The Rule of Threes

by Marcy Campbell

  Some kids laughed and looked around at each other like they were trying to figure out who was that one in six. The cop asked if anyone had questions, and the school librarian, Mrs. Lloyd, came up to the bleachers holding a microphone in her right hand. With her left hand, she clutched at her knee with each step she took up the rickety wooden stairs. She gave the microphone to a boy on the other end of the gym whose hand was raised.

  “Can you get addicted to markers? Smelling them, I mean?” he asked. A bunch of kids laughed, but he looked around with an expression that said, What? I’m serious.

  Officer Bell held up his hand until everyone quieted down and said, “That’s a real question kids, don’t laugh. You can get a high from smelling things, like glue or markers or paints. It’s called huffing, and—”

  Mr. Villanueva took a few steps toward the center of the gym. His arms were crossed, and he didn’t look especially happy with the substitute cop speaker. Daisy was still chewing in the corner. She had both arms off the doll now, and was working on a leg.

  “Well, anyway,” Officer Bell said, “just don’t do that.”

  A girl in a green sweater raised her hand, and Mrs. Lloyd went over to give her the mic. I forgot her name, but she was in my social studies class and was one of those kids who raised their hands to talk just because they wanted to hear their own voice.

  She said, “My mom showed me an old commercial on YouTube about your brain being like a fried egg if you used drugs.”

  “Yeah, I remember that,” the cop said. “Well, now, you kids don’t want to fry your brains, do you?”

  “I don’t,” the girl said and sat back down, smiling.

  Mr. Villanueva came farther out and held up his index finger. Officer Bell looked at him and nodded. “Okay, one more question, kids.”

  A boy near Rachel raised his hand, and when Mrs. Lloyd gave him the mic, he wouldn’t stand up until the cop said, “Stand up, son, so I can hear you better.” The boy slowly stood, but looked down, his hair covering his eyes.

  “What do you do if you see somebody who has, like, ODed or something?”

  “That’s a very good question. Well, the first thing to do in an overdose situation is to call nine-one-one. Can all of you say that?”

  “Nine-one-one,” a few kids mumbled, but everyone had really lost their energy at that point. Plus, the cop was treating us like babies. We’d known 911 since preschool.

  The cop kept talking. “Once the police or ambulance gets there, we can use this spray. It’s pretty amazing, actually. It’s called Narcan, and it’s this stuff that can totally revive a person who’s overdosed. We just spray it into their nostrils. . . .” It sounded like the allergy stuff my mom squirted into her nose every morning.

  “Ewww,” some kids said. Probably the same kids who’d said, “Awww” when the dog came out. Did they know any actual words? I was suddenly so cranky and hot and hungry, and I wanted to go home, even if Tony was there. I didn’t want to think about drugs or talk about drugs or watch a drug-sniffing dog tear a doll apart.

  Claire leaned over and said to me, “My cousin works at the McDonald’s on Broad Street, and she said someone overdosed right in the bathroom, and the cops used that stuff, and it was like the person just came back to life, like they came back from the dead or something.”

  I didn’t say anything. This was just more information I didn’t want or need. But it was crazy to think about. That McDonald’s was only a few blocks from my house. I went there with my parents in the summer to get Oreo McFlurries. Had Tony’s mom ever overdosed? What if Tony had seen it? My parents kept saying I had no idea what he’d been through, and of course they were right. And I didn’t know if I could ask. How would I even start a conversation like that? It definitely seemed like the kind of thing Tony wouldn’t want to talk about.

  The cop was still going on about the Narcan stuff. “Everybody’s stocking it now, gotta be prepared.”

  Mr. Villanueva quickly took the microphone. “Uh, thank you, Officer Bell,” he said. “Everyone, let’s thank the officer and Daisy.”

  While we all clapped, Daisy hopped up and followed Officer Bell back out the side door. I noticed they’d left the doll, or what was left of it, in the corner. Kids started shifting around, getting ready to leave, but Mr. V held up his hand again.

  “I have one more thing to share with you,” he said, “something exciting.”

