Sammy Keyes and the Hollywood Mummy Read Online Free PDF

promised.”
    My mother says, “You stay here—I'll do it,” then wrinkles her nose and adds, “And eat those horrid sandwiches, would you? They're smelling up the room!”
    We loved the horrid sandwiches. They were some kind of salty fish on buttered bread, and I could've eaten three of them. We sat on the floor and inhaled them, then chased the sandwiches down with bananas and sodas.
    When my mother gets back, she says, “She sends her love and a reminder to call when you know which bus you'll be catching home.” Then she sits down in front of the mirror and starts dealing with her face. First she smears cream all over it, then she starts plucking microscopic hairs from her eyebrows. And let me tell you, she is on nub patrol like I have never seen, squinting into the mirror, turning from side to side, tracking down enemy hairs to seize and destroy.
    And I know she's not going to tell me what that whole exchange with Toe Rings was about, and I know that asking is going to get me seriously snapped at, but after I finish my food I decide to try anyway. “So who was that girl with the braids?”
    “Reena's daughter. Reena cooks, Hali cleans.”
    “Isn't she kinda young to be a maid?”
    “Oh, I don't know. The story I heard is that she was going to UCLA but had to drop out because they couldn't afford it. She
is
smart, but she can also be somewhat brash, which is not very becoming.”
    I hesitate, then very quietly I ask, “What did she know that got you so upset, Mom?”
    She stops plucking, turns to me, and whispers, “Samantha, it's imperative that you call me Dominique. At all times. Even when you think no one else can hear.” Then she goes back to looking in the mirror.
    I just sit there waiting for an answer to my question, and when one doesn't come, I try again. “Okay… so, Aunt Dominique, what did she know that got you so upset?”
    Pluck, pluck. Pluck.
    “Well, if you don't want to tell me, I could make some pretty wild guesses instead….”
    Pluck, pluck … pluck!
    “Let's see … maybe …”
    She eyes me through the mirror. “If you really must know…,” she says, then turns to face me, “Maximilian Mueller has asked me to marry him.”

FOUR
    She might as well have stuck my finger in a light socket. “To
marry
you?”
    “That's right. So now maybe you understand the complexity of the situation a little bit?”
    A tidal wave of panic was crashing all over me. I mean, my real father was a stranger. A big unknown. Someone my mother refused to discuss until I was “old enough to understand.” And now here she was, talking about marrying someone else I didn't know and could never know because, according to her, I didn't exist.
    I choked out, “But isn't he … isn't he
old
?”
    My mother went back to searching for wayward eyebrow hairs. “Sixty-two is not
that
old.”
    “Sixty-two!”
    Pluck.
    “Well, if I can't be me because you can't be over thirty, then how can you say—”
    “Samantha!” she hissed. “It's not the same thing!”
    “Why not?”
    “He's a man, and he's not trying to be an actress!”
    I wanted to say, What does
that
matter? but what came out instead was, “Well, do you
love
him?”
    She frowned at herself in the mirror. “We can see how far
love's
gotten me!”
    That shut me down cold.
    And as she's working her eyebrows, Marissa holds on to my arm and whispers, “She didn't mean it like that.”
    My mother stops mid-pluck and looks at me in the mirror. “No, Samantha, I didn't mean it like that. This really has nothing at all to do with you.”
    “How can you
say
that? You're gonna marry some guy who's old enough to be my grandfather, who doesn't know who you really are or that you have a—”
    “Stop!” she whispered fiercely.
    I stopped, all right. Just clammed up and looked down. And while my eyes are burning like they've been doused with acid, Marissa says to her, “You're afraid of losing everything, aren't you?”
    I looked through my tears at