Moving Day (8 page)

Lady Serena Archibald came back Monday morning.

I didn’t find that out because Brittany told me, though. I found out because Courtney Wilcox told me.

And the only reason Courtney told me was because she carpools to school with Brittany, and she saw the whole thing.

But Brittany told her not to tell me. Except that Courtney was mad at Brittany for telling her that she wasn’t her best friend anymore. Mary Kay is Brittany’s new best friend. Courtney is now Brittany’s second-best best friend.

I guess the whole brownie thing should have been a
sign that this was coming, but none of us recognized it then for what it was.

“The truth is,” Courtney said, “the only reason Brittany gave that brownie to Mary Kay was because she was planning all along on making Mary Kay her new best friend. Your dance was really the best. Even if your singing wasn’t all that good.”

I said thank you even though I wasn’t sure what Courtney had said was a compliment. Because that is the polite thing to do when someone compliments you. Even if you aren’t sure it’s a compliment.

That’s a rule.

Of course, neither Brittany nor Mary Kay was speaking to me—Brittany because I had told her mother about the suitcase game and Mrs. Hauser had taken away Brittany’s karaoke machine and her television privileges as well, and Mary Kay because…well, because I had told Scott Stamphley I was moving on her birthday, when I had promised I wouldn’t.

“And Lady Serena Archibald is all right?” I asked Courtney.

“Oh, yes,” Courtney said. “I mean, her fur is all matted and dirty, because she’d been in a field and gotten into some burrs. But she was sitting on the front porch this morning when Mr. Hauser went out to get the newspaper, and she was just fine—really hungry, but fine. Mrs. Hauser is taking her to a professional groomer to get the burrs out and says she should be good as new.”

I was super relieved to hear that. I didn’t even care about the other thing—I mean about Brittany and Mary Kay not speaking to me. The truth was, after what happened at the Hausers’, I didn’t want to be friends with them anymore, anyway.

“I’ll be your best friend, if you want, Allie,” Courtney said. “Until you move, anyway.”

“Um,” I said. “Okay.” Because it’s rude to say no to someone who asks if you want to be best friends.

What’s even more rude is to do what Mary Kay and Brittany did later that day, which was come up to me in the art room, where I was innocently gouging an outline of Marvin begging for a bone into my linoleum tile, and go, “What smells?”

“Hmmm,” Brittany said. “I think it’s Allie. Allie Stinkle smells…like a rat!”

I have to admit, that really hurt my feelings. But I wasn’t going to cry or anything. At least, in front of them. Because crying when people are trying to insult you just gives them what they want. Then they win, because they know they made you sad. So you have to pretend like you don’t care. Then you win.

That’s a rule.

Instead, I kept working on my art project and said very calmly, like what they’d said hadn’t bothered me at all, “Wow. That’s very mature, you guys.”

“Oh, right,” Brittany said. “Like
you’re
so mature! I can’t believe you told my mother about lady business executive!”

“I can’t believe you put an innocent cat in a suitcase,” I shot back.

“I can’t believe you keep a book of
rules,
” Brittany said.

I was so shocked that she said that, I forgot about pretending not to care. In fact, I nearly jammed my block cutter into my thumb.

“
What
did you say?” I asked.

“That’s right,” Brittany said, with a smile I can only call mean. “I know all about how you’re such a weirdo you have to write down rules to remind yourself how to act, Allie. That’s really pathetic. You know, I almost feel sorry for you.”

I turned my hurt gaze toward Mary Kay, who was standing next to Brittany. At least Mary Kay looked kind of uncomfortable…if the way she was staring at her shoes were any indication, I mean.

“You
told
her?” I croaked. “About my book of rules?”

Mary Kay rubbed her nose with her shoulder, avoiding looking at me. Before she had a chance to say anything, Brittany went, “Of
course
she told me about your stupid book of rules.
Never eat anything red?
Please. Who do you think you are, anyway, the food police? You know what rule I think you need to add to your little book, Allie Stinkle? The rule of not being a
rat.
I’m so glad you’re moving, so you won’t continue to stink up our class with your hideous rat odor! Aren’t you glad she’s moving, Mary Kay?”

