by Meg Cabot
Oh, who was I kidding? I was dead meat.
We got into our twin lines that Mrs Hunter required us to get into in order to march into school every morning when the bell rang. Only no bell had rung. Mrs Hunter stood in front of us, looking more disapproving than I had ever seen her.
Everyone thought it was because of Patrick and the ice. Patrick’s face was even redder than Cheyenne’s had been. Mrs Hunter looked up and down our rows to make sure everyone was there.
Then she said, in her coldest voice, ‘Follow me, please. When we get into the classroom, put your coats and hats away silently and take your seats.’
It was clear that Mrs Hunter’s fourth-grade class was in trouble. Big trouble. We followed Mrs Hunter inside the warm building, aware that all the other kids in school, back outside, were watching us and talking about us. The first bell hadn’t even rung yet, and they were all outside, still playing, while we were being brought inside to . . .
What? Be punished?
We didn’t know. But it was clear it wasn’t going to be good.
We didn’t dare speak. We just went upstairs to Room 209, took off our coats and hats and mittens and scarves and went to our desks the way Mrs Hunter had told us to. None of us said a word. Joey Fields tried to say something to me. I think it was Arf, but I gave him a warning look, and he quietened down. I don’t know about anyone else, but I felt as if what I had had for breakfast – oatmeal – was sitting like a tiny bowling ball in my stomach.
Mrs Hunter, instead of going to her desk and looking over her lesson plan for the day, like she normally did first thing, got the stool she usually read to us from, brought it to the front of the room and sat down on it.
Then she just looked at us.
She didn’t seem to like what she saw either. It was as if what she saw was a bunch of maggots crawling from a skull, like in one of Stuart Maxwell’s drawings.
‘Last night,’ Mrs Hunter began when she was sure she had our complete and undivided attention, ‘I got a very disturbing phone call from the parent of a fourth-grader.’
Oh no! She’d done it! My mom had done it! And after I’d asked her not to!
I wanted to bury my face in my hands. Only I couldn’t, because then everyone would have known the parent who’d called was my own. Instead, I tried to sit as still as possible, with my face turned straight ahead and my expression as blank as possible, as if I found what Mrs Hunter was talking about very interesting.
But inside I was freaking out.
This was it. I was going to throw up my breakfast all over my desk.
After that, I was moving to Canada.
Because I was never going to be able to show my face at Pine Heights Elementary School ever again.
I was praying, Please don’t say my name, please don’t say my name, please don’t say my name. If you ever thought I was a joy to have around the classroom, Mrs Hunter, please remember that and don’t say my name.
‘I was extremely shocked and horrified to learn,’ Mrs Hunter went on, ‘that there are children in my class who are “going with” one another.’ She said it just like that too. Like it had quotation marks around it. She even made quotation marks with her fingers in the air as she said the words “going with”. I knew what they were, because we were learning about quotation marks in English.
‘I have no idea what “going with” means,’ Mrs Hunter said, ‘but I can tell you right now that I will not condone it in my classroom. Any of you who are “going with” with anyone else in Room Two Oh Nine or any other classroom here at Pine Heights Elementary are officially broken up as of this minute.’
It was so silent in Room 209 I almost thought I could hear Mark breathing down in the playground. No one moved. No one even seemed to inhale. Everyone seemed to be afraid even to look at anyone else. Joey didn’t even growl. I’m almost positive Patrick didn’t pick his nose.
‘If I hear any more talk of boyfriends or girlfriends or “going with” or kissing or crushing or anything like that,’ Mrs Hunter continued, ‘I will personally send the person to see Mrs Jenkins down in the principal’s office. Then I will call his or her parents. Have I made myself clear?’
The eyes of every student in Room 209 were wider than I had ever seen them. I looked down our row and saw Patrick Day gulp.
‘You are children,’ Mrs Hunter said, her green eyes crackling. ‘Most of you aren’t even ten years old yet. You have years before it’s time to start worrying about crushes and “going with” each other. You are not going to start now, this year, in my classroom. For now, you are going to concentrate on being nine. Put your hand down, Cheyenne.’
