Sammy Keyes and the Runaway Elf

by Wendelin Van Draanen

  “How long ago was this?”

  “Oh, it’s been a year by now but it feels like yesterday. I’ve never seen so many people at a burial. It was like that whole new section of the cemetery was covered in black.” She looked out the window again. “You can never tell when your marker’s gonna come due.”

  Just then Officer Borsch walked through the door, but I wasn’t thinking about cats anymore, I was thinking about Elyssa. I whispered to him, “I didn’t know Elyssa’s dad was a cop.”

  He nodded. “And a good one.”

  “Were you there when he got killed?”

  He nodded again, then muttered, “And I’ve been back practically every night since.”

  I didn’t have to ask. I know what bad dreams are like. “Is that why she runs away?”

  “Elyssa? No. Well, I don’t think so. She was pretty much sheltered from the whole thing. Didn’t even attend the funeral.”

  “Why not?”

  He shrugged. “She was so young … the department’s psychologist didn’t think it’d be a good idea.”

  “Oh.”

  “Anyway, I’m told you have some information about the cats?”

  I let out a big breath and almost said, Forget it. I mean, all of a sudden the idea seemed really, really stupid.

  “Well?”

  I shook my head. “Promise you won’t laugh, okay?”

  He laughed and said, “No …,” which for some reason tickled my funny bone. I laughed along with him and said, “All right, then just hear me out.” I showed him the Polaroid pictures and said, “See this girl? Her name’s Heather Acosta and she goes to my school. I’m about ninety-five percent sure she and her friends threw the cats.”

  “No proof?”

  I shook my head. “And grilling her under your little hundred-watt bulb in there won’t get you anywhere.”

  His lip tried to curl up under his nose. “Ninety-five percent isn’t good enough.”

  “I know. Which is why I’m here. The other five percent is up to you.”

  So I told him about Hudson and “The Tell-Tale Heart,” and since he didn’t know the story, I had to tell him about the guy hiding the body under the floorboards and all of that. And I’m right in the middle of the guy losing it in front of the policemen when Ol’ Borsch-head practically breaks down and cries, “Samantha …! Do we really have to go through all this?”

  “I’m sorry, but you have to know the story or this doesn’t make any sense!”

  “I get the picture already! Now can we get to the cats?”

  So I told him about what I’d been doing at school and how Heather turned into a basket case whenever she saw me, and then I told him what I wanted him to do at the Christmas party the next day. He just closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. Finally he said, “It won’t work. There is no way that’s going to work.”

  “It’s worth a try, don’t you think?”

  He shook his head. “No. It’s ridiculous. It’ll never work. How can you even think that’s gonna work?”

  Now, I knew it was kind of a crazy idea, but my feelings were still hurt. I mean there he was, being the Borsch-head I know and hate, treating me like a stupid little kid again. I headed for the door and said, “Fine. I don’t see you coming up with a better idea, so you can just giddy-up!”

  In the time it took me to cross the room and walk through the door I went from ninety-eight degrees to about a hundred and ten. And I started to tell Elyssa that she was right—Gil Borsch was a jerk and I hated his guts, but I couldn’t.

  She was gone.

  SEVENTEEN

  She was gone gone. I ran down Cook Street a ways looking like crazy for her and calling her name, then I turned around and started running in the other direction. I crossed over Cook Street and asked some people at the SMAT bus stop if they’d seen her, but they all looked at me like I was from Pluto. I went into the parking structure of the mall and called, “Elyssa!” but her name just bounced around inside until it faded away.

  I thought about going back inside the police station and getting Officer Borsch, but I was still so mad at him that I couldn’t. Besides, I thought I could still catch up with Elyssa if I tried. I headed up Cook Street, thinking that maybe she’d gotten tired of waiting and was on her way to the nursing home.

  So I’m trying to convince myself that that’s where she’s got to be, but inside I’m panicking. Not like I’ve lost somebody’s dog—much worse than that. Like somehow by making Elyssa wait in front of the police station I’d lost a friend. And somewhere in the stew of thoughts sloshing around in my brain I thought about what the Dodo and Officer Borsch had said about her dad, and all of a sudden it hit me where Elyssa must be. I hung a right and started running to Stowell Road.

  Stowell is kind of a spooky street. It doesn’t look that way if you’re cruising along not thinking about things—it just looks like a regular street that could use a couple extra lanes to help with the traffic. But when you do think about it you get the creeps and start to avoid it.

  See, on the far end of Stowell they have a medical building where all the obstetricians in town work. Next to that is a birthing center, and next to that is the hospital. The hospital takes up about two blocks and it’s not painted black or anything. It’s just a hospital. But what comes after the hospital is a nursing home, and on the other side of the nursing home is a mortuary. And then, across the next intersection, well, there’s the cemetery. You could live your whole life on Stowell Road. Get born on one end, get buried on the other. Sure, you can take a little detour and go to school if you want, but pretty much it’s all right there, in a row, on Stowell.

