Disclaimer-I do not own Sammy Keyes

Chapter 3

"What!"

"We're going to go out to dinner together." She repeated.

"What a wonderful idea." Grams smiled, "It will give you a time to bond."

"When is this dinner?" I asked, avoiding Lady Lana's eye.

"This Saturday, and I expect you to where something nice, perhaps a dress." She looked at me hopefully.

"No." I crossed my arms, and looked her straight in the face, "Where are you staying?"

"At a hotel," she replied

"With Warren?" I ask suspiciously.

"No." She blushed.

"Grams, can I go over to Marissa's?" I ask, "She's living with her parents, again."

"I was hoping we'd have dinner as a family." She looked at me earnestly.

"I think mom would like to have dinner with her non-family." I looked at mom knowingly.

"I was going to have dinner with Warren." Lady Lana looked guilty. She should be.

"Fine," said Grams, hurt, "You may go to Marissa's house."

"Thanks. Bye Grams." I grabbed my skateboard, and ran down the stairs. I said bye to the knew door woman. I jumped on my skateboard and raced down to Marissa's house.

She seemed relieved to see me. She was sitting on her porch with Mikey.

"Thank goodness you're here. Things have been terrible at home." She ran up to me and almost gave me a hug, but she stopped before she put her arms around me.

I looked passed her and greeted, "Hey Spy guy, you okay?"

"Fine," he said, looking down at his shoes. He's lost a lot of weight since he joined Hudson's boot camp. His clothes already seem too big for him.

"Mom says we can't say what's going on at home," Marissa whispered, "She says it'll give us a bad reputation."

I nodded. This has got to be hard on Mikey.

"Let's go to my room," Marissa suggested, "Mikey, why don't you go and play with your fish."

"But I want to stay with you guys," he whimpered. I was actually willing to let him in on the secret.

"Not now." Since when has Marissa been this calm?

"OK," Mikey sighs. He went up to his room, sulking. Marissa grabbed my hand, and we both made our way up to her room.

"What happened to your room?" I looked around. Almost everything has changed. For starters, there was one bed, and the whole room seemed emptier.

There were tears in Marissa's eyes. "I don't know what to do. My dad keeps gambling, and we're losing money. I keep trying to convince my mom to sell the house, so we can buy a smaller one an-and." She couldn't finish her sentence, because she started sobbing.

I don't know what to say. Marissa has had family problems before, heck her family has been in crisis mode for a while,but she never seemed this sad.

I sat her on the bed and pat her on the back, until she stopped crying.

"Enough about me," she sniffled. "What are we going to do about the criminals?"

"I don't know," I admitted, "Not all of them are bad. Well, the ones that escaped are. Mrs. Stone and those counterfeiters didn't escape. They're smart enough to know not to escape."

"Yeah, I know, but there are plenty of criminals that would try to kill you," she pointed out.

"I know," I say, "Office- I mean Sergeant Borsch wants to talk to me about protection issues." I rolled my eyes. I never needed protection from the police before. I've done more than they did in this past year, then they did in their entire life.

"They don't need to protect me," I say confidently, "You, Dot, and Holly have always had my back, except during the camping trip. I had Billy, Cricket, Gary, and Casey." Casey! I totally forgot about Lady Lana.

"Marissa? Lady Lana's here." I look at her to see her expression.

"Lady Lana's here," she says, putting emphasis on the 'here'.

"Yeah, we're going to have dinner this Saturday. As in us, Warren, Casey, and Heather." Her face was like 'Oh My God' now.

"What is she thinking?"

"She's Lady Lana," I say, "She wasn't thinking." We sat quietly, until Marissa's phone rang.

"You got your phone back?" I ask.

"Yeah," she said, while picking up the phone. "Hello?" She handed me her phone. "It's your Grams."

I took the phone, and said, "Hello?"

"Samantha, I need you to come home. You have school tomorrow."

"Is Lady Lana there?"

She huffs, "No."

"Ok I'll be home in 10 minutes." At that, I said bye to Marissa, and headed home.

…

A/N- I hope you liked this chapter. Nothing much happened, but I didn't have much time. This is just a reminder. There probably won't be any updates for a couple of days, because I'm going on vacation. Sorry. I also wanted to say that Cammy will come. Be patient. I also want to ask if any of you have any ideas for what Heather should do to Sammy at school. I want to make it like the books, so a scheme should come. I have a couple ideas, but if you have some, I'll consider them. You could put your ideas in a review or a private message. Thanks. I'll try to update as soon as I come back from South Carolina. Don't try to track me down. That would be creepy.