To my total disbelief, Cheyenne had actually raised her hand. At Mrs Hunter’s tone, however, she lowered it pretty quickly.
She didn’t look too happy about it though. She ducked her head, muttering to herself.
‘If any of your parents have a problem with what I’ve just said,’ Mrs Hunter went on, ‘they are welcome to call me, either here at school or at home. I’ll be happy to discuss this with them. In fact, I’ll be making a few phone calls tonight myself.’
Cheyenne’s head shot up. Now she looked a little scared.
Marianne and Dominique, I couldn’t help noticing, also exchanged glances.
‘Now,’ Mrs Hunter said, sounding more like her usual self. Her eyes weren’t crackling any more, ‘in the future, I want you to know that if any of you is having a problem with any of your fellow classmates . . . if you feel as if you are being bullied, or picked on, or even feel like you just need to talk – you can always, always, always come to me. That’s what I’m here for.’
Right after Mrs Hunter said that, the first bell rang, indicating that the new day was starting.
Which was kind of funny.
Because a new day really was starting for all the students in Room 209.
Just in a different way than usual.
Rule #13
Snow Boots May Not Look As Good As High-heeled Zip-up Boots, But They Will Never Let You Down
By morning recess most of the ice had melted, so we were allowed to go outside – which was good, because spending recess inside was always fun for a while (Mrs Hunter lets us play with her old board games. The Game of Life is especially hilarious), but I’ve always noticed boys can get annoying if they’re cooped up inside for too long. Possibly this has to do with not being allowed to throw things at each other’s heads.
Of course, when we got outside, all anybody could talk about was Mrs Hunter’s speech. It turns out Mrs Danielson had given her class a similar speech, so all the fourth-graders in the whole school were talking about it. At least, the girls were. The boys just went off to play kickball in the wet puddles left over from the ice. Rosemary wouldn’t go with them, no matter how much they begged. She wanted to stick around and see what happened with Cheyenne.
‘Did you see her face?’ she asked me. ‘I thought she was going to hurl!’
This was an accurate observation. Cheyenne hadn’t just looked like she was going to hurl. She’d actually looked like she was going to cry. I’d noticed right after Mrs Hunter’s speech that Cheyenne had reached inside her desk, pulled out her pencil box – the plain one, the one that just had flowers, nothing else on it – and had slowly scratched out the big heart she’d drawn on it, with the initials CO + PD = True Luv 4ever inside it.
This, Rosemary had observed, had made her feel like hurling.
Now, standing around on one of the playground paths at recess (it was too wet for her to go anywhere else in her high-heeled zip-up boots, which, by the way, were suede), I overheard Cheyenne saying loudly to anyone who would listen, ‘It doesn’t matter what Mrs Hunter says. A love like Patrick and I share can’t be denied. We may be too young now, but when we’re sixteen, and we have our driver’s licences, we’re going to meet at the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City at midnight on New Year’s Eve, and no one is going to be able to stop us!’
All her friends looked very impressed.
I knew Cheyenne was telling the truth, because Patrick had already gotten Stuart to draw a picture of the car he was going to use to drive to meet Cheyenne – a yellow Corvette ZR1 with a supercharged LS9 engine, he said.
Patrick didn’t have the car yet, but he was going to start saving his money so he could buy it in time for his sixteenth birthday.
I had to say Patrick didn’t seem at all upset about the fact that he and Cheyenne had had to stop going together. None of the boys seemed upset by Mrs Hunter’s speech from that morning. In fact, Patrick was more excited about the car he was going to get than he was about seeing Cheyenne at midnight on New Year’s Eve seven years from now. He seemed way more upset about the fact that Rosemary wasn’t interested in playing kickball today than he was about him and Cheyenne having to break up.
But then, I didn’t understand what Cheyenne had seen in Patrick in the first place, so who was I to judge?
