Free Sammy Keyes and the Wedding Crasher by Wendelin Van Draanen

really important, and how can we be so dumb as to not know how to do a simple worksheet ourselves?
    So knowing that ol’ Vincy-poo’s been surfing the Web really ought to tick me off at
him
, but it’s weird—it’s like Mr. Foxmore is the one who’s being sneaky.
    Sneakier, even, than Mr. Vince.
    Anyway, I head over to math and try to forget about the whole Mr. Vince stupidity, then go to language, whereMs. Needer spends the class period instructing us on the differences between similes, metaphors, and analogies. I try to concentrate, but my mind keeps wandering, and boy, am I glad to bust out of there when the bell for break finally rings.
    Marissa’s already waiting for me at the tables, eating a breakfast bar and swigging water. Marissa used to buy her snack and her lunch at school, but since her family’s gone into crisis mode, she’s been packing food from home, just like me.
    Anyway, besides eating, she’s also standing there doing the McKenze Fidget. I used to call it the McKenze Dance because when she got nervous Marissa would bite her thumbnail and squirm around like she had to use the bathroom. It’s a lot more subtle now—she just sort of twitches at the knees—but I still know what it means.
    “Hey,” I say, plopping down my backpack. “What’s wrong?”
    She doesn’t even try to pretend it’s nothing. “I think my parents are going to split up.”
    “Aw, don’t doom-and-gloom. They’re just fighting over money. They’ll figure it out.”
    She shakes her head. “Mikey and I moved into Hudson’s last night.”
    “Wait a minute—you’re
living
there?”
    She nods, then bursts into tears. “My dad got totally drunk and was talking crazy stuff. Mom called Hudson, and he came and picked us up.”
    “But … if they’re splitting up, why didn’t she leave
with
you guys?”
    “She doesn’t trust Dad to be alone in the house! She’s afraid of what he’ll do.”
    “You mean like hurt himself?”
    “Like hurt the
house
.” She drops her voice to barely a whisper. “He was talking about torching it!”
    I blink at her. “He was talking about burning down your house?”
    “Shhhh! Yes! That way they could get the insurance money for it and all their artwork and stuff. It would be, like, three million dollars!”
    I blink at her harder. “He would never get away with it!”
    “No kidding!” She crumples onto the bench as she says, “Everything’s gone all crazy!”
    I sit next to her and give her a hug. “Look. It’s like a really fierce storm, okay? But it will pass and the sun will come out and everything will settle down. For now, you just have to hold on tight and not get pitched overboard.”
    She wipes away her tears and snorts, “You just got out of Needer’s class, huh? Nice simile.”
    It takes me a second to switch gears, but when I catch up to her, I laugh. “You sure it’s not an analogy? Or a metaphor?”
    Holly and Dot join us just as the bell rings, and Holly asks, “What happened?” because it’s pretty obvious that Marissa has been crying.
    “Oh, nothing,” Marissa says. “Just stupid ol’ Danny again.”
    Dot frowns. “I thought you dumped him!”
    Now, it’s probably on account of Mr. McKenze beingin some kind of success competition with his brother—who’s Santa Martina’s very own “celebrity” eye surgeon—that Marissa hardly ever lets on that things at home are less than perfect. Oh, she does to me, but to the rest of the world? She tries to keep that under wraps. It’s, like, drilled into her brain by her dad not to talk about their problems. So I’m not surprised to hear her make up a story, even to Holly and Dot. I’m also not surprised that the story has something to do with Danny Urbanski. For one thing, it’s easy—he’s in high school now, just like Casey, and he’s not around to contradict her. For another, it’s totally believable—Danny’s nothing but a smooth-talking liar who is really good at making Marissa