Sammy Keyes and the Night of Skulls

by Wendelin Van Draanen

My next moves.

  So right away I tell Grams, “I came in the front door so I could do the laundry. And then maybe I’ll vacuum.”

  Her eyebrows stretch high. “Really?” Then she seems to rethink the wonderfulness of my offer. “You can’t leave the laundry room, you know.”

  “I know,” I tell her, because for months now someone’s been stealing clothes that have been left unattended. I wiggle my eyebrows at her. “The Nightie ’Napper.”

  She eyes me suspiciously. “Are you making fun of me?”

  “No!”

  “Because there was another incident reported just last week.”

  “Was it another nightgown?”

  “Yes.”

  I give her a little grin. “Muumuus and nighties. The ‘Napper’s kinda kinky.”

  “Or very well dressed at someone else’s expense,” she grumbles.

  “Well, don’t worry. Your nightie’s safe with me. I won’t leave the laundry room.” Then I add, “I’ll bring my homework.”

  Now she’s really looking at me like I’ve lost some marbles, but she doesn’t actually say anything. She just gets some money and soap and fabric softener while I collect the bed sheets and towels and dirty clothes.

  Then I haul everything down to the basement, and after I get the machines going, I scoot an old folding chair up to a small table and set out my binder and books. And while the laundry’s swishing and sloshing in the machines and my homework’s staring up at me, I just sit there looking out into space, trying to figure out what my next move should be.

  With the skulls.

  With the Vampire.

  But most importantly, with Casey.

  By the time I finally hauled everything back up to the apartment, I’d decided that my first two moves were phone calls: one to Officer Borsch and one to Casey.

  But how?

  And when?

  And what, exactly, was I going to say?

  If I’d been living in a normal apartment, the how part would have been easy. I’d have taken the phone to a quiet corner while Grams was in the bathroom or bedroom and just called. But the Senior Highrise is old. And since everyone living in it is old, too, the people who own it probably figure there’s no reason to do anything new to it. So for a phone we’ve got one of those old-fashioned wall jobbies. You know, with the twisty cord that anchors the handset to the wall?

  It’s in the kitchen, and the cord does make it over to the fridge and almost to the stove, but if you want to have a private conversation? Forget it.

  And since I really didn’t want Grams to overhear, I needed to get out of the apartment and use the pay phone next to Maynard’s Market. And since I’d come in the front door of the Highrise and had to be seen leaving, it made sense to do it soon. Besides, I wanted to get it over with. I thought Officer Borsch needed to know about the skulls, and it was eating me up to have this secret from Casey. Maybe he wouldn’t be able to live with what I’d done, but I couldn’t live with hiding it from him.

  The hard part was what to say. All through folding the laundry and putting it away, all through making up Grams’ bed and vacuuming the apartment, I thought about what to say. Not just to Casey, but to Officer Borsch, too. And finally, after I’d loaded the dinner dishes and wiped down the kitchen counters, I took a deep breath and asked, “You need anything from Maynard’s?”

  Grams had been kind of quiet during dinner and wasn’t making a peep now. And since she was giving me a funny look I said, “I came in the front door, remember? So I have to—”

  “I know, I know,” she says, waving it off, but now she’s all watery-eyed.

  “What’s wrong? I just asked if you needed something from Maynard’s.”

  She sniffs and shakes her head. “You’ve been doing chores all afternoon, and now you’re asking if I need anything from the market? You’ve become so responsible. And you have a boyfriend …” She gives me a quivery little smile. “You’re really not a little girl anymore.”

  Before I can say anything back Grams has opened her purse and is asking, “What would you like from Maynard’s?” She looks up at me. “Have you outgrown Double Dynamos?”

  I laugh. “Two scoops of ice cream double dipped in chocolate and rolled in yummy crunchy nuts? Who could ever outgrow that?”

  She hands over some money. “Your arteries will someday, but for now, enjoy it.”