  Ooh! I just remembered, the decorating contest. He said he’d give us the details at the next assembly and this was the next assembly!

  He said, “As you probably know, the middle school will have a Spirit Week this fall, the same week as the high school’s Homecoming. We won’t be having a dance here at the middle school, but we will have a pep rally and bonfire, and our boys will play football against the Rockets, same as the high school boys. The Centerville Rockets are a formidable opponent, and I should know. I used to teach there!”

  Mr. V paused for a response from the crowd, but none of us really cared about his résumé. He cleared his throat. “Well, anyway, we’ll all need to come together and show some school spirit!”

  I knew the Long Branch Wildcats were supposed to be bitter enemies of the Centerville Rockets, but that was all pretty stupid as far as I was concerned, and so were pep rallies. I sang in the choir, and nobody had a pep rally for us. Nobody had a pep rally for Rachel’s swim team or for the math club. Get to the good stuff, Mr. V!

  He talked about Spirit Week theme days, like crazy sock day and school colors day, but he’d really lost his audience, all except me. Some kids had already stood up. Some were shoving each other along the bleachers, which started a wave of shoving that led to the kid on the end being pushed into the aisle. I tried as hard as I could to tune it all out.

  Mr. V kept talking. “To get ready for the game, we also thought it would be fun to have a decorating contest, as I mentioned on the morning announcements. We’re going to have teams compete to decorate different parts of the school, and you’ll be allowed to vote for the winning team, who will get a trophy and a pizza party with their friends, and . . . ”

  The noise level had grown to a low roar. On the wall, the clock ticked forward, just three minutes until the last bell.

  He put his hand up. “MAY I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION?” The microphone let out a squeal and a bunch of kids clapped their hands over their ears, but he got the desired effect. Everyone shut up.

  “Thank you. Students, this is important. Everyone can be involved. We can have as many entries as we have rooms and hallways. Athletic teams, clubs, music groups, or just groups of friends—”

  I felt a little fluttering in my chest. Yes, groups of friends. The BFFs! I went from feeling genuinely terrible, both physically and mentally, to the most excited I’d been in months! Olive turned around and looked up at me, beaming, and I gave her a huge thumbs-up, which she returned, and doubled. I looked over to Rachel, but she was still messing with that boy who had her scarf. Now he was pretending to give it back and then pulling it away at the last second.

  Mr. V went on about how we lived in a democracy and it was important that we all recognized our obligation to vote and so on and so on. He was losing the crowd, and fast. Even me. I was already imagining how I could transform the hallways.

  “THERE WILL BE PRIZES!” he yelled, drawing everyone’s eyes back on him. “If we get one hundred percent voting participation, I will bring in a frozen yogurt truck, and the whole school will get free yogurt, with toppings! And in addition to the trophy and pizza party for the winning team, that team can designate someone to be Principal for a Day!”

  Mr. V didn’t say anything about the rules for the contest, which was surprising, and made me a little nervous. Rules made things so much easier. Grandma had taught me about design rules early on, about strengthening your foundation, considering your assets, not being afraid to mix textures, and probably most importantly, she taught me that in order to make a room look beautiful, you had to tear it apart first, the
n build it back up, bit by bit. Grandma always said, “Things are going to get worse before they get better.” But I wasn’t sure how much tearing apart I’d be allowed to do in the school.

  The bell rang, and everyone forgot that we were supposed to exit in an orderly fashion. I tripped over a boy, but caught myself by grabbing onto the elbow of some girl, all of us moving like a clumsy stream of ants toward the doorway. For once in the past twenty-four hours, I wasn’t thinking about Tony at all. I was thinking about how this contest could be the biggest break for the BFFs, how we could really make a name for ourselves at this school. My parents would be so excited for me, and Grandma would be so proud, and the BFFs would be right back on track, just like Grandma used to say while she looked at her garden: “Everything’s coming up roses.”

