The Trouble with Rules

by Leslie Bulion

  “I brought you some clothes,” she said. “I’ll just leave them here on the chair.”

  Everyone knew about the clothes in the nurse’s office. She’d told us about them right after she’d showed us the mortifying movie called Your Changing Body. If any of us ever needed to have a shower, she’d explained, we could come to her office and she’d give us those nice, clean fifty-year-old clothes from the lost and found. It was a joke throughout the whole school. Only now I wasn’t laughing.

  I scrubbed my skin until it felt raw, then scrubbed some more. I rinsed my mouth and spit. I even snorted water out of my nose. I knew I’d never stop smelling those rotten potatoes as long as I lived. And there was no way I was putting on those castoff clothes and going back to class.

  “Dear,” the nurse called in again. “I told Mr. Allen that you’d be fine and that the school day is almost over, but he seemed to think that you ought to go home now. Your father is on the way to pick you up. Turn off the water and get dressed.”

  I waited until I heard her close the door, and then I shut off the water. If all I had to do was put on those clothes and run to Dad’s car, I could probably manage it. On the chair I found new underwear, still in the package. That was a relief. The corduroy pants were so long I tripped over the legs and had to hold the waist up around my middle in a bunch.

  “Nadie?” It was Dad’s voice.

  I yanked the shirt over my head. It felt worn out, but it had a familiar, comforting sort of smell.

  Dad was holding the garbage bag full of my putrid clothes when I came out of the shower room. “Ready to go?” he asked.

  I nodded. We hurried out and got in the car. Raindrops splattered the windshield. I closed my eyes and rested my cheek on the shirt’s soft sleeve. I listened to the soothing swish-click, swish-click of the windshield wipers as Dad pulled out of the school parking lot.

  “That was nice of Nick to lend you his favorite shirt,” Dad said. “I thought he’d lost it.”

  I opened my eyes and looked down. I was wearing Nick’s blue and gray striped shirt.

  I started to cry.

  11

  THE WAY THINGS SEEM

  My tears dripped onto Nick’s shirt and soaked together in a big damp patch. Dad reached over and took my hand. He kept driving. When my last sob had wrung itself out, I watched the sheets of rain pounding against my side window.

  Dad squeezed my hand and let it go. “I think we’ll just toss the whole bag of clothes right in the trash can when we get home. What do you say?”

  “Nick isn’t my friend anymore,” I whispered. The car rolled through the gray-black streets, and we took a right onto Laurel Road.

  “You and Nick have had disagreements before,” Dad said. “You always work it out.”

  I shook my head.

  “I think it’ll be okay. You and Nick are buddy-pals.” He drove up Bayberry, then we turned onto our street.

  My chest felt achy and hollow. “Boys and girls can’t be friends.” I choked out the words.

  “Whoa,” Dad said. He tapped the steering wheel with his fingers.

  “It’s the way things are,” I told him, “when you get older.”

  “Maybe that’s not the way things really are,” Dad said after a minute. “Maybe that’s just the way things seem right now.” He pulled into our driveway. Out my window I saw a chalky, wet blur where Brambletown used to be.

  The way things seem is the way they are, I thought.

  I lay on my bed and listened to rain drumming on the roof. I’d already counted seventy-three dime-sized smudges on the ceiling, and I was only halfway across. Nick and I had made the smudges by bouncing a racquetball in my room on lots of other rainy days. Rainy day racquetball was just another thing I could add to my list of “no mores”—no more Brambletown, no more Springville Spark, no more expeditions to the stream. No more best friend.

  I rolled off the bed and went to sit at my desk. From my window, Nick’s house looked dark and empty, but I knew it wasn’t. He had to be home from school by now, since Dad had left five minutes ago to pick up Zack. I turned my back to the window. Why should I care about Nick anyway?

  I pulled the lab packet Mr. Allen had given us for homework out of my backpack and tossed it onto the desk. It landed with a this-will-take-forever kind of thunk. I flipped through the pages. There was a lot of information about all of the biggest insect groups, like beetles, butterflies, and bees. Mr. Allen had left a big space at the end of each section for notes or drawings or whatever we wanted to add about the insects in that group.

