Sammy Keyes and the Dead Giveaway (23 page)

Marissa's I couldn't do right then and there. We'd had such a wild year that I didn't even know where to begin.
So I made a border design around an entire autographs page in back and wrote SAVED
FOR
SAMMY on top of it. Then I started writing stupid stuff in Casey's. I thanked him for being different from everybody else I knew, and for standing up for me when it could have gotten him in a lot of trouble, and for being funny and calm and patient and protective—even though I didn't need him protecting me—and for making junior high a whole lot more enjoyable than it would have been.

I didn't want to say a bunch of mushy stuff—like how he's got the most chocolaty eyes I've ever seen, or how he's noble and dashing and strong, or how I wear the little lucky horseshoe he gave me everywhere 'cause it makes me happy to know I have a friend like him.

Nope. Sure didn't want to say any of that.

So I was trying to figure out how to wrap it up when I noticed that everyone else was already done.

So … what had Casey put in mine?

Have a nice summer. Be cool?

God, was I being embarrassing, or what? I was taking this whole yearbook-signing thing way too seriously.

So real fast I wrote a bunch of
Arg!
s and
Gar!
s and
Ahoy!
s and signed off, “Drink up, me hearty, yo ho!” and scrawled my name.

Then the DJ cut into the end of the song he'd been playing and announced, “All riiiight! Enough with those books, it's time to get this party started!” He cranked up the volume and “Get the Party Started” came thumping over the P.A.

“Let's put the books in our gym lockers!” Marissa shouted over the music.

“Good idea!” we all said.

So the boys went to the boys' side, and we girls went to the girls' side, and since Olivia was an eighth grader, she went to her section of the locker room while Marissa and I went to ours.

And of course, the first thing we did when we were alone was paw through our yearbooks to see what Casey and Danny had written.

“That's it?” Marissa said when she found hers. She seemed crushed, so I looked to see what he'd written.

She turned to my book and said, “What did Casey say in yours?”

Now, I could tell that if Casey had written something equally boring in mine, Marissa would somehow feel better about what Danny had written. So I said, “I haven't found it yet, but I don't think he wrote much, either.”

“Guys,” she grumbled. “I tell you.” But then she spotted it. “Wait! Go back!”

I didn't want to because I'd glimpsed enough of it to know that it was
not
going to make her feel better. But she flipped the page back herself, and we both read what he'd written:

“Ohmygod!” she whispered. “That is so …romantic!”

“Stop it, Marissa,” I warned.

“Sammy, he
worships
you!”

“Stop it!” I said through my teeth.

“And he signed it
Love
.”

I shoved the yearbook in my locker and slammed the door shut. “STOP IT!”

Just then a voice snakes into our alcove. “You losers having a little problem?”

We both whip around, and there's Heather and her sidekicks, sneering at us through
way
too much lipstick.

“Let's go,” I say to Marissa.

But the three of them spread out, blocking our way out of the alcove.

“What's with the do-rags, losers? Tryin' to look like gangsta girls?”

“Lighten up, Heather,” Marissa says. “We're just having fun.”

“What you're doing is looking dumb.”

“Fine,” I tell her. “We're looking dumb. Now will you please just step aside?”

But she doesn't step aside. She sneers and says, “I heard you went to Crispy Chicken for dinner.” She snorts. “Hot date.”

Now, I'm trying hard not to get caught in a war of words with her, but Marissa's already a little backcombed because of what Danny had written in her yearbook, so
she
snaps, “It's not where you go, it's who you're with,” as she tosses looks at Tenille and Monet.

So, good friend that I am, I can't let Marissa wage war
alone—I pull the pin on a little word grenade and toss in, “Yeah. Where'd
you
guys go to dinner? Sour Krauties? Oh wait—that was for your
facials
.”

Sure enough, Heather explodes. “You guys think you're so hot, coming to the dance with eighth graders in that butch-mobile! Well, I've got news for you — you're nothing but classless losers!” She sneers at Marissa. “Danny's mom thinks you're a real good connection for her son 'cause you're rich” — she turns to me — “and my brother's just trying to get me mad by going out with you! You may
think
you're smart and hip and cool, but nobody on this campus likes you. Neither of you got nominated for
anything
. You're just a couple of dorky losers!”

