Sammy Keyes and the Psycho Kitty Queen (8 page)

“I shouldn't have delivered him at all,” I shot back. “Not for the thanks I got.”

Somehow we had locked eyes again. So rather than break down and look away, I started talking really fast. “And I don't know why I'm going to
tell you
this, ‘cause you've been nothing but
mean
to me, but yours aren't the only cats being killed. My friend and I found four others in trash cans around town this afternoon!”

“See?”
she said. “There's a cat killer in town! Why don't they
do
something about it?”

“Why don't you go home and call the police and
ask
them!”

Our eyes stayed locked until finally Hudson tugged on my arm and whispered, “Sammy, that's not polite!”

“Tell
her
that! She's the one who starts it!” But him tugging on me distracted me, and I blinked.

She stood. “I'll be going now,” she said. “I've got a phone call to make.”

When she was gone, Hudson let out a sigh of relief. “Well, now. You've had quite a day, haven't you?”

“Yeah.” I flopped down in
my
chair. “How can so much go wrong in one day?”

“All I know from your grandmother is that your mother's in town and you're upset.”

“Do you know why, Hudson? Do you know what that selfish airhead did this time?”

He cringed but didn't reprimand me. He just shook his head and said, “I have no idea.”

So I told him about my mom changing my birth certificate and how I'd been held back and all of that, and when I was done, I said, “So I had to do stupid ol' kindergarten twice, and now I've got to do lucky thirteen twice.”

“Oh, Sammy,” he sighed. “I can certainly see why you're upset.” He smoothed back his left eyebrow. Then his right. Finally he said, “Your mother's mistakes aside, your age is relevant only in how it affects your state of mind.”

“That's just theory, Hudson. I'm living the reality!”

“Well, okay,” he admitted. “It does matter more before you're independent, I'll grant you that. But really, Sammy, the best thing you can do for your happiness is to live in the here and now. If you dwell on the past, or long too much for the future, you can't enjoy the present. A lot of happiness comes from your outlook—if you change the way you
think
about being thirteen, thirteen might not turn out to be so bad.” He shrugged and said, “Look at this as getting another shot at it for free.”

“That's like saying I get another headache for free!”

He shook his head. “Oh, it's not so bad, is it?”

I sighed. I mean, I understood what he was saying. But
I couldn't seem to shake the feeling that my life was some crummy board game where I kept having to go back to the beginning and spin again.

Then Hudson said, “I'd really like to meet that mother of yours.”

I snorted.
“Why?”

He shrugged. “I just would.” He eyed me and said, “I watch her from time to time on
The Lords of Willow Heights.”

“You've got to be kidding!” I could not imagine someone as smart as Hudson wasting time watching a soap opera as dumb as
Lords.

He grinned. “Your grandmother got me started.” Then he shrugged again and said, “Your mother's really quite good in the role of Jewel.”

“I know,” I muttered, because it's true—my mother plays an amnesiac aristocrat to the hilt.

“So you do watch it, then?”

“No. Grams tapes it. And sometimes she makes me, but no.” I sat up a little. “It's a
soap
, Hudson.”

“A little overly dramatic for you?”

“It's just stupid. No one's ever happy. Everyone's always sabotaging their relationships. People leave and then come back with really lame excuses about why they were gone.”

“Not nearly as credible as say…
your
life?”

I blinked at him a minute, then backhanded him. “Hey!”

He laughed. “So what are you going to do about your birthday?”

“Avoid my mother,” I grumbled.

“Come on, Sammy. You can't and shouldn't do that.”

“Why not?”

“She knows she was wrong, and she apologized. Now it's up to you to show her how mature you really are. Can you do that?”

I let out a grumbly laugh. “No.”

He laughed, too, then said, “Say, why don't I take all three of you out to the Santa Martina Inn for brunch tomorrow.”

I scowled at him. “Because I don't want to worry about which fork I'm supposed to be using.”