Caroline, however, didn’t seem impressed at all by Cheyenne’s announcement about their plan. She’d apparently had enough of Cheyenne, and proved it by marching up to Cheyenne right there on the playground and saying, ‘You aren’t going to be able to drive all the way to New York City when you’re sixteen, Cheyenne. You’ll still have to have a licensed driver in the passenger seat when you’re driving at that age, especially if you’re driving at night. I don’t know what the driving laws are where you come from, but here in America they’re different. You and Patrick are going to have to wait until you’re eighteen at least.’
Cheyenne looked from Caroline to me to Rosemary to Erica to Sophie. Her face contorted with anger. Really, like a cartoon character’s. I don’t think I’d ever seen a person that mad.
‘You!’ Cheyenne screamed. Screamed. Right in the middle of recess. She pointed a leather-gloved hand at Caroline. ‘You’re the one who told! Didn’t you? You’re the one whose mom called Mrs Hunter! Don’t try to deny it! I can tell!’
I froze. I couldn’t believe it. Cheyenne was totally accusing Caroline – wrongly – of something I’d done! Poor, innocent Caroline.
I couldn’t let this happen. I had to say something –
‘Wrong,’ Caroline yelled right back at Cheyenne. ‘It wasn’t my mom. It was my dad!’
What was happening? What was Caroline saying? Why was she lying like this?
All the girls standing behind Cheyenne gasped, looking shocked. But before any of them had a chance to say anything mean to Caroline, I did what a good friend should, and took a quick step forward, saying, ‘No! Caroline, what are you talking about? I’m the one who—’
‘No, I did,’ Erica said quickly, stepping in front of me. ‘I told. And my mom called Mrs Hunter.’
‘Oh my goodness,’ Sophie said, thrusting her small round body in front of both Erica and Caroline. ‘No, that’s not right at all. I told. My mom asked why I was so unhappy, and I said it was because you and I were fighting, Caroline, and when I told her why, she called Mrs Hunter. Last night.’
The four of us stood there, blinking at one another. I felt such a huge wave of love for all of them – Erica, Caroline and Sophie – I couldn’t believe it. I wanted to throw my arms around them and hug them all. Truly, they were the most fantastic friends who had ever lived.
‘You guys,’ I said to them, blinking back tears, ‘you don’t have to do this. You don’t have to pretend that your parents called Mrs Hunter. It’s OK. My mom did it. I’m willing to take the blame.’
Erica looked at me blankly.
‘What are you talking about?’ she wanted to know. ‘My mom was on the phone with Mrs Hunter for half an hour last night. Our beef stroganoff got cold. Missy was mad. But Mom told her some things were more important than her dinner.’
Wait . . . what? Had their parents really called Mrs Hunter?
‘My dad talked to her for fifteen minutes,’ Caroline said. ‘She said she’d already heard from a few parents when he called.’
‘My mom must have called right before your dad, Caroline,’ Sophie said with a laugh.
Rosemary, who hadn’t said anything, shook her head when we glanced in her direction.
‘Don’t look at me,’ she said. ‘My mom didn’t call anybody last night. Except Pizza Express. I think you’re all crazy. In a good way, of course.’
There was a squeak from the group of girls behind Cheyenne. Cheyenne whipped around to stare at Elizabeth Pukowski, who’d raised her hand as if we were in class.
‘My mom called too,’ Elizabeth said shyly. ‘I’m sorry, Cheyenne. Don’t be mad. But my mom says I’m not allowed to go with boys until I’m fourteen. She was super angry when she heard I was going with Robert. She’s taken away all my computer privileges.’
It was just then that Rosie Myers raised her hand as if she too was speaking to a teacher and said, ‘Um, Cheyenne? My dad says I’m not allowed to go with boys either. Not until I’m sixteen.’
A few seconds later, Shamira raised her hand and said, ‘I can’t go with boys or get my ears pierced or a MySpace space until I’m eighteen. My mom says we have rules in our house and not to forget it.’
