Sarah Simpson's Rules for Living

by Rebecca Rupp

  1. He is very smart.

  Horace and I have a lot of time to talk at rehearsals because we are the only god and goddess in the play who know their lines. So far we have discussed world hunger, the destruction of mountain habitats, and tattoos. Emily Harris has a butterfly tattoo on her ankle. Sally won’t let me get a tattoo. She says you shouldn’t do anything to your body that you wouldn’t want to show to a board of directors when you’re 38, divorced, and applying for a job.

  JANUARY 30

  Horace says Andrea is wrong about lists. A list, says Horace, is a first step toward attaining one’s life goals. Horace can sometimes be very pompous.

  LISTS KEPT BY HORACE

  1. Things He Plans to Accomplish in the Course of His Life

  2. Places He Plans to Visit Before He Dies

  3. World Problems That Need to Be Solved

  He is going to check these off as he accomplishes, visits, or solves them.

  NUMBER OF THINGS CHECKED OFF BY HORACE SO FAR

  1. 0

  FEBRUARY 3

  In English class today, our vocabulary word for the day was pulchritude. Ronnie Pincus thought it had something to do with chickens, but it does not.

  pulchritude (n.) Physical beauty; comeliness.

  Pulchritude is something that I do not have. Emily Harris does. She looks good even in a pillowcase. That’s what we’re all wearing for the play. Tunics made out of pillowcases. In her pillowcase, Emily looks like a fashion model. She has this very tiny waist, like Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind. I have no waist at all. In my pillowcase, I look like an orange cow that got tangled in a roll of toilet paper.

  All through rehearsal today, I kept thinking about Anne of Green Gables, which is one of my favorite books. I love Anne because she uses her imagination all the time and because she has awful orange hair too. There’s a part in the book where Anne tries to decide which she would rather be: divinely beautiful or dazzlingly clever or angelically good. Anne could never make up her mind. But I know which one I’d be. I’d be divinely beautiful.

  Sally says it’s what you are, not what you look like, that’s important, but that’s the sort of thing mothers say when they’re trying to make you feel better. If Sally really thinks that, she’s totally whacked.

  If you’re beautiful enough, you can always get what you want.

  Look at Kim.

  Horace Zimmerman looks even worse than I do in a pillowcase. It makes him look like a marshmallow on stilts.

  FEBRUARY 7

  Emily Harris is the captain of the Pelham Prancers. That is the girls’ field hockey team. All the field hockey players wear white T-shirts and little maroon plaid pleated skirts and maroon kneesocks. Emily Harris looks so good in that little pleated skirt that she once made some high-school boys in a pickup truck drive into a ditch.

  It is a good thing that I don’t play field hockey because I know what I would look like in that pleated skirt.

  I would look like an orange cow.

  FEBRUARY 10

  Horace says wanting to be divinely beautiful is an unworthy ambition. He thinks everybody should try to be angelically good. Then people would be nicer to each other, and the world would be a better place.

  Also Horace says there’s nothing wrong with orange hair. Lots of famous people have had orange hair. Like Thomas Jefferson and Queen Elizabeth I.

  REASONS WHY HORACE KNOWS NOTHING ABOUT THIS

  1. He is always buttoning his shirts crooked.

  FEBRUARY 14

  I hate Valentine’s Day. It’s nice for the people who are running around being in love, but a lot of people aren’t, and how do you think it makes them feel?

  It makes them feel lousy.

  WHAT I GOT FOR VALENTINE’S DAY

  1. Nothing.

  WHAT EMILY HARRIS GOT FOR VALENTINE’S DAY

  1. Two boxes of chocolates.

  2. Eleven cards.

  3. A red rose from Dylan Guthrie, who goes to the high school.

  Last year on Valentine’s Day, which was after my father left but before Sally met Jonah, Andrea came over and we had pizza and then Sally and Andrea watched Alien because Sally said she wanted to watch a movie in which everybody dies except the woman and the cat.

  This year Jonah and George came over with a sort of pizza they’d made themselves that was supposed to be shaped like a heart but actually looked like a giant tadpole with cheese. Jonah brought a box of chocolates for everybody and a big bouquet of roses for Sally and then we watched The Goodbye Girl, in which Marsha Mason has been dumped by every man she’s ever known until she and her adorable little daughter meet Richard Dreyfuss, who is kind and funny and truly loves her. By the time we got to the happy ending, I was wishing for an acid-dripping monster to leap out from under the bed.

  George brought his valentines over to show me. He got seventeen because that’s how many other kids there are in his class and his teacher insists that everyone be fair. I think that is a huge mistake. Love isn’t fair. They might as well learn that now.

  FEBRUARY 18

  Jonah’s dead wife was named Jenny. I heard all about her one day last fall when I was sitting on the stairs reading a library book and Jonah was talking to Sally in the living room.

  Her car got hit by a truck when she was on her way home from work. There was freezing rain, and this huge truck just skidded across the road and smashed into her. She was dead by the time they got her to the hospital. Jonah said his whole life changed then, just in a few seconds. He said he wanted to die too. He said he might have if it hadn’t been for George.

  I knew what he meant about your whole life changing just in a few seconds.