“Oh, yes,” Mary Kay said, perking up suddenly. “I’m really glad
you’re
my best friend now, Brittany.”

“Me, too,” Brittany said, throwing an arm around Mary Kay’s neck.

It was at this moment that I realized that other people were listening to our conversation and finding it very interesting. By “other people,” I mean other people at the table I was sitting at, people who were still only at the cutting stage of their block-printing project.

One of them, unfortunately, was Scott Stamphley.

“You keep a book of rules?” he asked me.

“Shut up,” I said to him. Because I might have to put up with Brittany and Mary Kay. But I do not have to put up with him.

“Are there any rules in there about me?” Scott wanted to know.

“Yeah,” I said. “To stay as far away as possible from you.”

“How about this?” Scott asked. “Is there a rule about this?”

Then he burped very loudly.

“EW!” shrieked Brittany and Mary Kay…which is of course exactly the kind of reaction boys like Scott Stamphley
hope
to get when they do things like that. Because Brittany and Mary Kay do not know the rule about ignoring people.

“No,” I said. “But there’s a rule against this.”

Then I burped even louder than he had.

This caused Brittany and Mary Kay to shriek again—and also caused all the people sitting at my table to groan disgustedly, including Scott Stamphley.

That was when Ms. Myers came over to see what was going on.

“Excuse me, girls,” Ms. Myers said to Brittany and Mary Kay, who were the only ones who weren’t at their own table. “Is there a problem here?”

“Oh, no problem, Ms. Myers,” Brittany said, in the sugary-sweet voice she only uses when grown-ups are around. “We were just telling Allie how much we’re going to miss her when she moves away.”

“Well, that’s very nice of you,” Ms. Myers said. “But I think you should go back to your seats now.”

“Of course, Ms. Myers,” Brittany said.

And the two of them flounced off, squealing things like, “Ew, she’s so
disgusting
” and “I told you! She’s practically a
boy
!”

Ms. Myers looked down at me as I held my linoleum tile and asked, “Allie? Are you all right?”

I must have looked as if I were about to start crying or something. I did feel as if I were about to, a little.

“Oh, yes,” I said, trying to smile. “I’m fine, thanks.”

“Your tile is lovely,” Ms. Myers said, about my lino tile. “Is that Marvin?”

“Yes,” I said. I could feel the tears swimming inside my eyes, fighting to come out. But I was fighting just as hard to hold them back. “Practically a boy?” How could they say that? They’d seen me do grand jetés. No boy could do that. At least, in our class.

“Well, keep up the good work,” Ms. Myers said, some of her long hair brushing my hand. Then she moved on to see what Scott Stamphley was making (a king snake eating a smaller snake eating a smaller snake, all the while
almost being run over by a Corvette, Scott’s favorite kind of car).

Over on the other side of the room, I could see Brittany and Mary Kay giggling together. I could also see Courtney Wilcox staring at them all jealously, wishing she were over there giggling with them.

They were probably giggling about my book of rules. Was it really that weird that I kept a book of rules? Rules are important. If it weren’t for rules, no one would know how to act at all.

And then the world would just be full of Brittany Hausers. And who would want
that
?

I wasn’t going to give up writing in my book of rules just because Brittany and Mary Kay thought it was weird. I was going to keep on writing in it.

Maybe I just wouldn’t tell any more people about it. Like my new best friend, whoever she was going to be. Sometimes it’s better just to keep things to yourself.

That’s a rule.

That night after school, Mom and Dad said that Mrs. Klinghoffer had called and told them that she’d sold our house for more than the asking price.

So it was over. My war on moving, I mean. I had lost.

They had won.

Our old house doesn’t belong to us anymore. It belongs to some new people. Some people I’ve never even met before.

