Rules for Secret Keeping

  Tom hangs up the phone and looks at it in wonder. “Your father,” he says, “just hung up on me.”

  Taylor and I look at each other nervously. Hmm. This probably isn’t the best time to bring up the fact that they’re both going to the You Girl dinner.

  “Oooh,” I say. “My throat is really hurting.”

  “Do you want some oatmeal?” Tom asks. “Or maybe I should make you some soup.”

  “Yes, oatmeal, please.” Tom makes the best oatmeal. He puts nuts and apples and all sorts of good things into it. “And then I’d better get upstairs to bed; I think maybe I’m going to have to cancel today. Now where’s Barb’s number?” I grope around the table for my cell phone. I’m hoping Tom will offer to call Barb for me, since I’m slightly scared of her.

  “See how you feel once you get something in your stomach,” Tom says. Taylor rolls her eyes and pulls two bowls down from the cupboard. She’s obviously caught on to the fact that I’m faking. She also knows that Tom is a total pushover, and that if I want to stay home from school, I’ll be able to. As long as my mom doesn’t find out.

  “So what are your symptoms exactly?” Taylor asks. “Because I heard that if it’s really swine flu, you’ll have a really bad fever.”

  “I do feel hot.” I start fanning myself with the newspaper that’s sitting on the table.

  Taylor raises her eyebrows at me skeptically. “Then you probably shouldn’t eat oatmeal, you should have cool things. Like orange juice.”

  I glare at her. Taylor knows that I hate orange juice. My mom always buys the kind with the pulp, and there are always little bits of orange floating around in there. Yuck, yuck, yuck.

  “I need something warm to soothe my throat,” I say. I rub my throat for good measure.

  Tom plunks a bowl of oatmeal down in front of me, and another in front of Taylor. I take a warm, sweet spoonful. Yum.

  “This is so good,” I say. “But, um, not so good that I’m feeling better or anything.”

  “Of course not,” Taylor says, rolling her eyes again. She takes a bite of her own oatmeal.

  And then my mom comes into the kitchen. “Mom!” I say, shocked. “What are you doing here?” My mom is not supposed to be home right now. It’s only seven thirty. My mom gets out of work at nine a.m. Also, it is impossible to get a hold of my mom, because she is an ER nurse and when you call her, there are all sorts of things going on, like shootings and stabbings. Actually, not really. Mostly it’s just people who broke their legs in skiing accidents or kids with appendicitis. But she’s still usually really busy dealing with important things that do not allow her to get to the phone. Which was an integral part of my swine flu plan.

  “I got out of work early,” she says. “I’ve been upstairs since five, catching up on the DVR.”

  I look at Tom. “Tom,” I say accusingly. “Did you know about this?”

  “Of course.”

  “You could have told me,” I mumble. Now that my mom is here, there’s no way I’m going to be allowed to stay home from school. Which really sucks, especially since I just got my hopes up, and now they are dashed into oblivion.

  “Samantha has swine flu,” Taylor reports.

  “I heard.” My mom crosses the kitchen, pulls a bowl down from the cupboard, and fills it with oatmeal from the pot on the stove. “Do you have a fever?”

  Crap, crap, crap. This is why it’s not so great to have your mom be a nurse. Sure, it comes in handy sometimes like when you fall off a swing in second grade and become convinced you’re going to bleed to death because there is blood everywhere and you are afraid it means you’re going to die. Then your mom can just pick you up and you can trust her when she says it just needs a Band-Aid, because she’s a medical professional.

  But when you are in seventh grade and pretending to have swine flu, it’s a whole different story.

  “I don’t think I have a fever,” I say. “But one might be developing.”

  “Hmm.” She puts her cool hand to my forehead.

  “Your hand feels so very cold,” I try.

  “Yes, well, you don’t have a fever,” she says.

  “But you can’t tell if someone has a fever just by feeling their forehead! I read it online, it was a breaking news story on my AIM!”

  “Samantha,” she says. “You’re not sick. You’re going to school. Your father and I talked about it, and really, there’s nothing you need to be worried about. You’re going to do fine.”

  Easy for them to say. They don’t have all the information.

