The Invisible Rules of Zoe Lama

by Tish Cohen

  “What’s that?”

  “I said, Buds or Loops? Personally, I’d recommend the Loops. You had enough Buds yesterday.” I walk toward the kitchen, letting her think about it for a bit, weigh her options. With one, she suffers through short-term gagging but enjoys the comfort of a regular bathroom schedule for the next twenty-four. With the other, she gets a five-minute slice of heaven, but the trains might not leave the station on time.

  It’s a trade-off.

  Okay. Bowls ready. Milk and spoon standing by. Cereal boxes open and on counter. I just need her decision. “Grandma?” She doesn’t answer, so I run back to her room to make sure she didn’t fall asleep and drop the only toddler picture of me before I knocked out my front teeth in an incident involving my Big Wheel and another kid’s lousy trike. I never said my toddlerhood was pretty.

  “Gram?”

  The moment I’m back in her room, she smiles and claps her hands in front of her face. “Would you like to hear about my son, when he was a boy?”

  I sit on her bed. There’s not much I like more than hearing stories about my dad when he was little. “Yeah.”

  “Lawrence was the handsomest little boy in the neighborhood. Tall for his age, with thick dark curls, just like yours. He had a best friend named Poppy. She was a little girl who lived in the apartment above us. The two of them were together day and night, until it came time for them to start school. On the very first day, Lawrence came home upset. And when I asked him what was wrong, he asked me if Poppy was a girl or a boy.”

  I giggle. “He didn’t know?”

  “No. In those days, girls wore their hair shorter.” Grandma stopped to stare at a fingernail. Then she points across the room. “Ah. Another hangnail. Would you pass me that nail file on the dresser?”

  I jump up and hand it to her. “So what did you tell him?”

  Gram looks up from her nail. “I told him she was a girl, of course. And did he carry on! Cried all night.”

  Poor Dad. “What about Poppy?”

  She shook her head. “He never played with her again. Little beasts from school teased him about playing with a girl, so that was the end of it.”

  “Wow.” Just then it hits me. Maybe it’s a good thing about the little beasts. Dad could have wound up marrying Poppy instead of Mom, and who knows what might have happened? I might have been born to some other parents. Parents who made me learn to play the harp or feed chickens instead of watching TV. Or, worse, I could have been born a boy.

  “Would you get him for me?” Grandma asks.

  “Get who?”

  “Lawrence. I don’t want him to be late for school. He always sleeps in. Stays up too late watching that detective show. What’s it called? Magnum…something?”

  What? “Um, Grandma, Lawrence isn’t exactly your little boy anymore. He doesn’t live down the hall…”

  Her eyes flash wicked mad. “Who are you? And what have you done with my Lawrence?”

  “I’m Zoë…”

  “Who?”

  I sit still for a second, staring at her. Then I just smile a small smile and stand up to go—partly because Grandma’s mind is freaking me out. I’m not sure what to say, and I want to get out of there before it happens again.

  The other partly is because I want to get Mom out of the house. Fast.

  Smartin Granitstein Is Vile. There Are NO Exceptions to This Rule

  I’m late for school because I had to stand at Grandma’s door and lie to Mom that Gram was getting dressed so Mom wouldn’t find out about her thinking Dad’s still alive. I got Mom out of the house, but I’ve missed morning announcements and Ingrid Dorfman’s oral presentation on the Evolution of the Ballet Slipper. Which I think must have been pretty dull and pretty short, ‘cause as far as I know ballet slippers have always looked the same.

  I haven’t started working on my own oral presentation and Mrs. Patinkin, who clearly considers me the class Welcome Wagon, assigns Maisie as my partner. I don’t mind. It’ll give me the perfect chance to prevent Maisie from moving over to the dark side. I smile and stare out the window. Maisie might not know it yet, but she is, in actual fact, one very lucky new kid.

  Maisie pulls a chair up to my desk. “So what’s our topic?” Her long black hair is tucked behind her ears, one of which has three silver studs in it.

  “What topic?” I ask.

  She laughs and taps my forehead with her knuckles. “Of the project. Duh.”

  “I don’t have one yet,” I explain.

  “Oh. When did Mrs. P assign it?”

