The Kindness Club

by Courtney Sheinmel

  But then I turned back to Lucy and Theo, and I realized that I belonged with them. Even if Lucy had a style unlike anyone else’s. And even if Theo had no style, and was a bit obsessed with his work. They were still the kindest people I’d met since moving to Braywood, and when it came to having things in common, kindness was what mattered most. I’d never choose to be in a club they weren’t allowed to be part of.

  That afternoon, when we walked into the science lab, Mr. Dibble was not standing in the front of the room. Instead there was an exceptionally tall woman in a lab coat. A name was written on the board behind her: Dr. Eleanor Whelan. The name sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place it.

  We all filed in, and she cleared her throat to quiet us all down, and rapped the board with a long ruler. “I am Dr. Eleanor Whelan,” she said. “I’ll be taking over this class, and Mr. Dibble will return exclusively to his duties as principal. I went to Harvard and Yale, where I earned degrees in both biology and chemistry, and I helped author that book you all have on your desks. So now you know a bit about me. Please open your textbooks to page thirty-six.”

  There were the sounds of kids swiping through pages to get to the right one. Down the table, Theo had his hand raised. “Excuse me, Dr. Whelan?” he said.

  “Yes?”

  “Mr. Dibble had assigned special projects to us.”

  There was a chorus of groans, and someone said, “Don’t tell her.”

  But Theo went on: “Each table of students was its own group,” he said. “And every week, a different group had to give a report.”

  “I see,” Dr. Whelan said. “Well, that’s not on my syllabus. So you won’t have to worry about that this semester.”

  There were whoops from the other kids.

  “Now to page thirty-six—”

  “But Lucy, Chloe, and I already did our report!” Theo said.

  “Teacher’s pets,” a voice called. Monroe’s voice.

  “That’s enough,” Dr. Whelan said. I honestly didn’t know if she was speaking to Theo, or speaking to Monroe. But it didn’t matter. The three of us looked at each other sadly. And then we opened up our textbooks to page thirty-six, because we didn’t have any other choice.

  At the end of the day, Theo suggested we take things up with Mr. Dibble himself. After all, Theo maintained, it wasn’t fair for us to be in the exact same position as the other kids in class, when the three of us were the only ones who’d had to do extra work. At the very least, Dr. Whelan should excuse us from a quiz, or give us bonus points.

  So we headed to the principal’s office. The receptionist pressed a button on her phone to call to Mr. Dibble. He must’ve told her to send us in, because that’s what she did.

  Mr. Dibble stood up and gave us each a fist bump. There were piles of paper all over his desk, on the windowsill, and on every chair except for the one Mr. Dibble had been sitting in. “Sorry I can’t offer you seats,” he said. “I’ve been buried these past couple weeks, performing double duty as a principal and science teacher. It’s a good thing I just gave up one of those jobs.”

  “That’s actually what we wanted to talk to you about,” Theo said. “You picked us as the first group to give a report.”

  “Ah, yes, I remember,” Mr. Dibble said, in a voice that made me wonder if he really did. “Well, you’re off the hook now.”

  “But we finished it!” Theo said. “It was due today! We told Dr. Whelan about it, and she didn’t seem to care.”

  Mr. Dibble sank back down into his seat. “I’m sorry, kids,” he said. “Dr. Whelan insisted on using her own syllabus as a condition for coming here, and we had to say yes. She’s an excellent teacher—one of the very best in the business.”

  “She wrote our textbook,” Lucy said.

  “Yes,” Mr. Dibble said. “We were lucky to get her—especially at this late date. But I will try to think of a way to make it up to you.”

  A breeze came through the open window, sending a bunch of the piles on Mr. Dibble’s desk down to the floor. We bent to help him pick them up. He thanked us, and we started to walk out, but he called us back. “Wait, you three. Don’t I at least get to know what the project was?”

  Theo pulled our report out of his backpack. It was all typed up, with a very professional-looking cover. “You said we could be creative,” Theo reminded him, as Mr. Dibble began to flip through the pages.

  “That’s right,” Mr. Dibble said. “I give points for creativity. What made you think of this?”

  “Well, Chloe always does kind things,” Lucy said. “And we wondered what effect that would have on people who aren’t. That was the beginning of it.”

  “Very interesting,” Mr. Dibble said.

  “It didn’t work on everyone,” I admitted. “There was one girl . . . well, I used to think being kind was easy. I actually didn’t think about it that much. And sometimes that’s what it’s like. The kind thing is there, right in front of you, and you do it. But sometimes it’s hard to figure out. Sometimes you have to be kind when you don’t want to be, and sometimes people don’t even want your kindness. Sometimes it doesn’t change them at all.”

  “That may be true,” Mr. Dibble said. “But keep in mind, just because you didn’t see the effects of your kindness in the case of that girl, doesn’t mean it didn’t change her. Maybe you encouraged her to be kind to someone else down the line, and on and on. Before you know it, you have changed the lives of people you’ll never even know. I remember learning about the butterfly effect when I was just about your age.”

