The Rule of Threes, Marcy Campbell [short novels to read .TXT] 📗

Rachel stopped outside her classroom. “Did he tell you to call him Tony?” she asked.

“Um . . . I think so?” I didn’t remember. Maybe it was Dad who told me. What did it matter?

Rachel shook her head. “You should call people what they want to be called, Maggie,” she said and went into class, leaving me to wonder, what did I do? Then I realized, this was all about the Rakell thing. I didn’t understand why she cared so much about being called something ever-so-slightly-different. Weren’t there bigger things to worry about? Like a sibling who shows up out of nowhere, and whether your dad was going to love him more than you?

The bell rang, but I was still standing there, having that last, terrible thought, which I hadn’t dared to think before, but which had probably been lodged somewhere in my brain ever since Tony arrived.

It’s Only Temporary

I was hiding out in my room again, where I could make believe that nothing had changed. In my room, at least, nothing had. Olive was here, and we were putting together our “concept board” for the outer office, but Rachel hadn’t shown up. I guess that was one thing that had changed, that I couldn’t pretend away; Rachel wasn’t with us.

It felt weird working without her. We all had our roles, and there were certain things Rachel always did, like cut out pieces of furniture and decorations from magazines to affix to our room sketches.

Little did I know, however, that Olive could draw all those things, and really well, too. We didn’t need Rachel to cut out pictures. With her colored pencils, Olive drew a set of chairs and a bookshelf, complete with tiny titles on the spines of the books. Then she rubber-cemented them onto our poster board of ideas, along with scraps of fabric we liked, and the colored squares Mrs. Abbott had chosen.

The board was propped up on an old music stand I’d found at the BFFs’ favorite thrift store, the Good Samaritan Thrift Shoppe. I’d spray-painted it silver to give it a little bling. My wand from a Harry Potter summer camp served as my pointer for presentations. Yesterday, I brought a few initial ideas to Mrs. Abbott, who thought everything was great. She was kind of like Olive in that way, generally seeing the positive side of things, though, right now, this morning, Olive wasn’t her usual self. She seemed impatient and kind of snippy, especially when I wondered aloud whether Rachel was going to show or not.

“At least she could text to say she’s not coming,” I said.

Olive sighed. She was very slowly brushing rubber cement onto the back of a little desk to add to her sketch.

“Could you hurry up with that?” I said. “That stuff stinks.”

“Open a window if it bothers you,” she said sharply. She slapped the tiny desk drawing onto the board, the rubber cement oozing out from underneath it. The desk was crooked, so I tried to straighten it, but Olive knocked my hand away.

“You know, Maggie, it’s not like you haven’t smelled rubber cement before. I mean, what do you want me to do? Anything else you’d like to critique?” she said, her voice quivering. Olive’s jaw was clenched, her eyes squinty. She turned away from me.

“Olive?”

She crossed her arms and squeezed, like she was hugging herself. “It’s just that—oh, forget it. Never mind. Actually, no, you need to . . . you just . . . it’s hard when you’re so negative, about Rakell and everything.”

Me? I was negative about Rachel? After she pretty much abandoned us? “Come on, Olive, she hasn’t exactly been pulling her weight. I mean, we’re a team, aren’t we?”

“Yeah, we’re supposed to be a team, but you never let me do any of the important stuff, and when you do, it’s only because Rakell isn’t here, and then you can’t stop worrying about how we’re going to do it without her, and, ugh! I hate this!” Olive fanned both hands in front of her face, like she was trying to quickly evaporate any tears that might seep out.

“Olive, hey, Olive, don’t cry. It’s just that, you know we’re a threesome.” I pointed to my bookshelf knickknacks. “You know the rule of threes.”

She dropped her hands by her sides and choked back the tears that had started coming. “I swear sometimes you just don’t get it.”

“What don’t I get?”

“For one thing, Rakell isn’t coming.”

“How do you know?”

Olive hiccupped. “She texted me.”

“What do you mean she texted you?” Why would Rachel text Olive and not me?

“I mean she sent me a text,” Olive said softly while putting her notebooks and colored pencils into her backpack.

I felt confused and hurt and angry. “What did Rachel say?”

“I already told you, she said she’s not coming.”

Olive looked at me for a second, her eyes all red and puffy.

“I need to get going,” she said, hoisting her backpack over her shoulder.

“Wait! Stay. Talk to me,” I said. I blocked my doorway. “We’re a team, Olive! If we’re going to win this contest, we’ve got to be in it together, all of us. And we really need to win this contest.”

She nudged me aside and walked into the hallway. “You keep saying that, Maggie, but really? I think, really? It’s you who needs to win it.” And then she left without even looking back at me.

When Dad came in later to see what I was up to, I launched into an explanation of the work I was doing. When I was upset, sometimes I could distract myself if I just talked, a lot, preferably on a topic I knew a ton about. I couldn’t stop thinking about what Olive had said, about how I was the one who needed to win this contest, and I didn’t think it was fair. Didn’t we all want to win? My dad had come up to ask if I was going to stay in my room all day, and instead of answering him, I thrust a piece of