  Last year on New Year’s Day, when my father said good-bye, everything turned upside down forever. It was as if there was one life before the good-bye and another life after it, and once you moved into the after-good-bye life, you couldn’t ever get back, no matter how hard you tried.

  Ryan Matthews, whose mother is a physicist, says that every time someone makes a decision, everything splits into parallel universes. There’s a universe in which my father left and a universe in which he decided not to. There’s a universe in which Jenny got hit by the truck and one in which the truck missed her.

  What I don’t understand is why I have to be stuck in this universe. I’d rather be in the other one, the one without Kim.

  I guess it isn’t fair to say my whole life changed in seconds. I already knew what my father was going to say. I mean he was packing and everything.

  FEBRUARY 23

  Today I got a letter from my father. It’s written on stationery from the Sun Valley Inn and Recreation Lodge, with Jacuzzis in the Rooms. There is a picture of one of the rooms at the top of the page. It has a round bed with an orange bedspread, a big pot of ferns, and a view of mountains. You can just see the Jacuzzi through the open bathroom door, with a lot of fluffy towels piled up next to it and a guest sitting in it. The guest has a sort of boiled-lobster expression and is not a very good advertisement for the Sun Valley Inn.

  WHAT MY FATHER SAID

  1. He and Kim are having a wonderful time.

  2. This summer, if I come for a visit, Kim will teach me how to surf.

  3. He heard from Sally that I am still upset about the divorce.

  4. He is sorry that I am feeling bad.

  5. He hopes that someday when I’m older, I’ll understand why he had to leave.

  At the bottom of the page, Kim wrote, “Love from Kim” in pink ink.

  I don’t see why Sally had to go and tell him that about being upset about the divorce. Besides, how does Sally know whether I’m upset or not?

  OTHER THINGS I DO NOT UNDERSTAND

  1. What’s so great about being boiled in a Jacuzzi.

  2. How you know which end to put the pillows on a round bed.

  3. What my father sees in Kim.

  I’ll bet she only wants to teach me how to surf because she hopes I’ll get eaten by a shark.

&nb
sp; MARCH 2

  In history class we are reading “Excerpts from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.” Benjamin Franklin was a list maker. He once made this list of the things you have to do to become a morally perfect person. Then he would keep track of how he did every day by checking things off in a little notebook.

  BENJAMIN FRANKLIN’S RULES FOR LIVING

  1. Don’t eat or drink too much.

  2. Don’t talk all the time and especially don’t gossip.

  3. Be neat.

  4. Do everything you’ve promised to do.

  5. Be thrifty.

  6. Work hard.

  7. Don’t lie.

  8. Don’t hurt other people.

  9. Don’t get mad.

  10. Take baths.

  11. Don’t sweat the small stuff.

  12. Don’t sleep around.

  13. Act like Jesus and Socrates.

  WAYS IN WHICH THE PEOPLE I KNOW ARE NOT MORALLY PERFECT

  1. Sally: 3, 4, 7, 8, 11, 13.

  2. My father: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 12, 13.

  3. Kim: 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 12, 13.

  4. Jonah: 1, 3, 7, 13.

  5. Horace: 2, 3, 9.

  I am giving Horace the benefit of the doubt on 13 because, just like Socrates, he goes around asking really annoying questions all the time.

  Jason Dobbs says that Horace is a jerk.

  MARCH 6

  Horace is in trouble for taking a stand against world hunger. He took this stand at lunchtime in the cafeteria next to the trash bins.

  Horace says that every five seconds a little kid in Africa dies of starvation. Horace thinks we should be doing something about it. At the very least, says Horace, we shouldn’t be wasting food. A village in Africa could live for a month, says Horace, on the food our school throws away. So he stood by the trash bins and yelled at people. Horace calls this raising consciousness.

  WHAT PEOPLE SAID ABOUT THIS

  1. Ryan Matthews said he was throwing out his sloppy joe because it looked and tasted like dog poo, and if the starving kids in Africa want it, they can have it.

  2. Ronnie Pincus said he was throwing his sandwich away because by now his mother ought to know that he hates tuna fish.

  3. Katie Costello said she was just recycling her yogurt container, so please stop yelling in her ear because she has three-year-old twin sisters and she hears enough yelling at home.

  4. Emily Harris said please shut up.

  5. Jason Dobbs said shut up without the please.

  Then Mr. Fitzpatrick, who was the lunch monitor and who has one deaf ear from an accident with an outboard motor, finally noticed Horace and made Horace go to the principal’s office.

  MARCH 7

  The principal was very nice, Horace said. She sympathizes with his ideals. But she told him to stop the yelling. Yelling is not consciousness raising, she said. It is harassment. Besides it is bad for the vocal cords. Also if you are going to make stands, there are more effective places to make them than next to the cafeteria trash bins.

  The principal’s name is Gloria Alice Zebrowski. She is short and round and has grayish hair in tight little curls all over her head. When she was a little girl, she had long chestnut-brown ringlets. Ms. Zebrowski comes from New York City and grew up in an apartment building not far from Central Park. But she prefers living in Pelham, except that there’s nowhere to buy good bagels.