  Before and After

  I was still thinking about the decorating contest while I cleaned my room on Saturday, spraying some Lemon Pledge onto a scrap of one of Dad’s old T-shirts, wiping it across the top of my bookshelf, then carefully rearranging the items I’d removed to do the dusting. There were three things: a framed photo of me and Olive and Rachel taken at the pool just after school got out last year (before all the Rakell business), my slightly wilted philodendron, and, lastly, my bronze winged pig. I liked it too much to leave it in the prop box.

  I needed some space from Tony. He was spreading himself all over the house, either watching TV on the couch, or snacking in the kitchen (he was always snacking), or doing his homework in the dining room. He stayed out of my room, thankfully, because I had a lot of planning to do for the contest, and I didn’t want anyone messing with my stuff.

  I’d texted the BFFs after the assembly, and Olive had excitedly texted back, but Rachel hadn’t yet. Any team that wanted to enter had to draw their location, the area they’d decorate, out of a hat. I hoped we’d get something really visible, like the school’s main hallway.

  I repositioned the three items on my bookshelf until they were just right. Then I started on my desk, carefully dusting around my shell; it never got dusty since I rubbed it so much.

  “What smells in here?” Tony said, scaring the crud out of me. He was standing in my doorway, pinching his nose. “It smells like a grandma.”

  Okay, scratch that previous thought. Tony used to stay out of my room. “It’s lemon,” I said, and it didn’t smell anything like my grandma, who smelled like her rose-scented perfume.

  The lemon was covering up the new smell in our house, which I’d noticed right when I walked in the door yesterday. It wasn’t bad, just different, like grass or mud. Must be from Tony; our house never had a smell before.

  I held up the can. “You can use it when I’m done, if you want. I doubt anyone’s dusted the spare bedroom in a long time.”

  Tony shrugged. “I didn’t notice any dust in there,” he said.

  You wouldn’t, I thought, but didn’t say it. He was looking around at everything in my room. He was always just silently looking at everything. He had done it at dinner, too, sitting across from me, staring into the mirror behind my head and at the pictures on the walls, but not at any of us. Thankfully, my parents hadn’t asked us to say “One Big Thing” that happened that day, which would have been, let’s just say, awkward. I’d eaten silently, moving my chair closer to Dad so I could see any birds that came to the feeder without Tony’s big head in my way.

  I moved a stack of library books and swiped the dust rag across my desk. I thought if I kept working, Tony might leave my room, but he didn’t. Meanwhile, I could see all the dust particles dancing in a shaft of sunlight from my window, just partying, like all my efforts to eradicate them were worthless.

  “Bedroom dust is mostly dead skin cells, you know,” I said. If he wasn’t going to move, at least I could attempt a conversation. Better that than having him stare at me. “Your skin is shedding old cells all day long, and they just settle all over the furniture.”

  “Gross,” he said.

  I repositioned the stuff on my desk. “Well, I’m all done here,” I declared. I held out the can and the rag to him, thinking he might want to do some cleaning in his room after all, but he looked away. Still didn’t leave, though.

  “So . . . speaking of grandmas,” I said, “it’s my grandma’s birthday today. She’s seventy-three.” Wait. Was she my grandma? Just mine? Yes, yes, she was. She was my mom’s mother, which meant I didn’t have to share her with Tony. “We’re going to pick her up in a bit and take her to an Italian restaurant that has these never-ending bowls of pasta,” I said. Mmmm, my idea of heaven—all-you-can-eat pasta and breadsticks.

  Oh no, I just realized, we’d had this dinner planned for weeks, but now with Tony here, maybe we’d have to stay home with him instead, or . . . he wouldn’t come along, would he? I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

  “I have to stay home and talk to my mom,” Tony said. “On the phone,” he added, because I must have given him a weird look.

  “Your mom? Is she calling you from—?”

  “From her rehab house, yeah. It’s all arranged.”

  “Oh, okay, well, that’s a bummer that you can’t come,” I said, secretly relieved. I wondered how she was going to call him. I hadn’t seen him with a phone, and we didn’t have a landline anymore. “Do you have a phone?” I asked.

  “No, but she has Bob’s . . . I mean, Dad’s . . . number.”

