Sammy Keyes and the Art of Deception (6 page)

Marissa grins. “Yolanda's closet, of course.”

“That cinches it,” I tell her. “I am not wearing that thing!” 'Cause the last time I borrowed something from her mother's closet, it turned out to be a designer sweater that I, well, destroyed.

“She's the one who brought it up. She says it's fine!”

“But—”

“Just don't put out any fires with it, okay?”

“But—”

“She doesn't
care
, Sammy. It's been in the closet for,
like, twenty years. Here!” she says, and tosses me the red one.

“That's all beside the point anyway! I don't
want
to go to the Faire.”

“Sure you do! Everyone says it's loads of fun.”

“You must be talking about the Renaissance Faire?” Grams asks Marissa, and when Marissa nods, Grams turns to me and says, “Samantha, you'll love the Faire. Why, I remember I went to one years ago … it was delightful. And I was
wishing
I'd had a costume to dress in. Everyone was in period outfits, talking in Old English, singing, dancing … I felt like a wet rag in regular clothes. You certainly should go. It's like taking a trip back in time!”

“Grams, you don't get it. Marissa doesn't want to go because she wants to be transported to a bygone era. She wants to go because Danny Urbanski is going to be there.”

Marissa crosses her eyebrows at me, while Grams' fly up at
her.
And she asks Marissa, “Do your parents know this?”

“It's not
like
that! And I don't need a chaperone, I need a friend!”

We're all quiet a minute, looking back and forth at each other, and finally Grams says, “Well, Samantha, I think you should be a friend and go.”

I mutter, “Doesn't anyone care that I don't
want
to go?”

Marissa comes right up to me and whispers, “Please?
Please?
”

I look down and say, “What about Dot? Or Holly?”

She shrugs. “They wouldn't understand. They haven't known me since the third grade.” She scoops up my eyes with hers. “The third grade! Please, Sammy. I don't want to go without you.”

“I don't want to hang around when you're with Danny … !”

“I'm not going to run
off
with him or anything. Besides, he said he's going with some friends. There'll be lots of people you know. Let's just go together and have fun, okay?”

I crinkle my nose at the dress and say, “Would I really have to wear that thing?”

“Yolanda gave me thirty dollars. We can spend twenty getting in, which will leave us ten for food—and that means we won't eat much. Or we can wear these and get in for free and have thirty dollars to spend.”

“I'd rather pack peanut butter and jelly.”

“Peanut butter and … Samantha!” Grams says, shaking her head. “Get into the spirit of it, would you? They didn't have peanut butter and jelly in merry old England. If you can save ten dollars wearing that dress, wear the dress!”

Grams' fixed income didn't leave me much to argue with. She wasn't forking over any cash, and even if she had money to spare, I don't think she would've offered.

She was finally going to see me in a dress.

I scowled at Marissa, then Grams, then the dress. And finally I said, “Okay, but I'm wearing my high-tops.”

“Yes!” Marissa cried, pumping the air with her fist. Then she gave me a giant hug and said, “I owe you! I owe you big time!”

It's hard enough sneaking down five flights of fire escape stairs in broad daylight in jeans and a sweatshirt. But in our pouffy purple and red dresses, we must've looked like a couple of hot-air balloons descending on Santa Martina. And the whole hike over to the fairgrounds, people honked and whistled and yelled stuff out their car windows at us. They weren't really making fun of us—and Marissa didn't really seem to mind, waving back and even
curtsying
once—but I kept worrying that someone from school would see us.

Someone like Heather.

Then we got to the fairgrounds, and all of a sudden
everyone
was wearing weird clothes. There was a man right ahead of us at the turnstile who had on yellow-and-black knickers and tall black boots. His shirt was green and gold, broad at the shoulders and belted around the waist. He had a really wide accordion collar, a dagger hanging from his belt, and on his head was a hat with a plume. I'm talking the biggest, puffiest white feather I had ever seen.

The woman he was with was wearing a gold dress that was way fancier than ours. The skirt was really full and flared way out, and the top was laced on so tight, she looked like some sort of giant dinner bell waiting to be rung.

So by the time we went inside, I was already feeling a lot less geeky. And talk about being transported to a
bygone era! It didn't take long to forget I was in Santa Martina. There were tents up everywhere. Not the camping kind, either. These were white canopies with bright little pennant flags perched on top. And everywhere you looked there was straw. Spread out on the ground, wrapped in bales, stacked as walls—everywhere. And the air was full of
voices.
Not like the buzz of people talking, but of individual voices. Loud ones. Calling to each other in a language I recognized, but then didn't.

“Good morrow, rennie! From where comest thou?”

“South Bay, good lord.”

“Ah, the fair shire of South Bay, yes! I know that area well! Pray, what bringst thee to our Chipping-Under-Oakwood?”

“The blood of John Barleycorn, o'course!”

