Sammy Keyes and the Wedding Crasher (6 page)

“What’s a do-rag?”

“One of those head bandannas that motorcycle guys wear? Mr. Vince is the one in a T-shirt. The other guys have on leather jackets. Go check it out.”

Mikey starts to scurry back into Cheezers, and Marissa calls, “Be sly, okay?”

He bobbles his head, then disappears inside Cheezers. A minute later he’s coming back out, moving like he’s part of a top-secret mission. “I can’t believe that’s your
teacher
.”

“Yup,” I tell him. “Neither can I.” Then I drop my voice like I’m trusting him with something really, really big. “If you ever see him around town, you let me know, okay?”

“Why?” Mikey whispers back. “Is your teacher a
bad
guy?”

Now, when Mikey asks that, I swear his ears stretch up and out and
quiver
. Like they’re just twitching to scoop in
some classified information. So I drop my voice even further, look from side to side, then say, “His code name is Captain Evil.”

“Really?”
Mikey asks, and his voice is barely a whisper.

So I nod and put my finger in front of my lips. “Top-secret, okay?”

His head bounces up and down like it’s dribbling on his shoulders.

I laugh and say, “All right,” and give him a chummy slap on the arm. “Now let’s go. I’ve got foo-foo shoes to try on!”

There are very few stores in the mall where I haven’t gone in before, but KC Shoes is one of them. For one thing, I get my shoes at the thrift store. But even if I didn’t, I wouldn’t go to KC’s. The mall’s other shoe stores have stacks of boxes and you can just serve yourself, but KC’s is like an old-time store where you have to ask to see a shoe in a certain size.

Anyway, we go inside, and right away I’m uncomfortable. There are mirrors everywhere and Plexiglas podiums that have shoes displayed like fine art. I’m afraid to touch anything, and I’m worried that Mikey might have a relapse and become Bratty Mikey.

Or Whiny Mikey.

Or Bull-in-a-Shoe-Shop Mikey.

And then I meet Kenny, which doesn’t help matters. He’s got slicked-back blond hair, a pencil-line moustache that sits right above his lip and comes nowhere
near
his nose, and three gold rings on his right hand and none on
his left. He’s also wearing the shiniest shoes I’ve ever seen, and they’re blood-red, with thin black laces.

He looks like he probably has a side job selling snake oil.

I pull out the swatch and show it to him. “I’m here to get shoes for a wedding?”

His beady eyes light up, and he gives me a very snaky smile. “You must be Sams!” he says. “Debra told me you’d be coming in today.” And in a flash, he’s maneuvered me to a seat and is unlacing my right shoe.

Now, let me tell you, this is a weird sensation. For one thing, I always untie my own shoes. For another, he’s down on one knee in front of me and has my worn-out high-top resting against his professionally creased pants. Plus, he’s holding my foot, and the only other time someone has held my foot like this was on a camping trip when I had the worst blisters in the whole wide world, and that person was Casey.

So I’m sitting there with my foot on his leg, freaking out a little. And I’m trying to get the thought of Casey out of my mind, but it’s like being in the doctor’s office and knowing that you’re about to get a shot. You can’t stop thinking about it until it’s over.

At least ol’ Kenny was fast on the draw. He had my shoe off quick and tried not to seem too grossed out when he took off my sock.

Hey, it was clean when I left the house, but I’d walked clear from Hudson’s, so it was a bit steamy, okay?

Anyway, he had me stand my naked foot on a measuring ruler, then zipped into a back room and returned a minute later with two shoe boxes.

“Here we are,” he says, sitting on a stool in front of me. He hands me a nylon sock, whips a shoehorn out of his pocket, flips open a shoe box, and produces an all-white, closed-toe stiletto.

I’ve only got the nylon half on when my eyes bug out at the shoe. “I can’t wear those!”

“Wow,” Marissa gasps. “Those are high.”

Kenny has the shoe at the ready near my foot. “Of course you can,” he says. “You’ll be smashing in them.”

I finish pulling on the nylon. “Yeah, I’ll be smashing onto the floor in them!”

“You’ll be fine,” he tells me with an oily smile. “It’s what the other girls are wearing.”

“I can’t get flats?”

He looks at me like I’ve just passed gas. “Heavens no!”

“Just do it,” Marissa says. “It’s only for an hour, right? You can take them off after the ceremony.”

