Sammy Keyes and the Runaway Elf by Wendelin Van Draanen Page A

flipped through her black book, saying, “She’s married to Dr. Franklin Hallenback, has had three miscarriages, no children.” She smoothed open the book. “Resides at 11018Carriage Court. Can’t balance a checkbook, allergic to nuts, smokes on the sly to keep her weight down. Does the usual doctor’s-wife charity circuit.” She looked up and chuckled. “If you ask me, Nora should’ve married an obstetrician instead of a psychiatrist—would’ve done her a lot more good.”
    The last one was Hero. I held the calendar open to October and she laughed. “Lance Gigoni wasted a lot of time getting him in that Halloween costume. That dog’s a freak! They had a ceremony at the park to announce the winners for the calendar, and that dog tried to pee on his own tail! I think he thought it was a rat chasing him around.”
    “What about Mr. Gigoni?”
    “Lance is your typical laborer. Got a bad back, always needs a bath.” She found his page. “Out of work a lot. Sometime resident of a tenement building on South Elizabeth, but right now he’s living in his truck because his wife threw him out of the apartment again. He hovers around a hundred. Maybe ninety-five.”
    “Ninety-five?”
    “IQ points. As a matter of fact, none of those people have made it very high up the evolutionary ladder. Not even Nora.”
    I blinked at her a minute, wondering what rung crocodiles were on.
    She smiled. “Well? Who else?”
    I closed the calendar. “That’s it.”
    “That’s it? I was just starting to have fun.”
    Now it seemed to me that Mrs. Landvogt was actingkind of strange. For a lady whose baby had been ’napped, anyway. “Fun?”
    She jiggled what was left of her ice. “You’re wasting time, you know.”
    “I’m just trying to find a place to start.”
    She eyed me like I was hovering around seventy, then snapped, “How could any of them have my dog? They were all on the float!”
    I handed her the calendar. “Maybe they found Marique when they were chasing after their own dogs. Maybe they grabbed her for you, then realized what a pain in the neck you are and decided to make a quick fifty thousand instead.”
    “What?!”
    My heart was racing so fast it was lapping itself. “Do you really expect people to do you favors? You go around threatening them and blackmailing them … and on top of that, you’re cheap!”
    “How
dare
you …”
    “If Marique ever does come back, you’d better figure out how to wash her yourself, ’cause Vera’s sure not going to touch her after the way you’ve been treating her …”
    “That woman has no business telling you—”
    “And Mr. Petersen! You blackmail him into putting Marique not only in the calendar but on the
cover
. And now the poor guy’s down there sweating away on Sunday trying to keep his business from going under.”
    She sat there for a minute with her eyes bugging out, then took a deep breath and said, “If the man can’t run his business without paying illegals under the table, heshouldn’t be running a business.” She straightened her robe. “He was a moron to tell you.”
    I tried not to let her see I was shaking. Very quietly I said, “He didn’t.”
    She hesitated, then just about dislocated her jaw. “Why, you little …”
    I handed back the remote. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got work to do.”
    I let myself out, and as the alarm
bo-beep
ed behind me I felt like I was stuck in quicksand. The more I moved the deeper I sank, and at the rate I was going it wouldn’t be long before I was completely swallowed up.

EIGHT
    I hadn’t given “The Tell-Tale Heart” much thought. I’d been too busy thinking about Mrs. Landvogt and Mr. Petersen, and mapping out how I was going to visit the three dog owners after school. There was no place in my brain for Heather Acosta.
    Then I walked into homeroom. And I don’t know why, but when I saw Heather nudge her friend Monet and giggle in my direction, I sat down in my seat and gave her an