Rules

  Incomplete. Too much like a Secret.

  “Are you busy?” a girl’s voice asks.

  I drop my pencil and flash a look from my unmade bed to the folded clothes piled on my bureau. Cinnamon and Nutmeg crane their necks to wheek at Mom and the girl from next door standing in my doorway.

  “I saw Kristi coming up the walk,” Mom says, smiling. “Catherine, I have one more call to make. Could you keep an eye on David for a few more minutes? Then I’ll take over, I promise.”

  Before I can get out “no,” I see Mom’s legs in the mirror, hurrying back toward her office. David pushes REWIND, and Thomas speeds backward again.

  “Come in!” I offer my chair, but Kristi sits on the edge of my desk, crossing her feet at the ankles.

  “Are you busy?” she asks.

  “No!” Seeing her up close, I know Kristi will be popular. Not only for her straight brown hair, parted off-center, shining down to her elbows. Or because she looks just right, even wearing frayed jean shorts and a T-shirt. Kristi radiates “cool,” and I know it as sure as I know David’ll stop that speeding train at the last-last second.

  Part of me feels sorry, because she doesn’t look like a flashlights-and-Morse-code kid, but the other part of me is excited.

  “I’m glad Mrs. Bowman sold you her house,” I say. “Well, I guess, technically, the realtor sold it, but I’m glad your family bought it, because I’ve always thought it would be great if a kid lived next door. Mrs. Bowman was nice, but she was really, really old.” I clamp my teeth together to keep anything else dumb from escaping my mouth.

  Kristi drags a strand of her hair between her fingers. “I’m glad, too. I was scared I’d have to start school next year without knowing anyone.”

  My lips spread to a smile imagining Melissa’s surprise as I introduce Kristi into our group. “This is my friend Kristi,” I’ll say. “We hung out together all summer.”

  I glance out my doorway to the living room. Where’s David?

  “Ryan said there’s a bus stop at the end of the street?”

  I lick my bottom lip to keep from grimacing. “At the corner.”

  “That’s great.” Kristi continues to twist her strand of hair. “I used to walk three blocks to catch the bus — even when it was freezing or raining. Mom’d say, ‘Take the umbrella,’ as though anyone carries an umbrella!”

  David insists on bringing his bright red umbrella to school even when it’s only cloudy. “My mom’s like that, too.”

  Leaving out isn’t the same as lying.

  “She always says, ‘Well, at least wear your hood!’” I continue, “Like I’d want hood hair.”

  Kristi smiles, letting the twisted strand fall back to her arm. “Ryan said he lets kids wait in his house when it’s raining, since he can see the bus come from there.”

  But only if you’re invited. I peek out the doorway into the empty living room. Part of me would like to tell Kristi the truth, but I don’t want our conversation to become about David.

  At the bus stop I always tell him, “You have your umbrella,” grabbing the back of his jacket to keep him from following Ryan’s friends up the steps. “Going inside is for kids without umbrellas.” I would be honest, but David doesn’t understand invited and not invited. He thinks everything is for everyone.

  “Ryan’s nice,” Kristi says. “Don’t you think so?”

  Nice as a cockroach. “Want some sherbet?” I ask.

  When you want to get out of answering something, distract the questioner with another question.

  “What kind?” Kristi asks.

  “Raspberry.”

  David rushes through my doorway, his eyes wide with panic, an audiocassette in his hand. “Fix it?”

  The tape has pulled out of the cassette, hanging in a long, delicate loop.

  At first I’m relieved that’s all that’s wrong until my guinea pigs start to squeal.

  With the cassette over one ear, and his hand shielding the other, David yells, “Quiet, pigs!”

  Kristi shoots a worried glance from David to the guinea pigs to me.

  I pry the cassette from David’s fingers, knowing it’ll be faster to deal with the tape than the tears filling his eyes. “Don’t worry. This’ll only take a minute.”

  I spin the cassette around and around on my finger, wishing I had two more hands: one to give the guinea pigs hay to quiet them, another to cover David’s mouth as he shrieks. I spin the cassette so fast my finger keeps slipping out of the tiny hole.

