The Kindness Club

by Courtney Sheinmel

  “A school project, or a project just for fun?” Anabelle asked.

  “A school one,” Lucy said.

  “Just checking,” Anabelle said. “You know what Theo does in his spare time? Reads science textbooks.”

  “You should read a science textbook,” Theo mumbled.

  Anabelle went on ignoring him. “Did either of you run track in fourth grade?” she asked Lucy and me.

  We shook our heads.

  “Theo didn’t, either,” Anabelle said. “He says he’s allergic to running. Which isn’t even possible. Plus, our parents were both on the track team when they were young. That’s how they met—at a track meet in high school.”

  “According to Gregor Mendel’s genetics research, it’s possible I inherited two recessive non-running-genes,” Theo said. “It’s the same reason that Mr. Dibble’s kids have blue eyes, if both he and his wife have brown ones.”

  Anabelle waved her hand at him. “Yeah, yeah. I gotta go. Mom needs me in the clinic. I’ll see you guys later.”

  “’Bye,” Lucy and I called, as Anabelle swung out the backdoor.

  “Let’s get back to work,” Theo said.

  “Do you mind if I get some water first?” I asked.

  “Go ahead,” Theo said. “The cups are in the cabinet above the sink.”

  I found a pitcher of water in the fridge and poured three glasses. “There you go again!” Lucy exclaimed, as I set a glass down in front of her.

  “What?”

  “You did something nice.”

  “I thought you might be thirsty,” I said.

  “But you do nice things all the time,” she said. “Don’t you see?”

  I looked over at Theo, hoping he’d insist we start talking about the project again. We were dangerously close to the subject of the It Girls being not nice. But he was scribbling in his notebook, flipping a page in his textbook, and scribbling some more.

  “What even makes you think of all the nice things you do?” Lucy asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “It’s easy to do and it makes people happy, and that makes me happy, too.”

  “It’s the serotonin,” Theo said, barely looking up. “I just read about it. The more of it your body releases, the happier you feel. And serotonin is released when you act kind, and when someone is kind to you.” He pushed his textbook toward us, and flipped back a few pages. “See?”

  Lucy and I looked where he was pointing:

  Serotonin is a chemical found in the human body. Researchers believe it is responsible for maintaining a person’s mood balance. Numerous studies have shown that receiving, giving, or even witnessing acts of kindness increases the production of serotonin, thereby giving the body a mood-boost.

  “Does this mean if I do kind things for the It Girls, they’d be more likely to let me into their club for real?” I asked.

  “That’s a good hypothesis,” Theo said.

  “Hey!” Lucy said. “We should do this for our project!”

  “Oh, no,” I said. “I don’t mind being kind to the It Girls, but I don’t want to do it for our project.” Certainly Monroe would think telling the class about how I’d tried to get into the It Girls was the exact opposite of cool. “Besides, it’s not science.”

  “It involves the brain, so that’s biology,” Theo said. “And human behavior, which is behavioral science.”

  “You see!” Lucy said.

  “But how will we track the sero—how do you say it?” I asked.

  “Serotonin,” Theo said. “We’d probably need to have access to an MRI machine to know their levels before and after, but if we simply monitor behavior, I bet we can draw some pretty accurate conclusions.”

  “It doesn’t sound like a big enough scientific discovery,” I said. “Like the kind that could go global.”

  “If it turned them nice, it would be good for our whole school,” Lucy said. “That’s almost just as good. Some kids are even afraid of them.”

  “I’m not,” Theo said.

  “I’m not, either,” Lucy said. “But some kids are.”

  I looked between Lucy and Theo, desperately trying to think up reasons why it was a bad idea. “I thought you didn’t even want to be in their club.”

  “I don’t,” Lucy said. “I bet Theo doesn’t, either.”

  “Not even a Planck length,” Theo said.

  “Definition, please,” Lucy said.

  “It’s the smallest possible size of anything in the universe,” Theo explained. “Around a millionth of a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a centimeter.”