  He said it like the word left a funny taste in his mouth, like he wasn’t used to saying Dad with a capital D. It certainly didn’t sound right. In Language Arts, we’d been reviewing when words like dad and mom and grandma needed to be capitalized. It was only when you were referring to a specific one. Tony’s. Mine. Ours.

  “You know, you could try calling him Robert,” I suggested. “I mean, you’re calling my mom Susan, right? That way it matches.”

  Tony shrugged, then brought his thumb to his mouth and started chewing on his nail.

  “Anyway . . . Dad will be at the restaurant,” I said.

  “Yeah, no, he said he’d stay home, that you and your mom and grandma can have a girls’ night.”

  A girls’ night? We’d been planning this for weeks, the whole family with Grandma. “That wasn’t the plan,” I said.

  Tony shrugged. “The thing is, Dad has to kind of listen in to the call, well, not really listen, but he has to be sitting next to me while I talk, so the calls have to be set up ahead of time. We can’t rearrange it. She wouldn’t like that.”

  “Who’s ‘she’?” I asked. “Your mom?”

  “No, the social worker.”

  “Oh, is that who brought you here? The gray-haired lady?”

  “Yeah, that was her. She’s so annoying.” Tony started laughing, like he’d remembered something. “She packed my duffel bag for me. She even packed my underwear!”

  He laughed harder, and I couldn’t help myself; I did, too.

  “You can sit down if you want,” I said. I pointed to the beanbag. “It’s super comfy.”

  Tony yelped as he sunk into it. The beanbag was huge and white, and it looked like he was being swallowed by a giant marshmallow.

  “Do you have a grandma?” I asked him.

  “My mom’s mom is still alive,” he said, “but they sort of quit talking a while back. I haven’t seen her since I was maybe five or something.” He looked at me quizzically. “Are Robert’s parents . . .”

  “Oh, his parents both died. Before I was born,” I said. “He has a brother out in California, but we never see him.”

  Tony brought his hand back to his mouth to chew on his thumbnail. I noticed the skin around it was red and jagged. I felt bad, all of a sudden realizing that I’d just told Tony his half-grandparents were dead. I wished Tony had more living relatives around him, more people looking out for him, though maybe I felt that way because he looked so small and helpless at the moment, being eaten by the beanbag and all.

  I was surprised that I was already getting used to Tony being in my room. But I had homework to fi
nish, so I sat down at my desk and opened my science book. I always liked to do homework on Saturdays, sometimes Friday nights, even. Otherwise, I couldn’t enjoy my Sundays.

  “Maggie!” Mom called up the stairs. “We need to get ready to go to Grandma’s.”

  “Coming!” I yelled to Mom, and then said to Tony, “I guess I better go.”

  He struggled to get out of the beanbag, so I held out my hand to him.

  “Thanks,” he said. “Have fun at dinner.” He followed me out of my room.

  “Yeah, you, too,” I said, stupidly. “I mean, have a good talk with your mom.”

  He gave a little wave, then disappeared into the spare bedroom. I started downstairs, then came back up, closed the door to my room, and went back down again to meet my mom.

  In the car, Mom told me Grandma was getting more forgetful, and that she might have to look into an assisted living facility soon, but we weren’t going to worry about that tonight. I didn’t really know what my mom was talking about.

  “Are we going to tell Grandma about Tony?” I asked.

  “No!” Mom said quickly. “Not tonight. Okay? Let’s just . . . have a nice evening.”

  The restaurant was great. It was just like I remembered from Grandma’s last birthday, and I ordered the same thing: never- ending penne pasta with marinara sauce. I ate two bowls.

  “Don’t you want to be a little more adventurous?” Mom asked.

  “Nope,” I said, smiling with a mouthful of bread.

  “She knows what she likes,” Grandma said, and winked at me. “That’s important.”

  I did miss Dad being there, though honestly, Grandma always acted a little more formal when Dad was around, so it was actually nice to have her so relaxed. Dad joked that Grandma acted that way because she’d always wanted Mom to marry her first serious boyfriend, but Mom said that wasn’t true, so whatever. It wasn’t so bad having a girls’ night.