Only someone who had done zero planning. Only someone who would do the bare minimum, buying a couple rolls of crepe in the school’s colors, scribbling on a few squares of cardboard, and calling it design. Honestly, something this ugly deserved to be torn down. I was only putting this hallway out of its misery.
I worked quietly at first, even pausing for a second to consider that maybe I was being a poor sport. I also realized I might get in trouble. Who cared?
Just then, Katelyn looked over, and her eyes were huge with surprise and anger. How dare she be angry? She, who’d spent a maximum of two hours on this project I’d been working on for WEEKS. That did it. I flew into a rampage—clutching, tearing, stomping until every little bit I could reach was in shreds on the ground. I stopped only when Katelyn’s friend Brittany put me in a headlock.
Bent over, trying to struggle free, I saw Olive out of the corner of my eye. She had a disappointed look that I didn’t see on her very often which made it hit me even harder.
“Oh, Maggie,” she said. “What have you done?”
Next to her was Mr. Villanueva. He looked taller somehow, but that might have just been because I was bent over. He had his hands on his hips and wore his very displeased expression, the same one he gave to the kids who’d started a food fight in the cafeteria a couple weeks ago. But I wasn’t one of those kids! I wasn’t a troublemaker!
Mr. V motioned for me to follow him, and Brittany let me go. There wasn’t a sound in the hallway, except for the shoosh shoosh shoosh-ing of the crepe paper disaster as I waded through it, my footsteps in line right behind his, all the kids standing back to let us through. It sounded like we were walking through fallen leaves.
What had happened with the voting? How could anyone choose this hodgepodge of tacky junk over a tasteful design?
I tapped Mr. V’s arm. “Did the students see the reorganization of all the files?” I asked. “You couldn’t even find anything in there before!”
We were almost back to his office now. “Did they get to see how everything is functioning, before they voted?”
Mr. V sighed. “Save it for my office, Miss Owens.”
I turned around to exchange a nervous glance with Olive, but she was slowly walking the other way.
The worst part was that I had to walk right through my losing design on my way to Mr. V’s office. I tried not to look, but I couldn’t NOT see that beautiful fabric I’d used to recover the seats of those chairs. That staple gun had left my hand sore for days! I kept thinking how impressed Dad had been with my concept board, kept thinking of how much fun it had been with Tony, painting the bookshelf.
The color scheme had come from all three of the BFFs, though that interview with Mrs. Abbott seemed like ages ago. And all of it, the whole room, couldn’t have been put together without the lessons I’d learned from Grandma. I caught the eye of Mrs. Abbott, who gave me a sad little smile, which made me start to cry.
When we reached his office, and Mr. Villanueva noticed my tears, his expression softened, but only for a moment. He told me to have a seat. The chair across from his desk had wooden arms and an upholstered back in a gray, scratchy fabric. It might be vintage in another ten years, but right now, it was just ugly. His own chair was tall and leather and on coasters. Everything else was just boring desk and bookcases, all in a cherry finish that tried to look expensive, but wasn’t. I wondered if I should offer to redo his office, too. Maybe that would get me out of trouble.
“There’s no need to cry,” he said.
I looked around for a tissue but didn’t see any. Where were all the tissues when I needed them lately?
He sat down in his big chair and leaned forward. “We all make mistakes. It’s what we learn from them that’s important.”
I nodded and sat there for a minute, just kind of waiting for him to talk. I had no idea what was supposed to happen in these situations; I didn’t have any experience with it. Maybe he was waiting for me to tell him what I’d learned, and I guess I was waiting for him to tell me.
One thing I knew was that I’d hurt a bunch of girls on the cheerleading squad, even though I’d only meant to hurt Katelyn. Seeing their faces as I walked through them on my march to the office? Yeah, I wouldn’t be forgetting that. Nor will I forget that headlock, I thought, as I rubbed my neck. I imagined Katelyn sitting in front of me, in Mr. V’s chair as Principal for a Day, and shuddered.
“Do you have anything you want to say? In your defense?” he asked.
I didn’t know where to start. I’m under a lot of stress because I have a new brother I didn’t know about, which means people I love weren’t telling me the truth and I don’t know who to trust, and my grandma had to come live with us, and she doesn’t know who I am half the time, and my best friend has kind of deserted me but also, she’s maybe dating my brother, and the only thing that was going to make everything right, the only thing, was me winning this contest.
But I didn’t say any of that. What I said was “It’s not fair.”
I immediately wished I could take it back because I’d been on this earth long enough to know adults hated it when kids said that. They usually said some dumb thing back, like, “Life’s not fair.”
I tried again. “I worked really hard. I thought everyone would like it. Did you . . . like it?”
“Of course I did, and Mrs. Abbott is very pleased,” he said, “but, Maggie, we didn’t vote. Remember?”
“I’m going to redo the nurses, office, too. Did Mrs. Sherman tell you that?”
“No, she didn’t. That’s very nice of you.” Mr. V took out a big red binder from a desk drawer. “It doesn’t affect any of this, however.”
He flipped through the pages. “Here we go,” he said. He turned the binder so it faced me and pointed to a paragraph. “You’ll notice item number four under Behaviors Leading to Suspension. Willful destruction of school property.”
