Sammy Keyes and the Curse of Moustache Mary by Wendelin Van Draanen

but we can hear music blaring. So I take a deep breath, reach out, and ring the bell. And after a couple of minutes of nobody answering, I reach up to push the button again, but before I can, the door flies open. And who's on the other side? Not Taylor or Karl. Not Baggy Boy or Snake.
    No, it's the Vicious Viper herself—Heather Acosta.

ELEVEN
    Heather looked like
she'd
just been goosed by a big black pig. And I'm afraid I probably wasn't looking too cool and collected myself because we both blurt out, “What are
you
doing here?”
    The minute I asked I knew it was a stupid question. Taylor and Heather were friends. And standing there looking at her, I realized that they were a lot alike. Taylor was older and smoother, but you could tell that underneath was someone sneaky. Mean and sneaky.
    So I put my jaw back in socket and said, “We're here to see Taylor.”
    She laughs, “Oh,
sure
you are,” then comes in like a mosquito after blood. “Get out of here…all of you. There's no way you're crashing
this
party.”
    “We don't have to crash the party, Heather. Taylor invited us.”
    It was like throwing gasoline on a fire. Heather's face turns red, and she cries, “Liar!” then slams the door in my face.
    We look at each other and bust up. Completely.
    Now I wanted to be at this party about as much as Heather wanted me there. But I did want my skateboard back, and I had the feeling that if I didn't get it now, I might not get it back at all.
    Marissa says, “Well, I don't think ringing the bell again is going to get us in—you want to go around back?”
    We all look at her like,
Marissa?
because she's usually the
last
person to suggest going someplace we're not wanted.
    She says, “Look, it's a party. Whenever my cousin has a party, people come in and out like they own the place.” She perks an ear up. “I can hear people in the backyard— let's just go in the side gate and around that way.”
    If Marissa was game, who was I to argue? We squeezed between the bumpers of the cars in the driveway and went through the side gate like we knew exactly what we were doing.
    And Marissa was right. There were a lot of people in the backyard. Trouble is, they were all old. Not old-old— I'm talking cocky-old. Hostile-old. You know, high school–old.
    And all of a sudden we
didn't
look like we knew exactly what we were doing. We just stood there at the edge of the backyard, huddled up, wondering how cannibalistic this savage tribe was.
    Music was blasting from a boom box on the patio, but no one was dancing. A lot of them were smoking cigarettes, and almost all of them were drinking. Beer. And pretty much, they weren't
doing
anything but talking and laughing, and smoking and drinking.
    Straight ahead there was a building in the far corner of the yard—sort of a cross between a toolshed and a cabaña—and people seemed to go into it, but then not come out. And around the corner of the house, past thepatio area, we could see through a sliding glass door into a room where people were shooting pool.
    Skateboard or not, this felt wrong. The whole thing. And to tell you the truth, I was scared. For some reason, standing there on the edge of the lawn felt like standing on the edge of the world, and I sure didn't want to take the next step.
    I whispered, “Let's get
out
of here.”
    Dot blinks a bunch and says, “No kidding.”
    And we're about to do a U-turn when Taylor comes out of the cabaña and spots us. We hurry back to the gate, but he chases after us, saying, “Hey! Wait up. Marissa, where you going?” And as soon as he catches up to us, he blocks our path and says, “Why don't you come in?”
    Marissa says, “We…we just came for Sammy's skateboard. We can't stay.”
    Taylor puts his arm around her waist and says, “Aw, c'mon. Why don't you come in, just for a little bit? It's a party!”
    Marissa shakes her head and says, “No…we've got to get back,” but he guides her along, and before you know it we're at