  I take the money and say, “Thanks,” and as I’m heading out I tell her, “Don’t start worrying if it takes me a while to come back, okay? I may stop in and see Holly.” Then I jet down to the lobby, holler, “See ya later, Mr. G!” to Mr. Garnucci, and head over to the pay phone by Maynard’s Market.

  Now, when I’d been down in the laundry room, I’d gone scavenging for change. There wasn’t any of Grams’ laundry money left for phone calls, and even if there had been, I wouldn’t have felt right about pilfering. It’s pretty sad when you don’t have enough change to make two phone calls, but that’s the way things are, so I just do my best to deal.

  I hadn’t found any coins in the bill changer or the soap machine or any of the washers or dryers, but that made sense—nobody’s living in the Senior Highrise because they want to, so they’re not careless with cash, even change. So I’d had to look for coins that had done their version of a fire drill. You know—drop, roll, and cover?

  Anyway, I’d found an old metal hanger and used it to scrape around under the washing machines, and—as the nuns at St. Mary’s Church love to say—bingo! I’d found a total of nine quarters, two nickels, and a peso … plus a lot of really gross lint and a bunch of random trash, but whatever. The coins had cleaned up just fine.

  Anyway for once I had plenty of money jingling around in my jeans—it was slipping the coins into the pay phone that I was having trouble with.

  And then it hit me that the whole reason I was having to call Casey now was because I’d called Officer Borsch before, and here I was, about to call Officer Borsch again.

  After pacing around the pay phone for what seemed like forever, I shoved in the coins and dialed, and my stupid heart started slamming around like a paddleball.

  Casey picked up on the second ring.

  “Hey,” I said. “It’s Sammy.”

  “Hold on.”

  His voice was really detached. Almost cold. And it was at least a minute before he came back on the line.

  “Sorry about that.”

  “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah, just had to get out of the house. Where are you calling from?”

  “Maynard’s. The pay phone outside.” I give a little laugh. “I guess I had to get outside, too.”

  “Because?”

  I pinch my eyes closed.

  I’d already made a wrong move.

  “Uh … because I didn’t want Grams to hear me ask you to meet me at the graveyard tomorrow?”

  “At the graveyard?”

  “Yeah.” I laugh because even though I’d spent a lot of time thinking it out, it was a weird place to ask someone to meet you. But I just went with it. “At high noon. By the main gate. Can you be there?”

  “What’s happening? Shoot-out at the Crypt Corral?”

  I laugh again. “It’s a surprise. You need to bring two bottles of water and a beach towel.”

  “A beach towel?”

  “Yup. Can you meet me?”

  He laughs. “I’ll be there.”

  “Great.”

  And I’m about to say, See you there, and hang up when he asks, “Have you done anything about the skulls?”

  “You mean like go back over to the police station?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That didn’t work out too well the first time we tried it. Do you think I should?”

  There’s a moment of quiet and then, “Don’t you?”

  “Maybe Billy should?”

  “Billy? Like anyone’s going to take what he says seriously?”

  “So you think I should?”

  “Yes!”

 
; All of a sudden I felt way better. “Okay, then I will.”

  “The sooner the better, don’t you think? The guy pulled a knife on Billy.” Then he adds, “I’ll go with you if you want.”

  I wished I could reach through the phone and hug him. “Just meet me at the graveyard tomorrow, okay?”

  “With two waters and a beach towel,” he says with a laugh. “Can’t wait.”

  So I get off the phone feeling really good, and right away I pick up the receiver again and call Officer Borsch.

  He also picks up on the second ring. “Borsch here.”

  “Hey, it’s Sammy.”

  “Oh, good. I’ve been wondering what you wanted to talk to me about.” And before I can say anything he adds, “I know doing the right thing has caused you trouble, and I’m sorry.”

  I snort. “It’s like a minefield.”

  “Well, I’m not divulging my sources, if that’s any consolation.”

  “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out. I was in your wedding, remember?”

  “Yeah,” he growls. “Not something I’ll forget.”

  I decide to ignore his obvious dig at how I’d messed up his wedding day, and just dive in. “Well, as you know, Heather’s got it in for me so I’m sure she’s stirring up rumors, which for once are probably the truth. Anyway, there’s something else I’ve got to talk to you about.”

