Sammy Keyes and the Showdown in Sin City by Wendelin Van Draanen Page B

for a directory, and when she finds Oyster Annie’s, she says, “Come on!” And as she hurries ahead, I hear her hiss, “There’s no stopping us now!”

THIRTEEN
    The main corridor of the mall is like a shiny wide esplanade, with big fountains and park benches and enormous potted plants decorating it. It has shops on both sides and gradually curves to the right. And as Heather and I try to keep up with Candi, I start feeling like this shiny wide esplanade is a track and I’m in some crazy race where I’m somehow stuck in last place. Sure, I’ve got my backpack and a skateboard weighing me down, but not being able to keep up with a woman in heels?
    So I’m kind of relieved when Candi comes skidding to a halt, looks around quick, then heads back toward a little cul-de-sac of shops off to the side. “There it is!” she cries, and charges toward Oyster Annie’s, where a girl in a skimpy sailor dress is standing behind a hostess podium. But when we’re about thirty feet from the restaurant, Candi sort of sputters to a stop and just stands there, staring.
    “Mom? Do you see them?” Heather asks, and we both scan the little groups of tables set up outside the main part of the restaurant, trying to spot our wayward parents.
    The tables are roped off by fishing nets with fake crabs and seagulls and red-and-white buoys. It’s supposed tolook like outdoor dining, because there’s a splish-splashy, tugboat-tooty sound track playing, only we’re standing inside a mall on a shiny floor under fluorescent lights, so something about the whole setup is … weird.
    “Mom?” Heather says. “Where are they?”
    Candi’s head sort of shivers. “What?” She looks at Heather. “Oh.”
    “Mo-om! What is wrong with you?”
    “You girls go in. I’ll wait here.”
    Heather squints at her.
“What?”
    “Go on,” Candi says. “It would look bad if I … if I … went in.”
    “But—”
    “Come on,” I tell Heather, and hurry for the entrance because Sailor Girl has just gone inside to seat another party and it’s the perfect time to sail in right behind them.
    “Wait!” Heather says, yanking on my sleeve.
    “Be cool,” I tell her back, and once we’re inside, I split away from the group that’s being seated. “Just act like you know where you’re going.”
    “Don’t tell me to be cool,” she says through her teeth, “and don’t tell me how to act!”
    “Fine. You go that way,” I say, pointing into a separate area of the restaurant, “and I’ll go this way.”
    “And don’t tell me where to go! There’s no way I’m letting you find them first!”
    “Oh, good grief,” I mutter.
    “That is the stupidest expression. And you use it allthe time! That and ‘holy smokes.’ They don’t
mean
anything!”
    I stop short and turn to face her. “Could you give it a rest for just one minute and help me look?” I start moving again. “And do you know what you’re going to say when we find them? We should have a plan, don’t you think?”
    “A plan,” she says, like it’s the stupidest thing anyone’s ever said. “You think us being here doesn’t say it all?”
    And then I get a bright idea. “Hey! What if we act like we’re here on our own?”
    “You mean … like my mom isn’t with us?”
    “Yeah! They’d have to take, you know, parental responsibility, right? You can’t just let your kids wander around Las Vegas alone. It’s like … reckless abandonment or child endangerment or …” I laugh. “Or something!”
    Heather’s face doesn’t light up like,
Brilliant
, or anything. But her sneer doesn’t show up, either. She just
stares
at me a minute, then snaps to and says, “Whatever. Let’s just find them.”
    So we cruise through the restaurant, which sort of horseshoes past a long bar and into another section and back to the front of the restaurant.
    “They’re not here,” Heather snarls. “Your tip was bogus!” Then she grabs me and spins me around. “Who is