  “Don’t call her Mrs. P. She has a thing about that.”

  “Oh.”

  “Last Thursday,” I say.

  Maisie’s eyebrows just about hit the ceiling and for one brief moment I wonder if she really is mean. Since Thursday my schedule has been very tight, and what kind of kid wouldn’t understand that?

  “I’ve been busy,” I explain. Not that the Zoë Lama should have to explain anything to someone who hasn’t even been at school long enough to have a reputation. “Extraordinarily busy. But it doesn’t matter. I work fast.”

  “Okay,” says Maisie. “Well, I think we should do motorcycles, then. Or maybe cigarettes.”

  Motorcycles? Cigarettes? For a passing moment I actually doubt I can save the girl. “No. I’m not a fan. Of either.”

  “Okay, how about balloons? I once read—”

  “NO!” I shout. Maisie’s elbow slips off my desk and I grab her arm to keep her upright. “I mean, balloons are really for babies, don’t you think? I was thinking of something more sophisticated. Like…” For some reason Grandma’s face pops into my mind. “Like gray hair.”

  Her mouth sneers up, all the way to her nose. “Gray hair? Gross.”

  Sneering might not qualify as mean, but I have to say, this attitude isn’t pretty.

  “It’s perfect,” I say. “Why Hair Goes Gray. And I’m pretty sure I can pluck a few actual gray hairs when my grandma’s sleeping. Then we can have a live sample. Or dead. My grandma’s not dead. Not yet. Just her hair is. Everybody’s hair is.”

  Maisie looks a little gray herself. “Whatever.”

  While she’s writing Gray Hair at the top of her notepad, I decide that’s a pretty agreeable thing to do. It’s time to get to work on saving her. “So, are you enjoying the school so far?”

  She shrugs and bites off the tip of a carrot that she, apparently, keeps in her pants pocket. “S’okay. Nobody talked to me all day yesterday, though. Nobody but some girls at the side of the school. Older girls.”

  Here it is. My moment. “If you don’t mind a little friendly advice, it’s probably better if you stick to girls your own age.”

  She just blinks at me and chews. Then blinks and chews some more.

  “What I mean is…” I pause, but only because a note launch has come in from the northeast, hitting me in the right temple. “Excuse me,” I say, before unscrunching the note, which is from Susannah. I look up to see her peering at me from behind her glasses and smiling, so I give her the secret wave. Which is too secret to reveal.

  The note says,

  Dear Zoë,

  I can see you’re busy with a customer. I just thought I’d remind you of one thing. Some people are just plain mean. Born mean and die mean. And no amount of meddling can change it.

  Signed,

  A Concerned Friend

  P.S. I don’t think Smartin owns a toothbrush. He leered at me while he was taking his coat off and his teeth were covered in fur.

  I crumple the note and stuff it into my pocket. Then, ever so casually, I turn to face Smartin. He glances over at me and winks. Slowly, his mouth spreads into a big, wide, creepy grin. Sure enough, his teeth are as fuzzy as a lamb.

  “Vile!” I say, turning away from the horror.

  “That’s not what the ladies tell me,” Smartin says.

  Then, the most unbelievable thing happens. Maisie nudges my arm and whispers, “He’s cute.”

  Smartin Granitste
in? Cute? In the entire history of Allencroft Middle School, not one single female has ever, ever had such an outrageous thought pass through her head. I can personally, completely, 100 percent promise it, and if anyone can prove to me that they have had such a monstrous thought, I’ll hand over my Garage Girls Season One DVD. No. I’ll hand over Season One and Season Two.

  “Maisie,” I say, moving closer to her. The situation is so-o-o much more serious than I previously thought. I pat her on the back and smile. “You seem like a nice kid, so I’m gonna help you out. In every school there are certain…Unwritten Rules that newcomers might not pick up on right away. And how could you possibly know them? You couldn’t. So, here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to personally guide you through this transition period and make sure you end up with all the right people. We’ll start immediately. Unwritten Rule Number Three is— Smartin Granitstein is vile. There are no exceptions to Unwritten Rule Number Three.”

  This is the part when Maisie will be astonished. And it’s entirely possible she will cry a few tears of gratitude and relief. She’ll be overwhelmed by my offer—which is unusual. Typically, people approach me for advice. It’s rare that I extend complete life guidance to someone who’s been recently expelled from school, let alone stripped of good standing.

