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

She went walking quickly toward the corner where the shouting came from, her sandals slapping the linoleum floor. She always wore sandals and socks, even in the winter.

“I’ve had just about enough out of you boys!” she yelled. “How would you like to eat lunch with Mr. Villanueva?”

I watched her closely, rather than look at Rachel, whose eyes were burning a hole into the side of my skull. I could feel it.

“Were you not even going to tell me you have a brother?” she asked, drawing out every word. “After we’ve been friends for, like, forever?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be the BFFs?” Katelyn said, snotty-like. “That’s what you guys call your little club, right?”

I ignored Katelyn and shot a look at Olive, who had bent her head so low over her lunch tray that her bangs were nearly dipping into her applesauce. I’d deal with her later.

The lunchroom was getting noisier, while our table was this little island of quiet. I took a deep breath and turned toward Rachel. “I only just found out last night,” I murmured. “Of course I was going to tell you—privately,” I said, with a glance at Katelyn, who was stirring her pudding, which obviously didn’t need stirring.

But when would that be? I thought. We were hardly ever alone anymore. We used to be alone a lot, before Olive moved to our neighborhood, not that I regretted having Olive around. I loved Olive, and Rachel. Friend threesomes were great, most of the time, though if you ever wanted to have a private conversation with one of the threesome, the other was bound to feel left out. Now I had a feeling that maybe Olive and Rachel had been having some private conversations of their own.

I said, “It’s not exactly the kind of thing I can blurt out, like, ‘Oh hey, I’ve got a brother I never knew!’ I mean, it’s crazy! I haven’t even had twenty-four hours to get used to it myself.”

“Rakell says he’s super cute,” Katelyn added, and I couldn’t help rolling my eyes. Tony looked like my dad, so I couldn’t think of him as cute. Was my dad cute? Who knows?

“We were having a private conversation,” I shot back. Stupid Katelyn with her stupid lip gloss.

“Whatever you say to me, you can say to Katelyn,” Rachel said. “We’re all friends here.”

I laughed. Yeah, right. “Fine,” I said, “if we’re friends, then maybe you could be there for me, instead of talking about the chaos in my house.”

I was raising my voice. I had to. It had gotten so loud in the lunchroom, and kids were out of their seats. No one was supposed to get out of their seats unless they raised their hands and got permission. “We can’t all have your perfect family, Rachel,” I added, thinking of her Barbie-and-Ken parents.

Now it was Katelyn’s turn to laugh. Rachel didn’t say anything, but she turned her body toward the front of the room and started picking at the bun on her chicken patty. She looked more sad than mad.

Meanwhile, Olive put her hand on my arm and quietly shook her head at me.

“What?” I said to Olive, pulling my arm away.

“Don’t,” she whispered to me, but was looking at Rachel.

At that moment, the lunch lady yelled “QUIET LUNCH!” which was a rule Mr. Villanueva had come up with.

He was the school’s new principal, and he had a lot of rules, which was fine by me. As I kept telling Olive and Rachel at our BFF meetings, without rules, things fall apart—in design, and everything, really. Anyway, when the lunchroom supervisors thought the noise level had gotten out of control, they’d declare Quiet Lunch, and we all had to eat in complete silence like we were in church or prison or something.

We all looked down at our plates. I was thankful for an excuse not to talk to anyone. I just wanted this day to be over. But then what? I’d go back home, which I didn’t want either.

During quiet lunch, every little noise was amplified—the squeak of a plastic knife across Styrofoam, a cough, the dozen little snorts of people trying to stifle their laughter. The lunchroom supervisor looked this way and that, trying to figure out who was making each noise, but she couldn’t keep up. It was like a game of whack-a-mole, which reminded me of a birthday party Rachel had a couple years ago at this indoor fun park place with ball pits and arcade games and roller skating. When I asked her last month if she was going to have a party there this year, she said birthday parties were “for babies.”

Nothing on my lunch tray tasted good, not even the chocolate chip cookie I’d been so excited about. (They only served them one day a week.) Olive was nibbling at some fries. When had she even had the chance to tell Rachel? And why would she do it? I could hear Rachel taking deep breaths next to me, like she was either annoyed or trying to meditate or something. We used to do these “mindfulness breaks” at Jefferson Elementary where everyone was supposed to close their eyes and take deep breaths, but almost nobody actually did it, except the teachers.

Finally, the bell rang, and a big whoop went up as everyone scattered. I headed to science, Olive close behind.

“I didn’t tell her,” Olive said, tapping me on the shoulder. “I swear I didn’t.”

I spun around. “Who did then?”

Olive had a very guilty look on her face. “I didn’t tell Rakell,” she said quietly, “but . . .”

“Olive.”

“Well, I told Neesha in band because she sits next to me and I had to tell somebody or I was going to burst and you know Neesha is so quiet, she never says anything to anybody!”

“Olive!”

“I’m sorry, Maggie, I really am, but I mean, you can’t keep it a secret for long anyway, right? You said yourself he was starting here