Sammy Keyes and the Hotel Thief by Wendelin Van Draanen Read Free Book Online Page A

Marissa’s grabbing him by the collar and yelling, “I can’t believe it! You ditched your first day of school!” She shakes him. “Boy, are you gonna get it when Mom finds out you were clear out here buying junk food.”
    â€œIt’s not junk food!”
    Marissa rips the candy out of his hands. “A Hershey bar, three Reese’s cups, a Snickers...Mikey,
this
is junk food!”
    â€œWell, I wanted a Double Dynamo but they were all out.” He gives her a hopeful look. “They’re not junk food. There’s milk in those.”
    Marissa shakes her head and throws the candy bars—
thunk
—into a trash can. “Get on your bike—we’re going home.”
    To tell you the truth, between finding out Gina was Madame Nashira and eating a Double Dynamo, I’d actually forgotten about getting suspended. But when Marissa calls over her shoulder, “Don’t worry about school. Everything’ll work out,” it all comes flooding back.
    And all of a sudden I’m real worried about Grams. I mean, I’m already late, and she’s probably been waiting for me all afternoon.
    So I start running. And in no time I’m pounding up the fire escape stairs, telling myself that Grams’ll understand why I punched Heather in the nose if she’ll just give me a chance to explain, when I get to the fifth-floor door and open it.
    And there, sitting in a folding chair with her arms crossed, waiting, is Mrs. Graybill.

SEVEN
    â€œAh-ha!” she says. “Ah-ha!” Then she springs up from her chair and grabs me by the arm.
    Now most people would’ve thought this woman was crazy, sitting at the end of the hall in her bathrobe and slippers, waiting for someone to come through the fire escape door. But I knew by looking at her that she was dressed and ready for action. Mrs. Graybill had lipstick on, and lipstick is her idea of being dressed. She doesn’t brush her hair—it’s got a flat spot in back where she sleeps on it, and it sticks straight out everywhere else. She doesn’t put on shoes or clothes. She just puts on lipstick. Usually pink. And she goes
way
outside the lines. Especially on the top lip. It almost looks like she’s wearing a little pink mustache up there, it’s that bad.
    So there she is, fully dressed, grabbing my arm, croaking, “I knew it! I just knew it!”
    I look at her and try smiling while my brain’s racing around for a way out of
this
one. I say, “Knew what?” like I’m the most innocent person you’d ever want to meet.
    â€œDon’t play dumb with me, girl,” she says, shaking my arm. “This has gone on long enough! This building is government-subsidized for senior citizens—not entire families! If your grandmother thinks she can get away with having you live here at the government’s expense, she’s got another think coming!”
    â€œBut ma’am,” I say, “I was just taking some of my grams’ trash out for her.”
    â€œHa!” she says like a big old crow. “I’ve been sitting here for over an hour, waiting for you to come through that door. I knew you were getting up and down somehow, but it wasn’t until I noticed
this
that I figured it out.” She opens the door, pries out my bubble gum, and shakes it in my face.
    My brain’s racing and I’m smiling the best I can, but my stomach’s upside down and my knees are feeling kind of wobbly, like I’ll be sitting down any minute, whether I want to or not. “Look, Mrs. Graybill, I don’t live here. Really! Why would I want to live here? I just try to help my grandmother out as much as I can. Mom likes me to check on her ’cause she’s not doing that well.”
    â€œOh, baloney! Oh, baloney and hogwash!”
    â€œReally! And just now I was down throwing away some trash and…”
    â€œWhy didn’t you just use the