So I stick out my foot, and he does this smooth maneuver with the shoehorn that somehow gets my foot inside the shoe. “How’s that feel?” he asks.

I stand up and take a few awkward steps. “Freaky,” I grumble.

“Tight in the toe?”

“Yes!”

He checks it out, making me wiggle my big toe. “No, it’s perfect. The next size will be too big.”

So he slips the other shoe on, and I stilt-walk around the store for all of ten ridiculous seconds, then plop back down in my chair. “Whatever,” I say, yanking them off.

He boxes them up, tapes the swatch to the lid, and
says, “I’ll have them ready Friday after three. Debra’s prepaid them, so I believe we’re all set.”

“Thanks,” I tell him, and we get out of there as fast as my high-tops can take me.

Now, Mikey had been almost invisible inside the shoe store, so I turn to him and say, “That has to be the worst store in the mall, and you were the best you’ve ever been!”

Marissa nods. “You were great, Mikey.”

He smiles at us. “It wasn’t easy.”

We laugh, and then Marissa asks him, “So, do you want to go to the pet store?” because watching fish swim is Mikey’s favorite pastime.

“Is that okay?” he asks.

Marissa looks at me, so I shrug and say, “Sure.”

Trouble is, on our way over to the pet store, we go by the food court, and who do we run into?

The Queen of Mean.

The Ear-to-Ear Sneer.

The one and only Heather Acosta.

She’s not alone, either. She’s hanging out with her friends Monet and Tenille and a few guys from school. There’s Lars Teppler, who I’ve got in a couple of classes, and David Olsen from Mr. Vince’s class, and then there’s Billy Pratt.

“Oooh, baby!” Heather calls over to me. “Rebounding hard, huh?”

I give her a look like,
What?

She points to Mikey. “But you and Blubber Boy look so right together!”

It’s been a long time since I’ve flattened Heather. Oh,
I’ve had the
urge
—I’ve just managed to control it. But now I had the urge, and believe me, it was overwhelming. And it wasn’t because of some ridiculous insult Heather Acosta was throwing at me—she’s always throwing insults at me.

It was Mikey.

She’d called him Blubber Boy like he wasn’t even there.

Before I know what I’m doing, I yank her out of her seat and shove her about five feet across the food court. “He’s got feelings, you know.”

She laughs, but it’s a nervous laugh because Heather Acosta’s been on the receiving end of my fist before. “Yeah?” she says, trying to act all cocky. “Sorry I didn’t see them. Probably because they’re buried under all that
fat
.”

I stop and just stare at her. Then I look over my shoulder at her group of friends. “Why do you guys want to hang out with a person who makes fun of little kids?”

I’ve got to hand it to her—even when she’s shaking in her shoes, Heather’s got nerve. “Hey,” she says, “he’s not
little
, and I was making fun of
you
.”

I stare at her a minute, then shake my head. “You’re unbelievable.”

And at that moment I knew that flattening her wasn’t worth it.

It wouldn’t change anything.

So I just turned my back on all of them and said to Marissa and Mikey, “Come on. Let’s go check out some fish.”

“Wow,” Mikey whispered as we started to walk away. “Who was that?”

And then he did something really sweet.

And totally embarrassing.

He slipped his pudgy little hand into mine.

I could tell it was just a reflex. Something he’d done with his mom and dad and sister over the years. And part of me wanted to hold on tight and protect him, but part of me wanted to shake him off.

Like Heather needed any more ammunition?

But I held on, and I looked at him and said, “Her name’s Heather and she’s spiteful and wicked and you should ignore everything she said. You’re doing amazing on your diet, and I’m very proud of you.”

“Really?” he asked, looking up at me.

“Really,” I told him, and Marissa put her arm across his shoulders and agreed. “Really, Mikey. You are.”

Mikey took a long look back at Heather, and we wound up having to kind of drag him along. “Fish, Mikey. Remember?” Marissa said. “We’re going to look at fish.”

I actually hate the mall’s pet store. It’s got no dogs or cats or even hamsters anymore. Just fish and snakes and turtles. Oh, they sell
accessories
for dogs and cats, but not the actual pet.

Plus, the place smells. I don’t know why, seeing how there’s nothing to clean up after, but it still smells like someone ought to be cleaning up after something, if you know what I mean.

