay? You happy?”

“Through cracks in the curtains?”

“Yeah,” I muttered. “Or the back door. They prop it open for ventilation.”

“Mm-hmm,” he said.

“There's nothing illegal about it, it's just interesting.”

“Interesting? How so?”

“Well, you've got all these beefy guys in these totally cheesy wrestling suits doing flips and body slams and rope dives. It's like they're catapulting cattle in there.”

“And you find catapulting cattle interesting?”

I laughed. “Well, yeah.” I leaned toward him and said, “There's this one guy who started showing up last week. He wears an orange-and-black-striped caveman suit and a hooded
cat
mask. It covers his whole face. His whole
head
. I mean, once in a while some of the guys will wrestle in full-on costumes, but this guy wears his mask all the time. He shows up in it, he wrestles in it … he never takes it off.”

“So?”

“So does he sleep with it on? Does he eat with it on? Does he take a shower in the thing?” I leaned back. “What
doesn't
he do in his mask, that's what I want to know.”

Hudson laughed, then said, “Sammy, it's just part of his character.”

“His character?”

“You know, pro wrestlers create personas — the character they play in the ring. Like Mark Calloway was The Undertaker, Robert Remus was Sergeant Slaughter, Terry Bollea was Hulk Hogan —”

“Wait a minute! How do you know these guys' real names?”

He shrugged. “I've been around for seventy-two years. I'm bound to have picked up a thing or two.”

Now, when he said that, it hit me that Hudson had been seventy-two for a really long time. So I was about to ask him, “When's
your
birthday?” only just then something catches my eye. Something
pink
off to my left. Behind some bushes. Along the far side of Hudson's porch. So instead I whisper, “What was that?”

“What was what?” Hudson whispers back.

I stand up and tiptoe the length of Hudson's porch. And when I sneak a step down the side stairs and peek around the bushes, I choke out, “Aaarrh!” and jump back. Right on the other side of Hudson's bushes is one of the scariest sights I've ever seen.

A super-sized, batty-eyed Barbie.

She isn't exactly a
doll
, though. She's more like a Barbie gone to seed. She's middle-aged, with super-bleached hair
and a mountain of makeup—thick black eyeliner that curves way up at the corners, three-inch fake eyelashes, sparkly gold eye shadow, and pink lipstick. She's wearing a halter top that matches her lips, high heels, and jeans that are so tight they look shrink-wrapped on. And as if that's not enough of a fashion statement right there, on the top of her head is a tiara.

A
tiara
.

“Who are
you
?” she snaps, and her voice sounds really… snotty.

“Who am
I
?” I ask. “Who are
you
?”

Hudson steps around me, saying, “Katherine Brown? Why, to what do we owe this pleasure?”

“Don't play nicey-nice with me, Hudson Graham. And it's no longer Brown. Or Truesdale or Stewart. It's just Kitty.
Miss
Kitty.

Hudson is such a gentleman. In a heartbeat he says, “Well then, Miss Kitty… to what do we owe this pleasure?”

“I
said
don't play nicey-nice. You know exactly why I'm here!” Her gaze shifts from Hudson to me, and back again. “You're harboring a criminal, and I intend to do something about it!”

My life flashed before my eyes: My suspensions. My detentions. My breaking-and-enterings. My run-ins with Officer Borsch. My illegal living situation at the seniors-only apartment complex.

I'd never seen this woman before in my life.

How did she know?

But Hudson says, “A criminal? What on earth are you talking about?” He motions over the back gate to his
rental unit. “There's not even anyone living back there at the moment.”

“I'm not talking about your renter,” she says, all huffy-like. “I'm talking about that vicious
beast
of yours!”

Hudson's eyebrows reach for the sky. “Rommel?”

“I hear him howling at night! Do you think I don't know he's roaming the streets, thirsting for blood? This is the third of my kitties that's disappeared in two weeks, and I intend to get to the bottom of it!”

“But —”

“If your beast got ahold of Snowball, I'll sue you, you hear me, Mr. Graham? I'll have your heinie in court so fast you won't know what bit you!”

Hudson and I look at each other, and although Hudson manages to keep things under control, I can't help it — the thought of Rommel taking on a cat just busts me up.

“You think this is funny?” she says, stepping toward me. “All you dog people are alike. You look down your noses at cats, but you think it's A-okay to let your monsters jump up on people and sniff in their privates and do their business in their yards —”

“Hey!” I said. “I've
got
a cat. I just happen to know that there's no way Hudson's dog attacked
yours
.”

“Oh, is that so?” she says, locking eyes with me. “Well, excuse me if I don't believe you.”

Hudson says, “Miss Kitty…,” but I'm not about to let her get away with how she's acting. “Watch who you call a liar, lady.”

She didn't reply, and she didn't respond to Hudson,
either. She just kept staring me down through those ridiculous eyelashes.

“Miss Kitty?” Hudson tried again.

“Is this sassy brat a relative of yours?” she asks without taking her eyes off me.

“I am
not
a brat,” I tell her, still staring her down. Hudson says, “Kitty —”

“
Miss
Kitty!”

“Miss Kitty, please listen to me. Rommel couldn't possibly have attacked your cat. He's old and arthritic.”

“He's a
canine,
” she says. Like she's hacking up a fur ball. “It doesn't matter how old they get, a dog's got it in for a cat.”

Wow. This woman could stare. My eyes were watering, but no way was I going to blink.

“Miss Kitty!” Hudson says. “If you would please just follow me, I have something to show you.” He backhands me softly and says, “Quit it, will you?” under his breath.

So, okay. For Hudson I let her win the stare-down. Then I turn away and blink a gazillion times to clear my eyes before following along into the house.

Hudson leads Miss Kitty over to a corner of the kitchen, where Rommel's sleeping in a little wicker bed on the floor. “There he is,” he says, “my bloodthirsty beast.”

A wiener dog is not real ferocious-looking to begin with, but at this stage in his life, Rommel's got more sausage than spice, if you know what I mean. It's a wonder he can walk anywhere at all. Especially without scraping bottom.

She frowns. “That can't be him.”

“It's the only dog I've got,” Hudson says, putting a piece of mega-maple cake onto a plate. “How long has your cat — you said her name was Snowball, right?”

“
His
name,” she snaps, sort of circling Rommel's bed. She was dying to poke him to see if he'd spring into action, you could just tell.

“Ah. Well, how long has Snowball been missing?”

“Since yesterday.” She nudges the wicker bed with her shoe. Rommel doesn't budge, so she mutters, “He's playing possum.”

“No, he's just old,” Hudson says, laying a fork on the plate alongside the cake. “He's thirteen.”