Sammy Keyes and the Sisters of Mercy

by Wendelin Van Draanen

And I was concentrating so hard on Marique jumping back and forth through the wreath that I wasn’t really paying attention to anything else. Not until Holly called, “Hey, Sammy! Isn’t that your favorite cop?”

  Now I haven’t known Holly all that long, and it’s kind of a long story, but she understands better than anyone else I know what it’s like to avoid the police. And it’s not like I’m a lawbreaker or anything. I mean, I don’t shoplift or break into houses—nothing like that. It’s just that I’m living with my grams at the Senior Highrise, and over there, kids are like rats; if someone thinks there’s one in the building, they’re going to set traps until it’s caught.

  And there’s no one who would like to snap my tail more than Officer Borsch. Well, except maybe my neighbor Mrs. Graybill.

  And I’d recognize Officer Borsch anywhere. Even somewhere you’d never expect to see him. Like in a Christmas parade. On a horse. And since I’d never seen him ride anything but a squad car before, to me he looked pretty uncomfortable, swaying back and forth up there in the saddle. And I know that horses are supposed to be pack animals, but let me tell you, the horse looked pretty uncomfortable, too. Like he’d never had to carry a load quite like Officer Borsch before and was having trouble getting him balanced.

  I called back to Holly, “I don’t believe it!”

  She laughed. “Don’t worry about it. He’s not going to notice you.”

  I watched him for a minute, but then I got back to concentrating on Marique. And after we turned onto Broadway I’d actually forgotten about Officer Borsch and was starting to have fun. The street was packed with people, and when we drove by they clapped and whistled and shook their jingle-bell sticks so hard that you’d have thought Marique was jumping through fire instead of a hoop of pine branches. Some of them even called out, “Go, Marique, go!” like she was a real celebrity.

  And when we got to the place I was supposed to meet up with Grams, sure enough, there she was, with Hudson, looking everywhere but at the parade, worried. I hollered, “Hey, Grams! Hudson! Up here!” and waved real big.

  Hudson grabbed Grams’ arm and pointed. And Grams’ face went from worried, clear through shocked, all the way to relieved in about two seconds. She waved back and laughed, and when Marique jumped through the wreath, she had the biggest smile in the crowd.

  So we were putting along and everything was going fine, and then we hit Cook Street. Cook is where the judging starts. It’s also where the biggest crowds gather. There’s a mall parking lot on one side and a big church parking lot on the other, so there’s lots of room for people to stand.

  If you’ve ever been in a parade you know: sometimes it’s real noisy—people are clapping and cheering and there’s music blaring over loudspeakers and the marching band is playing—and sometimes it’s quiet. Completely quiet. Like in class, when everyone’s talking all at once and then all of a sudden nobody’s talking.

  So there we were, at the corner of Broadway and Cook, waiting, when suddenly there’s this wave of quiet. And that’s when I notice these three people dressed up like the Three Kings stepping off the curb and into the street. They’re wearing robes with the hoods up, and they’re kind of looking down so you can’t see their faces.

  At first I thought they were just late joining a float, but then I notice that they’re not carrying gold, frankincense, or myrrh—they’ve got cats. Scared, panicked cats.

  And while my brain’s trying to absorb the fact that the Three Kings are bearing their gifts straight toward our float, through the quiet I hear, “Maaaariiique! Maaaariiique!”

  Well, Marique goes charging through the hoop and straight off the float. And while I’m calling, “Marique! Marique, come back!” she flies across the street, through the crowd, and into the darkness.

  I swung my legs over the edge of the float, but we were moving forward and the bed of the truck was quite a ways up, so I couldn’t exactly jump. Mr. Petersen yells out his window, “What are you doing? Get back on!” but does he slow down? Not at all. Finally I just flip around, hang over, and let go, and as I’m getting my balance, I see the Three Kings, right at our float. I yell, “Hold on to your dogs!” but it’s too late—cats are already sailing through the air.

  Reindeer antlers went flying everywhere. Hero charged across the float and knocked down the wreath, then a bulldog with a mane like a chow leapt off into the street, and before you know it everyone was scrambling off the float to chase their dogs.

  They went in every direction, but the furry bulldog decided to take a shortcut—straight under Officer Borsch’s horse. Well, that spooked the horse so badly that he neighed and pulled a giant horsy wheelie, and even though Officer Borsch held on like a koala to a tree, it wasn’t long before he was sitting on asphalt.

  By the time everyone got their jaws back in socket, the Kings were gone. I wanted to track them down and deliver a gift of my own, but I had to find Marique. So I ran through the crowd calling, “Marique! Marique! Here, girl!” but I didn’t see her anywhere. I asked a lady, “Did a little dog run through here?”

  She laughed, “Which one?”

  “She’s furry—kind of orange. The one that was jumping through the wreath …?”

  A woman standing next to her said, “The Pom? She went straight through there,” and pointed across the mall lawn. “Cute dog!”

