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

“Why did your mom say all that stuff? About our dad?” I asked.

Dad had royally screwed up, and I was mad at him, too, but it was kind of weird how, when an outsider said something against Dad, I wanted to protect him. He was still my family.

“I don’t know.” Tony bit his lip and looked out into the rain, as though the answer was there. “Who knows why she does anything.”

“Doesn’t she want you to be happy?” I heard my voice getting high and squeaky. “To have a house and food and a school you’re doing good at? I mean, if she didn’t want you to be with your dad, why didn’t she just keep pretending he didn’t exist?”

“I know! That’s what I asked her! It’s all so dumb.”

The patter of raindrops suddenly turned to the ping of ice pellets. Tony tilted his head and yelled, “This sucks!” into the sky, and I didn’t know if he was talking about his situation or the weather, or both.

We watched the little pellets hit the sidewalk and bounce. “Let’s keep walking,” I said, and we set off. I didn’t know about Tony, but this McDonald’s was now the last place I wanted to be.

After we’d gone half a block, I asked, “What did she say, when you asked her that?”

“She said she didn’t have any other choice, that she didn’t want me to live with a stranger, and then she started crying, and the social worker told me to give her a few days and we could talk on the phone, and then they left.”

“Kind of ironic, though. I mean, you are living with strangers,” I said, and laughed, trying to lighten the mood. “You said so yourself.”

“That’s not what she meant,” he said, and I could tell he was bitter at her, not me. “And you know it. She meant living with people I wasn’t related to, a foster family.”

We stopped at a light, and Tony pressed the button for the walk signal. Then he pressed it again, press, press, press, harder and harder.

“Tony,” I said. But he kept doing it, and then he kicked the pole.

“Tony,” I said again. There were raindrops rolling down Tony’s skin, but there was something just under his skin, too, something I couldn’t see but could only feel.

Finally, he stopped and shoved his hands into his pockets, and we just waited, huddled under the umbrella, watching people drive by in their toasty-warm cars. The stickman flashed on, and we hurried across.

I felt something cold against my ankle and realized my pant legs were soaked. I looked at Tony’s and saw his were, too. At least my umbrella was keeping the sleet off our heads.

“Come on,” I said, striding more quickly toward home. The important thing was to keep moving.

Dirty Little Secret

In the morning, when I tugged back my curtain, I couldn’t see any sign of the freaky ice storm. The sun was shining, and it looked like it would be a beautiful fall day. I heard Mittens purring, but the sound wasn’t coming from the foot of my bed.

“What the—!”

Tony! He was sitting at my desk, wearing Mittens around his neck. He had on my dad’s old blue plaid pajamas, as usual, the cuffs rolled up, and he was bent over his math workbook, scribbling with my favorite pencil, the one with the green and yellow hearts all over it.

I certainly didn’t appreciate having my personal space invaded, especially so early in the morning. Couldn’t a person expect to get a good night’s sleep in her own room without being scared to death when she wakes up?

“What are you doing here?” I asked. Then I noticed the nest of blankets and a pillow by my door, the same ones that had been on the sofa bed. “Why aren’t you downstairs in your bed?” I asked.

“It’s not a bed. It’s a couch,” he said.

“It’s a sofa bed, if you want to be technical.”

“Well, I don’t want to be technical, and it’s not very comfortable,” he said, kind of snotty. He flipped his workbook closed. Then he whispered, with a glance toward the hall, “My bed is being occupied by your grandma.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” I said. I mean, I knew what it literally meant, but I didn’t like his tone. It was too early to be having an argument. I’d barely woken up. What was with Tony this morning?

“Maybe you should go shoot some hoops,” I suggested.

I took my purple brush from the shelf attached to my loft and started tugging out the mess of tangles that piled up every night.

“No,” Tony said, without looking up.

“Fine,” I said, “suit yourself.”

He just sat there at my desk, Mittens around his neck, looking up at me like he was waiting for me to come down from my loft and fight him or something, though it was hard for him to look tough with a cat around his neck.

My nose twitched. I noticed his duffel bag had somehow found its way into my room. That thing smelled like old socks.

“Why are you acting so cranky?” I said. “And why don’t you fold your clothes and put them in a drawer?” I added.

“Oh, and where would I find this magical drawer?” he shot back. He stood up quickly, which made Mittens leap down.

“Mittens!” I called, but Tony scooped her up and held her like a baby in the crook of his arm.

“Don’t you worry,” he said to Mittens, in this syrupy voice, “I’ll just keep carrying everything around with me, like a snail, carrying its house on its back.” He started wadding up the blankets in one hand, still holding Mittens in his arm.

“She doesn’t like that,” I said, though she actually seemed to like it very much. She even had her tongue sticking out a little, which she only did when she was relaxed.

“Yes she does.”

Ugh, he was so aggravating. Was this what it was like to