Sammy Keyes and the Power of Justice Jack by Wendelin Van Draanen Page A

And with that he bounds down the steps crying, “Onward!”
    “I can’t believe you gave him that cool coat,” I grumble after he’s gone.
    Hudson shrugs. “I have to trust it will be put to good use.” He smiles at us. “So … what about that cocoa?”
    We all go, “Oh, right,” then head back inside and make cocoa. And even though Mikey’s on a superhero high that seems like it’ll last the rest of his life, Marissa descends into Dannyville despair in no time.
    “So what are you going to do?” I ask her when we get a minute alone on the porch.
    “I don’t
know
,” she whimpers.
    “If you call him, he’ll just snow you with some story. Like he wasn’t feeling well, or he overslept, or he’s gone every single Sunday except today, or—”
    “Stop it! What if it
was
something like that? It’s not fair to judge him until we’ve heard what he has to say.”
    I roll my eyes. “Fine. Go call him. Get snowed.”
    But she doesn’t call him. She just sits there looking out across the porch railing, until finally, very quietly, she says, “I don’t think he could lie to my face.”
    “Since when?”
    “Stop it, Sammy!”
    I put my hands up. “Sorry. You’re right. I should be helping you, not jabbing at you.” I shake my head. “I just don’t trust him, and I don’t know what to
do
.”
    She looks me in the eye. “Go with me to his house.”
    “To his house? When?”
    “Now.”
    “You’re serious?”
    She nods. “We’ll go up, knock on the door, and see what his reaction is.”
    I think about the insanity of this a minute, then shrug. “Why not?”
    So we announce that we’re going for a girl-talk walk so Mikey won’t ask to tag along, and then head out.
    Now, Danny’s house isn’t exactly next door. From Hudson’s, you’ve got to go past the mall, across Broadway, and then zigzag back into a neighborhood with old tract houses and thirsty yards. So it took us a good twenty minutes to get there, and when we did, Marissa chickened out.
    “What? No! We didn’t walk all this way for nothing!”
    “But what if—”
    I grab her by the sleeve. “You’re going.”
    “But—”
    She tugs back, but I drag her up to the front door and ring the bell.
    “What am I going to say?” she whispers frantically. “It’s like I’m checking up on him!”
    But it’s too late to turn back, because the door swings open and there’s Danny.
    “Marissa!” he says, his eyes popping wide. And then he looks at me and gets a little nervous. “Uh … what’s up?”
    I can tell Marissa’s about to pee her pants, so I just shrug and tell him, “We missed you at church this morning.”
    He looks back and forth between me and Marissa. “You
went
?”
    Marissa nods and gives him dopey little puppy eyes, which makes me want to slap her silly.
    “Man, I’m so sorry,” he says to her, oozing smooth as he steps out of the house and pulls the door mostly closed behind him. “I didn’t feel good this morning so I just went back to bed! I’ve gone every single week until now, too!” He cocks his head a little. “I thought you said you
couldn’t
go.”
    “I said I had to think about it,” Marissa says weakly.
    There’s a moment of awkward silence where I’m just staring at Marissa, wondering if she noticed that he’d just used
all three
of the excuses I’d told her he’d try.
    And then Danny says, “So you’re checking up on me? Is that what this is?”
    Marissa cries, “No!”
    “So why didn’t you just call?”
    Marissa is about to quiver apart, so I jump in and tell him, “Look, Danny, you may be able to convince Marissa that you’ve changed, but you’ve got a credibility problem with me. You can understand that, right? I just thought it’d be a good idea to talk face to face.”
    He bristles. “So I’ve got to go through you to get to her?”
    “The real question is, Why do you want to get to her?”
    “Because I
like
her? Because she used to be my
friend
?”
    Real calmly,