  I’d never actually gone into the cemetery before. I’d looked at the backs of stone angels and statues poking up above the wall, but I’d never gone in to look at them face-to-face. So I wasn’t sure where the entrance was, and I wound up walking clear down the block and around the corner.

  When I did find a gate, I could tell it wasn’t the main way in, but since it was open a bit, I kind of wedged my way through it.

  I knew right away that I wasn’t in the section the Dodo had been talking about. There was absolutely nothing new about it. The tombstones were big and heavy-looking—like they might sink right in if it started to rain. And the walkway was smooth and damp, covered with a thin layer of moss that slimed under my high-tops as I walked.

  I turned and looked behind me, and there were my footsteps, following me. Then I noticed that the tombstones had black moss growing in the letters and across the crests. I read some of the stones, and when I got to one that read LYMAN URICH TOONEY, 1864–1906, the O’s in Tooney seemed to stare at me like two eyes with heavy bags beneath them. And when I looked around, the O’s and U’s on all the tombstones seemed to pop out. Like a gallery of sleepless eyes, watching me.

  I slip-slided my way out of there as fast as I could. And I was trying to decide which way to go at a Y in the path when I heard, “You seem a tad confused, missy. Lookin’ for anyone in particular?”

  Now it wasn’t dark yet, but it felt dark. There were old crusty trees arching over the pathway, making it kind of shadowy. And even though the path was a little drier than it had been back by the Tooney tomb, I still didn’t have much traction, and I couldn’t exactly run. And hearing this voice come out of nowhere, well, all I wanted to do was run. I mean, it sounded like someone coming up from underground to lend me a hand.

  The voice came again. “Not really supposed to use that gate no more, missy. Waiting on a hinge to seal it up.”

  Then I spotted him, leaning against a tree with a hoe in one hand. He looked greasy and dusty. Like a raven that had been bathing in soot. He pushed himself off the tree trunk and hobbled over to the foot of a grave, saying, “If you’re after some relation I can prob’ly help ya.” He started hoeing away at a tall weed. “But if you’re just takin’ a shortcut home you best go out the way you came.”

  “I’m not taking a shortcut, sir, I … I’m here to
find—”

  He perked right up. “What’s the name?”

  “Uh, Sammy Keyes.”

  His lips pushed way out, and then he looked up, like he was kissing the sky. “Must be in the new section. You got a plot number by chance?”

  “A what?”

  He hobbled onto the grave and started whacking away at another weed. “A plot number. Don’t matter, we can go look it up. I just don’t recall no Samuel Keyes.”

  “Oh no, sir! I’m Sammy Keyes.”

  He leaned on the hoe, holding it with both hands. “You’re looking for your own plot?”

  “No sir, I …” I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m looking for the gravesite of Jim Keltner. He was a policeman who died about a year ago.”

  He smiled and said, “Now, that I can help you with.” He leaned the hoe against a cement angel. “You a relation of Lyssie’s, by chance?”

  I followed him down the path. “Elyssa? No. I’m … I’m her friend.”

  “Good,” he said as he studied me. “Very good.”

  So I followed him through the cemetery. And it was strange—the place went from being a moss garden with trees and sagging tombstones to a place in the sun with straight rows, no trees, and flat grave markers. It was like wandering through an antique store full of old oak rocking chairs and armoires and then turning in to a room with plastic furniture. It just didn’t seem to fit.

  Ol’ Dusty must have known what I was thinking because he says, “It’ll look a whole lot better once those saplings take. That there’s an olive, those along there are plum—we’re gonna alternate ’em all the way out to the end of the district. Even before we open the next section up. Give it ten years—it’ll be nice.”

  So while he’s chattering away about the cemetery’s ten-year expansion plan, my heart’s letting out a sigh of relief because clear across the lawn I can see a little girl by a grave and there’s no doubt about it—it’s my runaway elf.

  I say, “Thanks,” and start walking a little faster, but Dusty keeps hobbling right alongside me. When we get to the gravesite, Elyssa’s sitting cross-legged, picking blades of grass out, one by one, and placing them on the marker. She looks up and says, “Oh, hi, Mike. Hi, Sammy,” like we were just passing by.

  “You doin’ okay today, Lyssie?”

  She shrugs and snaps off another blade of grass.

  “Well, you got company so I best be goin’.”

  Elyssa waves and we both watch him hobble away. Then she goes back to yanking grass and says, “Mike’s nice.”

  I sat down next to her and watched her for a minute. She didn’t really look upset—she was just concentrating on those blades of grass. Finally I said, “So this is where you go.”

  She shrugged. “Usually.”

  A motor started up somewhere in the distance. “Even after dark?”

  “Sometimes. Usually I leave when it gets dark.” She looked over her shoulder and started picking up the blades of grass.