He leaned forward like he was sharing a secret. “I'll help you.” Then he added, “Besides, that way I'll be with you. I'll act as a buffer. Otherwise, I have a hunch it'll be just you and the ladies all day.”

Talk about a persuasive perspective! “Okay,” I said, then pulled a face. “But does it have to be the Santa Martina Inn?”

“Special occasions require special ambiance.”

I knew he was just trying to make my stupid birthday special. So I sighed and said, “Thanks, Hudson.”

“Okay! So how about I pick the three of you up at nine-fifteen?”

“Sounds good to me.”

“Great! Now go home and impress your mother with how mature you are. Believe me, she won't know what hit her.”

“You're not even gonna offer me a piece of cake?” I cringed. “I really don't feel like going home.”

“You've got to, Sammy. You're just delaying the inevitable. Go home and resolve things with your mother. Focus on the fact that she did come home to see you. And that at least she told you now instead of later.” He shook his head a little. “Imagine how bad it would have been if she'd waited until you were ready for your driver's license.”

My eyes totally bugged out at the thought of how mad I would have been.

He laughed. “See? You've got to look at the positive. And really, Sammy, it's just a number. It doesn't change who you are.”

So off I went, dragging myself back to the Highrise. And the whole way I was sort of refereeing a battle in my head—one side of me was totally mad at my mom and Grams and didn't want to see them for, oh, maybe a year or two. But the other side was thinking about what Hudson had said about getting an extra year for free and shocking my mom by being, you know,
mature.

And I was clear up at the intersection of Broadway and Main, still duking it out with myself, when I noticed a kind of strange-looking guy walking along Broadway. He was big—thick, with a heavy jaw. His shoulders were kind of hunched, and his arms swung a little ahead of him, his body sort of careening from left to right as he moved down the sidewalk.

At first he reminded me of a little albino gorilla. But when he reached Slammin' Dave's and opened the door, I thought, No, he looks more like an albino caveman.

The light changed, so I crossed over Main Street thinking
that maybe that was even his wrestling name—The Albino Caveman. Or maybe just The Caveman. Or wait—The
Arctic
Caveman. Yeah! That'd be a cool name—The Arctic Caveman.

It wasn't until I was clear across Main Street that it hit me—he didn't look like a caveman.

No, he looked like …

A bulldog.

Holy smokes. A bulldog! Just like the Psycho Kitty had said! And there had been a dead cat in the Pup Parlor trash. Right next door to Slammin' Dave's!

But… why would the Bulldog be killing cats at Slammin' Dave's?

It didn't matter how much sense it
didn't
make, in a flash I was crossing Broadway, heading straight for Slammin' Dave's.

Now, instead of sneaking peeks through the curtains, I decide to get gutsy and go inside. The place is pumping with music and steaming with big men wearing small amounts of spandex and lots of sweat. And you'd think they'd notice a scrawny thirteen—scratch that—
twelve-year-old
girl, but no one seems to.

I scan the place looking for the Bulldog but don't see him anywhere. There's a class of guys doing hill climbers on the floor mats, and Slammin' Dave's got his back to me as he's pacing in front of them, yelling, “Get your knees up. Get your knees
up.
Benny! I'm talkin' to you! No slackin'! You can be a wrestling-school dropout, or you can sweat some bullets and get to the big ring. It's all on you, man, all on you!”

Benny kicks into gear a little bit, but it only lasts a few steps. No doubt about it, the guy's ready to drop.

“Where are we?” Slammin' Dave shouts over the music. “I can't hear you!”

“Seventy-eight, seventy-nine, eighty, eighty-one …,” the guys on the mats bark as they move, but their voices fade fast.

Now, I know that any second, someone's going to spot me and throw me out. Trouble is, there's nothing to use for cover. No trash can, no plant, no wall—nothing. And I'm thinking I
could
hide behind the curtains, but not only would people outside be able to see me, something about it seems really, you know,
stupid.
Like it's what a
six
-year-old would do.