My old room doesn’t belong to me anymore, either. In fact, I shouldn’t be calling it “my old room.” Technically, it’s someone else’s new room.

Just like Mary Kay is someone else’s new best friend.

To celebrate selling our old house—as if this were something to celebrate—Mom and Dad took us to Lung Chung, the fanciest restaurant in our town, even though we hardly ever get to go out to eat, because when we do, we usually misbehave so badly. By “we” I mean Mark and Kevin. Last time we went to Waffle House, Mark and Kevin permanently jammed the gum-ball machine in the entranceway when Mom and Dad weren’t looking by pouring all of the sugar from the packets at our table into the slot where the penny is supposed to go.

And that takes a lot of sugar.

After that, we were asked by the manager of Waffle House never to dine there again.

On the way to Lung Chung, Dad gave Mark and Kevin a talk. The talk went, “If you do anything at Lung Chung to embarrass your mother, we will never take you out to eat again, and you will have to stay home with one of my graduate students while Allie, your mother, and I go out.”

You could tell this really scared Mark and Kevin. Because Dad’s grad students aren’t fun babysitters like
Uncle Jay, who stays with us sometimes when Mom and Dad go out. Dad’s grad students only know about computers, so they don’t know how to do fun things like make microwave brownie soup or slide down the stairs on mattresses. They just know how to write long computer programs, which is what they do while they babysit us. We are supposed to Entertain Ourselves and Not Kill One Another while Dad’s grad students work. It’s
very
boring.

Mark and Kevin promised to be good.

I noticed Dad didn’t make
me
promise to be good. But that was because he knew Mom was holding the promise of the kitten over my head to make me good. If I wasn’t good, I just wouldn’t get the kitten.

This was a mistake on Dad’s part, if you ask me.

When we got to the restaurant, I checked the plastic pond out front first thing to see if the turtle for turtle soup was still there. It was, sitting on its little island, looking sad and lonely. No one, I was relieved to see, in our town had ordered turtle soup.

But you never knew. Maybe someone would order
turtle soup tonight. The poor turtle had no idea that this very night might be its last night on earth.

This was possibly the saddest thing I had ever seen.

Uncle Jay met us at the restaurant. When he got to our table, he said, “Congratulations!” to my mom and dad, and hugged them. He gave Mark and Kevin high fives. He tried to give me a high five, too, but I told him I wasn’t really in the mood.

“What’s the matter with Allie?” Uncle Jay wanted to know as he unwound his scarf and sat down.

“Allie’s not as enthusiastic about the move as some of the rest of us,” Mom said.

“That’s the understatement of the year,” I grumbled.

“Why don’t you want to move, Allie?” Uncle Jay wanted to know. “Moving’s exciting! You’ll be starting a whole new life in a whole new place! You could change your personality—heck, you could even change your name, if you wanted to. Who wouldn’t want that?”

“I’m totally happy with my old life,” I pointed out. “In the old place.”

Which wasn’t strictly true, considering what had
happened only that afternoon in the art room—you know, with my having lost my best friend, and the small matter of the truth about my book of rules having been brutally revealed to the whole of the fourth grade.

But I saw no reason to share this over egg drop soup with Uncle Jay.

“Someone,” Mom went on, “let Allie watch a certain movie featuring a certain zombie appendage. And ever since then, her interest in living in a certain Victorian house has been on the wane.”

“Oh,” Uncle Jay said.

“Yeah,” Mom said. “Thanks for that, by the way.”

“Allie,” Uncle Jay said. “You know that movie about the zombie hand was made up, right?”

“Duh,” I said.

“Allie,” Dad said. “Don’t say duh.”

“Sorry,” I said.

“Well, then, what’s the problem, Allie?” Uncle Jay wanted to know.

Only I couldn’t tell Uncle Jay what the problem was.
Because the problem just seemed way too big to get into over dinner.

Besides, by that time the waitress had come over to our table with our sweet-and-sour pork.