  When the tape lies flat and tight, I slide Frog and Toad Together into my cassette player and push PLAY. Arnold Lobel’s deep voice joins the guinea pig squeals, and David’s face lights up like Christmas morning, Halloween night, and his birthday, all rolled into one big grin. “You fixed it!”

  “Go find Mom,” I say, pressing the cassette into his hand, “and tell her I’m done babysitting.” Before I close the door, I peek into the living room to be sure David’s heading toward Mom’s office. He disappears down the hallway, swinging his arms.

  “That must be hard,” Kristi says. “Even regular little brothers are a pain.”

  “Regular” snarls in my stomach. I grab my sticky notes and write “DAD! Buy a new tape player!” and stick it on the back of my door to remember to tell him — again.

  To quiet my guinea pigs, I pull strings of timothy hay from the little bale I keep under the cage. Nutmeg yips as Cinnamon steals her hay.

  “They’re so cute,” Kristi says. “Can I hold them?”

  “Sure.” I toss her a towel. “Better put that on your lap, in case they pee.” I slide one hand under Nutmeg’s chest and cup her back legs with my other.

  Cinnamon wheeks until I set her next to Nutmeg on Kristi’s lap, and the squealing turns to happy-pig cooing:

  Nutmeg, I thought I’d never see you again! Say, what are you eating?

  Towel, medium rare, with a hint of fabric softener. Care for a bite?

  Don’t mind if I do!

  My door bursts open. “No toys in the fish tank,” David announces.

  “I’ll be right back,” I say to Kristi between my clenched teeth.

  “No problem,” she says, stroking Nutmeg’s neck.

  I close my door behind me so Kristi won’t see me run. “Why?” I sprint ahead of David. “Why today?”

  “Because.”

  A tiny cowboy stands bowlegged on the gravel at the bottom of the fish tank, one hand poised to grab his pistol, the other holding the end of a lasso hovering in a loop above his head. A goldfish swims right through the hole.

  Git back here, ya pesky varmint!

  Plunging my hand into the water, fish swoosh past my fingers. I rescue the cowboy and throw him into the toy box. Grabbing David’s wrist, I don’t even wipe my hand first.

  “Wet!” David twists to get away.

  “You’re not going to ruin this for me.” I yank him along behind me down the hallway to Mom’s office.

  She’s on the phone. “All right, then,” Mom says into the receiver. “I’ll look forward to hearing from you next week.”

  “I have company,” I say, not caring about interrupting her, “and you need to watch David.”

  Mom holds up one finger for me to wait, but I push David ahead of me into the room. Her eyebrows come down.

  She grabs a puzzle off her bookshelf and dumps the pieces on the floor. “Yes, that’ll be fine,” she says into the phone.

  David sits beside the hill of pieces. He can’t stand to see puzzles undone, but he insists on doing the pieces in lines, like he’s reading the puzzle. He doesn’t look for all the red barn pieces or the daisies in the field or the glimmers of sunlit water. Left to right, top to bottom, that’s his puzzle rule. And if you add a piece out of David’s order, he’ll take it back out — even if it fits.

  I slam Mom’s office door on my way out.

  When I come back to my room, breathless from running down the hallway, I notice Nutmeg and Cinnamon are in their cage again.

/>   “Everything okay?” Kristi asks. “I hope you don’t mind that I looked at this.”

  She’s holding my sketchbook, open to the half-finished portrait of Jason. “Is he your boyfriend?”

  “No! Just a boy I started drawing.”

  Kristi tilts her head in an oooh-really? look.

  If you want someone to think something’s not important, use “just” a lot.

  “He’s just a boy I know from — well, I don’t really know him. Not very well. I just see him at —” I check my watch. It’s almost time to leave for OT.

  I can’t tell Kristi I have to go — not the first time we’ve met. But I told Jason I’d see him today.

  Kristi tosses my sketchbook onto my desk. My hands itch to flip the page, but that’ll bring attention to it.

  “Want to watch TV?” Kristi asks.

