Sammy Keyes and the Hotel Thief Read Online Free Page B

and picks it up, and I can tell from the way she’s talking that it’s Lady Lana on the other end. So much for feeling good. After about five minutes of keeping her voice down, Grams covers up the phone and says, “Samantha, it’s your mother. She’d really like to talk to you.”
    Normally I would’ve given Grams an argument, but seeing how I’d upset her so much the night before, I just went into the kitchen and took the phone.
    Lady Lana starts gushing about how much she loves me and misses me and how she can’t wait to see me again, but she’s
so
close to landing a part in a major motion picture and has to stay just a little while longer. And the whole time she’s talking I’m thinking that it’s been over a year since she dumped me with Grams and told me she’d be back “soon.” I really wanted to hang up on her like I usually do, but that upsets Grams, so I just stood there, counting the loops in the phone cord, not saying much.
    When Lady Lana finally got off the phone, I went back to the couch and sat with the blanket wrapped all around me. Grams sits beside me and says real quiet, “I’m sorry about last night.”
    â€œMe too.”
    After a minute, she sighs. “You know your mother means well...”
    â€œI just want to forget about her, okay?”
    Grams is quiet for a little while, then perks up and says, “Say! It’s your first day of junior high school—how about French toast for breakfast?”
    I say, “Sure!” and while I’m getting ready for school Grams makes me French toast out of
pound cake
. It was the best French toast I’d ever had, and by the time I left for school I’d forgotten all about Lady Lana’s phone call. Well, almost anyway.
    *                  *                  *
    Marissa was already waiting at the top of the school steps. I waved at her and ran up to meet her.
    She pulls me aside and whispers, “This place is a zoo! I can’t believe how many people are here.”
    We stand there a minute, watching everyone talking and laughing and moving like they know where they’re going. Finally I look at Marissa and say, “Wow...”
    â€œI know! And I don’t see anybody I recognize, do you?”
    I shake my head. “Maybe we should go find our homeroom.”
    We pull out our schedules and Marissa says, “B-2. I don’t even remember where the B block is, do you?”
    I didn’t. Everything looked completely different when we’d come down to check it out on our own. There hadn’t been any
people
.
    So we walked around in circles for a while and finally I said, “I haven’t got a clue. Let’s just ask someone, okay?”
    Out of all the people walking around William Rose Junior High School that day, Marissa picks a girl with hair the color of fire and says, “Let’s go ask her.”
    The girl looked like an eighth-grader, and from the way she was talking with the guy standing next to her, she seemed real comfortable being in a tidal wave of students. So Marissa was right—she probably knew exactly where B-2 was. I just would never have picked her because she looked, well, snotty. Partly it was the color she’d dyed her hair. Partly it was the earrings—she had five studs in each ear and a group of rings looped over the tops. Mostly, though, it was the way she looked at us when we walked over. Like we were kicking sand in her corner of the beach.
    I almost grabbed Marissa and suggested we find someone else, but before I knew it she was saying, “Excuse me. Do either of you know where B-2 is?”
    At first Firehead just snubs us, but then she notices my shoes. And she laughs. “High-tops? What are you, straight from elementary school?”
    I stare at her a minute and can feel my face