Marissa's number one weak spot is her parents' money. She's had a real problem with friends because she can't tell whether they like her for her or for her money. So what Heather said struck where it hurt. And combined with the detached thing Danny had written in her year-book, I wouldn't have been shocked to see Marissa just break down in tears.

But I learned right then that Marissa's not the same timid person that she was at the beginning of the school year. Instead of backing down, she takes a step forward and says, “Nominated? Oh, you're talking about the Class
Personality
categories.”

All of a sudden the situation feels like it's slipping out of control. I look at her like, Don't say anything, Marissa. Don't! but it doesn't do any good. She says, “I heard there was a problem with the ballots.”

I'm looking at her like, SHUT UP! but she's not seeing me. She's too ticked off at Heather and Danny and junior high life.

She takes a step closer to Heather. “Uh-huh. I heard there was a problem with someone
cheating
.”

Heather backs down a little, her face doing tiny twitches. Like a marshmallow on a stick held above a fire. Roasting. Sizzling. Melting on the inside. Getting ready to burst into flames.

“What's she talking about?” Tenille whispers, and Monet adds, “Do they know something we don't?”

Marissa snorts, then gives Heather a deadly look as she says, “Count 'em and weep, loser.”

Then she pushes past Heather and out of the alcove.

I chased after Marissa and whispered, “Do you have any idea what you just did?” sounding just like
her
talking to
me
.

“I don't care, okay? I don't even care.”

“But now she's going to think
we
ratted her off.”

“I tell you—I don't care.”

“Marissa!”

Her head snapped to face me. “
We
didn't lie and steal and cheat and deceive!
She
did. And if she wants to get in a brawl over it, well fine. Bring it on.” She looked over her shoulder and snarled, “Coming in here like she's some prom princess, putting
us
down…give me a break!”

“Marissa,” I whispered. “
You
may feel that way, but I don't!”

Her face scrunched up. “Why not?”

“Does the name Tango ring any bells?”

Her eyes got wide. Her mouth became a little, Oooh! Then she grabbed me by the arm and said, “I'm sorry! That was really, really stupid of me! I forgot about that part of it!” Then she tried to be optimistic, saying, “She'll never figure it out.”

“Heather's not stupid, Marissa. I mean, who was absent the day Tango went missing?”

She cringed. “You. But don't think about it. Don't worry about it. Look, if anyone takes the fall for it, I will.”

I let out a long, puffy-cheeked breath. “She really got to you, didn't she?”

Her eyes welled a little with tears. “Because I think it's true.”

“Why?”

“Because he
has
said stuff about how I live in a mansion and how my parents can afford stuff …” She looked down. “But mostly it's what he wrote in my yearbook — it's so
lame.
”

Now, if Marissa hadn't had a heart-stopping crush on Danny since elementary school, I would have told her to take a step back and that time would tell. But she was so
emotional
about him that I really did feel sorry for her.

So instead, I said, “Do you think what Heather said about Casey is true?”

“No!”

“But see? I've spent a lot of time wondering if that
is
his motivation for hanging around me! And if I let myself, I could get all worked up about it right now. But that's how Heather operates—she uses poison, and if you just go ahead and swallow what she says, it's bound to make you sick.”

She stood there nodding and blinking and thinking. “You're right. You're absolutely right.” Then she about floored me by saying, “And you know what? I'm not going to let her ruin tonight. Time will tell what Danny's
real feelings are. For now, I'm just going to take a step back. There's no way I'm going to be some dopey, star-struck fool.”

I laughed. “Sounds like a really good plan.”

“Plan schplan,” she said. “Let's go have some fun. Arg!”

I laughed. “Arg!”

Casey and Danny had ditched their books
and
their eye patches. “What took so long?” Danny wanted to know when we found them. “Nick and Olivia have been dancing for half an hour!”

