Sammy Keyes and the Runaway Elf (17 page)

I’d completely forgotten. “Oh, yeah.”

He eyed me. “Had a hunch you wouldn’t be doing a jig.”

I just sighed.

He looked out at the moon. “It’s one of those choppy passages you have to negotiate, whether you want to or not. You can decide to go around the rocks or face them
head-on. Either way, you have to get from here to there.”

Normally I would’ve given him an argument—or at least told him I didn’t want to get from here to there—but for some reason I was just quiet. Then he asked, “What about Mrs. Graybill? How is she?”

The words kind of stuck in my throat. “She’s dead.”

He stopped midslurp. “Good Lord! Seriously?”

I nodded, and then very quietly I told him all about it. How she’d called my name all day, how she’d begged me to forgive her, and how all of a sudden, there she was, gone forever.

He was quiet for a long time and then his head started moving back and forth a little. Pretty soon it had gained some serious momentum. “Unbelievable. Just unbelievable.”

I whispered, “I never thought I’d cry over Mrs. Graybill.”

“I take it you did?”

I nodded and told him how it felt like someone had ripped my heart out when I’d figured out she was dead. Then I told him about what I’d said when Elyssa had found me crying, and before you know it I’m going on and on about mossy tombstones and riding mowers. And when I’m finally done telling him what happened at the gravesite, he lets out a low whistle and says, “That poor child!” He sat up a bit. “I feel awful for contributing to her confusion. I barely even remember her asking about heaven.”

I watched him gazing out at the stars and whispered, “Do you really believe in heaven?”

Now you have to understand—Hudson goes to St. Mary’s Church every Sunday, and even though we’ve
spent all kinds of time talking about Father Mayhew and his carrot-eating dog and why the sisters who work the soup kitchen are so crabby, he’s never really talked to me about God or heaven or believing. So the minute I heard myself ask the question I was sorry because I didn’t want Hudson to talk about God and heaven and believing. I get plenty of that from Father Mayhew.

I almost said, Whoops! I take that back—never mind! but before I could, Hudson nods and says, “I believe what you’re asking is, Is the end of life a period? Or merely a comma?” He turns to me. “I don’t have the answer, but I do know that what you believe should give you comfort. What you told little Elyssa today is the heart of the truth, and that’s what matters. About the rest, just keep your mind open. You’ll find that conclusions tend to evolve if you let them.”

My brain was busy digesting this when he says, “Well, would you look at that.” He points to the house across the street. “The Cranstons broke down and bought a tree.”

I could see lights coming to life through the living room window. “Don’t they usually get a tree?”

Hudson tugged on an eyebrow and gave me a sly little smile. “Didn’t you know? Only heathens get trees.” He kicked his boots up on the railing and chuckled. “I guess that little grandson coming to visit’s finally turned them around.”

The lights suddenly went out, then came back on again. Not like twinkling lights—more like lights with a loose connection. Hudson chuckled again and said, “Now they’re sending out Morse code to Santa!”

We laughed about that for a while, and then I forced myself to get up. “I better get going.”

On the way down the steps my heart felt really heavy because I knew—it was too late. My last night to find Marique was gone, and unless I got really lucky and the Crocodile
didn’t
call the housing authorities, I wouldn’t have to worry about giving the GasAway Lady the couch—there wouldn’t
be
a couch.

I looked back at Hudson and asked, “How would you feel about lending me your couch for a few weeks?” thinking that if the Crocodile
did
call, at least Grams stood a chance of not getting kicked out if no one could find me.

Hudson nodded and said, “You’re always welcome,” but he eyed me over his cocoa mug and added, “Keep in mind, though, that if you’re determined to fight your way upstream, at least go between the rocks. Your vessel will last longer.”

I blinked at him and then realized that he was thinking
I
was thinking about my mother. I said, “Okay, I will,” and then, as I’m going down the steps, I have a terrible thought. “Do I have to buy her a present?”

He chuckles and shakes his head. “A present that’s not from the heart is no present at all, Sammy.”

“So does that mean I
don’t?
”

His head was still shaking. “That’s up to you.”

