Read Online Sammy Keyes and the Search for Snake Eyes by Wendelin Van Draanen - Free Book Online Page A

shortcut to the high school.
    I used to be big on shortcuts. And maybe it's because I've been down one too many slimy alleys, but a shortcut to the high school seemed unnecessary. I mean, Santa Martina High isn't
that
far from William Rose Junior High. Basically, you go up Cook, hang a right on Broadway, and there it is on the right, taking up an entire city block.
    Marissa, though, insisted on taking a right on Thornton. “Why go clear out to Broadway?” she said. “The fields are at the back end of the school—this'll be quicker!”
    Now, in the back of my mind, I knew we were walking through a sort of poor part of town—there was barbed wire and beer bottles and graffiti everywhere—but I wasn't really thinking about it. I was more wrapped up in telling Marissa about my endless night with Poopy Pepe.
    But then Thornton dead-ended. And my story sort of dead-ended, too. We looked up and down the street that T-ed off of Thornton, trying to decide which way to go. “Right or left?” I asked her.
    “Uh, left,” she said. Like the coin had come down tails.
    So we took a left and then the first right, and prettysoon I'm back on track with my story, too. And I'm just getting to the part where Officer Borsch comes up to me in front of the mall when Marissa interrupts me with “Why do people
do
that?”
    “Do what?”
    She nods at some graffiti on a wall and says, “That. You can't even read it.” She keeps walking, but I slow down, because for the first time in my life, I'm seeing more than the hieroglyphics I usually see when I notice graffiti. I'm seeing letters. Fancy, spiky letters. And in the back of my mind I'm hearing Officer Borsch's voice: “They claim Cook down to Morrison….” Cook down to Morrison … Cook down to Morrison.
    “Marissa,” I whisper.
    “What? Hey, why are you stopping? Come on!” “Marissa, come here.” “What?” She backtracks to me. “Why are you staring at that?”
    “Because—look over there. That's an S and a …W. Marissa! That's an S and a W!”
    “So
what
?”
    I look around and whisper, “It stands for South West, Marissa.”
    “It may
stand
for South West, but it's vandalism, Sammy. Van-da-lis-m. Just like that stupid stuff Bruster sprayed on our school.”
    Suddenly I get a very creepy feeling. Like every house on the block is watching us, wondering what we're doing. I check myself and Marissa over real quick, and Marissa says, “
Now
what are you doing?”
    “I'm looking for purple,” I whisper. “You're not wearing any, are you?”
    She squints at me. “
Purple?
God, Sammy, sometimes I don't know about you.”
    “Oh yeah?” I tell her. “Well this little shortcut you've taken us on cuts right through gang territory.”
    “Oh, please,” she says, then nods down the street. “There's the only drive-by you've got to worry about.”
    It's a police car. And as it gets closer, the passenger window powers down and the Borschman calls, “Couldn't resist a tour of Tigertown, huh?” across the front seat.
    “Tigertown?” I ask him.
    “Uh-huh. Our little urban jungle.” He parks along the curb and gets out. “And why is it,” he says as he's hiking up his gun belt, “that when I say left, you go right?”
    “Officer Borsch, really! We were just taking a shortcut to the high school to check out the fields. I didn't know where we were until I saw
that
.”
    He nods across at the graffiti and says, “Last night's roll call. A unit's supposed to be by to paint it over, but —”
    “Roll call? Like that's a list of everybody in the gang?”
    He chuckles. “Not exactly. See the
Viva la Buena
?”
    We both nod.
    “What you see there is the roll call of the Buena Park set of the South West gang.”
    Marissa says, “The Buena Park
set
?”
    “Clique. Group. Faction. Specifically, the Buena Park neighborhood in the South West territory. They claim Buena Park, so we police it a lot. Try to keep the activitylow. Especially after school, when trouble tends to