The Rule of Threes by Marcy Campbell (android e book reader txt) 📕

I hadn’t even considered that Tony would be coming to my school, though I was surprised that I was already thinking of it as “mine” when I hadn’t even been there long. It was hard enough moving up to the middle school without all this mess. Now I’d be the kid with the mystery brother whose mom was on drugs. Or the kid whose dad had cheated on her mom . . . I shoved the thought away. Of course, it was a new school for Tony, too. I was sure he’d much rather be back at Bircher with his friends.

When I arrived at to the bus stop, Olive was already there, waving at me. Rachel was still strolling up her street with a stack of books in her arms. Last week she’d decided that backpacks were kind of uncool. She waved at me, too, and soon, we were all standing there together in our usual spots waiting for the bus to turn the corner. The Santmyer brothers were a few feet away, wrestling with each other like they did every morning.

“Get off me!” Jared yelled.

Josh laughed and pinned his brother against the grass. Then Jared started laughing, too, and flipped Josh over and sat on his back, Josh’s whole body flattened like roadkill.

As I watched the Josh and Jared show, the only thing going through my head was Guess what? I have a brother, too. That wasn’t something I could just announce at the bus stop, but I had to tell my BFFs! They had to know.

Olive was scratching at something on her ankle. Rachel tapped her foot, craning her neck to look down the street for the bus. That was when I noticed her new boots. They were black suede, and I’d never seen them before. Rachel did buy a bunch of clothes before school started, but she’d shown me all of them.

“When did you get those boots?” I asked.

“Last night,” Rachel said, shrugging.

“Ooooh, pretty!” Olive said, leaning down to get a closer look. “Where did you get them?”

“The Shoe Depot.”

“Were they expensive?” Olive asked. “They look expensive.” She was still bent over, and now she brushed her hand over Rachel’s toe. “Are they real suede? Because my mom said there’s no way she’d buy me real suede because if it gets wet even once it’s totally ruined and she’s not going to go around buying me more than one pair of boots every year and in any case, I need boots that are warm.” Olive stood up. “Are these warm?”

“I don’t know,” Rachel said. “I guess not. Not really.”

“I thought you had to work with Katelyn on your group project last night,” I said. Who cared what the boots were made of or what they cost?

I watched as Rachel’s neck broke out in red splotches. The same thing happened whenever she had to stand up and give a presentation in class, or when she had to do a pull-up in gym while everyone watched. Rachel could not hide when she was embarrassed. Normally, I felt sorry for her because of that, but not today. Today I was mostly feeling sorry for myself.

“Oh, we got done early,” she said and turned away.

Olive looked at me and shrugged. I could feel that little burning spot in my chest. Sometimes, it felt like there was a match inside me just sitting there totally innocent, until some kind of meanness scratched against it, lighting it. And then it burned.

We got on the bus and went to our assigned seats, Olive with me, Rachel four rows up with a girl named Kendra. The bus was mostly full. We were the last stop before school.

“That wasn’t very nice of Rakell,” Olive whispered.

I shook my head. “No big deal,” I said. “Don’t worry about it.”

I glanced over at Olive, whose lip was quivering like she was going to cry. Going to cry—on my behalf! It certainly wasn’t worth crying over, but it was still sweet of her.

Suddenly, I wanted to tell her about Tony. She was a loyal friend. She should be the first to know. “So, hey,” I said casually, “do you remember that boy from yesterday?”

“The boy with the basketball? Of course. What was he doing at your house? Who is he?”

“Well, you are not going to believe this,” I said. I kept my voice low. Then I slunk down in the seat and scooched closer to Olive, not that anyone else on the bus was even listening.

“He’s my brother.”

“What?” Olive shouted, and now a couple kids looked over.

“Shhh,” I said. I looked up to where Rachel was sitting. She hadn’t bothered to turn around, though she must have heard Olive shout. “Don’t tell anybody about it, okay? Though I don’t know how I’m going to keep it a secret . . . because he’s starting school at Long Branch next week. Seventh grade.”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.” Olive was flailing her hands around. “Back up. What are you saying? What are you even saying?”

I took a deep breath and repeated all I knew, everything, which admittedly wasn’t much. “My dad had a kid with some other woman, before I was born, and she didn’t want my dad to have anything to do with this kid, but now she’s on drugs or something and couldn’t take care of him, so he’s supposed to live with us, temporarily.”

“Who’s on drugs?” Olive was so wide-eyed and pale, I thought she might faint.

“The kid’s mom, I guess.”

“Is he nice?”

“Who?”

“The kid,” Olive said impatiently. “What’s his name?”

“Anthony. Tony. I mean, geez Olive, don’t get all cranky with me. I don’t know if he’s nice because I’ve barely spoken to him for more than five minutes, but he’s in my house sleeping in the spare bedroom right as we speak and he snores and . . . and he stole Mittens!”

“He stole Mittens?” Olive exclaimed, drawing looks again from some kids.

“Well, not really stole, it’s just, Mittens was sitting on his lap and sleeping on his bed.”

“Oh, thank goodness.” She put her hand to her