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

the soup, but it really smelled bad. All houses had a smell, and Olive’s usually smelled like some kind of food I didn’t like. Rachel’s smelled like her mom’s flowery perfume. The houses my mom sold had all different sorts of smells, musty or lemony or sometimes cat pee. (Mom would insist they tear out all the carpeting before she’d even advertise any listing like that.) Really the only house that didn’t have a smell was my own, but that’s just because I was so used to it, whatever it was.

“Hey, Mom,” Olive said. “Hi, Noah-Boa.” Her baby brother zoomed across the room toward Olive in his exersaucer, bumping into her legs and laughing uncontrollably.

“He is getting so fast in that thing,” Olive’s mom said. She turned to look at him while her spoon hung in the air, dripping a thick red sauce onto the stove. “But just wait, pretty soon he’ll be even faster, on his own two legs.”

She had that weird, faraway look on her face that parents get when they think about kids growing up too fast. My parents got it sometimes, too, usually when I had to dress up for something. Noah gurgled and wrapped his arms tightly around Olive’s neck. That’s why she called him Noah-Boa. He had quite a grip.

I noticed nothing had changed in the Roselli kitchen since the last time I was over, which was unfortunate. The place was in bad shape. Two of the walls had a terrible mint-green paint that was so old, it might be in style again if they kept it around a few more years. The yellow floral wallpaper on the other walls was pulling apart at its seams and curling up around the stove. The cabinets were nicked and scuffed, doors hanging crookedly, and there were spice jars and plastic containers and baby bottles strewn across the stained laminate countertop. I couldn’t help but see the kitchen as a “before” picture.

The BFFs had never designed a kitchen, only bedrooms and a living room once. But I’d love to get my hands on this room. Quartz countertops would be great, but they were expensive, and I knew Olive’s parents didn’t have a lot of money, especially now that they had another mouth to feed. Another kid in the Roselli house meant Olive had to make do with less of everything, including her parents’ time. She said sometimes they were so busy with the baby, they even forgot to tell her good night. That never happened at my house. Still, Noah was pretty cute, I guess, and he wasn’t so close in age that he would fight with Olive over who got to do this or that, like Rachel did with her older brothers.

Olive was playing peekaboo with Noah, which set him off laughing again. The kid was so surprised every time Olive came back from behind her hands, like he must have thought for a minute she was really gone.

“Can Maggie and I hang out for a little bit in my room?” Olive asked. “We’ll get started on our homework. Her parents are having a meeting at their house.”

“Sure,” Mrs. Roselli said. “And you’re welcome to stay for dinner, Maggie, especially if that would help your parents out.”

Would it help my parents out? I didn’t know. But I was not going to stay and eat whatever was bubbling on the stove. “No, that’s okay, but thanks,” I said. I checked my phone to see if my mom had texted yet. Nothing.

Olive opened the pantry, out of view of her mom.

“Choose wisely,” Mrs. Roselli said. “Dinner is in an hour.”

Olive grabbed two packs of Twinkies, two granola bars, and some red licorice and ran up the stairs. I ran after her.

“Are you going to get in trouble?” I asked, as she dumped the feast out onto her purple flowered comforter, the one splurge her mom had agreed to when the BFFs redesigned the room. I didn’t mind the comforter, but in combination with all the other colors in this small space—the pinks and yellows and oranges—I just found it too, too much. It certainly wasn’t what I had planned for the room, but Rachel had convinced me that the client, in this case Olive, always wins in the end. She might be right, but the room still bugged me every time I came over.

“How can I get in trouble if we destroy the evidence?” she said. “Have some.” Olive slid the Twinkies across the bed.

“I better not,” I said. “I don’t want to spoil my dinner.” I actually wasn’t a big fan of Twinkies. My mom told me they sat on the shelves for years.

Olive licked some cream off her finger. “It didn’t look like anyone was even making dinner at your house, or even thinking about it,” she said.

She was right, nobody was, I realized, as I noticed my stomach jump. I wasn’t feeling too well. I pushed the snacks aside and leaned against Olive’s pillows. Then I covered my face with a particularly soft, pink one. I could hear Olive unwrapping a granola bar, could hear her mom clattering pots downstairs in the kitchen. It was like covering my eyes had improved my hearing.

Everything felt weird and wrong—not just right now, but these past few weeks. The year wasn’t starting out the way I wanted it to. I remembered our fifth grade science teacher, Mrs. Peterson, telling us things would be different in middle school, that lots of things might change, like our interests and even our friendships, and my dad had said the same just the other night.

But I already had the friends and interests I wanted. Of course, everything was perfect back in fifth grade. I mean, for starters, we were at the top of the food chain. All the little kids looked up to us. And our BFF business was really taking off. Plus, my parents hadn’t had an argument, as far as I knew, in years. Nothing needed to change. I wouldn’t