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

Olive jiggled my foot. “Are you thinking about Rachel?” she asked. “I know she’s been really different lately, and I noticed you haven’t been calling her Rakell, which I admit is pretty hard to get used to. I hate when things change, too, you know, my mom always says change is much easier for kids than adults, but I don’t know if I believe that, I mean, it seems like maybe one of those things parents say to make themselves feel better when they screw up, you know?”

I did not take the pillow off my face. I felt a little bit like crying, and thought I’d better keep it there, just in case.

Olive jiggled my foot again. “Do you want some licorice?” she asked.

“No,” I mumbled.

“Are you okay? Are you worried about that basketball boy?”

“What? No,” I said. “Why would I be?” I threw off the pillow, checked my phone. Nothing. I texted my mom: Can I come home now???

Five minutes passed. Olive started her math homework. I stared at my phone.

“I’m just gonna take off,” I said.

“Oh, okay,” Olive said. “See you later. Have a fantabulous evening!”

I said goodbye to Mrs. Roselli and waved to Noah-Boa on my way out, careful not to get so close that he’d wrap me in one of his death grips. Then I stepped outside, and the sun hit me, almost pushing me back into the nice, cool house. The weather felt off, too. It was way too hot, considering it was after Labor Day. Then again, it always seemed like our town stuttered its way into fall. There would be a day or two of cooler weather, then we’d take a leap back, right smack into the middle of summer. I always felt tricked, and I didn’t like it one bit.

I noticed a dribble of sweat creeping down my back and decreased my walking pace to a stroll. I didn’t need to hurry. What was I in such a rush for? My mom hadn’t even texted. I didn’t want to get there too early and have to edge past that basketball boy to get into my own house.

I noticed a new “For Sale” sign on a brick ranch. The sign said Hartman Realty in big, red letters with my mom’s smiling face and cell number. Call Susan Owens. Another smaller metal sign hung below that, which said: “This one’s a charmer!”

Mom had all these little signs she could attach below her phone number like: “Great starter home!,” “Deluxe Master Suite!,” or “This one’s going F-A-S-T!” She’d stopped putting up that last one, though, because she felt like, if it was up for more than a few weeks and the house didn’t sell, it would be false advertising, like she was a big old liar. She wasn’t the kind of person who went around telling lies, not normally, not that I knew of. Although I guess it was true that I’d called her a liar once, screamed it at her one morning in second grade.

That was an unreasonably hot day in September just like this one, so hot that the tears felt like they were sizzling on my face as I walked to the bus stop that morning, by myself. I’d never walked to the bus stop by myself before that day, the day Mom told me after breakfast that she and Dad were having “some problems.”

She’d said it really carefully, like it would be a surprise to me, but it wasn’t. I was seven, not stupid. I had seen Mom crying in the kitchen for months before that. Plus, I’d been tiptoeing downstairs after I was supposed to be asleep, always finding Dad in the dark on the couch listening to this same singer, always the same guy and same songs. It’s a marvelous night for a moondance. I remembered that. But mostly I remembered Mom telling me that fateful morning that she and Dad were going to live apart, and that I needed to decide who I was going to live with.

And then she said Dad would prefer I lived with her, and I called her a liar and ran from the house and down the street, to my bus stop. I knew he’d never say that. I also knew, if I had to choose between them, that I’d pick him, which I figured was not the answer my mom, or anybody, probably, expected or wanted.

There were a bunch of family meetings after that, with both Mom and Dad explaining to me that parents argue sometimes, and it’s scary, but they still loved me, and it wasn’t my fault. I’d never thought it was my fault before they said that, but then I did start wondering what I had done wrong. I wondered if they could read my mind and knew I wanted to live with Dad. It was a totally scary time, waking up and wondering, Will today be the day I have to pack? Where will I live? Will my dad get an apartment like my classmate Norah’s dad had done? Norah told me how gross and empty her dad’s place was. Every day, I’d get up and worry, and eventually I started to think: Let it happen today. Better to rip off the Band-Aid quickly than to painfully tug it a few millimeters at a time.

But none of my fears ever came true. And slowly, my parents changed, became more like the in-love parents I remembered from my preschool years. One day, around the time the leaves had all turned colors and the sky became that bright blue dome you only really see that time of year, I saw them, my parents, hugging in the backyard, that brilliant sky behind them.

And everything was like normal again. Mom wasn’t crying. Dad wasn’t staying up late. No moondances. Just normal, everyday, family stuff. Our meetings were less frequent, but they said I could talk to them whenever I needed to, ask them anything. I was glad not to talk about