  If I say no, maybe I won’t get another chance to hang out with her. I glance to Thomas the Tank Engine reflected in my mirror, his eyes closed, braced for a crash that’ll never happen. From somewhere, David shrieks.

  “We could watch at my house,” Kristi says.

  That stings, even if I agree. “Sure,” I say. “I’ll tell my mom.”

  All the way up Kristi’s walkway, I want to skip or run or twirl with my arms out, like a six-year-old. It feels deliciously easy to be visiting a friend’s house without having to say first, “Sorry, David, this is for me. You can’t come.”

  Hearing Mom’s car back out of the driveway, I turn to wave. She waves, but David sits alone in the backseat, hunched down, his hands over his ears.

  I follow Kristi up the steps and through her front door.

  At a friend’s house, everything is uncomplicated. No one drops toys in the fish tank, no one cares if the cellar door is open or closed, and no one shrieks unless there’s a huge, hairy spider crawling up her arm.

  And they only have regular family rules:

  No snacks right before supper.

  Call if you’re going to be late.

  Homework first.

  But the best part of being at a friend’s house is I can be just me and put the sister part of me down.

  Kristi’s room looks like a page from a catalog, the sort of shiny catalog I get in the mail and can only afford a toothbrush or a poster from. But Kristi’s new pink-swirled curtains match the fat comforter on her bed, which matches the pink-and-blue rug on her floor.

  It’s all beautiful, but what I envy most is the neat row of things on her bureau. Photographs, makeup, her jewelry tree, and a long row of nail-polish bottles — everything out in the open, not jumbled in drawers like mine, out of David’s sight.

  Lying next to Kristi on her new-smelling pink comforter, I wish I wasn’t wearing an old, sun-faded T-shirt and had put on makeup this morning.

  “I think he’s cute,” Kristi says, and I force my gaze back to the Teen People spread in front of us. The boy in the magazine has perfect teeth and stabbing dark eyes.

  Kristi taps the little box that says UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL WITH JAKE. “He says his ideal date would be a sunset walk on the beach and a picnic supper she had prepared.”

  “He sounds cheap.” Soon as I say it, I wish I could stuff the words back into my mouth.

  But Kristi laughs. “Yeah. Why can’t he bring the picnic? If you get invited somewhere, you shouldn’t have to bring supper!” She flips onto her back.

  I roll over, too. Her ceiling is ordinary, plain white with a simple, square glass light in the middle and two hooks, like upside-down question marks, holding nothing. I think Mrs. Bowman hung plants here.

  “Can you date yet?” Kristi asks.

  I shrug. “I know boys from school and church, but no one I’d want to go somewhere with — by myself. Well, not really by myself, because he’d be there, too.” Oh, shut up, I tell my tongue.

  “You should ask that boy you drew on a date,” Kristi says. “What’s his name?”

  I shift my shoulders, pretending I need to stretch so she won’t notice I’m squirming. Is there any harm in telling his name? They’re not likely to meet. Jason doesn’t even go to the same school I do.

  “Jason.”

  “My boyfriend and I broke up before I moved,” Kristi says. “But I think Ryan likes me. His mom works at the community center where I volunteer. Did you know the community center is sponsoring a summer dance? It’s for kids aged eight to seventeen. You could ask Jason.”

  “You volunteer?” I need to change the subject.

  “Yeah, with the preschool day camp. It sounded fun when I signed up, but they want me to come every day now. And with going to Dad’s every weekend, I haven’t even had time to finish unpacking.”

  I glance to her bureau, to the framed photograph of a man standing with a dog. “My friend Melissa’s parents are divorced. She’s in California for the summer with her dad.”

  “My parents aren’t divorced.”

  She says it so sharp, I gasp. “I’m sorry, I thought because —”

  “They’re just separated.” Kristi reaches up to twirl a piece of hair in her fingers. “They’re just taking a break for a while.”

  It’s so quiet I can hear birds outside and cars driving past on the road. Kristi holds the very end of the lock of hair and it spins back, falling against the path of freckles across her nose.