  A riding mower was purring around by the main gate. After a minute it came our way, cutting grass along the fence. We both watched it awhile, and finally I said, “They mow right over the graves?”

  She nodded. “Mike says that’s why you can’t have statues anymore.” The mower was almost straight ahead of us now. “You can’t plant flowers, either.”

  “Because they have to mow?”

  She stared at the gardener. “I don’t like it.”

  No, I was thinking, neither do I.

  So we sat there, watching the gardener, and before too long the entire new section was mowed. All except for a big circle around Jim Keltner’s grave.

  When the gardener was gone, I looked at her and said, “So why don’t you want your mom to know you come here?”

  She started putting her blades of grass back on the grave. “She doesn’t know I know.”

  “That he … that he’s here?”

  She nodded, then looked at me. “She wants me to think he’s in heaven.”

  “Well, I’m sure he is.…”

  Her eyes shot straight for mine. “But yesterday you said you didn’t know where Mrs. Graybill was! You said no one knows!”

  Uh-oh, I was thinking, Uh-oh. “Well, I … I mean …”

  “And when I asked Hudson where heaven was, he showed me the moon and all the stars and told me it was up there. But he called them the heavens and said they go on and on forever!”

  “Hudson was probably trying to explain about the universe. He—”

  “And Miss Ugalde told me that the angels came for him. Shane says there’s no such thing as angels, but Miss Ugalde promised! She told me how beautiful they are and how nice they are and how Daddy’s safe with them. So I watch and I watch and I wait and I wait, but I’ve never seen one. Not one.” She looked straight at me. “Have you ever seen one?”

  I looked into her big brown eyes and I wished with all my heart that I could say yes, but there went my head, shaking back and forth. I tried to make the boulder in my throat disappear by forcing out a laugh. “ ’Course, I’ve never really looked, either.”

  The boulder didn’t budge.

  She didn’t think it was too funny, either. “So where is he?” She pointed to the sky, falling into darkness. “Is he up there? Is he with the angels?” She looked back at the gravesite and whispered, “Or is he in there?”

  I hadn’t realized until then that across the marker she had pieced together the word Daddy with her blades of grass. She looked at me and whispered, “Where is he?”

  I didn’t know what to say. Nothing much was going to make it past that boulder anyway. And I don’t know why, because I’d never really thought of it this way before, but I reached over, touched her chest, and said, “He’s right in there.”

  She blinked at me a minute, so I nodded and said it again, “Right in there, Elyssa. Always.”

  They started one by one, scared little tears popping from her eyes. Then all of a sudden she let them go. All of them. She buried her face in my sweatshirt, and while she was busy soaking it, I dripped all over the top of her head. And somewhere in the middle of all that crying I looked up at the sky, and there was the moon, just starting to shine through the dusk. And it felt like the distant light of a projector, beaming a ray of hope into my heart.

  Maybe Elyssa wouldn’t need to be the Runaway Elf anymore.

  EIGHTEEN

  It was Elyssa’s bedtime when I finally left the Keltners’. Mrs. Keltner gave me a hug on the porch and said, “How can I ever thank you?”

  I shrugged and nudged a pebble around with my high-top. I mean, she’d already thanked me about a billion times, and I didn’t feel like I’d really done anything. Then I had a great idea. I peeked around her to make sure Elyssa hadn’t sneaked out of bed. “Get her a sheepdog.”

  “A … sheepdog?”

  I smiled real big and nodded.

  “As if there isn’t enough chaos in my life.” Her head was shaking and her face was hidden behind a hand. Finally she peeked at me through her fingers and said, “A sheepdog …”

  “Maybe for Christmas?”

  She let out a sigh. “What am I going to do with a sheepdog?”

  I chased that pebble around some more and said, “It would make her really happy.” I looked up. “She’d also probably race right home after school.”

  Mrs. Keltner was looking off into the distance, nodding. “A sheepdog.”

  “If you got it as a puppy she could train it and …”

  She wasn’t listening. “A sheepdog!” I thought she was going to tousle my hair. “Thank you! This is going to be the best possible Christmas.” She turned around like I’d already left, smiling to herself, murmuring, “A sheepdog!”

  The Keltners’ porch light clicked off and I could see their Christmas tree shining through the curtains of the living room. I stood there a minute, kind of grinning, and then I headed down the walkway.

  There was too much jumbling around inside me to go home before I so
rted it out a bit, and since I’d already called Grams, I wasn’t worried about her being worried about me. I was more worried that Hudson wouldn’t be there to talk to.

  But he was there, all right. In the dark. Boots up, cocoa steaming. I couldn’t see his face, but I knew he was smiling. “Well, look who’s here!”

  “Hi, Hudson.”

  “Got time for some cocoa?”

  I sat down next to him. “You bet.”

  He brought out a cup and poured some from his thermos, saying, “Rita tells me your mother’s coming into town.”

  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.”