  “Why?” she asks. “Why is it so important to you that I don’t end up with the wrong people? And how do you know who the wrong people are, anyway?”

  No one has ever questioned my advice before.

  It’s Unwritten Rule #2.

  “Maisie.” I try again. “Look around you. There are…what? Twelve or thirteen other boys in the room, every one of them more appealing than Fartin’ Smartin.”

  Maisie looks concerned for the first time. “You mean…?”

  “Yes! I would not steer you wrong.” I point toward the window side of the classroom. “Now here we have a row of three or four tolerable specimens. They have clean hair, at least one of them is wearing a matching set of shoes, and I’ll bet none of them has ever strained milk through his gym sock to see if it would taste like apple-cider vinegar.”

  She looks around the classroom, resting her eyes on the young men. “You think it?”

  “I know it.”

  She stuffs the stubby end of the carrot back into her pocket and crosses her arms. “So, do you give out copies of this rule book?”

  “Absolutely not. A rule book full of unwritten rules can only exist inside my mind. Because the rules are unwritten.”

  “So…the rules are invisible,” Maisie says. I sigh. “You could say that.”

  “Maybe you should call them Invisible Rules. It sounds better.”

  “I prefer unwritten.”

  Maisie considers this for a moment, then nods. “Right. So what’s Unwritten Rule Number Two?”

  Aahh, how I love it when they’re ready to learn!

  Keep Your Friends Close and Your Clients Closer

  “How’s your grandma? I miss her candy dish,” Susannah says on the way to Mr. Lindsay’s Winter Dance Committee meeting in the library. We were told we could bring our lunches because Mrs. Kettleby trusts that we’re old enough now not to spill soup on the library carpet. I’ve got my lunch bag and pen and paper in one hand and my new client in the other. I’d like to keep Maisie close, where I can keep an eye on her, at least until she’s fully trained.

  “Grandma and her candy dish are great,” I say. It’s not a total lie. The candy dish is doing very well. Grandma, on the other hand, not so much. I wish it was the other way around.

  Laurel squeezes my arm. “Tell Gram we’re coming to visit soon, and I have a thing for jelly beans these days.”

  In a few short days the girls are coming over to watch a once-in-a-lifetime TV show. The Garage Girls Behind-the-Scenes Sneak Peek. “I’ll tell her,” I say, thanking the heavens for Grandma’s doctor appointments.

  It’s hard not to vomit once we get in the library, because the last person you’d ever think you’d see in the library is in the library. Sitting at the Winter Dance Committee planning table right beside Mr. Lindsay. It’s Smartin—with both ends of his straw up his nostrils, like a ring in a bull’s nose.

  I squeeze Maisie’s arm tighter and guide her to the chair farthest away from Smartin. Maisie giggles when she sees him, forcing me to shake my head at her and whisper, “Be strong,” before I shoot him a look that says, Stay away!

  “Welcome, girls and guys,” says Mr. Lindsay, who is looking seriously handsome as he stands up and rubs his hands together so hard I almost expect to see sparks fly. Hopefully not onto Smartin’s oily hair, or there might be a grease fire. Mr. Lindsay plops his notebook down between two LameWizards who haven’t once looked up from their electronic battles. “I’m going to get myself a coffee,” Handsome Mr. Lindsay says. “So you kids might as well start eating your lunch and maybe jot down any ideas you might have for the dance.” He smiles and gives us a wink. “Back in a second.” And he’s gone.

  “Mr. Lindsay’s very handsome, don’t you think?” I say as I watch him jog down the hall.

  Susannah and Laurel sigh and nod.

  Smartin snorts. And I’m quite certain he means to snort. “If you enjoy guys like that.”

  Susannah says, “Guys like what, Smartin? With proper hygiene?”

  “What’s hygiene again?” asks Laurel, who, sadly, has given up on her quest for color and has once again returned to wearing head-to-toe blue.

  “Cleanliness,” says Maisie. I’m so proud of her I could burst.

  Smartin says, “Cleanliness is for dorks.” He pushes about a shovelful of pasta into his mouth and chews with noodles slopping out onto his chin.

