Sammy Keyes and the Hotel Thief

At school the next day, the students look at Sammy as though she’s dangerous. After seeing the bundle of athletic tape on Heather’s face, Sammy realizes that Heather’s nose isn’t really broken and that she’s faking it to turn the school against Sammy. Heather mentions that she’s being treated by Dr. Gant, so Sammy looks up the doctor’s phone number and calls his office during lunch. Sammy pretends to be Heather and claims that Mr. Caan is forcing her to wear a bandage on her nose. The nurse confirms that this isn’t necessary because she only had a nosebleed and promises to contact the school to correct this situation right away.

After Mr. Caan receives an angry phone call from Dr. Gant, the vice principal confronts Heather in the middle of the cafeteria: “I ask you again, Miss Acosta, what are you trying to pull here? Why are you wearing that ridiculous bandage when all you had was a simple nosebleed?” (134). He makes her remove all the athletic tape on her face while her fellow students whisper around her. Heather sees Sammy smiling at her and realizes that she’s involved somehow. She attacks Sammy and accidentally punches Mr. Caan instead. As the furious vice principal leads Heather away, Sammy’s classmates commend her for how she handled the bully. Mr. Caan sends Heather to the Reflection Room, has a meeting with Mrs. Acosta, and suspends Heather for three days.

To celebrate Sammy’s vindication, she and Marissa buy Double Dynamos from Oscar after school. Then, Sammy guides Marissa up to the mall’s roof, where they enjoy the view of their town. As Sammy throws away the napkin that her ice cream cone was wrapped in, she feels a sudden chill and realizes who the thief is.

Sammy has an idea about how to prove the thief’s identity, but she needs money to implement her plan. She finds Marissa talking to Heather and hurriedly asks to borrow some cash. Heather laughs mockingly because Marissa said that Sammy would never ask her for money. Distraught, Marissa tosses a bundle of cash at Sammy and hurries away in tears. When Heather snatches the money, Sammy tackles her beside an escalator. She threatens “to grind that snotty little nose of [hers] completely off” unless she returns the money (142). Heather complies, and Sammy rushes off while a crowd of horrorstruck shoppers gape at her.

Sammy searches for Marissa without success. She briefly considers going to the police station but then decides to proceed with her plan. Just as Sammy finds a hiding spot on Church Street where she can observe the approaching hotel thief, Marissa rides by on her bike. Sammy apologizes to her friend and explains her plan. Sammy plants the money as bait for the hotel thief and then hides with Marissa in some bushes near a statue. As a man approaches, Sammy whispers, “He’s the hotel thief—I’m almost positive!” (145).

As Sammy deduced from seeing Oscar clean his glasses, the ice cream vendor can see. He discreetly picks up the money she planted, taking care not to attract attention. Marissa reveals the girls’ hiding place when she screams at a spider. Sammy tells her friend to run and kicks Oscar’s forehead when he grabs Sammy’s ankle. The kick knocks aside his hat and glasses, and Sammy is certain that she saw his face when she used her binoculars to look through the hotel window.

Sammy starts to flee but then realizes that she’ll spend her whole life in fear if Oscar escapes. When the girl sees some children on bicycles, she realizes that Oscar is likely headed for the spot near the Heavenly Hotel where she saw tire tracks. She bursts into Maynard’s and tells T.J., “Call 911 and tell them the hotel thief’s on the corner of Broadway and Wesler!” (148). Sammy braves a shortcut down an alley lined with furiously barking dogs and sees Oscar putting on a blond wig and goatee. She remembers seeing him in this disguise at the Heavenly Hotel the night she and Marissa visited Gina’s room. Sammy runs to the mall with Oscar in pursuit and hides in the parking lot. When Oscar looks inside a nearby dumpster to investigate a noise that he thinks is Sammy, the girl slams the lid on him, climbs on top of the dumpster, and yells for help. Marissa leads Officer Borsch and his partner to the dumpster, and they arrest Oscar.

The girls accompany the officers to the police station. Officer Borsch’s partner, Sergeant Jacobson, talks to Grams and then asks Sammy and Marissa some questions. Sammy explains that she saw Oscar cleaning his glasses from the mall’s roof and that she made the connection between the ice cream vendor and the messages on Double Dynamo napkins. Officer Borsch didn’t tell his partner anything about the two notes that were left on napkins because he thought that Sammy had forged them. Jacobson retrieves the napkins and determines that the handwriting matches. Marissa asks if the police can return the money that Sammy used as bait, and Sammy reveals that it will be easy to determine which bills belong to her because Sammy wrote “I’m the hotel thief” on them (160). Jacobson reveals that Oscar’s real name is Larry Daniels and that he has a probation officer. He uses the alias Lew at the Heavenly Hotel when he’s wearing his blond wig. The police identify an accomplice of Oscar’s at the hotel, and they find a large amount of cash and jewelry, including Gina’s watch, inside the ice cream cart.

As the girls exit the police station, an exuberant Gina tells Sammy that she’ll make the girl’s birth chart to thank her for catching the thief. Marissa and Sammy converse at length “about people not being what they seem” (162), and Marissa invites her to spend the night at her house. Sammy declines because she’s eager to go home to Grams. She’s certain that her grandmother will want to hear the whole story and then blame everything on the binoculars, but Sammy knows she’ll continue to use them.