  Two hours later, I’m sitting in the front office waiting for Barb. She’s late. I don’t think this is a very good way to start our day. And I think it’s very unprofessional of Barb to be late, but honestly, I can’t say anything, because she holds my fate in her hands. Also, I can’t really talk about people being unprofessional. Because this morning, before school started, I met Daphne at The Common and we made up a bunch of fake secrets, which I then shoved into my locker. I know. It’s totally shameful. But I didn’t know what else to do! And when you think about it, it’s not really a lie. Because as soon as Olivia gets sick of this whole thing, my business will be back on track. So really I’m just sort of messing around with the timing.

  “Did she call or anything?” I ask Mrs. James, the front-office secretary.

  “No, hon,” she says, shrugging. “If she’s not here by the time first period is over, we’ll let you go to class and just call you down when she gets here.”

  Ooh, score! If that happens, I can just be all, I’m so sorry, Barb, but since you were late, I have a very important test that, unfortunately, I just cannot miss. And then I’ll let her take a pic of me or something, so that at least she doesn’t go away completely empty-handed. And then I’ll tell her I understand that she doesn’t have much information to really make a good profile, but that my education is more important, and that I hope she can respect that. What a good speech!

  I watch the clock over the office door tick toward the end of first period, when I can make my escape. The good news, I guess, is that I’m missing first period. I look down and smooth my skirt. I’m wearing a black pencil skirt, a white lacey shirt, and a gray and maroon sweater with matching patterned tights. Very cute outfit. Too bad it will be all for nothing since Barb isn’t coming, yay!

  And then, literally right before the bell is going to ring, Barb comes barging into the office. She just walks right in, she’s got a photographer(!!) in her wake, and she looks like she’s on a mission.

  She rings the bell that’s sitting on the desk of the front office, even though Mrs. James is sitting right there.

  “Yes, hello,” she says. Ding, ding, ding. “I’m dreadfully sorry that I’m so tardy, but I’m here to see Miss Samantha Carmichael.” She narrows her eyes and peers at Mrs. James over these really small wire spectacles that she’s wearing. “We’re doing a story for You Girl, and I’ve already cleared it with your principal.”

  “Yes, I know,” Mrs. James says. She doesn’t sound too happy. “Samantha is sitting right over there, where she’s been waiting for you and missing class since you said you’d be here forty-five minutes ago.”

  “Samantha!” Barb says, ignoring Mrs. James’s snarky remark and rushing over to me. “It is so nice to finally make your acquaintance.”

  “Nice to make yours as well.” I extend my hand, and she shakes it. For a second, I feel like maybe I’m supposed to curtsy or something. But I don’t, I just stand there. It’s a little awkward, honestly.

  Finally, I put my hand out to the photographer. “Hi,” I say. “I’m Samantha Carmichael.”

  He takes my hand, but doesn’t say anything.

  “Tony is just here to snap a few photographs for the profile, and for our slide show at the banquet.” Barb looks at him with distaste. I think it might be because he’s wearing jeans and a pair of dirty sneakers. Honestly, he’s not much of a camera crew. Not that I mind. The fewer cameras the better.

  Barb leans i
n and whispers to me, “He doesn’t work for You Girl, he’s just freelance.” She says “freelance” like it’s some kind of really dirty word.

  “Oh, okay.” I’m not sure what to say about that. Tony just grunts again.

  “Anyway!” Barb says. “Moving on! So! It’s best to just relax and seem natural as we shadow you this morning. Don’t get too focused on the camera. Tony will take your picture throughout the next hour or so, but just try to ignore him.”

  “Okay,” I say. As if on cue, Tony snaps a pic. I blink in surprise at the flash. “Oh, um, sorry.” I smooth my skirt and try to recover. “I, uh, didn’t know you were going to take a picture.”

  “They’re candids,” Barb explains. “You won’t know when he’s going to take them.” She turns to Tony. “Samantha’s a blinker,” she says. “So we have to be careful that we make the pictures look candid when they’re not really candid.”

  “I’m not a blinker,” I lie, mostly because it’s embarrassing to be called a blinker. Also, what does she mean, make the pictures look candid when they’re not? God, it’s hot in here.