  I say, “Cleanliness is for boyfriends. Something you’ll never be.”

  Smartin smiles at me. There’s green stuff in his teeth. “Let’s make out.”

  “Ugh!”

  “It’s time you and me go public with our love.”

  “You wish.” I spin my chair around so I can no longer see his wormy chin.

  “Let’s play a game,” Susannah says, taking a bite of her tuna sandwich. “We’ll take turns confessing the meanest thing we’ve done in the last month. Maisie, you can go first.” I know what she’s doing here. She’s testing Maisie. To see how truly mean she is. Or isn’t.

  Maisie sips from her thermos and says, “Um…I don’t know. I accidentally killed a spider by running over it with my bicycle tire. Is that mean?”

  Susannah laughs. “C’mon, you can do better than that. I’ll show you how to play.” She adjusts her dark glasses and looks up at the ceiling. “Okay. Last week I swapped my Gummi Bears with Laurel’s blue ones at a sleepover, in the dark, and Laurel ate them, saying they were the best blue gummies she’d ever tasted.”

  Laurel chokes on her creamy blue soup (her mother must go through buckets of food coloring). “Hey! That’s nasty!”

  “It seems nasty at first,” Susannah explains. “But I just thought you’d see that they all taste good. Not just the blue ones. And I was right.”

  Slowly, Laurel’s face relaxes. “They actually were pretty good,” she says. “Okay, I’ll go next. Last week when my sister scammed my new turtleneck behind my back and slobbered mustard all over it, I took her toothbrush…” She stops and bites her bottom lip.

  “Yeah?” Susannah, Maisie, and I all say at once.

  Laurel sits back and shakes her head. “No. I shouldn’t say. It’s really bad.”

  “Say!” I blurt out.

  “Okay, but remember, I saved up for six weeks to buy that turtleneck.” She looks each one of us in the eye before saying it. “I rubbed Victoria’s toothbrush in the toilet.”

  “Awgh!” We all slump with the grossosity of it.

  “Wait,” I say. “Did you rub it on the toilet, or in it?”

  Laurel tries not to smile. “In it.”

  “Total toilet-water penetration?” Susannah asks.

  “Full dunkage.”

  “Whoa,” Susannah say
s, leaning back in her chair. She’s gotten herself new dark glasses, I notice for the first time. These ones are huge and very round. They make her look like a supermagnified fly. “So far, you win. Who’s next?”

  “Forget this game,” I say, hoping to change the topic before it’s Maisie’s turn again. Besides, I need to have some brilliant dance ideas before Handsome Mr. Lindsay gets back, or he’ll think I’m an idiot and won’t want to meet my mother and apply for the open position of husband. “Everyone close your eyes for thirty seconds and imagine the most perfect dance ever and what it would be like. Then, when I say time’s up, write down three key elements.”

  Laurel looks worried. “My mother won’t let me go unless there’s one chaperone for every five kids. She’s worried I’ll get French-kissed.”

  Smartin looks up from licking the inside of his lunch bag clean and laughs. “You? French-kissed?”

  “It’s possible, Smartin!” I snap. “I’m sure there are many boys in this school who find Laurel overwhelmingly French-kissable. Aren’t there, Susannah?”

  “Hundreds. Maybe more,” Susannah says. Despite the squabbles, we three are still a team.

  “Thanks, guys.” Laurel punches me in the shoulder. Susannah she punches, too, but a bit harder because of the gummies. “You’re the best.”

  I smile. “I said nothing that isn’t true. Now get to work, everybody. Three things you’d like to see.”

  What would make it perfect for me would be being dropped off by my mother’s new husband. My stepdad. Especially a stepdad who looks like Handsome Mr. Lindsay. I write,

  The Three Things That Make Handsome Mr. Lindsay Perfect

  He likes kids so much he’s even nice to Smartin. No small achievement, if you ask me. Plus, he’s got those math tools in his shirt pocket. I’ll bet the circle drawing thingy could have gotten the eraser out of my nose when I was three.

  There’s not a speck of fur on his teeth. I checked while he was bossing us around.

  That hand rubbing, though sometimes annoying, could probably get the circulation back in a frostbitten foot.