  “Want to shoot some baskets?” she asks, pushing her hair away. “I don’t know which box my basketball’s in, but it’s in the garage somewhere.”

  “Sure.”

  I can’t help checking off a list of differences in each room we pass through. No locks on the doors, no little-kid videos next to the TV, no safety plugs in the outlets, and a box of cookies left out on the kitchen table — no one worried someone will eat them all at once.

  Kristi’s garage is full of boxes, bikes, rakes, a snow-blower, and a clutter of other things. We open boxes until we find her basketball. “I hope you’re not real good.” Kristi passes me the ball. “I’m only kinda good.”

  “Me, too,” I say, relieved. We play one-on-one, until I see Dad pull into our driveway with David.

  David runs up the walkway to our house, clutching his video.

  “Hi!” Dad smiles, coming toward the fence. “It’s a nice surprise to drive in and see you next door, Cath.”

  First, I’ve told him not to call me “Cath,” because it sounds too much like he’s calling me a baby cow, and second, why’s it such a surprise I have a friend next door?

  “You need to get David a new tape player.” I set up for a shot. “The one he has keeps pulling his cassettes apart, and I have to fix them.” The ball bounces off the rim.

  “Can’t you say ‘hello’ first?” Dad asks.

  “Hello. But don’t forget. I’m sick of fixing his cassettes.”

  “I’m Catherine’s dad.” He nods to Kristi. “It’s nice to have you and your family in the neighborhood. What do your parents —?”

  “Oh, wow.” I check my watch. “It’s getting late.”

  “Yeah, I have to start supper for my mom.” Kristi shoots the ball. “I’ll see you?”

  “Definitely!” I get the ball and pass it to her, loving the hollow thump it makes hitting her hands.

  “I’ll be in in a minute,” Dad calls. “I need to get something from the car.”

  I walk home, easy as you please. In the living room, I can barely keep from skipping past Mom reading the newspaper on the couch. Next to her David shakes his hands with excitement as a video preview plays on the TV.

  “Did you have fun?” Mom asks me. The newspaper pages make a whispery sound as she folds them. “Kristi seems like a nice girl.”

  I nod.

  David slaps his legs with his hands. “Rated PG for adventure, action, and peril!”

  “Jason missed you today,” Mom says, and my happiness deflates like a balloon with the smallest tear.

  “He said that?”

  “Well, actually, what he said was, ‘Tell Catherine all gone stinks a big one.’” Mo
m looks over the top of her glasses, giving the long, what-have-you-been-up-to-young-lady? stare.

  “Who’s Jason?” Dad says from the doorway, a teasing smirk on his face.

  “A boy at David’s OT place.” I watch Dad’s eyebrows shoot upward, and I roll my eyes. “He’s just a boy. It’s not like he’s a boy or anything.”

  “Oh, I almost forgot, Jason sent you something,” Mom says. “It’s in a bag on the kitchen table.”

  “PG-thirteen,” David shouts. “Parents strongly cautioned!”

  I stroll, ho-hum, to the kitchen but I’m curious. On the table I find a paper bag and reach inside. My fingers touch something tickly, cold. I pull out a big bunch of carrots, the feathery green tops attached.

  Untangling a carrot from the bunch, I imagine Cinnamon and Nutmeg in their cage, shuffling through the shavings, drinking from the water bottle.

  I snap the carrot in half.

  From down the hall comes a crazed burst of squealing. Then a shriek: “QUIET, PIGS!”

  By the time I reach my room, David’s standing in my doorway, his hands over his ears. “Sorry.” I push past him. “Go back to your video. They’ll stop in a minute.”

  Cinnamon and Nutmeg jostle each other, their front feet high against the side of the cage.

  Out of my way, fatso!

  Who are you calling fat, hairball? That carrot is mine!

  I toss carrot bits into the cage, and a shaving-flying scuffle breaks out, finally settling into happy chortling and chewing sounds.

  A trickle of guilt curls through me. Why can’t the world be simpler, like it is for guinea pigs? They only have a few rules:

  Crying will get you attention.

  If it fits in your mouth, it’s food.

  Scream if you don’t get your share.