  “Still, I wouldn’t mind if the It Girls were nice to me and wanted me to be in the club,” Lucy said. “That would just make things, I don’t know, better somehow. You know what I mean?”

  “Yeah,” I said softly, feeling sad for Lucy, and sad for myself, too. “I do know. But it’s called the It Girls, which means they’d never be able to invite Theo. And the thing I’m really worried about is if Monroe and the others ever found out we made up a science experiment about them being mean, I bet they’d be really upset.”

  “It would ruin your chance to get into their club,” Lucy said, and I nodded. “It would probably make things worse for all of us,” she admitted.

  “I have a solution, though,” I told her. “We could try to be nice to someone even meaner.”

  “Who?”

  “Mrs. Gallagher,” I said. “The question is what will happen if we’re kind to her. We already have the background research on the sero—sero—”

  “Serotonin,” Theo said with an eye roll.

  “Right. And our hypothesis is that it’ll make her happier, and perhaps even cause her to be kind back.”

  “How can we possibly be kind to her?” Lucy asked. “As soon as we get within twenty feet, she screams at us to get away. You heard her today. We were just on the sidewalk, which isn’t even her private property. It’s not like you can get close enough to give her a pencil case.”

  “She probably wouldn’t want a pencil case anyway,” I said. “But we could think of other things. Maybe it won’t be a global scientific discovery, but it’ll affect everyone who walks past her house.” I turned to Theo. “That’s big enough, right?”

  “I suppose so,” he said.

  “Lucy?”

  “Can it be our club?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I’m not sure if I’ll have time for another club if I get into the It Girls.”

  “And I definitely can’t take time away from my studies for extracurricular activities,” Theo added.

  “But you have time for this project,” Lucy said. “So maybe we start the club just for now. Mr. Dibble said creativity got extra points, and I think a club is creative.”

  “Me too,” I said.

  “Theo?” Lucy asked.

  “Okay, fine,” he said.

  “Great! Now all we need is a club name.”

  “Easy,” Theo told her. “The Science Project Club.”

  Lucy shook her head. “That’s about as boring as khaki pants.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with khakis,” Theo said.

  “I read a book this summer that said wearing khakis tells the world you plan on paying your taxes when you grow up,” I said. “Which is a probably a good thing.”

  “It’s definitely a good thing,” Theo said. “The alternative is illegal.”

  “But you can wear colors and still pay your taxes,” Lucy said. “Besides, when you look better, you feel better.”

  “I look fine,” Theo said. “I feel fine.”

  I’d started writing again, without even thinking. Lucy leaned across to look at the page. “What’s that?”

  “What? Oh, nothing.”

  “No, that’s it!” Lucy said. “Theo, I know you’re nearly a genius, but Chloe is an actual one!” She grabbed my notebook and held it up to show him: The Kindness Club.

  CHAPTER 11

  That night Mom brought home takeout from A Sli
ce of Heaven, the pizza place near Regan Halliday’s office. “Wow,” I told her, as I went for a second slice. “This may be the best pizza I’ve ever had.”

  “Even better than the pizza you make with Dad?” she asked.

  The bite I’d just taken felt stuck in my throat. I wasn’t the one who’d brought Dad into the conversation, but I still felt awkward about it. “We didn’t make pizza last weekend,” I told her.

  “Oh, yeah?” she said. Mom eats pizza with a fork and a knife—don’t ask me why—and she’d set her utensils down on the edge of her plate. “Why not?”

  “He had some friends over,” I said, trying to keep things breezy. “One of them has something called Celia disease.”

  “I think you mean celiac,” Mom said, and I nodded. “Lori in Dad’s office has it. It wasn’t Lori over last weekend, was it?”

  “No,” I said. “It was a new friend.”

  “Who?”

  “This girl and her mom,” I said. The bite still seemed caught in my throat, and I took a swig of juice to get rid of the feeling. “The girl has it.”

  “Oh?” Mom said. “What’s her name?”

  “Sage.”

  “And her mom’s name?”

  “Gloria.”

  “What about her dad?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “They’re divorced.” The phantom piece of pizza stuck in my throat felt like it was growing.