  “Talk away.”

  So I take a deep breath, then start firing off everything that happened on Halloween. From cutting through the graveyard to running into Shovel Man and El Zarape and the Vampire, to Billy dumping the skulls out on Hudson’s floor and all of that. And when all those chambers are empty and I’m reloading my brain with what came next, he says, “Go on …”

  So I take another deep breath and ratta-tat-tat through the part about getting tailed by Shovel Man and the Vampire in the Deli-Mustard Mobile and hiding behind the brochure rack at the Heavenly and all of that.

  “Go on,” he says again.

  So I tell him about ditching it out the back door of the Heavenly and climbing the fence, and I’m in the middle of telling him about us going up the Pup Parlor stairs with a broom and a toilet plunger when he cuts in with, “Sammy, is this all really germane?”

  “Huh?”

  “Does the toilet plunger matter?”

  “Well—”

  “Was he there, or not?”

  “No …”

  “So can you please get to the point?”

  I think a minute, then say, “Well, okay, the point happened the next day when El Zarape pulled a knife on Billy.”

  “What?”

  “See? If I don’t tell you the whole story, then the story doesn’t make sense.”

  “But I don’t need a whole chapter on toilet plungers if they don’t matter!”

  “It wasn’t a chapter! It wasn’t even a paragraph!”

  “It was a very long run-on sentence,” he mutters.

  “It was not! And even if it was, that’s how I think, okay?”

  “In run-on sentences?”

  “Yes!” Then I snap, “What are you, an English teacher or a cop?”

  He sighs and says, “Go on. Tell me your story.”

  But now I don’t feel like telling him. Now I feel stupid. Like a little kid wasting his time. So I just stand there saying nothing.

  “Come on, Sammy. Just pick up where you left off.”

  Finally I take a deep breath and start up again, but I try to make it like a police report instead of a story with toilet plungers. And maybe that’s why when I’m finally all done he’s quiet so long that I have to say, “Are you there?”

  “Yes, Sammy. I’m here.”

  “So … ?”

  “Let me get this straight. You think the two ‘skulls’ are the heads of two of the people who have gone missing.”

  Now, in the first place, he said skulls like he didn’t believe they actually were skulls. And in the second place he said it like he was trying real hard not to let on that he thought it was the stupidest thing he’d ever heard, which was worse than if he’d come right out and laughed at me.

  So I huff, “Fine. Don’t believe me.”

  “Who said I didn’t believe you?”

  “Your tone of voice?”

  He sighs. “Look, Sammy, I’m sorry. Normally I’d be more receptive to this, but come on. It was Halloween. You got spooked.”

  “The guy pulled a knife on Billy! And it he did it on All Saints’ Day, not Halloween!”

  He ignores that and says, “We are talking about Billy Pratt, right?”

  Well, the way he said that totally ticked me off. I mean, yeah, he knew Billy from a couple of incidents at school, and, yeah, Billy has the reputation of being a goofball, but to blow off what I was saying because it involved Billy?

  “He wasn’t making it up, if that’s what you’re implying. He’s all scraped up from where he dived into a rosebush to get away from the guy.”

  He snorts. “A rosebush. Good choice.”

  “Officer Borsch! You’re acting like … you’re acting like the old Officer Borsch.”

  He hesitates, then says, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You know, back when you were the Bruiser in a Cruiser, the Crisco Kid, the—”

  “Whoa, whoa. The Crisco Kid?!”

  A little part of me goes, Oops, but the part of me that’s ticked off is way bigger. “Yeah. You know, back when you thought I was a juvenile delinquent? Back when you didn’t listen?”

  His voice goes up a notch. “You call what I’ve been doing for the last twenty minutes not listening?”

  “Well, okay. Back when you didn’t believe me.”

  “Sammy …”

  I wait and wait, but that’s all he says. It’s like he’s biting his tongue so hard that it’s never gonna get free to talk again.