  I decided to cut out the bug sketches I’d made in my lab notebook and glue them into the empty spaces. I hunted in my desk for scissors. They weren’t in the top drawer, and they weren’t in any of the side drawers. They weren’t on my dresser, under the bed, or on the windowsill. They weren’t in the closet.

  I searched through my desk again. “Why can’t anything be where it’s supposed to be?” I yelled, slamming the top drawer shut. A pile of old Spark issues started spilling off the desktop one by one. I shoved the whole stack over onto the floor.

  Zack stuck his head in the door. He marched over and grabbed one of the class magazines. “I like this one!” The cover was a picture of a train I’d drawn, using his engine as a model. It ripped off in his hands.

  “Give me that!” I snatched the paper from him.

  Zack’s chin started to wobble. “But I like it,” he said. His eyes filled with tears.

  Great job, I thought. Sister of the Year. The missing scissors, the rotten potatoes, Nick’s outburst—none of it had anything to do with my almost-three-year-old brother and I knew it.

  “I’m sorry, Zacky,” I said. I scooped him onto my bed. “If you like that picture, you can have it. I’ll even hang it on the wall in your room. Want me to?” I smoothed the magazine cover out on the desk.

  Zack nodded. “Next to my bed.” He snuffled and rubbed his eyes with his fists.

  I buried my nose in his neck and breathed in his warm, muffiny smell. He wiggled out of my hug.

  After we hung his picture, I got the folding table from the closet and we made a tent with his blanket. He dragged in a box of plastic animals and set them up in rows.

  “I’m the teacher,” he said.

  “Again?” I joked.

  “Hey in there,” Dad called. “You guys ready for a snack?”

  “No!” Zack protested. “Tigers and dinosaurs are doing school.”

  “How about if I play school with you and the tigers so Nadie can get on with her homework?”

  “Okay,” Zack said.

  Dad pushed his way into the tent and sat all over Zack and me.

  “Dad, get off!” I said, laughing. Zack giggled. I crawled out. I realized that I still hadn’t found the scissors for my lab project.

  I knocked on the tabletop. “Dad? Do you know where any scissors are?”

  “I think there are some down on my desk,” Dad said.

  I went downstairs to his office. The computer was on, and I signed on to the Internet out of habit. While it was connecting, I hunted around for the scissors. I looked through the desk drawers and on Dad’s drafting table. I finally found them under a pile of envelopes. I glanced at the computer screen. On my buddy list, Engineermom was highlighted, and there was an instant message.

  Hi, sweetie! Are you there?

  I sighed, feeling worn out flat. Mom would want to help, but I just couldn’t wring myself through everything that had happened again. I knew Dad would fill her in when she got home, their hushed voices weaving through my dreams in the middle of the night.

  Just then brackets appeared around the screen name Engineermom. She had signed off. I stared at my empty buddy list, then signed off and picked up the scissors.

  It seemed kind of old-fashioned to be cutting and pasting with my hands instead of cutting and pasting on the computer. But scanning my sketches and all those lab packet pages would be more work than it was worth. Anyway, it would be
fun to use my colored pencils instead of my painting program to fill in the sketches.

  My good art pencils—the ones you could dip in water and use like paints—were up in my room. I dropped my packet and the scissors on the kitchen table on my way upstairs. Muffled music from Zack’s tape player drifted out from under his closed door. Zack was singing along with his favorite tape, Sing Along with Bill. I didn’t hear Dad’s off-key voice, so I had a pretty good idea that Dad was snoozing instead of singing along with Bill.

  Back in the kitchen, I filled a cup with water to use with the colored pencils. Outside the window the gloomy day was turning into a murky night. As I looked at the light coming from the house across the street, the gray shape of a person passed in front of it—a person with a shopping bag. I set the water in the sink, slipped into the pantry, and closed the door most of the way, crouching behind it. Two seconds later I heard a knock. The kitchen door opened.

  “Hallo?” Mrs. Fanelli called.

  I tried to make myself into a small, tight ball like my pillbug.

  “I have the dinner,” Mrs. Fanelli called. Her footsteps creaked across the kitchen floor. She stopped at the door to the pantry.