  “What’s their last name?”

  I cleared my throat and shook my head. “I don’t really remember,” I said. Even though I did remember: Tofsky. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Dad thinks she can replace Lia, but I don’t even like her.”

  The corners of Mom’s mouth turned up in the tiniest of smiles. “I hear you,” she said. I lifted the slice to my mouth to take another bite. A silence settled between Mom and me. The only sounds were her fork and knife gently clinking on her plate.

  “I am making new friends, though,” I said, after a couple minutes passed. “Here in Braywood, I mean.”

  “Right,” she said. “Did you have fun today at Theo’s?”

  “I was just doing a science project with him, and this other girl, Lucy. But the friends I was talking about are Monroe, Anjali, and Rachael. You know, the ones who were here on Tuesday?” Mom nodded. “I think Monroe is my best friend of all of them. Not that she’s replacing Lia. I’ve only known Monroe since last Friday, and I’ve known Lia for half my life. You can’t make a new best friend in a week.”

  “Of course not,” Mom said.

  “Of course not,” I repeated. “May I be excused to call her?”

  “Sure. I’ll be in the living room, arranging the bookshelves.”

  “Didn’t you do that already?”

  “Only twice,” Mom said. “I think the third time will be the charm.”

  I rinsed my plate in the sink and headed upstairs to call Lia. When she answered, she didn’t even say hello. She just said, “Hey, Chlo, I’m with Trissa and Bianca in the middle of an A-Team meeting. I’ll call you back, okay?”

  “Okay,” I said. There was a click as I was getting the word out, and I knew she’d hung up without saying good-bye. I called Monroe next. She wasn’t home, but at least I got to leave a message, which is more civilized than practically getting hung up on.

  I looked over at Captain Carrot. “You know, the funny thing is,” I said, “sometimes I think it’s easier to be Monroe’s friend, because she doesn’t know me the way Lia does. It’s like . . . it’s like when you have new notebooks on the first day of school, and everything is fresh, and you could be anyone.”

  Cappy hopped from the bottom of his cage to the top.

  “I’m doing this science project in school,” I told him. “To see if being kind to someone makes them happier. Officially we’re experimenting on Lucy’s neighbor, because I didn’t want to experiment on the It Girls. But unofficially, I’m going to try it out on them, too. I’m going to be as kind as I can to them, so they want me in the club.”

  Cappy moved back down to the bottom, and started chewing on his toy carrot. “You work on that,” I told him. “I’m going to use Mom’s laptop to do some work of my own.”

  Mom’s laptop was on the bed in her room. I sat down and pulled it into my lap. I totally meant to look up ways to be kind to Mrs. Gallagher, but I was still thinking about Monroe, and how being kind to her and the It Girls might make them be kind back to me. Maybe that had been the thing that kept me from the A-Team, besides just the letters in my name. I’d never been unkind to Lia or Bianca, as far as I could remember. But before today, I hadn’t ever thought about how there were kind things to do, to get people to do kind things back. It was too late now, since I didn’t go to school with them anymore. But I had a fresh chance with Monroe and the It Girls, to make things work out right.

  “Ways to be kind to new friends,” I typed into the Google search. A bunch of websites popped up, and I scrolled through to see the words of advice: Say hello and smile, one link said. Well, of course. I’d always done that. It was basic human interaction. Ask people about themselves to show you’re interested in what they have to say, said another. I’d done that, too. Give compliments, another website recommended. I sat back and thought—had I given any compliments? Yes, I had! When I first met Monroe, I told her I’d liked her bracelet. I was three for three.

  Of course, I could always give more compliments. As soon as Monroe called back, that’s what I’d do. In the meantime, I wanted to come up with more kindnesses—better kindnesses. I typed in another search: “special acts of kindnesses.” More websites popped up, and I continued to click through.