Except I couldn’t seem to eat mine. I was just too sad. I couldn’t stop thinking about how our beautiful house belonged to someone else now.

And I couldn’t stop thinking about how Brittany and Mary Kay had made fun of me for keeping a book of rules.

And I couldn’t stop thinking about how that turtle had no idea that any minute he—or she—but he looked like a he—could become soup. Every time a new person came into the restaurant, I kept wondering if they were going to be the person to order turtle soup and eat him.

In a way, I felt like I knew what it was like to be that turtle. Not that anybody was going to eat me. I mean, yet.

But like the turtle, I didn’t have any say over what was happening to me. I mean, that turtle didn’t have any choice over whether he got to live in a fake pond in a
restaurant, waiting to be eaten, or live in the park across the street where there was a
real
pond, where other turtles lived.

Just like me. I mean, sure, things weren’t working out really great right now at my old school.

But shouldn’t I have the
choice
of whether or not I wanted to go to this new school? It wasn’t fair that no one was even letting me have a
say
in the matter.

Just like that turtle.

That was the exact moment that I knew what I had to do. I didn’t want to, but really, what choice did I have? When you finally figure out what the right thing to do is, you have to do it, even if you don’t want to.

That’s a rule.

I said, “Excuse me,” interrupting Uncle Jay’s story about his new girlfriend, Harmony, whom he wanted us all to meet really soon because, besides being his journalism class’s star student who frequently got her stories printed up in our local paper’s feature section, she was also a really excellent cook and foot massager.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” I said.

“Well, honey,” Mom said, “you know where it is. You don’t have to announce it. Just go.”

I put my napkin beside my plate of mostly untouched sweet-and-sour pork (which is sort of reddish in color but really it’s orangish pink, so it’s okay to eat) and went to the bathroom.

Once I was finished in there and had washed my hands, I opened the door a crack and peeked out. The ladies’ room was located directly across from the plastic pond, which was right across from the hostess stand. As I watched, some people came into the restaurant, and the hostess, in her shiny Chinese dress, picked up some menus and led them to their table, all smiling and happy.

Now was my chance! No one was looking.

Quick as I could, I darted out of the ladies’ room and went to stand by the plastic pond.

I had almost done it! All I had to do was reach down inside, grab the turtle, then run outside and let him go!

Then the Lung Chung turtle would be free!

And so, in a way, would I.

But just as I had grabbed the sides of the turtle’s slimy, hard shell, I heard footsteps. Someone was coming!

Holding my breath, I lifted up the turtle. He was heavier than I had thought.

Also, stinkier.

That’s when I realized he was a snapping turtle. I didn’t know they made soup out of
snapping
turtles. I only realized this when the turtle turned his head around and, wondering what was going on, lazily snapped his jaw in my direction.

I couldn’t believe it. Here I was trying to save his life, and the Lung Chung turtle tried to bite me! Not like he really meant it—I guess he’d been around the Lung Chung waiters and waitresses so much he was practically tame.

But still. Thanks a lot, turtle.

Trying to keep the turtle as far from my body as I could so his teeth—do turtles even have teeth? If I was going to be a veterinarian, I was going to have to learn these things—couldn’t sink into me, I ran for the restaurant’s front door.

But too late! Because I heard someone call my name, and spun around just in time to see Uncle Jay as he turned the corner on his way to the men’s room. When he saw what I had in my hands, he got a very surprised look on his face.

“Allie?” he said. “What on earth are you doing with the Lung Chung turtle?”

“I’m setting this turtle free,” I said. “Don’t tell anyone!”

“But…” Uncle Jay started to say.

And that’s when I saw her. The hostess, coming up behind Uncle Jay. She was smiling all nice—

Until she noticed me.

And what I was doing.

Then her smile disappeared. And she yelled, “Little girl! Where do you think you’re going with that turtle?”

That’s when I ran through the restaurant’s front door for all I was worth.