A couple more girls began raising their hands and telling Cheyenne what their parents had forbidden them from doing. Apparently, a lot of girls at Pine Heights Elementary had rules in their houses too.
It was right after that that an amazing thing happened, right in front of our very eyes. Cheyenne got so angry that everyone was saying they weren’t allowed to be as mature as she wanted them to be, that she turned around really fast to storm off to be by herself.
But I guess she turned around a little too fast.
Because suddenly one of her ankles went out from under her in her high-heeled zip-up boots, and she fell down in a big puddle left over from all the melting ice.
Cheyenne got soaking wet. So wet, in fact, that she had to call her mom to come pick her up.
I swear I didn’t laugh at her though, as she stood there dripping ice water all over the place.
Because that wouldn’t have been very mature.
And I swear I wasn’t happy that Cheyenne missed a bunch of school that day, because she twisted her ankle when she fell, and had to go get it X-rayed.
Because that wouldn’t have been very mature of me either.
Besides, It’s wrong to take delight in the pain of others. That’s a rule.
Of course, it would have been too much to hope that Cheyenne was so mad about everything that happened that she never came back to school and decided to move back to Canada. That would have been too good to be true.
Unfortunately, she was back in school by music class.
But she came back wearing one of those bootees on her foot like Sophie had to wear for her broken toe. Because it turned out she had a sprained ankle.
She got a lot of attention because of it, and because of her crutches. But only from Marianne and Dominique, who volunteered to carry her books and things for her.
I stopped wanting a pair of high-heeled zip-up boots like hers though, because I had learned a really good lesson from what had happened to Cheyenne, and saw that my mom had been right all along.
On the way home to lunch that day, Caroline said to Sophie as they were holding Kevin’s hands and walking him, ‘Did you really tell your mom that the reason you were so unhappy was because you were in a fight with me?’
Sophie looked up at Caroline, who is one of the tallest girls in our class, with tears in her eyes.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I hated fighting with you.’
‘Sophie,’ Caroline said. ‘I’m really, really, really sorry I told Cheyenne about Prince Peter.’
‘I know,’ Sophie said. ‘He and I are broken up now. I guess. I mean, it’s not like we’ve talked about it. Not that we ever talked. Which was fine with me, because now I can go back to having a secret crush on him. It’s much better that way.’
‘Well,’ Caroline said looking as if she felt a little guilty about something, ‘Lenny and I were never actually going together. I so
rt of made the whole thing up about asking him to go with me. I don’t think he ever even knew we were going together.’
Kevin started to say something about this, but I shushed him.
‘Oh,’ Sophie said as Erica and I exchanged stunned looks.
‘Do you forgive me?’ Caroline wanted to know.
‘I forgive you,’ Sophie said.
And they dropped Kevin’s hands to hug one another.
And just like that, the four of us were friends again and everything went back to normal.
Really. Almost everything.
I still have to sit in the last row with those boys.
But it’s all right, because I have my best friends to support me.
And All you need is friends.
That’s a rule.
Allie Finkle’s Rules
It’s the thought that counts.
The best part about the holidays is showing all the cool stuff you got for Christmas to your friends.
As a big sister, it’s your job to take care of your brothers and not punch them in the arm and make them drop their new bikes in the snow and get them all wet.
It’s OK to lie if the lie makes someone else feel better.
Wearing the fact that you are talented on your T-shirt is always a smart rule.
Friendly people don’t tell other people that their games are babyish.
You aren’t supposed to hate people.
Boys can seriously be so stupid sometimes. Also deeply thoughtless.
Just because something is popular doesn’t mean it’s good.
Lying doesn’t solve anything. Usually.
Sometimes you have to use your reasonable voice to get what you want. Especially with boys.
If someone is having a party and doesn’t invite you, just have your own party and don’t invite them (and make your party better).
One way you can tell that people are talking about you is if they look over at you a lot while they are talking to other people.