So I head home, worrying about the GasAway Lady and Christmas, thinking how
Grams
is the person I want to get something special for, but what she’ll probably wind up getting from me is an eviction notice. Then I start thinking how hiding out at Hudson’s might actually be
kind of fun because I could spend more time on his porch watching the world go by. Well,
that
gets me thinking about watching the Cranstons sending out Morse code to Santa, and then all of a sudden I get a little lightheaded, and pretty soon I feel like I’m walking on the moon.

I sit right down on the curb, and while I’m feeling like a puff of cloud that’s strayed from the storm, my brain is throwing thunderbolts back and forth inside my skull. It finally rumbles to a stop, and what I’m left with is something that
almost
makes sense.

I got up and ran. As hard as I could, as fast as I could. All the way to the Pup Parlor. And I rang that bell until I thought it was going to buzz itself right off the wall.

Holly comes charging down the stairs, and when she sees it’s me she throws open the door and says, “What’s wrong?”

“Is Vera here?”

“She’s just getting ready for bed.”

I went charging up the stairs calling over my shoulder, “Does she have any pictures of the parade?”

“What?”

I practically knocked Vera over at the top of the stairs. “Vera! Did you get your parade pictures developed?”

“Uh, yes. I did.” She shuffled over to the kitchen counter. “They’re right here.”

I was shaking as I took them out of the package. “Did you shoot them from the mall side or from across the street?”

“From across the street.”

I was already flipping through the pictures. “Where?”

“A little ways up from Cook.”

My heart was pounding. “Good.”

Holly whispered, “What’s going on?”

“I think I know who has Marique.”

Holly and Vera said, “You do?”

I flipped through the pictures fast once, then more slowly. Vera pointed over my shoulder. “You like that one? They’re all flying off.”

I backed up one. “Are these in order?”

“Should be.”

I backed up another and studied it. “Do you have a magnifying glass?”

“I have a loupe.”

I looked up at her. “What’s a loupe?”

Vera shrugged and said, “It’s like a magnifying glass for photos. You want it?”

“Yes!”

She came back a minute later and handed me something that looked like a squatty little hourglass with a band around the top. She said, “Here, let me turn on the light.”

I held the loupe up to my eye, then bent over the photograph. Five seconds later, I was positive who had Marique.

It took a bit of talking to convince Vera to let Holly come with me, but in the end she said okay
if
Marissa went with us and
if
we promised not to go inside and
if
we called if we weren’t going to be home by ten o’clock. We just said yeah, yeah, yeah and went charging out of there.

The whole way over to Marissa’s we talked about what we were going to do and how we were going to do it, and by the time we were pounding on Marissa’s door I knew there was no way around it—I was going to have to break one of my promises.

Marissa did a bit of the McKenze dance when we told her what was going on, but when I started talking about how I had to get inside, Holly said, “Wait a minute! We promised we wouldn’t do that.”

“And
you
don’t have to. But there’s something I have to get, otherwise this’ll never be over.” I finished explaining what I wanted to do, then borrowed a little penlight from Marissa, and off we went to the Landvogt mansion. Marissa and Holly went up to the front door while I climbed over the back fence.

Now, maybe I could’ve done the whole thing myself, but I didn’t want to be snooping around the Crocodile’s back door while she or Tina were in the kitchen, looking
for a late-night snack. Besides, I wasn’t really sure I could get inside, and I sure didn’t want to get caught halfway.

I tiptoed up the back steps and held my breath as I pushed Marique’s doggy door open a few inches. No alarm. I put my ear up to the crack and waited for the doorbell to ring, and when it did, I got ready. I pushed the doggy door open as far as I could, and then when I heard the opening alarm
be-boop
, I wrestled my head and one arm in and reached up as high as I could. The deadbolt was about four inches away.

I squirmed in a little farther and tried again. It was still at least an inch out of reach. I crammed myself in until it felt like the door was going to cut through my ribs. This time I managed to snap the deadbolt back.

Getting myself back out of the doggy door felt like pulling a sword from my side, but I just tried to ignore how much it hurt and got ready. I put one hand on the doorknob, my ear to the doggy door, and waited.

I knew that when she closed the front door I’d have only a split second, and even then she might notice. So the instant the closing chime began, I pushed open the back door and my
be-boop
kind of harmonized over her
bo-beep
.