So, anyway, I have a pretty low tolerance for the place to begin with, but now it was even worse because I was still all steamed about Heather. And Billy. Maybe Billy
more
than Heather. I mean, he’s supposedly my friend. He
knows how evil Heather is. What’s he doing hanging out with her?

But on top of stewing about them and hating the smell, there’s some guy running the self-service pet tag machine and the sound is driving me up a wall. No matter where I go in the store, I can hear it eeking and screeching. And after the guy’s made, like,
six
tags, I start wondering if there’s something
wrong
with him. I mean, yeah, the first time I saw the machine work, I was pretty entertained, but c’mon. This guy’s standing there with his inch-thick glasses, making tag after tag after tag. Why does he need so many tags? Does he keep messing up? Did someone dump a litter of puppies on his doorstep? Is he a tag-making weirdo? I even hang out behind him for a few minutes trying to see what he’s doing, but I finally can’t take it anymore and just ask Marissa, “Can we get out of here?”

So we grab Mikey and leave. And since we’re really near Cheezers and it’s an actual shortcut to go out that way, that’s the way we go.

Funny thing is, Mr. Vince is still there, still drinking beer. Only he’s no longer wearing the do-rag, and now it’s just him and one other guy. The guy’s big. And his face is blocky and kind of
gray
. Like a big piece of chiseled granite.

Mr. Vince, on the other hand, is definitely red around the edges. He’s the one talking, and he’s jabbing his finger onto the table like he’s pretty upset about something.

“I’m glad he’s not my teacher,” Mikey whispers.

Marissa nods. “Maybe he’s telling his friend about Die Dude!”

I grumble, “He oughta get over it already!” and head for the side door.

And really, as we walked through the parking lot and passed by the laughing-skulls motorcycle that was still there, I wasn’t thinking about Mr. Vince. I was too upset about Heather, and Billy, and Heather’s stupid comment. Because as much as I hated to admit it, Heather’s jab made me think about Casey. She’d said he’d moved on, and from what evidence I had, it looked like she was right.

So, no. I didn’t care about Mr. Vince.

Didn’t give him another thought.

Not until Monday morning rolled around.

Monday morning, it was obvious that Mr. Vince was still not over it. The only thing he said throughout homeroom was, “That was the tardy bell, people. Sit down!” He had Cole Glenns lead the Pledge and Ellie Statum read the announcements, and after that he just sat at the back of the classroom sort of hunched into the time-out chair.

All of us were a little nervous about the way he was acting. Teachers can freak you out because you never know what they’re
really
thinking. And when they act like Mr. Vince was acting, well, it can definitely unravel your nerves. You start wondering, Is he mad at the class? Does he have a headache?

Has he got Montezuma’s revenge?

Is he hung over?

About to hurl?

With teachers, you can never really tell.

Anyway, when the dismissal bell finally rang, I got out of there fast and ran right into Billy Pratt.

“Sammy-keyesta!” he says. “Lookin’
muy bonita
.”

“Don’t kiss up to me,” I tell him. “I’m mad at you.”

“Hey!” he says, and all of a sudden he’s serious. “I just happened to run into her when I was at the mall, okay?”

“No. Not okay.”

“I can’t even stand in the same place as her?”

“No.”

“Look, she’s Casey’s sister. And he’s one of my best buds—what am I supposed to do?”

I frown at him. “After what she said about Marissa’s little brother, you should have left. Maybe even followed us. You know—as a sign of solidarity or something?” I shake my head. “It’s bad enough that kids at Mikey’s school pick on him for being fat. He doesn’t need Heather piling on! And he sure doesn’t need other people acting like it’s okay!”

“I’m sorry,” he says, which sort of throws me because he sounds so serious, and it’s not like Billy to be serious about anything.

He shrugs. “And you’re right, I should have left.” He wraps his arms around me. “Don’t be mad, Sammy-keyesta.”

I tell him, “Thanks,” and give him a quick slap-pat on the back.

He hugs me harder.

“Okay, Billy. Let go. That’s enough,” I say into his shirt.

“I’m an anaconda from Rwanda. Hug me back or I attack.”

“Oh, good grief, Billy, stop.”

“Hug me,” he says, squeezing the life out of me.

I don’t know what it is about Billy, but instead of being
mad or annoyed, I hug him back and laugh. “Okay, okay. We’re good.” Then I break away and head for class, calling, “Vince is acting like the Psycho Barfer today.”

“The Psycho Barfer?” He grins. “Can’t wait!”