  I know all this because the year before my father left I spent a lot of time in her office because my grades were dropping and I was exhibiting antisocial behavior and Ms. Zebrowski would talk to me and then she would ask if I needed any help and if something was wrong at home.

  I always said no.

  Then Ms. Zebrowski would say that overcoming difficulties is what makes people stronger and that it’s important to hope for the best because then the best has a way of happening.

  I don’t think that no was exactly a lie. I think I was trying to make myself believe that there really wasn’t anything wrong. But I must have known deep down, because Sally and my father weren’t talking to each other much and my father was going off on all these “business trips.”

  That’s how Andrea said it, making her fingers go like quotation marks.

  The wife is always the last to know, Andrea said.

  Andrea doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Sally knew what was going on. She just didn’t tell me.

  The last to know is the kid.

  MARCH 10

  ANNOYING QUESTIONS ASKED TODAY BY HORACE

  1. If you could create world peace by pressing a button and killing just one person, would you do it?

  2. If atoms are mostly space, how come we can’t walk through walls?

  3. How do you know the world is real and not just some enormous virtual-reality game being played by superior alien beings?

  4. Did you ever think that people would like you a lot better if you didn’t look so cross all the time?

  ANSWERS TO ANNOYING QUESTIONS ASKED TODAY BY HORACE

  1. Jason Dobbs said he wouldn’t do it because who wants world peace anyway. Jason’s older brother Preston is in the Marines. Katie Costello said she would do it, depending on who the person was. Maybe it would be some very old, mean person that nobody likes and who hardly had any more time to live anyway. “But what if it was somebody you really loved, like your father or mother?” Emily Harris said. “What if it was Kim?” I said.

  2. Ryan Matthews said that in theory we can walk through walls but that statistically it is very, very unlikely, and he should know because his mother is a physicist. A lot of the boys tried it and didn’t make it, which was too bad because I thought it would be sort of fun if Jason Dobbs got stuck halfway.

  3. Emily Harris said that the world being a virtual-reality game thing was stupid because if everything was a virtual-reality game, we’d all just be puppets and wouldn’t be able to think for ourselves. It doesn’t seem stupid to me. Except that I don’t think we live in a game being played by superior alien beings. I think we live in a game being played by some dumb sadistic alien teenager. The kind of creep who kicks anthills just to watch all the ants scuttle around and freak out.

  4. I asked Sally if I looked cross all the time and she said that it would be nice if I showed my beautiful smile more, which is the same thing as saying yes.

  MARCH 13

  Friday the 13th

  A Very Unlucky Day

  Today at school we talked about superstitions. Superstitions, says Ms. Bentley, are irrational beliefs. Reading your horoscope is a superstition. So is thinking that four-leaf clovers are lucky or worrying about black cats crossing your path or refusing to sit down if you’re the thirteenth person at the dinner table. This was our vocabulary word for the day:

  triskaidekaphobia (n.) Fear of the number 13.

  Triskaidekaphobia, says Ms. Bentley, is a superstition. Friday the 13th is no luckier or unluckier than any other day.

  THINGS THAT HAPPENED TODAY, FRIDAY THE 13TH

  1. Emily Harris had a premonition of disaster. Then she twisted her ankle getting off the school bus.

  2. Ryan Matthews forgot his math homework.

  3. Jason Dobbs lost his hand-stitched artificial leather wallet, which contained two dollar bills, five collectible baseball cards, and a photograph of his dead cocker spaniel.

  4. Ronnie Pincus stepped on an egg.

  5. Katie Costello was bitten by a hamster.

  6. Horace’s fountain pen leaked all over his pants.

  Three months from today is my birthday. I was born on Friday the 13th. Sally says that goes to show that 13 is really the luckiest number there is, but history is not on her side.

  Just because something is irrational doesn’t mean it isn’t real.

  MARCH 16

  Today we discussed puberty in health class.

  Emily Harris is looking forward to puberty. I am not.

  BAD THINGS ABOUT GETTING OLDER

  1. More responsibility.

  2. Algebra.


  3. Embarrassing zits.

  4. Embarrassing underwear.

  5. Embarrassing school dances.

  6. Having to buy adult tickets at the movies.

  7. Being asked on dates.

  8. Not being asked on dates.

  Sally says that responsibility is empowering, zits can be controlled by healthy eating habits, underwear can be very cute, and dates and dances can be fun. She says algebra and the adult ticket thing suck.

  MARCH 18

  Sally and I used to play a game in which we’d try to decide who people we knew would be if they were characters in books. Like in Winnie-the-Pooh, Sally would be Kanga, because she gets fussy and motherly and gives everybody vitamin pills, and I would be Eeyore, because I’m gloomy and don’t have any friends, though Sally says I’m more like Piglet, who is very likable but who worries too much.

  I always thought my father would be Tigger because he was always bouncy and fun and energetic and full of things to do. But now I think he’s more like Edmund, the selfish brother in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the one who didn’t care what happened to anybody else as long as he got lots of enchanted Turkish delight.

  My father said he was going to come visit, but now he’s not going to after all.

  He says Kim needs him. I don’t understand why Kim has to need him right now. He’s there with her all the time.