Free Sammy Keyes and the Search for Snake Eyes by Wendelin Van Draanen Page A

in junior high. And even though I can hear Marissa running up behind me saying, “What are you
doing
?” between her teeth, I just smile at them and say, “You guys from South West?”
    All of a sudden everyone stops walking. The Gangster Girls line up to face me; then one by one they hold both hands up in front of them, near their waists. The pinky, ring, and middle fingers of their left hands are spread out, facing up, with the first finger and thumb pinched together, while the fingers of their right hands are curved around like they've suddenly developed some sort of painful cramp.
    And they just stand there, caught in a giant finger spasm, giving me really hard looks.
    “I … I'm not trying to fight or anything, I'm just looking for someone.”
    They keep right on glaring.
    “I've … well, I've got something of hers. Or I
did
anyway. And actually, I'm pretty worried about her because she never came back to pick it up.”
    One by one they drop their hands. Then the girl in the camouflage pants says, “What's her name?”
    “Yeah,” says the girl to her right, who's wearing really white makeup and brown lipstick. “And what makes you think we know her?”
    “I…I don't know her name. But she's about five six and, you know, normal weight, and she's got long kinda curly black hair and … and she's got a scar on her arm.” I tap the inside of my left forearm and say, “Right here.”
    They just stare at me. Hard. And as I look from one to the other to the other, I realize that
they're
all about fivesix and, you know, normal weight, and they've all got long kinda curly black hair.
    Then one at a time they turn their left arms outward, and I see that they've got something else in common, too.
    SW scars.
    I cringe and ask them, “Do you do that to your
selves
?” The one in camo pants sort of snorts and says, “You can't just walk in, y'know. You gotta prove you're down.”
    “Yeah,” says the one with the brown lips. “Down for life.”
    Now, Marissa's standing by, sort of doing the McKenze dance, whispering, “Sammy, come on. Sammy… ?” but I couldn't just leave. I had a million questions zooming through my head, most of them revolving around the word
why.
And since this connection was better than
no
connection to Pepe's mom, I tried to act as casual as I could when I asked, “Well, is anybody, you know,
missing
from your gang?”
    The girl in camo pants says, “This ain't no
girls'
club, you hear what I'm saying?”
    “I…I know, but, I mean … how many of you
are
there?”
    She snickers and says,
“Somos pocos pero locos,”
then leans in and says, “Enough, okay? There's enough of us to bust on any and all of you.”
    Now, she's getting pretty up close and personal. And I'm scrambling through my limited list of Spanish words to figure out what she said. I know
poco
is small, and
loco
is crazy, so I try, “Well, if there aren't many of you, then you
must
know who I'm talking about. I mean, she has to be older than you, but —”
    The girl in camo pants steps forward and snaps one wrist like she's shaking off water. “This here's a cemetery for the ignorant, and you,
hina
, are ignorant. You get my meaning? You don't go quizzin' up gangstas, girl.” She flicks her wrist again and says, “Today I'm cuttin' you slack. Tomorrow I'm in your face, you hear me?”
    Well, let me tell you, she was already in my face. I took a step back and tried not to let my voice shake as I said,“Look, there was this guy named Raymond Ramirez after her.”
    Their faces smooth back into blanks.
    “He's got a snake tattoo with dice eyes on his arm and he was wearing South West colors. Do you know who I'm talking about?”
    More blank stares.
    “Well, she seemed really afraid of him, but she's got a South West scar, too, so I don't know what to think.”
    The Gangster Girls' eyes shift back and forth, and then they start muttering stuff to each other, partly in English, partly in Spanish. And Brown Lips and Camo