The Rule of Threes - Marcy Campbell (the little red hen read aloud .txt) 📗

Or had Tony put her around his neck like I did? How would he even know to do that? As I was standing there, wondering if I should grab Mittens or not, I remembered everything Dad had told me yesterday. I remembered the DNA test and realized that if Tony was my father’s son, then he and I of course were bound to share some of the same traits. I just didn’t want to think about that. And it’s not like wearing a cat around your neck was some kind of inherited trait, like curly hair or brown eyes.

Tony stirred, and I quickly backed away from the room. I went down to the kitchen to pour myself a huge bowl of cereal, making up for the dinner I’d missed. From behind me came Mittens’s “Meowllll.” She leapt up onto the counter.

A few minutes later, I heard footsteps, and then Tony appeared in the doorway, rubbing his eyes. Those were definitely my dad’s old pajamas, buttoned wrong, just like my dad did sometimes. That wasn’t an inherited trait, was it? Although it was fairly dark in the kitchen, there was the glow of the clock on the stove, and the streetlights outside. It was enough light for me to notice that Tony’s nose, the dimple in his chin, his hair . . . they all belonged to my dad. Unmistakably.

I focused intently on my cereal. What do you say to a half-brother you didn’t know you had until a few hours ago, when you meet in the dark kitchen at 3 a.m. while eating your Lucky Charms?

Tony broke the silence. “Hey,” he said, in a voice that was softer than I expected.

“Hey,” I answered.

He blinked a few times. Then he reached out to pet Mittens, who was trying to figure out a way to score some milk from my bowl.

“Your cat’s pretty cool,” he said. His voice, too, was like my dad’s, only higher and softer. “I always wanted a cat, but my mom wouldn’t get one.”

“Why not?” I asked. “Is she allergic?”

“No. It’s just that a cat’s one more thing to take care of, you know?”

I nodded. My mom had said the same thing when we were deciding whether or not to take Mittens to the shelter or keep her after we found her eating out of that trash can. I wondered what Tony’s mom was like, what she looked like, whether she let Tony stay up late watching R-rated movies. I wondered what it would be like to have a mom who was sick in that kind of way. The sickest my mom ever got was when she had the flu for a week.

The sound of my chewing echoed in my head. It sounded like I was munching on rocks instead of marshmallow moons.

“Can I have some of that? I’m still pretty hungry,” Tony said.

“Oh, yeah, sure,” I said. I guessed I should have offered, but you couldn’t expect much from a person at three in the morning.

He looked around.

“Oh, the bowls are in there.” I pointed to a cabinet. “Spoons are in the drawer by the stove.”

“Thanks,” Tony said.

He poured his cereal and milk, walked around the counter to where the stools were. There were three, of course, because there were three of us in this house, and four would have looked wrong, and wouldn’t have fit anyway. I’d picked them out myself when Mom said the kitchen was looking “tired.” They were steel, with a bright yellow enamel finish. Everyone loved them. Tony sat on the end, leaving an empty stool between us.

He ate with his head nearly touching his bowl, his spoon flying, drops of milk landing on the counter. I remembered Dad saying he had showed up to school hungry and not looking great.

Bircher Middle School, he’d said, which was on the other side of town. It was a bigger school than Long Branch, named after some dead guy whose farm used to stand in the spot where the school was built. But the name always made me think of the tree, of a birch, and that made our schools seem somehow connected—Bircher and Long Branch—though in reality, the schools weren’t connected at all. I wasn’t sure I knew anyone who went to Bircher, until now.

Tony was slurping his milk, stained pink from the artificially colored marshmallows. It was kind of gross, so I looked away. It was so weird to know I’d had a half-brother living on the other side of town this whole time. Could we have seen each other, and not even realized it? Been in line for popcorn next to each other at the theater? Waited for the diving board at the city pool?

He poured another bowl of Lucky Charms. Little did he know, this was a special treat. My mom usually bought Cheerios and Wheaties, which she called “The Breakfast of Champions,” and other stuff with hardly any sugar. But once in a while, she caved. Tony would find that out soon enough, maybe. We might get lucky. Maybe while Tony was here, Mom would keep the sugar flowing.

I heard a car driving slowly down our street. It was too early for the newspaper delivery guy. I held my breath while it passed, thinking, hoping, actually, it might turn into our driveway, and someone would hop out to collect Tony, whisking him away into the night before my parents even woke up. But then I looked at Tony gulping his food and felt bad for even thinking it.

Mittens licked my bowl. I could hear her little tongue lapping the milk. It was a comforting sound. Everything was going to be all right, I told myself. This was only temporary. Once Tony’s mom got better, he’d be on his way, and maybe we’d see each other for the holidays. I’d give him a nice sweater or a video game.

I played with a strand of my hair. No, that scenario seemed too easy. Nothing was ever that easy. Mittens pawed my spoon aside with a loud