Read Online Sammy Keyes and the Night of Skulls by Wendelin Van Draanen - Free Book Online Page A

than his wiper. I don’t know what you two did, and I don’t want to know. Just get home quick and stay there.”
    “Can we go out the back?” I ask him. “I know it’s fenced in, but I’ve climbed it before.”
    “Why am I not surprised.” He snorts. “Have at it.” And as we scurry out the back door he says, “Good thing you don’t look like yourselves or I’d be pretty worried about him trackin’ you down. Once you’re cleaned up you should be okay.”
    “For the record,” I tell him as we’re going outside, “all we did was cut through the graveyard and climb over a car to get out.”
    He rolls the cigar to the side of his mouth. “Then why’s Big Boy there so interested in trackin’ you down?”
    “I have no idea.” Then I turn and tell him, “Thanks, okay? And oh—if you see a guy with black hair and really pale skin—”
    “And crazy weird teeth,” Holly throws in.
    “Right. Don’t tell him anything!”
    André squints at Holly. “Crazy weird teeth?”
    “You’ll know if you see them,” she says.
    He turns his squint on me. “And what makes you think I’d tell anyone anything, huh? Have I ever done that before?”
    I shake my head. “Yeah. Right. Sorry. Just a reflex.”
    “Well, reflex your way outta here. You’re hurtin’ my ulcer.”
    “You’ve got an ulcer?”
    “Scram!”
    So we scram, all right, through a swamp of monster weeds and trash to the shaky chain-link fence.
    “What is Shovel Man doing with the Vampire?” I ask. “And what do they want?”
    “I think André’s right—it can’t be about the windshield wiper.”
    “Then what?”
    “I have no idea.” She trips on something and picks herself back up. “What is this place? It’s like a big cage of junk.”
    “I don’t know, but let’s hurry, okay?” I scurry up the fence. “You’ve got a key to your back door on you, right?”
    “Yeah. Luckily it’s the same as the front door.” Holly starts climbing up as I work my way down the other side, but when we’re at about the same level, she stops and says, “I just thought of something.”
    “What?” I ask her through the fence.
    “The front door’s unlocked. It may not even be
shut.
”
    I stare at her. “But … he saw us leave. You don’t think he’d just walk in, do you?”
    “He might if he didn’t buy our act. Did you see the way he was looking around the lobby?”
    My skin creeps a little. “Yeah. He was pretty intense.”
    “And obviously no one’s going to cover for us at Maynard’s.”
    “Good point.”
    We start moving again, and when we’re both safely on the other side, we check around, then sneak over to the back door of the Pup Parlor.
    “Please don’t go home,” Holly whispers as she slips the key in. “Call your grandmother and tell her you’re spending the night. Vera and Meg are both really heavy sleepers and there’s no way I want to be here alone.”
    I tell her, “Okay,” because besides seeing that Holly’s scared, I’m also not wild about having to go home. See, I have to sneak up five flights of fire escape stairs to get into my building because I’m not
supposed
to be living with my grams. It’s actually, like, a federal offense or something that I am since the Senior Highrise is “government subsidized” and for seniors
only
. So if people find out I’m living there, Grams will be kicked out and she can’t exactly afford to live anywhere else. And since sneaking up the fire escape is tricky enough when nobody’s on the lookout for you, I sure don’t want to risk it now that somebody is.
    Anyway, as we step through the Pup Parlor’s back door we look around for something to defend ourselves with.Holly grabs a broom, but all I can find is a toilet plunger. I hoist it like a softball bat and whisper, “Let’s go.”
    We make our way past stacks of towels and pet carriers to the main part of the Pup Parlor, tiptoeing along with our eyes peeled and our ears perked. We don’t see anyone,