  “Yes, you have the characteristics of a blinker,” Barb says. And then she pulls a magazine proof sheet out of her bag. “Here you are, see? Page sixty-eight, Samantha Carmichael, secret-passer.”

  She hands it to me. I gasp. There I am, at the photo shoot they did that day, and I don’t look so great. I am slightly blinking, and one of my eyebrows is a little bit higher than the other, so that it looks like I’m trying to give the camera a knowing look.

  “Why did they pick that picture?” I ask before I can stop myself. “There must have been better ones!”

  “I don’t know,” Barb says. “But don’t get your tights all bunched up; no one cares about what you look like.” She gives me a disapproving look, like I shouldn’t be worried about what I look like in a national magazine that is going to be seen by millions of people. She holds the sheet out to me. “Here you go!” she says. “You can keep the proof. The magazine won’t be out on newsstands until next month.”

  “Great,” I say, sliding it into my bag. Maybe they’ll put a really good picture of me into the profile they’re doing, something that will make up for the fact that this picture sucks. Maybe everyone else’s pictures look really bad too, like they wanted us all to look a little bit dorky so that the readers would relate to us. Not that You Girl’s readers are dorky. I mean, I read You Girl.

  “Now!” Barb claps her hands, and I jump. “Please show us to your locker, Samantha.” Tony snaps another picture.

  “Okay,” I say. I wave goodbye to Mrs. James, who gives me a sympathetic smile (she totally knows that Barb is crazy), and start leading them down the hall toward my locker. The problem is that my locker isn’t that close to the main office, so we have kind of a long walk.

  “Well, this is my school,” I say, because I can’t just say nothing. Tony snaps a picture and then grins. I concentrate on making sure my eyes are open. I’m not sure if I’m succeeding.

  “It’s a very nice school,” Barb says. “You wouldn’t believe some of the institutions we’ve had to visit.” She shudders.

  “Oh, yeah, that must have been hard.” How snobby. “That’s the cafeteria,” I say as we pass. “Before and after school, they call it The Common Ground, but we call it The Common for short. Anyway, uh, they sell hot chocolate and muffins and stuff, and we get together and study.” Tony snaps a pic of it, but Barb wrinkles up her nose.

  “Do they offer healthy, organic meals?”

  “Well, not really. They do have some soy muffins, though. My friend Daphne loves them.”

  “Hmm.” Barb makes a mark in the notebook she’s carrying. “That would be a great idea for some entrepreneurial young mind. Start a cart in their school that carries organic, free-trade food and drinks for those students who are concerned about their health.”

  She gives me a pointed look. And it could totally be because I’m overthinking things, but I have a feeling she might mean that once I get over all this silly secret-passing ridiculousness, I should maybe do something important, like sell organic foods.

  “Well, here we are!” I say. “This is where all the magic happens!” That’s a very dorky thing to say, but for some reason, it just pops out.

  “This is where you receive your secrets, correct?” Barb steps close to the locker and inspects the vent. “You’re lucky that the locker has a vent. Otherwise what would your business do?”

  “Yes, well, I organized my business around the fact that lockers have vents. I, uh, researched a few different methods of secret-dropping-off, and I figured lockers were the most logical structure.”

  Barb nods, impressed, even though obviously I just made that whole thing up.

  “Get a picture of her in front of her locker,” Barb instructs.

  Tony snaps another one. I try to remember to keep my eyes open.

  “Now,” Barb says. “You could . . .” She trails off, and her eyes focus on something above my head. “What’s that?”

  “What’s what?” I ask, smoothing my hair down.

  “That?”

  I turn to see what she’s pointing at. Uh-oh. One of Olivia’s flyers. Right over my locker! Ugh. I mean, really.

  “Oh, that,” I say, waving my hand like it’s no big deal. “That’s nothing, that’s just . . . some girl at school thought it would be fun to start her own secret-passing business when she heard about mine. And so, ah, that’s one of her flyers.”

  “Hmm,” Barb says. “Interesting.” She adjusts her spectacles and leans in for a closer look.