Now I couldn’t shut the door. The closing chime would sound again and I’d give myself away. So I turned on my penlight and tiptoed into the pantry, and there was the alarm panel on the wall, blinking away. I flipped the switch over to Deactivate, then tiptoed out and closed the back door. No alarm.

So there I am, sneaking through the Crocodile’s kitchen, carrying my penlight like a match in a refinery,
and I’m just passing the island when I hear the purr of a crocodile on wheels.

I pop the penlight off and duck. Then suddenly fluorescent lights flood the kitchen, and I can hear her, wheeling across the tile floor. My heart’s trying to whack a great big hole through my chest, but my feet won’t budge. It’s like they’re cemented to the floor.

She rolls right up to the far counter, pulls a glass out of the dishwasher, and then stands up. Just like that, she’s up and hobbling around. Now let me tell you, it’s a scary sight seeing a crocodile get up on its back legs and walk. It’s like seeing a boa constrictor fly. One minute you’re thinking that if you keep your distance you’ll be all right, and the next minute you’re realizing that you need to switch continents to survive.

From where I’m crouched she looks about ten feet tall, and she’s
fast
. She hobbles over to a cupboard and brings down some pretzels, then she kind of sashays over to the refrigerator for a bottle of seltzer water. And while she’s getting down a bowl for the pretzels I notice her big black book, just sitting there in her wheelchair.

Now, I’m not suicidal. Really I’m not. It’s just that sometimes part of my brain wants me to act that way, and it takes everything I’ve got to stop it. And I’m there, in the middle of talking myself down from charging that wheelchair, when the phone rings. I jump back a bit, and as she hobbles over to the phone, I keep one eye on her and the other glued to that big black book sitting all by itself in her chair.

The Croc picks up the phone and says, “Yes?” then
turns her back and waits for a second. Finally she says, “Well,
why
was I crossed off the list?”

It was too late to turn back. I was already inching my way into open ground.

“That makes no sense. I’ve been invited to the Christmas Ball every year for the past ten years! I was even on the
committee
last year. You need to find out why.”

I was trying to move slowly so she wouldn’t notice me out of the corner of her eye, but with my heart slamming around inside me like a Bumble Ball, it wasn’t easy. Then, when she said, “Wait a minute,
Nora
said that? Nora Hallenback?” I froze. And if I hadn’t been so petrified I might have smiled. The Landvogt Empire was starting to crumble. All I needed was that book!

I crawled the rest of the way to the wheelchair, and suddenly there it was, in my hand—my ticket off Crocodile Isle, my guidebook to independence, my antiblackmail blackmail.

The Croc twisted the top off her seltzer water, and I could tell that any second she’d twist her
head
and I’d be caught. So instead of going back the way I’d come, I ducked beside another counter and rolled into a hallway.

I heard the phone slam down, so I scrambled a little farther down the hallway and held my breath. A minute later the fluorescent lights went off, and all of a sudden there I was, alone in the dark.

When my eyes got adjusted a bit, I started noticing things. Like the carpet—it wasn’t thick and bouncy. It was low and sturdy. Almost industrial. And the doors—they weren’t paneled wood like the rest of the house.
They were flat and painted. But what really gave away that I was in the low-rent part of the house was that there was no chandelier. Just a regular ceiling light.

I was ready to take that blackmailer’s bible and hightail it out of there, but Tina had said she lived downstairs in the servants’ quarters, and I was thinking that one of these rooms might be Tina’s.

I started at the back end of the hallway and worked my way up. Each room was cold and either empty or full of junk. Persian rugs, antique chairs, Tiffany lamps—you know, junk.

Then I opened the room closest to the kitchen and right away I knew it was Tina’s. For one thing, I didn’t feel a blast of cold air when I opened the door. For another, I recognized her red jacket sitting right there on the bed.

I left the door open a crack and started snooping around with my penlight. The bed wasn’t much bigger than a cot, and wedged between it and the wall was a worn recliner. There was a desk with two drawers, but there was nothing in them. Just pens and pencils and some old magazines. And as I looked around at the bare walls, it hit me that the room didn’t feel like someone actually
lived
in it. It felt more like a prison cell.