“Aye! To John Barleycorn, then!” “Cheers!”

Then off they went in different directions, calling out to other people. And as we wandered deeper and deeper into the fairgrounds, past jugglers and minstrels, dancers and
goats
, I started feeling like some sort of bit player in the middle of a huge production that had the whole fair-grounds as its stage.

When we passed by a banner that said TOURNAMENT
FYLD, Marissa suddenly pointed and cried, “Look, they're jousting!”

Sure enough, inside the arena there were jousters on horses all dressed up in armor and shields, charging each other with poles. “Wow,” I said. “You don't think they're really going to …,” and then down one of the jousters
fell. Just
thump, clank, ka-plunk
, he was on the ground, rolling away from his horse while the crowd cheered for the winner.

Marissa said, “Cool!” And since she wanted to go inside and see the next round, that's what we did.

I have to admit—it
was
cool. I'd never seen actual jousting before. And these “knights,” as all the people around us kept calling them, were very intense about knocking each other over. They'd set up at opposite ends of the field, a man dressed like Robin Hood would drop a flag, and then the horses would charge, their hooves thundering and their tails flying. Then the jousting poles would tangle and a knight would fall, or they'd miss each other entirely and turn around and charge again. And right before the jousters rammed each other, everyone would hold their breath, so all you'd hear was the pounding of hooves.

And after each round, the winning knight took off his helmet and got a kiss from a lady with long curly blond hair, all dressed up like Guinevere.

“Wow,” Marissa says as we're leaving the field. “Isn't this whole place … romantic?”

“Hmmm,” I tell her. “So, where are you supposed to meet Danny?”

“It's not like that.”

“Well … what
is
it like?”

She shrugs. “He just said maybe he'd see me here.”

I grab her arm. “Wait a minute. You're telling me that you made me put on this ridiculous dress and dragged me clear across town because he said
maybe
he'd see you here?”

“Well he didn't say it like
that.
It was more like, ‘I'll be looking out for you there,' or, ‘It'd be really great if we'd run into each other there.' ”

“But what he
said
was, ‘Maybe I'll see you there'?”

She shrugs again, looking around. “You had to be there.” She skips a few steps, then smiles and says, “But aren't you having a great time? I mean isn't this the coolest?”

From a small stage across the way, a man in a belted poet's shirt and a feathered black hat holds up a pewter mug and starts singing:

Then a fat man in brown tights hops next to him on-stage and they both clink mugs and sing together,

Then a third man joins them and they start up on the next verse, mugs held high, voices booming.

The man in the black hat calls into the crowd that's gathered around, “Oh-hoy there, lad! Come join us!” And up on the stage jumps a boy in a Robin Hood cap, pirate pants, and a swashbuckler's vest. And as he raises a beer mug and starts singing,
“But I'll never, no never, no never again, if I live to a hundred or a hundred and ten …,”
well, my jaw drops and my eyes pop because I know this guy.

He's an eighth grader at our school.

One with “cute freckles” and a tint of red in his hair.

And from the twinkle in his eye, I can tell—it's too late to duck and hide.

He's spotted me, too.

FIVE   

Marissa, of course, grabs my arm and says, “Sammy, look! Isn't that Casey?”

“Let's go,”

I tell her.

“But he's singing to you!”

“Oh, great,” I tell her. “He's serenading me with a song about being drunk.”

“What?”

“Haven't you been listening?”

By now they're in the middle of another verse.

“Ohmygod,” Marissa says as the whole crowd joins in with,
“But I'll never, no never, no never again, if I live to a hundred or a hundred and ten; well, I fell to the ground and I could not get up after drinking a quart of the Johnny-Jump-Up!”

“Let's go, okay?”

“No, look! He's grinning at you.”

“All the more reason to get
out
of here.”

Then all of a sudden the man with the black hat stumbles
backward and falls down on the stage. And he yells, “Ya beslumbering beef-witted barnacle! Watch what 'cher doin'!”

“Me?” yells the big man in brown tights. “Ya dare call me a beef-witted barnacle? Yer naught but a bawdy beetle-headed bum-bailey!”

“Ay!” calls the third man. “'Tis true!”

“Nay!” calls ol' Black Hat. “I'm a gent. But you! Yer but a churlish common-kissing clotpole!”

“Common kissing? A pox on thee for saying so! I've kissed the hand of Queen Lizzy herself, you loggerheaded knotty-pated malt-worm!”

And with that they all start fighting, with Casey in the middle trying to break them apart. And between punches, the insults fly fast and furious—“Ya gleeking hedge-born hugger-mugger!” “Ya paunchy, elf-skinned measle!” “Ya reeky, onion-eyed pigeon egg!” “Ya villainous, urchin-snouted wagtail!”—until finally Casey shoves them apart, crying, “God's blood! Yer but a band o' gorbellied, sheep-biting skainsmates!”