  “Hmmm,” she said loudly. “No one here.”

  I heard her open the refrigerator. Its motor started to whir.

  “If someone was here, I’d tell them something.”

  I had to move, ever so carefully, and stick my ear near the edge of the door so I could hear over the humming refrigerator.

  “If someone was here,” she said, “I’d tell them what a sad boy I have in my house.”

  I shrank back into the dark of the pantry. Mrs. Fanelli slammed the refrigerator door.

  “I don’t want to have this sad boy. If someone was here, I’d say you come right now and fix him.” Mrs. Fanelli’s footsteps creaked across the floor again, and the kitchen door opened. “I can’t fix him,” she said, more quietly. The door closed behind her.

  Still crouching in the pantry, I hugged my knees and rocked, my cheek resting on the soft sleeve of Nick’s shirt. Part of me wanted to run after Mrs. Fanelli and wrap my arms around her. But I didn’t know how to fix anything, so I stayed put.

  12

  ANOTHER POTATO

  The next day I slipped into my seat and glanced around uneasily. Most kids were near the window checking on their bug habitats.

  “Eew!” Lacey wailed.

  Thinking she’d found a blob of my rotten potato from yesterday, I scrunched down.

  “My moth laid eggs!” she said.

  “Cool!” Max said. “Let’s see.”

  Kids crowded to look at Lacey’s moth eggs. I didn’t see Nick over there. Mr. Allen was crouching next to the bookcase. He’s probably still cleaning from yesterday, I thought. The air stung my eyes and nose. Ammonia with an underwhiff of rotten potato. I wanted to turn right around and go home. I opened my desk and stuck my head inside. Maybe I could just stay that way for the rest of the year.

  Next to me, Lacey’s desk lid swung up just a little. I saw a hand slip a red pouch into her desk, and I peered around the edge of mine. Max was walking away. What did he hide in there? I wondered. I hoped he wasn’t getting in on the gross-out contest. If he put something disgusting in Lacey’s desk, we’d all hear about it. And because I sat next to her, I’d hear about it extra loud.

  I heard Nick plunk into his seat across from me and I forgot about Lacey’s desk. On my way to school, with a warm breeze turning the corner on spring, I’d tried look at the good side of things. At school I didn’t have to pretend anymore that Nick wasn’t my friend. He wasn’t. I had almost convinced myself it would be a big relief. It wasn’t.

  Summer scraped her chair closer to mine. I moved farther under my desk lid, shuffling books like I was looking for something. I had to stay away from her. Owen may have been the one swinging the potato bag, but Summer had kept egging him on. I was through being dragged into their gross-out war.

  My desk lid swung up a bit. Summer crowded her head and shoulders in underneath with me. I moved as far to the other side as I could.

  “Don’t worry, it’s over,” she said. My desktop rested on her head. “I told Owen I’m not going to try and outdo him anymore. I told him I give in. I told him he’s the King of Disgusting.”

  I wasn’t sure if I’d heard her right. Summer had backed down? I was having trouble picturing it.

  “That’s what I did.” Summer nodded. The desk lid bobbed up and down. “I told Owen he won.”

  Yeah, until the next time I’m standing between you and a bag of slime, I thought. Then the game will be right back on. No thanks. I raised the lid and sat up straight in my seat. Summer scooted her chair back over to her desk.

  After a minute, I noticed something. Instead of the faint but still-awful stench of ammonia and rotten potato, the classroom was starting to smell like Sunday mornings. Mr. Allen hadn’t been cleaning under the bookcase. He’d plugged in a coffeemaker. I closed my eyes and let the delicious coffee aroma carry me home to our happy, sunny kitchen. Maybe Dad was right—maybe things weren’t as bad as they seemed.

  “Hazelnut,” I said to nobody in particular. I opened my eyes. That’s when I saw the potato sitting on the corner of my desk. I felt all of the air go out of me like a dead balloon.

  I swept the potato into my desk, hoping no one else had seen it. A tiny piece of paper fluttered to the floor. I felt Nick looking at me, and I flicked an angry glance his way. His face was all red and he jumped right up and hurried to the coatroom. Had Nick left the potato on my desk to remind me of what happened yesterday? Could he really be mean enough to want to rub it in?