  “Not really,” I say. “I mean, she obviously doesn’t realize what goes into a business, how totally committed you really have to be to make it successful.” I smooth my skirt again and keep going. “The problem with a lot of kids these days is that they don’t realize that being an entrepreneur is a lot of work. Yes, you can make it happen, but you have to be willing to put in the time.” This is a line I totally memorized just for this occasion. But Barb doesn’t have to know that. I want her to think I sound smart, like, off the cuff.

  Barb’s scribbling something down on her clipboard. “You can quote me on that if you want,” I offer.

  “Samantha, this is interesting, the idea of competing businesses going on in a middle school. Would you say that our need for the free market and antitrust laws dribbles down into even middle school businesses?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t say that exactly.” Honestly, I have no idea what she’s talking about.

  “What do you mean?” Barb asks.

  “What do I mean about what?”

  “About the antitrust laws? You said ‘not exactly,’ what does that mean?”

  “Well, all I really mean is that so far, this other business hasn’t really affected me. I’m much more established than Olivia; I have a very loyal clientele.”

  I decide this whole interview is starting to get away from me, and needs to end pretty much as soon as possible. Plus I don’t want her asking me any more hard questions about economic or foreign rights or whatever it is she’s talking about. So I turn around and open my locker.

  “You see?” I say. All the notes come tumbling out, some onto the floor. I did that on purpose, shoved them all in there so that they’d come falling out when I opened the door. It looks very impressive. “My business isn’t suffering in the slightest!”

  “Yes, I see that,” Barb says. She beams. “Now, how many secrets do you have here?”

  “Well, let’s see,” I say. I start picking them all up from the floor, even though I know that the exact number is twenty-three, since I’m the one who made them all.

  “Looks like we have about . . .” I’m counting them up and gathering them into my arms when the bell rings, signaling the end of first period. All of a sudden, the hallway becomes filled with kids, all on their way to their next class.

  “Who’s this guy?” Ronald Hughes says as he rushes by. He puts his face right in front of Tony. “You
gonna take my picture, man?” He laughs and then keeps walking.

  “Ha-ha,” I say. “That was just Ronald, he’s very funny.” Tony doesn’t look too pleased.

  “Oh my God, Samantha!” a voice yells. Great. Emma. Although maybe having a girl who looks and acts like Emma (always knows the right thing to say, looks very smart and put-together, definitely a little bit of a suck-up), will help me with Barb. Barb seems like the kind of person who would just love Emma. “I was looking all over for you! You, like, totally weren’t in homeroom.”

  “Yes, I was,” I say. “I just had to leave early.”

  “Oh, right, for your magazine thing.” She turns to Barb and holds out her hand. “I’m Emma Clydell,” she says. “I’m Samantha’s best friend.” Um, not really, but now’s definitely not the time to bring that up.

  “Nice to meet you,” Barb says. “This is Tony.” Tony grunts, and Emma gives him a nod, then flips her curly red hair over one shoulder.

  “Anyway, Samantha, I need your money for our cowgirl outfits,” Emma says. She looks at me expectantly.

  “Your cowgirl outfits?” Barb asks.

  “Samantha didn’t tell you?” Emma asks.

  “No,” I say. “I didn’t. That’s not really Barb’s specialty, if you know that I mean.” I’m trying to let her know that it’s probably not the best time to bring up the fact that I’m going to be dressing as a cowgirl on the night of the Fall Festival. What is wrong with her, anyway? I thought she was supposed to be good around adults. And then I remember. I still haven’t told Emma I can’t go to the Fall Festival. Well, no time like the present! Emma won’t be able to freak out in front of Barb, and it will make me look super responsible. “Actually, Emma,” I say, “it turns out that I can’t go to the very fun Fall Festival. I’m so disappointed to miss it, but I have to honor my obligation and attend the You Girl banquet that night.”

  “But we were going to be cowgirls!” Emma whines. Her delicate features arrange themselves in a pout. “Charlie’s even going to not wear a T-shirt under hers.” She turns to Barb. “I think it’s ridiculous how certain costumes have been condemned by society just because a woman might be showing off a little bit of her body. If my friend Charlie wants to have a tiny little bit of her stomach showing, then she should be able to, right? Boys would be able to.”