Free Sammy Keyes and the Art of Deception by Wendelin Van Draanen Page B

got, you know, creative publicity strategies.”
    “What she's
got
is a coy, deceptive, cunning mind.”
    “Oh, come on! You barely even met her. Besides, she seemed like a perfectly nice lady to me.”
    “A perfectly nice lady wouldn't scare a room full of people out of their wits just to pull off a publicity stunt.”
    “Exactly!”
    We stared at each other for a minute, then she said, “Well, obviously what we need is some more information.”
    “Grams, I don't see why—” I stopped short. Her eyes were twinkling. Her lips were curving up.
    My grams had come up with a plan.
    “What are you thinking?” I asked her.
    She took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and said, “I'm coming with you.”
    “Coming … with me?” I followed her into the kitchen. “Where am I going?”
    “You've forgotten already? To interview Ms. Reijden, of course!”
    “Oh.” I watched her move around the kitchen. Bending for a pan, twirling around to click on the stove with one hand as she flicked the water on with the other. Then she practically did a pirouette as she pulled the milk out of the refrigerator, snagged a wooden spoon from the utensil jar, and tapped the refrigerator door closed with her foot. It was like a tightly choreographed dance. And for the first time in my life, I realized that my grams—my sixty-something guardian with the gray hair and oversized glasses—wasn't stodgy or stiff.
    She was agile.
    Smooth.
    Graceful.
    “What are you staring at, child?”
    “I … Nothing. I just never saw you do that before.”
    “Make oatmeal?” She laughed. “You've seen me do this nearly every day for over a year!”
    I got down the bowls. The sugar. The walnuts. I set the table and poured us some juice. And the whole time I tried to act normal, but I had my eye on Grams, and the truth is, I was feeling very, very strange.
    By one o'clock, Hudson had called three times. The first time it was, “Make a list of questions, Sammy. If you'regoing to interview someone, you can't shoot from the hip. It's disrespectful.”
    The second time it was, “Would you like to borrow my tape recorder? You don't want to misquote her, you know.”
    “Hudson!” I told him. “It's for a junior-high art class. Not
The Washington Post
!”
    The
third
time it was, “How's it coming with those questions?”
    “Fine, Hudson. I've got plenty.”
    “Let's hear them.”
    I tried to protest, but he made me read the whole ten questions to him.
    “That's it? That's all you've got?”
    “Hudson,” I said, trying to sound as polite as possible. “The report only has to be a page or two.”
    “Hmm,” he said. “Well listen, I have a couple of questions I think you should add to your list. Ready?”
    I rolled my eyes but jotted them down, just to make him happy. And the whole time I'm writing, Grams is pirouetting and sashaying around the house, dusting her little knickknacks. I swear I even saw her moonwalk out of the corner of my eye, but it was over by the time I actually looked.
    When Hudson was finally done, my list of questions had doubled. “I hope you left plenty of room for answers.”
    “I did,” I lied.
    “Good. I'll be out front in about half an hour.”
    “Half an hour? I thought you said it was right off Morrison.”
    “It is, but we don't want to be late.”
    “We sure don't want to be
early.
”
    “Hmm. Okay. I'll meet you out front in forty-five minutes.”
    “Fine. And oh, Hudson?”
    “Yes?”
    “Grams is coming along.”
    Silence.
    “You don't have a problem with that, do you?” I was eyeing Grams, frozen with one foot kicked up behind her, the feather duster in midair.
    “No, no! But I'd hate for Ms. Reijden to feel … invaded.”
    “So … maybe I should go in by myself, then.”
    “Well—”
    “Or why don't you just drop us off?
Or
if you give me the address, we could just walk there ourselves. I mean, we managed to walk home from the Vault the other night. This can't be farther than