  Summer leaned way over in her chair, practically doing a handstand to get the piece of paper. She handed it to me. “Did this come with the—?”

  “Yes,” I cut her off. I didn’t want her to say “potato” out loud. I didn’t really want to read the note, either, but I had to know who had left the potato on my desk. “This is for your pillbug,” the note read. It was printed on computer paper and could have been from anybody.

  I caught my breath. What did this mean? Was it a terrible joke, or was someone trying to help? I’d been full to the brim with my own misery and had forgotten all about feeding my poor pillbug. With that hazelnut coffee scent wafting through the air around me, I decided to believe someone was trying to help. I opened my desk and took out the potato. At the sink, I washed it and cut off two small pieces.

  The bell rang and Mrs. Novotny came into the room. The kids from her class were lined up outside in the hall with their coats on, ready to go out for gym. “You have the best-smelling room in the building, Mr. Allen,” she said.

  “Why, thank you, Mrs. Novotny,” Mr. Allen said with a smile. “May I offer you a cup of coffee?”

  “I was hoping you’d say that. I’ll enjoy it during my planning period.” Mrs. Novotny held up a purple and white mug. Mr. Allen poured.

  I dropped the bits of potato into my bug habitat. The pillbug seemed okay. I wondered if it was going to eat the potato. I wondered if Summer could really stop competing with Owen.

  Mostly I wondered if Nick Fanelli was back to just pretending he wasn’t my friend.

  13

  SUMMER’S KIND OF FUN

  I went through the hot lunch line to buy milk. The sludgy smell of chop suey hung over everything like a fog. Lacey pushed her lunch tray along ahead of me to the cash register. She paid the lunch lady with money from a red pouch.

  “Hey, Lacey, that’s your lunch money?” I asked. “What was Max doing with it? I saw him put it inside your desk this morning.”

  “No he didn’t,” Lacey said quickly.

  “But I—”

  “He didn’t!” Lacy insisted. She hurried off to sit with Jess and Alima.

  I didn’t know why she was acting so weird, and I didn’t much care. I sat at a table by myself to think. I missed the quiet of our lunchtime meetings, and I missed working on the Spark. But at least I was done wi
th the awful job of cleaning up the lunch mess for Mrs. Wolfowitz. She was in her chair at the center of the room with her eyes closed, and I hoped as hard as I could that she’d stay that way.

  I took a container of fruit salad, celery with peanut butter, sesame crackers, and a juice box out of my lunch bag. Summer parked herself on the bench next to me.

  “Hi,” she said.

  I ducked my head and started eating my fruit salad, but it was hard to completely ignore someone who kept acting that friendly.

  “What took me so long,” she said, as if I’d been wondering, “was I dropped my milk money and it rolled under the steam tables and everywhere. It was all pennies, too!” She laughed.

  I couldn’t help it. The picture of Summer grabbing for pennies under the lunch ladies’ feet made me smile a little. And the odd thing about smiling is how it makes you feel sort of relaxed and nice, even when you’re trying not to be. I watched Summer dig around in her plastic bag. She pulled out a paper cup with another cup upside down over the top of it.

  “I was in kind of a rush this morning when I grabbed this chili,” she said. “I probably should have gone with the thermos.”

  “Um-hmm,” I said, swallowing a bite of celery. Sauce had leaked out of the bottom cup, staining it greasy orange. The thought of cold, lumpy meat and sticky beans made my stomach flip.

  “My mom’s chili is really great when it’s hot,” Summer said, as if she was trying to convince herself. She spooned in a mouthful and started chewing. I went back to my lunch, hoping to get through the period without any new catastrophes. While I was eating, I heard a really loud growl coming from the direction of Summer’s stomach. After a couple of minutes, I stole a sideways look at her. She wasn’t chewing anymore. The stained paper cup was sitting on the table in front of her. Even the best chili in the world couldn’t taste all that great when it was cold. I could see that there was nothing else in her plastic bag. My bag, on the other hand, still had some celery with peanut butter and a few more crackers. Her stomach rumbled again.