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

the swing by . . . his father, I supposed? The boy smiled out of the picture at me, like, Whee, isn’t this fun?

I stuffed him into the box. I put the vase in next, then the pig, who perched on top of everything, smiling away, like he knew the sweetest secret. When I bought him, I thought he was some kind of angel-pig, considering he had wings and all, but when Dad saw him, he told me about this figure of speech: when pigs fly.

“It means something’s impossible,” he’d explained. “So, if somebody thought something would never, ever happen, they might say it would happen ‘when pigs fly.’”

Mom came back into my room while Dad ran down the stairs in a blur. She rubbed her forehead like she had a really bad headache. Thump, thump, clang went the ball outside.

“Maggie, do you think you could . . . go to Rachel’s or Olive’s or something? Just for a bit? While your dad and I get some things . . . sorted out?” Thump, clang.

“But I thought we had family business to discuss,” I said.

“Well, we did, Maggie, but you’ve been goofing around with your little arrangements, and now it’s too late!”

Olive sucked in her breath while I went to my desk and sat down in my chair, stretching out my finger to touch the special shell I kept behind my pencil cup. Little arrangements, huh? Not cool. How would she like it if I said for sale by owner? There were certain things we didn’t say around our house.

“You just told me that a few minutes ago, Mom.” My skin was feeling all prickly and warm. I wiped my suddenly sweaty hands on my pants. “What’s the big deal? Who are these people anyway?”

I tapped my phone to turn the music off, which made the room seem way too quiet. Even the basketball had stopped bouncing.

“I’m sorry,” my mom said softly. “I’ll . . . explain later. I’ll send you a text when you can head back home.”

“You can come to my house,” Olive said. She was still holding Mittens, but now she brought her over to me and transferred her to the back of my neck. I liked to wear her that way, like a black-and-white scarf, and Mittens seemed to like it, too. She started purring. Her body was very warm, and that relaxed me, like my shoulders were wrapped in a blanket.

“So will you?” Olive asked. “Come to my house?”

Rachel had gotten down from the loft and was zipping up her backpack. She didn’t even look up, so it seemed clear I wouldn’t be going to her place, which is where I’d normally hang out. Olive’s house was a lot more chaotic, with the baby around. At Rachel’s, we were pretty much ignored.

“Thank you, Olive,” Mom said, as though Olive was babysitting me or something. Mom turned and went back downstairs.

I quickly gathered up my homework, figuring I’d get a start on it at Olive’s. I heard the strange woman’s voice downstairs. Maybe she was an accountant or something. I remembered once when Mom and Dad had someone to the house to go through some retirement stuff. But this seemed different. And why would she bring her grandson, if that’s who he was, to a meeting? And why were my parents acting so weird, and angry? I felt that buzz in my brain again. Something was definitely off. Something that probably couldn’t be fixed by moving a vase three inches to the right.

That Basketball Boy

The three of us moved through the kitchen with Mittens darting around and between our legs, almost tripping us. I caught a glimpse of my parents sitting stiffly on our living room couch, the gray-haired woman across from them on the loveseat. I paused, wanting to eavesdrop, but thought better of it when Mom turned and gave me a look that said I’d better be on my way. We tumbled out the door.

“Oops, sorry,” Rachel said, almost running into the basketball boy.

He was on our front stoop looping the ball around his waist. Faster and faster it went, but somehow he kept control, so the ball didn’t fly away and shatter one of our windows. He didn’t look at us and he didn’t move, so we had to kind of scoot around him, like he owned the place. Honestly, it was incredibly rude.

It was hot out, and I was already starting to sweat by the time we reached the corner at Maple. When Rachel turned, I instinctively turned, too. I’d been going to Rachel’s house for so many years, I could find it in the dark. I knew there were twelve stairs up to her bedroom, and the third one creaked. I knew all the outfit combinations in her closet, or at least I used to, until she went on a massive shopping spree just before school started.

Rachel turned toward me. “I have to work on that group project. With Katelyn,” she said. “That’s why I can’t have you over.”

“Oh, yeah,” I said. We all just stood there for a minute, then Rachel gave a stiff little wave, and walked off.

Olive headed in the other direction, rattling off the things we were going to do at her place. “We’ll have a snack, like maybe some cookies, we have a pantry full of snacks, but you probably remember that, don’t you? My mom said she trusts me to make the right choices, so she’s just gonna keep that pantry full and trust me to choose wisely and to remember the difference between everytime foods and sometimes foods, which I think is really cool because, like, most moms would never do that in a million years but can I tell you a secret, I eat the sometimes foods all the time.”

She finally took a breath. “Is Katelyn the one with the super shiny lip gloss?” she asked.

“Yup,” I answered.

Olive’s mom was stirring some kind of fishy-smelling soup.

“Oh, hello, Maggie, what a nice surprise,” she said.

“Hi,” I replied. I tried not to wrinkle up my nose at