  “Theo told us about it,” Lucy said. “If a butterfly flaps its wings, it can cause a hurricane on the other side of the world.”

  “Exactly,” Mr. Dibble said. “It’s not always a storm that’s set into motion when we act. Think of the things you set into motion with this project—the positive side of the butterfly effect. The neighbor in your report—what do you think she will do now that you’ve been kind to her?”

  Lucy shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said.

  “We can’t know,” Theo said. “That’s the part of the butterfly effect that’s impossible to measure.”

  “True,” Mr. Dibble said. “But I suspect ‘Mrs. G,’ as you call her here, will find opportunities for kindness where she wouldn’t have in the past, and perhaps the people she is kind to will do the same. It reminds me of Newton’s third law of motion.”

  “There’s another one?” Lucy asked.

  “Wow, Newton was a busy guy.”

  “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction,” Theo supplied.

  “And in this case, you put the actions in motion,” Mr. Dibble said. “I knew you kids would come up with the right questions to ask. And I knew you’d make important discoveries, the ripples of which could go global.”

  “Did you hear that, Theo?” Lucy asked.

  “I did,” he said.

  “You know,” Mr. Dibble went on, “part of the reason I wanted to open the classroom up to this kind of project was because of the lessons I remember from being your age. Not just the ones I learned from my teachers, but the ones I learned from the kids, too. Trust me, when you’re my age, you will remember this. May I keep your report?”

  “Of course,” Theo told him.

  He put it on his desk. “This is one for the pile that I’m happy to have. Excellent work, you three.”

  We said good-bye and headed out. “I have my doubts about him remembering to make it up to us,” Theo said, once we were back in the hall.

  “You want to hear something funny,” I said, and Theo nodded for me to continue. “I don’t really mind. I’m glad we did the project. Even if we don’t get credit.”

  “Me too,” Lucy said.

  “Yeah, well,” Theo said. “It’s not like it affected my GPA in a negative way, so I guess I don’t, either.”

  “I think we should keep the club,” I said. “There’s no rule that it has to end just because the project is over. We can keep being kind.”

&nbs
p; “Do you mean I should keep doing dishes for Anabelle every night?”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t think being kind means your sister always gets to have her way. She can do the dishes sometimes.”

  “Unlike Mrs. G, who can’t tend her garden because of her back,” Lucy said.

  “And unlike Monroe, who doesn’t want me to do any more kindnesses for her,” I added. “She’d probably consider it unkind if I did. But I can help you in Mrs. Gallagher’s yard. I’ll clean up her leaves when they fall.”

  “I will, too,” Theo said.

  “And maybe,” I went on, “we can help other people who can’t garden for themselves. Or if their cars are really dirty and we could wash them for free. Or we could leave quarters by vending machines . . . or . . . or . . .”

  “Or a million things!” Lucy said.

  “We should make a list,” Theo said. “And we should categorize the different kinds of kindnesses. Some take up a lot more time than others. And some take more people.”

  “I declare a meeting after school to discuss all the possibilities!” Lucy said. “What do you say?”

  “Well, I’m sort of grounded,” I told her. “I better go home right now. But can we have a makeup meeting? Like at lunch tomorrow?”

  “Absolutely,” she said.

  “See you at our table,” Theo said.

  CHAPTER 25

  I ran all the way home and called Mom before I’d even taken off my backpack. She wasn’t at her desk, but I left a message. Then I pressed the button to hang up the phone, and I planned to get a snack, and go upstairs to see Captain Carrot and get started on my homework. But before I did all that, I had one more call to make, and I dialed a phone number I’d known by heart since the first grade.

  “Hey, Chloe!” Lia said. “How’s the It Girls Club?”

  “Oh, well, actually that’s why I was calling,” I told her. “Because the thing is, I’m not in that club anymore. I’m in a different club. We started it for a science project. We wanted to see if we could change people’s brains by being nice to them.”

  “You wanted to change people’s brains?” she asked.

  “We changed the chemicals in their brains,” I said. “We didn’t have an MRI machine, so we couldn’t check for sure. But we tried some things out on a few people that weren’t so kind, and then they acted kind back.”

  “That’s cool.”

  “I know. And we decided to keep the club and keep doing kind things. We have a meeting tomorrow to discuss our next kindness projects.”

  “Is this you and Monroe?”

  “No, Monroe isn’t in this one. It’s me and two other kids, Lucy and Theo. And they’re not exactly popular. At first I didn’t think they were the right friends for me, and I was upset that I had to work with them. But I was totally wrong about them.”

  “What’s your new club called?” Lia asked.

  “The Kindness Club,” I told her.

  “That sounds cool.”

  “Do you really think so?”

  “Of course,” she said. “It’s perfect for you too. You’ve always been the kindest person I know. Last week I was walking home with Trissa, and I dropped a few pennies along the way. I told her how you taught me to do that, so other people could find lucky pennies.”

  “You talk about me?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Did Trissa think it was dumb?”