  “Forget it,” I tell him. “You’ve got people disappearing all over the place, but if you don’t want my help, fine.”

  He lets out a heavy sigh. “It’s not that I don’t want your help, it’s that it’s … illogical.”

  “Fine. It’s illogical.”

  “Sammy, please.”

  “You don’t even think the skulls were real, do you?”

  “Sammy, come on. Why two skulls in a sack? Where’s the rest of the bodies?”

  I didn’t care about the rest of the bodies. Or that it was maybe a little illogical. I was just hurt that he wasn’t even considering that what I’d told him might be valuable.

  So I wag my head like he’s the stupidest guy on the planet and say, “Obviously the bodies didn’t fit in the sack!”

  “Sammy!”

  “Never mind,” I tell him. “Just never mind.” Then I mutter, “Two random heads pop out of a sack and nobody cares. Whoa, where’s the rest of the body? Not here? Oh, well, can’t be important. Who cares that somebody pulled a knife to get them back? Who cares that two bodies are missing their heads? Who cares that two people were missing the night that two heads rolled out of the sack?”

  Officer Borsch sighs. “Okay. Okay, okay, okay. I’ll do a little digging. See what I can find out.”

  And before I can say anything, he grumbles, “Crisco Kid,” and hangs up the phone.

  After I got off the phone, I went into Maynard’s to get my Double Dynamo and, just my luck, Maynard’s loser son TJ was working. “Oh, great,” he groans when he sees me walk through the door. “Like my headache wasn’t bad enough?”

  I eye him. “Right back atcha, Teej.” And then, because an Elvis impersonator works the counter some nights, I tell him, “I was hopin’ for Elvis but instead I get the Grinch.”

  “Yeah? Well, what you can get is out.”

  “See? No heart,” I tell him, and leave.

  It would have been a waste of a Double Dynamo anyway because I was still upset about Officer Borsch not taking me seriously and I would’ve chomped through it without even tasting it.

  I did think about chec
king in with Holly, but I was feeling really snappy, so I just went home.

  It wasn’t until the next morning that I switched from being miffed at the Borschman to worrying about how things would go with Casey at the graveyard.

  “You’re baking brownies?” Grams asks when she sees me stirring the mix.

  “I’m doing a picnic lunch for me and Casey,” I tell her like it’s a matter-of-fact, everyday thing. And before she can say, Oh, really, I ask, “What do you think—tuna or chicken salad sandwiches?”

  “Chicken salad, definitely.”

  And just like that she’s on board, helping me cut up leftover chicken, dicing celery, grinding in pepper, and just hanging out with me in the kitchen.

  When we think it’s done, we both take a taste of the chicken salad and it is delicious, but remembering the way Casey mixes weird combinations of food—like mac ’n’ cheese and salsa—I start worrying that maybe it’s kind of, you know, ordinary.

  So I look in the fridge and ask Grams, “How would grapes taste in it?”

  “Grapes?”

  I peek out at her and can tell she’s definitely not liking the idea.

  “Maybe raisins?” she says. “I’ve had chicken salad with raisins before.”

  “Raisins?”

  “They’re just dried grapes.”

  “They’re disgusting mummy fruit is what they are.”

  “Mummy fruit?”

  “Yeah—shriveled, dry, and ugly.” I dive back into the refrigerator. “There’s no way my chicken salad is gonna become a sarcophagus.”

  Grams watches as I head for the sink with the grapes, and even though she’s trying not to say anything, she just can’t help herself. “What’s wrong with it the way it is?”

  “Nothing. I just want it to be a little … different.”

  So I quarter some grapes and put them in the chicken salad, then I make the sandwiches and gather paper plates and napkins and other picnic stuff. And after the brownies are cooked and cooled and cut up, I put everything in my backpack.

  “Have fun,” Grams says when it’s finally time to leave.

  Now, I know she’s been trying super hard to trust me and not worry about me going on a picnic alone with a boy, so when she finally breaks down at the last minute and asks, “What park are you going to?” I grin at her and tell her the truth. “The bone park.”