Being twelve was bad enough.

Then I notice something: The wrestling ring isn't solid to the ground—it has a red vinyl skirt around it. And the mat's off the ground, way higher than a bed.

A door to my right starts to open, so I don't waste another second thinking about it—I scurry under the ring. And after waiting a minute for my eyes to adjust, I start crawling through the jungle of junk that's stored there. I maneuver around two-by-fours, and pieces of drywall, and plywood, and spools of wire, and buckets, and paint, and extra mats, and just… garbage. And I start asking myself, Why? Why are you here? And now what? How are you planning to get
out
of here?

Then I hear the music cut off, and all of a sudden there are heavy footsteps above me and Slammin' Dave's voice
is calling, “All right. Today I'm gonna teach you how to take a back bump.”

I crawl forward until I get to a split in the skirting, and when I peek through it, I can see a bunch of students standing on the floor mats. Their bodies are shiny with sweat, and some of them have rivers of it running down their temples. Their eyes are all totally fixed on Dave, who's giving them instructions from inside the ring. “What's
key
is, don't hit the back of your head. If you do that, you'll see colors. Or stars. Or, if you do it hard enough, the night sky.”

So while Dave's talking, I'm checking out all the students.

No Bulldog.

I check to the left. And to the right.

No Bulldog.

“First thing you do,” I can hear Dave saying, “is squat like this.”

All the wrestlers squat, still looking at Dave.

“Then cross your arms like this.”

They all cross their arms.

“Bring in your chin and rock your hips.” All the wrestlers try it, and then Slammin' Dave calls out to one of them, “What'cha got down in your shorts, Benny, cement? You gotta
move.
Roll
up
on the balls of your feet.”

Benny rocks up on the balls of his feet, but he still looks really stiff.

“All right!” Dave says. “Now don't try this down there, just watch. What you do next is imagine someone's
pulling a rug from under you. Then throw your shoulders back and—” BAM! The mat slams above me.

A second later Dave's voice is back. “And when you get up, remember, no open hands! You want to get your fingers pulverized, do like this. You want to keep ‘em intact, make a fist, lean on your forearm, and spin up like we drilled on last time.” After a few seconds of silence Dave says, “All right. One more time. Squat down, cross your arms, tuck your chin, rock your hips, and—” BAM! The mat slams again. Then Dave calls, “Rick, get in here!”

A guy with frizzy blond hair steps forward and climbs into the ring. Ten seconds later the mat goes BAM!

“Again!” Dave shouts. “Keep your head tucked!”

BAM!

“Again!”

BAM!

“All right, Hector! Your turn!”

So a guy who looks like a marine climbs into the ring as the other guy comes out. And I
was
trying to keep an eye out for the Bulldog, but it was hard to concentrate because every time the mat slammed, I jumped. It was
loud
, and the mat wasn't like a mat on the ground. Whenever I watched through the window or back door, it always looked like the wrestlers were hitting hard, but now I could see that the floor of the ring was springy. Not like a trampoline or anything, but springy enough to absorb a lot of the impact.

Anyway, I didn't see the Bulldog anywhere. Maybe he'd gone out the front door again. Maybe he was in the locker room changing. Maybe he was in the office making phone
calls. Who knew? All I knew is I was stuck and feeling very stupid. What was I
doing
there? What did I think? That the Bulldog had a stash of cats at Slammin' Dave's? That he was going to
wrestle
them to death?

Please.

And why did I even care? The Psycho Kitty Queen was mean. Why should I be trying to help her?

But it wasn't for
her
, exactly. It was the cats that bothered me. And besides, it wasn't just her cats. Mr. T and Prince were somebody else's cats. They could even have belonged to some kid.

Like Dorito belonged to me.

So there I am, trapped under the ring with the floor going BAM… BAM… BAM every few seconds, and wacky thoughts about cats and kitty killers running through my head, when all of a sudden I hear a deep, loud, rumbly
growl
in my ear.