“Blame Heather,” Marissa grumbled. “And it hasn't been half an hour.”

Casey gave me a worried look, so I said, “Everything's cool.”

“Whatever. Come on!” Danny said, grabbing Marissa by the hand.

We followed them over to the crowd of dancers and started moving around. Danny obviously knew what he was doing, and I don't know if she'd been practicing at home or what, but Marissa looked real natural jammin' around with him.

Casey and I, on the other hand, were terrible. It's like he beeped while I bopped, if you know what I mean. And just when we seemed to get the feel of a song, the song would be over. It happened again and again. And it would have been real embarrassing, only Casey and I both knew we were terrible, so we just started hamming around. I mean, if you're a geeky dancer, you might as well go with it, right? So we did square-dance moves during a rap
song, kind of chugging them up, you know? But we were still square-dancing to a rap song. Then we did squatty Russian kick-out steps to a metal song—that was tiring, but Billy joined in with his parrot bouncing around on his shoulder, and pretty soon we had a whole circle of people laughing and doing this crazy Russian dance to a metal song.

When that was over, Billy shouted, “Line!” and automatically all the Russian dancers put their hands on the waist of someone in front of them, and we followed Billy around the gym, going step, step, kick, “Arg!” step, step, kick, “Gar!” step, step, kick, “Arg!” And at the end of that song, Billy shouted, “A pirate's life for me!” and the whole student body shouted, “ARG!”

So we were all laughing and panting and feeling wonderfully ridiculous when the DJ announced, “And now we're gonna bring it down a notch with this oldie-butgoldie special request …”

The opening chords of the song gave me goose bumps. Not 'cause it was a slow song and I was freaking out. No, because it was my new favorite song and I knew who'd requested it.

Casey.

He grinned at me and stepped in closer. “May I have this dance, m'lady?”

“Aye,” I said, “but watch yer feet, matey. Ye may need a peg leg by the time I'm done with yer!”

He laughed and then put his arm around my waist and pulled me in closer. And I don't know if it was because we'd been having so much fun hamming it up or what,
but him holding me like that wasn't awkward or uncomfortable, it was …nice. And we actually
didn't
step all over each other. We just kind of swayed back and forth in slow circles like we knew what we were doing.

But the more we swayed around, the closer we seemed to be getting. I could feel his breath in my hair and his cheek against my temple. And even though his arms were loose enough for me to pull away from him, they were definitely there, keeping me close.

My heart started to panic. My hands went sweaty. Then he pulled back a little and looked me in the eyes.

All that chocolaty sweetness.

That beautiful smile.

There was only one thing to do.

Bolt from the gym!

But in that instant before I broke free, he started singing along with the song, “Maybe it's all been hard on you, Pushed against the wall, But there's no need to close your eyes, Waitin' for rain to fall …” Then he spun me out like some ballroom dancer, spun me back, and
dipped
me as he mimicked the bluesy guitar riff,
“Waah-waahwaaaaaaaaaah, waah-waah, whoa-whoa-waaaaaaaaahwaah-waah.”

I got upright as quick as I could, and then the song was over and the DJ was saying, “That was Darren Cole and the Troublemakers from
way
back when. And now, let's get this place kickin' again! Here's one by Queen that'll never grow old.”

The opening rhythm of “We Will Rock You” started shaking the gym, and once again Billy got everybody going.
Stomp-stomp-clap! Stomp-stomp-clap!
Pretty soon everyone was moving slowly forward, stomping their left foot twice, then clapping, then stomping their right foot twice, then clapping. And the further into the song we got, the more together we got and the
louder
we got. We could barely hear the song over the noise we were making.

Which, I've gotta tell you, was cool. It is the only time this entire year where I've seen everybody
together
on something. Usually it's seventh graders against eighth graders, this clique against that … but here we were all just following Billy in this crazy stomping pattern, shaking the roof right off the gym.

When the song was over, Marissa grabbed me and said, “That was awesome!” Then she hitched a thumb toward the water fountain, where Heather and her cronies were standing by themselves, looking very sullen. “They probably think we're idiots.”