“But I . . . I didn’t destroy any school property!” Destroying school property sounded like spray-painting graffiti on the bricks or hurling a rock through a window. And did he say . . . suspension?
“You most certainly did destroy school property,” he said. “As soon as those decorations were affixed, they became school property.” He closed the binder and leaned back in his chair. “Let me ask you this, Maggie. If the math team came in here and took a chainsaw to the bookcase you painted, how would you feel?”
I knew this was no laughing matter, but I couldn’t help smirking. The idea was just too, too crazy.
“You have a one-day suspension.” He looked at the clock. “The buses have left, but I need to call your parents anyway, so hopefully one of them can come get you.”
“Suspension?” I said.
I was starting to feel really sick to my stomach. That lavender scent diffuser that I put in the outer office, for its calming effects, was way too strong, and the whole place smelled like chemical flowers.
“But I didn’t do anything that bad!” I said. “It’s not like I started a food fight!” Those were the only other kids I knew of who’d gotten suspended this year.
He looked at me closely, some kindness creeping into his face, and so I asked, “Can you make an exception?”
“I’m sorry, no,” he said. “Stay home. Read a book. It’s only a day.”
He’d swiveled his chair and was looking out his window, tapping his pencil on his desk. “You know, my wife gets all those decorating magazines. They’re all over our coffee table.” He waved his hand and turned back to me. “You did a good job on the office, Maggie, and we like it a lot, but, you know, you misjudged your classmates.” He shrugged. “They were expecting school colors and all that.”
“That’s not design,” I said.
“No, it’s not,” he said, kind of sharply but not meanly. I was taken aback. “It’s a decorating contest. No one said interior design, Maggie. I think you wanted this contest to be something it never was.”
Then it hit me, slowly, that maybe, just perhaps,
the student body at Long Branch Middle School might not be as up to date on current interior design trends as I was. I sat there for a minute, rubbing my forehead and wondering if he could be right, then realizing he probably was. How could I have been so dumb? The first rule of design was to know your clients. I had thought all along that Mrs. Abbott was my client, but it was really the students. They were the ones voting.
“Crepe paper,” I muttered. “They wanted crepe paper.”
“Guess so,” Mr. V said. “As my wife says when she’s watching all those HGTV shows, ‘There’s no accounting for taste.’”
“Everybody still gets a day off, right? For voting?”
He laughed softly. “I heard that rumor, too. It’s preposterous, of course. The academic calendar is set years in advance by the school board. I can’t go around giving days off for no good reason.”
That burned. No good reason? He turned to his computer screen, where he’d pulled up my emergency contact information. “Should I call your mom or your dad?”
“Mom,” I said, without even hesitating. You’d think I’d want the good cop, not the bad cop, but I didn’t want to disappoint my dad, not after I’d fantasized about how proud of me he was going to be when I won.
“Can I head home?” I asked. I didn’t want to hear any of this phone conversation.
“I thought you rode the bus?”
“I walk sometimes,” I said.
“Okay,” he said, “you can go,” and he turned his back as I left, hurrying out through the outer office with my head down. If I had to see Mrs. Abbott again, or our bookshelf or rug—any of it—I’d probably throw up.
When I got outside, I was surprised to find Tony standing by the flagpole. All the buses were long gone. There were a few kids messing around, but Tony was just sitting by himself, like he was waiting for me. Or, on second thought, maybe he was waiting for Rachel.
“Hey,” he said, cutting across the grass. “I’ll walk with you.”
“Why aren’t you walking with Rakell?” I asked. I walked faster, but he matched my step.
“She took the bus. Anyway, I wanted to talk to you about that, before you find out on your own. See, Rakell and I are kind of—”
“Going out,” I said. “I know. I saw you holding her hand.”
It didn’t mean anything. All it meant was that they declared they liked each other and held hands in the hallways, big deal. Of course Rachel would be the first of the BFFs to go out with someone. It didn’t surprise me a bit.
“Oh, okay,” he said. He looked relieved that I already knew. “Well, what happened was, one of her older brothers was playing basketball with me and Dad, and she started hanging out, and we started talking, and . . . I just think she’s cool, that’s all, which I mean, you already know. She’s your best friend.”
I stopped walking. “Was.”
“Is,” he said. “As far as she’s concerned, at least. She’s just going through a lot right now.”
“We all are,” I said.
“Yeah, I know, but she’s going through a lot of stuff that you don’t know about, with her parents.”
“Again,” I said. “Who isn’t?”
Tony blurted, “They’re getting a divorce, Maggie.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
Of all the parents I knew, Rachel’s were the perfect ones, the ones who never dressed like slobs, even if they were just in the car pick-up loop. They got season tickets to the symphony, which I’d never even been to; the only concerts I saw were the free ones at the bandshell in the park. And they always spoke very carefully, e-nun-ci-a-ting everything. I imagined Rachel hearing the divorce talk, getting the question about which parent she wanted to live with. What would that conversation sound like in her family?
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Yeah, I’m sure. I mean, Rakell is sure. They told her.”