  Pay the toll for the car behind you on the highway. Since neither Monroe nor I could drive, let alone had our own cars, that one wasn’t too practical. Okay, next. Throw someone a surprise birthday party. Hmm. I didn’t know when Monroe’s birthday was. I supposed it would be easy enough to find out, but chances were, it wasn’t before she and the It Girls would be taking the club vote. Dedicate a star to someone. That was certainly kind and special, and probably really expensive.

  I clicked another link that promised wise words on kindness, and a quote popped up: “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” According to the website, a guy named Plato said it. I didn’t know who Plato was, and besides that, Monroe wasn’t fighting any battles, so it didn’t help anyway. I closed the Internet browser and I hoped the idea for the right kind of kindness would come to me. Mom kept a pad and a pen on her bedside table, and I grabbed them to jot down an affirmation:

  When the time comes, I always know the right ways to be kind.

  And then I wrote another affirmation, the main one:

  I have the best friends in my new school.

  CHAPTER 12

  Lucy called on Sunday morning. “How was your brother?” I asked. When we’d left Theo’s late Friday afternoon, he’d wanted to make a plan for the very next day to start our Kindness Club project, but Lucy said she couldn’t, because she and her family would be visiting Oliver at his college on Saturday. Theo had grudgingly agreed our work could wait till Sunday.

  “It was totally great until it was time to say good-bye,” Lucy told me. “When I have kids, I hope they’re twins so they can go to college at the exact same time and not miss each other.” There were muffled voices in the background, and Lucy said, “Sorry, Grandma.”

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Oh, nothing,” she said. “My grandma just said she’d be too lonely if Ollie and I were away at the same time. But I still wish I were! He goes to the perfect school for me. You pick whatever classes you want to take. Ollie isn’t taking any math, and he doesn’t have to be anywhere before 10:00 a.m. Plus all the students I met loved what I was wearing.”

  “What were you wearing?”

  “A shirt and jeans,” she said. “I stitched the shirt together from an old blanket in Ollie’s room, and I belted the jeans with one of his ties. I’m wearing the same thing toda
y, except a different shirt and a different tie. Plus cat ears because his school mascot is a saber-toothed tiger, and that’s in the cat family.”

  “That’s really creative,” I said.

  “Thanks,” Lucy said, sounding pleased. “It’s garden-appropriate for Mrs. Gallagher’s, too—as long as it’s okay with you.”

  “Of course it’s okay with me,” I said. “You can wear whatever you want.”

  “I meant if gardening is okay with you,” Lucy said. “I called Theo right before I called you, and we thought fixing up Mrs. Gallagher’s garden would be a good way to be kind. Unless you have a better idea to try.”

  I thought about the research I’d done on Friday night, and a bit on Saturday, too. None of the kindnesses I’d found online seemed any better, and of course most of them were things we couldn’t do at all. “I think fixing her garden is a really good idea—maybe even the best one,” I told Lucy.

  “Thanks,” she said. “Theo said he’d meet at my house at three o’clock. I’ll have my dad stop at a plant store on the way home, so I can pick up some flowers. Any favorite kinds?”

  “Yellow flowers mean friendship,” I told her, as I pictured Mrs. Gallagher’s yard in my head, with all the old sticks and leaves lying around. “But I think we should probably clean things up before we plant anything. We’ll need a bunch of garbage bags. I can get some.”

  “We have plenty of those at home,” Lucy said.

  “Okay, cool. So we’ll go over, and ring her bell, and—”

  “I don’t think we should ring her bell,” Lucy said. “It’s better if it’s a surprise. Plus, then we won’t have to talk to her before everything is all fixed up and she gets happier. You heard how she yells, and that was when we were just on the sidewalk. Ollie rang her doorbell once, when he accidentally kicked a soccer ball into her backyard, and before he even told her why he was there, she said she was going to call the police on him—and on my dad for letting him play unsupervised. He never did get the ball back.”

  “What if she sees us there and calls the police?”

  “We’ll just have to be extra extra quiet about it. We won’t even speak to each other when we’re there.” There were more muffled sounds, and Lucy said, “Don’t worry, Dad. We’re not bothering Mrs. Gallagher. We’re being kind to her.”