Sammy Keyes and the Skeleton Man by Wendelin Van Draanen Read Free Book Online

have a few minutes at the end of class to talk so I could go sit with Marissa, but Mr. Tiller lectured clear to the bell, and when it rang he gave us our homework. Then he said, “Could I see you for a minute, Samantha?”
    So I stayed put while everyone else left. And while Mr. Tiller’s erasing the board he says, “I know it’s none of my business, Samantha, but I heard a rumor before class …”
    He turns around and looks at me and, really, I just wanted to put my head down and cry. He comes over and says, “Sammy, look. Maybe you should go talk to someone. One of the counselors? They might be able to help. I hate to see it affect your work.”
    I stand up and say, “But Mr. Tiller, it isn’t
true
. I’ve never spoken to Jared Salcido in my
life
. I don’t know why this is happening!”
    Mr. Tiller looks pretty surprised. “It’s not true?”
    Kids for the next class are starting to pile in, and I’m not going to stand there and try to convince him. I just say, “No, it’s not!” and leave.
    All through history I was dying to talk to Marissa, but since Mr. Holgartner moved me across the room from her because we always talk during films, I just sat there trying to figure the whole thing out.
Someone
was calling Jared and it sure wasn’t me.
    And the more I thought about it, the more I kept coming back to Heather. I mean, why did she go bug-eyed when she saw Amber Bellows coming at us? It’s like she
knew
. And the more I thought about that, the more convinced I was that
Heather
had been calling Jared and pretending to be me. And she was saying the stupidest, most embarrassing things she could think of.
    Once I figured it out, I didn’t feel bad anymore. I felt mad. Not a wild kind of mad—a quiet, warm kind of mad. And all of a sudden my shoes didn’t matter. So they were green. So what?
    I didn’t even hear the lunch bell ring. I sat right through it, trying to figure out how I was going to get back at Heather for making me the laughingstock of William Rose Junior High.
    Finally Marissa comes up and says, “Sammy, c’mon. Let’s go.”
    We head over to the lunch line, but I don’t feel likebeing a guppy in a bowl of barracudas, so I say, “I’ll meet you on the patio, okay?”
    Marissa says, “Sammy, come with me. I’ve got to
talk
to you.”
    I look at her and say, “What’s wrong?” and as I’m following her to the lunch line she whispers, “Mikey tattled.”
    If you knew Mikey, you’d know that this was not big news. Mikey’s the most annoying little brother a person could have, and tattling is what Mikey does best. So I snicker and say, “About what
now?
” but I’m thinking, I’ve got bigger stuff to worry about than this.
    She looks at me. “About the sweater.”
    “What sweater?”
    “The green sweater. You know … the Marsh Monster sweater.”
    I stare at her, thinking that the last time I saw it, it was lying in the middle of a pile of ashes looking pretty charred. “But you said she never wears it!”
    Marissa grabs a tray. “She
doesn’t
, but now she’s saying how much she loves it, and it turns out it’s a Louis d’Trent.”
    “A Louis d’
What?
”
    “It doesn’t matter. What matters is the stupid thing cost five hundred bucks.”
    I almost fell over. Really. I mean, here I’d been, cruising around town as the Marsh Monster in a Louis d’Foo-Foo sweater, liking it because it was so
ugly
, and the whole time I was burning up—what? A hundred dollars an hour?
    I grab her by the arm. “What did you tell her?”
    Marissa whispers, “I told her you still had it and you’d bring it back this weekend.”
    “You told her
what?
It’s ruined, Marissa! I put out a
fire
with it, remember?”
    She kind of nods, and as she’s paying for her lunch she says, “I was thinking maybe we could get it cleaned or something. I mean, how bad could it be? It wasn’t a very fire. Maybe it’s just dirty.”
    I throw my hands up in the air. “It doesn’t take a big