“But maybe they’ll change their minds. Sometimes parents say that, and then nothing happens. Sometimes they even tell their kids to decide who to live with, and still change their minds.”
Tony gave me an odd look. “I think it’s pretty definite. Her dad already moved out.”
I couldn’t believe she hadn’t told me. Had she told Olive? Had she told Katelyn? I’d be jealous if she had, but also, hearing that this was going on with Rachel made me think of her a little differently. I knew how hard it was to carry something like this around.
My phone dinged, and I had this crazy hope that it would be Rachel, but it was Olive.
Hey, you okay?
“Who is it?” Tony asked.
“Olive,” I said. “I’ll . . . text her back later.” I remembered her face as I’d waded through the crepe paper. Remembered how I’d let her down.
Tony stopped walking and took his backpack off, set it on the sidewalk.
“What are you doing?” I put my phone back into my pocket.
“This thing is so freakin’ heavy. Why do they give us so much homework?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Do you want to switch bags? Mine’s pretty light.” Sixth graders didn’t get nearly as much homework as the seventh graders. The teachers probably didn’t want to scare us right out of middle school.
“And why don’t they give us enough time at the end of the day to put stuff in our lockers?” Tony continued. “Half the time I have to bring every freakin’ book home with me because I don’t have time to put things in my locker and still catch the bus.”
Tony plopped down on the sidewalk like the wind had been knocked out of him.
I just stood there for a minute, not sure what to do. His moods were changing faster than I could keep up with lately.
“Is this really about your homework?” I asked. “Or is something else bugging you?”
He hugged his knees to his chest and looked up at me. “My mom hasn’t been calling,” he said. “She’s supposed to call, and she doesn’t, and I just . . . I feel like something’s wrong, and like, I don’t know what to do about it.”
He gave his backpack a shove. My mom had bought him a new one. It was plain blue, but at least it was in good shape, unlike his ratty old red thing, though it wouldn’t stay in good shape if he kept shoving it around. She got him some new clothes, too, so he wasn’t being called down to the office for dress code violations anymore. Ha! Turns out I was the one getting called to the office these days.
“I guess I’m just pretty distracted,” he said. “You know, I really don’t care too much about measuring temperatures in Kelvins. I’ve got more important things to worry about.”
“Who’s Calvin?”
Tony laughed a little. “Never mind, you’ll find out next year.” He stood back up. “Hey, I’m really sorry about the contest,” he said. “These kids don’t know anything.” He held up his finger. “Oh yeah—hold on a minute.”
He turned and bent back over his bag, opening a small pocket and pulling out a little plastic container full of tiny colored shells, which he held out to me. There were pinks and blues and yellows and greens, each one no bigger than a thumbnail, and all different. There was even one that looked like a tiny unicorn.
“Dad took me to the aquarium gift shop,” Tony said. “There’s a lot in here.” He gently shook the box. “So, if one gets broken, accidentally, by some totally awesome guy, it won’t matter so much, and you’ll forgive him right away.”
“Oh, Tony.” I felt the crush of guilt and appreciation all at once. “I . . . I meant to tell you, it wasn’t you, I’m almost sure of it. I found some things from my room in Grandma’s room, so she must have been in there when we were at school.” I watched as Tony’s face went from confused to totally relieved. “I’m sorry I blamed you.”
He smiled. “Oh, good, I mean, not that your grandma broke it, but I’m glad it wasn’t me.”
He handed me the box. “Thank you,” I said. “I mean it, Tony. This is really nice of you.”
I gave him an awkward little hug, then put the box into
my backpack, careful to nestle it between a pair of gloves so I wouldn’t have any more smashed shells. “I can look through all these tomorrow,” I said, “while I’m at home serving my suspension.”
“No way! He suspended you? Just for tearing down some junky decorations that were half falling down anyway?”
“You heard?” I said. “Word travels fast around here.”
“Yeah, yeah, Rakell told me,” he said. He zipped up his pack and put it on. “Katelyn was being really crazy about it, but Rakell stood up for you. She told Katelyn it would have fallen down by tomorrow anyway, and she won the contest, so why was she even complaining?”
“Rakell said that?” It was the first time I’d said her new name out loud in a normal, not sarcastic, way. It didn’t sound so weird. Hearing Tony and Olive say it so much, well, I’d kind of been getting used to it. Plus, I’d been thinking about what she’d said, about calling people what they want to be called. It didn’t really matter if it made me uncomfortable or not. It was her name.
“Yeah, I told you she was cool.”
I punched his shoulder. “Um, yeah, I know that. You just got here, remember?”
He laughed. “True, true,” he said. We started walking, and he got quiet again.
“Is there anything we can do, about your mom?” I asked.
I wanted to help him. I’d had my head so deep into the contest, I hadn’t realized how lucky I was. My parents were still together. They were healthy. They were there for me, even though they totally messed up sometimes. But other people, like Tony, like Rakell, weren’t so lucky.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know what we can do.”
He didn’t say anything until we got to the corner nearest our house, and then he got this mischievous look on his face and yelled, “Race you home!” and took off running, and it felt so normal, running after him, like Tony had been here forever, and this was just an old game of ours.
The Rule of Threes Page 18