  “No! She dropped her pennies, too. And listen to this—she told me you should make sure to put them on the ground head-side up, because that makes lucky pennies even luckier.”

  “Oh, wow,” I said. “I never knew that. But I’ll bring that up at the next Kindness Club meeting.”

  The caller ID beeped in, and when I checked the screen I saw it was Mom’s office number. “Listen, that’s my mom,” I told Lia. “So I have to go. But when you come visit me, I’ll make you an honorary member of the Kindness Club, if you want.”

  “I’d love it!” she said.

  We said good-bye, and I clicked over and said, “Hi, Mom. I’m safe and sound.”

  “Oh, good. How’s everything at home?”

  “Fine. How’s everything at the office?”

  “It’s getting better,” she said. “It was a pretty good day.”

  “That’s great,” I told her.

  “Yes, it is,” she said. “How about you? Did you have fun with your friends in school?”

  A familiar line ran through my head:

  I have the best friends in my new school.

  Right then I realized why yellow flowers meant friendship, because having friends made you feel light inside. “You know what, Mom,” I said. “I totally did.”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Gratitude is another thing that increases a person’s happiness, and when it comes to this book, I am happily grateful to so many people:

  First of all, to Libba Bray, whose supreme kindness on a supremely cold day got me thinking about other kindness stories.

  To Sarah Mlynowski, Jennifer E. Smith, and Robin Wasserman, who brainstormed with me until we came up with the perfect concept—and the perfect series title.

  To my wonderful readers (and re-readers): Lindsay Aaronson, Michael Buckley, Jen Calonita, Lia Carson, Gitty Daneshvari, Julia DeVillers, Rachel Feld, Jackie Friedland, Adele Griffin, Katie Hartman, Melissa Losquadro, Wendy Mass, Jess Rothenberg, Leila Sales, Laura Schechter, Bianca Turetsky, Kai Williams, and Meg Wolitzer.

  To all my friends who have shown me incredible kindness, again and again and again. Shout-outs to my weekly (sometimes daily) sounding boards: Amy Bressler, Erin Cummings, Jennifer Daly, Regan Hofmann, Arielle Warshall Katz, Logan Levkoff, Geralyn Lucas, and Katie Stein.

  To my elementary school/middle school test-readers: Abigail, Anjali, Asher, Chase, Daniel, Lia, Livy, Maverick, Rachael, Sasha, Sara, and Tesa. And special thanks to Avery Aaronson and Chloe Brawer, for their amazing notes; and to Madden and Brody Shuffler, who skipped watching a football game to listen to me read the first draft of this book, from beginning to end. (If that’s not kindness, I don’t know what is.)

  To Laura Dail and Tamar Rydzinski, at the Laura Dail Literary Agency, Inc., for taking such good care of the things I write (and of me).

  To my editor, Mary Kate Castellani, who stuck with me through every version of Chloe’s story, until we got to the right one; to the Bloomsbury team: Eshani Agrawal, Colleen Andrews, Diane Aronson, Erica Barmash, Beth Eller, Courtney Griffin, Melissa Kavonic, Linette Kim, Cindy Loh, Donna Mark, Lizzy Mason, Catherine Onder, Emily Ritter, and Claire Stetzer; to Nancy Seitz, for her careful read of the manuscript; and to Kim Smith, for the cutest cover ever.

  Finally, always, to my father, Joel Sheinmel; to my mother, Elaine Sheinmel, and my stepdad, Phil Getter; to my sister, Alyssa Sheinmel, and my brother-in-law, JP Gravitt; to my stepsiblings, their spouses, and all of their children; and to our entire extended, wacky, wonderful family: thank you for being kind and for being mine.

  Love,

  Courtney

  Copyright © 2016 by Courtney Sheinmel

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  First published in the United States of America in November 2016

  This electronic edition published November 2016 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  by Bloomsbury Children’s Books

  www.bloomsbury.com

  Bloomsbury is a registered trademark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Bloomsbury Children’s Books, 1385 Broadway, New York, New York 10018

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Sheinmel, Courtney.

  Title: Chloe on the bright side / Courtney Sheinmel.

  Description: New York : Bloomsbury, [2016] | Series: The Kindness Club

  Summary: Rejected by the cool girls’ club, fifth-grader Chloe Silver, new in town after her parents’ divorce, forms a different type of club, with offbeat Lucy Tanaka and nerdy Theo Barnes, that tests out different acts of kindness on classmates.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2015049960 (print) | LCCN 2016011737 (e-book)

  ISBN 978-1-68119-091-4 (hardcover) ISBN 978-1-68119-092-1 (e-book)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Clubs—Fiction. | Friendship—Fiction. | Kindness—Fiction. |

  Schools—Fiction. | Moving, Household—Fiction. | Divorce—Fiction. |

  BISAC: JUVENILE FICTION / Social Issues / Friendship. | JUVENILE FICTION / School & Education.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.S54124 Ch 2016 (print) | LCC PZ7.S54124 (e-book) | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015049960

  Book design by Colleen Andrews