  I ran across the lawn and looked everywhere, but no Marique. Finally I asked a man in the parking lot, “Has a dog come through here? Little. Furry. Orange …?”

  He shook his head. “Ain’t seen one.”

  I spent the next two hours chasing around the mall, asking people if they’d seen Marique—nobody had. I called Grams and told her about the feline fiasco, then started searching farther into the neighborhoods around the mall. But the later it got, the fewer people I ran into, and nobody had seen Marique.

  I was about to give up and go home when I passed by the library and noticed someone sitting on the root of a giant fig tree in the library lawn.

  I decided to go ask if they’d seen Marique, but the closer I got the slower I walked, until finally I just stopped and stared. And I could feel my heart start to beat a little funny because I realized that it wasn’t a person sitting on the root of that tree—it was an elf. A real live elf.

  I was afraid to get any closer. I was afraid somehow it would disappear. So I just stood there in the dark watching the elf kind of glow in the moonlight.

  Finally I moved in, little by little, and the elf didn’t disappear. She kept right on sitting there, looking up at the moon. When I got close enough I realized that she was just a little girl in an elf costume, but I was still having trouble shaking off the feeling that I’d found a real live elf. Finally I whispered, “Hi.”

  She just kept staring.

  “Hi … um … I was wondering …” I said, but all of a sudden I wasn’t really wondering about Marique—I was wondering about her. I sat down one root over. “What are you doing?”

  She looked at me for a second, then went back to staring at the moon. “Nothing.”

  I looked at the moon, too. “Well, what are you thinking?”

  For a long time she didn’t say a word. She just stared up at the sky. Finally she let out a little sigh and whispered, “I wonder what it’s like.”

  I waited a minute. “What what’s like?”

  “To be up there.”

  “On the moon?”

  She shrugged. “Just up there.”

  I watched her, watching the moon. Finally I asked, “Were you in the parade?”

  She kicked the grass with her little elf boot and muttered, “Stupid parade.”

  “What happened?”

  She looked at me like I ate toads. “Nothing. It’s just stupid.”

  All of a sudden I couldn’t help laughing. “Yeah. I know what you mean.”

  She eyed my sweatshirt and high-tops. “You were in the parade? As what?”

  “I was on the Canine Calendar float.”

  Her eyes
popped open. “The one that went berserk?”

  I laughed and said, “That would be the one. And I’ve been looking all night for the dog I was taking care of.”

  “Which one was it?”

  I shrugged. “Little orange fuzzy thing. Looks like a tiny lion.”

  “The Pomeranian? The one on the cover?”

  I looked at her and asked, “How’d you know that?”

  “Our calendar came in the mail today.” She squinted a little. “Do you like Pomeranians?”

  I laughed. “I didn’t even know she was a Pomeranian! I just got talked into showing her because the lady who owns her is stuck in the hospital with a broken leg.”

  She seemed relieved. “So you’d rather have a sheepdog?”

  “A sheepdog?”

  She rolled her eyes and grumbled, “You sound just like my mom.”

  Now I was about to ask her where her mom was, anyway, when both of us noticed a police car cruising by the library. And when it passed by a streetlight, we both moaned, “Oh no, not him!”

  I blinked at her and asked, “You know Officer Borsch?”

  She jumped to her little elf feet. “How do you know him?”

  I followed her across the lawn, but we hadn’t made it more than ten steps when a floodlight about blinded us.

  I turned away from the light, and then Ol’ Borsch-head’s voice blares, “Elyssa, stop!”

  She stands there with her arms crossed and a great big elf-pout on her face. “I can go home by myself! Leave me alone!” She nods in my direction and calls, “Besides, she’s taking me home.”

  “Oh?” He starts moving in on us, asking, “And who is ‘she’?”

  I turn to face him and call, “It’s me, Officer Borsch. Sammy.”

  Well, that stops him dead in his tracks. And you can tell that what he really wants to do is sit down and cry. But instead he takes a deep breath, motions back at the squad car to cut the lights, and then there we are, in the moonlight, in the middle of the library lawn, staring at each other.

  Finally Officer Borsch sighs and says, “So, Elyssa. You’re friends with Samantha. Why am I not surprised.”

  All of a sudden there’s a little elf hand in mine. “Yeah,” she says, “and I’m not going anywhere without her.”

  Officer Borsch nods a bit, then eyes me and says, “Is she the reason you’re always running off, Elyssa?”

  Now, it would really make Officer Borsch’s holiday season if he could pin something on me—anything. But Elyssa digs in and says, “I’m not going home without her.”

  He shakes his head and says, “Suit yourself,” then motions toward the car. “Let’s go.”

  So off we go. And the minute he’s got us tucked in the backseat, Elyssa scoots right over to the door and stares out the window at the moon. After we get going, she gropes around behind her until she’s holding my hand. Her fingers are cold and little, and I wonder—what is she looking at out there?

  And what is she thinking, this little runaway elf?