The Invisible Rules of Zoe Lama Read online

  It really just goes to show: when I was seven, I was a real dope.

  After I leave Smartin in the office with a stern warning we both know he’ll ignore, I head back to language arts with an empty baggie in my pocket and speed in my step. We’re scheduled to go for pictures in half an hour and I haven’t finger-combed Ingrid’s bangs yet.

  “Psst! Zoë Lama.”

  I spin around to see Annika Pruitt from eighth grade hiding behind the door to the girls’ restroom. Her gigantic head of red wavy hair is so thick it’s practically holding the door open by itself. I stop. “Hey.”

  She waves me to come inside, so I do. I don’t mind helping the eighth graders, not really. It’s kind of flattering to be asked to advise older girls, but Annika is a bit needy. She’s always “tragically wounded” from regular things people say, like: “Annika, you dropped your sandwich,” or “Annika, your sleeve is stuck in the door,” or “Annika, those aren’t winter gloves, they’re oven mitts.”

  I wouldn’t ever want to tell her she has spinach in her teeth.

  “Zoë. You won’t believe it,” she says, yanking me inside. “Justin Rosetti walked me to school today and you won’t believe it!”

  I bet I will. Justin’s a toad. “Spill.”

  “We were almost at school when there was this sick, steaming pile of fresh dog you-know-what, and Justin drops my hand and jumps out of the way and I end up stepping in it. Some boyfriend.” She gets teary. “And what’s even worse, look at my new shoes!” She lifts one up and shows me the packed-tight mass of putrid-osity that is now her sole.

  And her soul.

  “Okay,” I say. I actually feel bad for her this time. Justin’s a dork and does not deserve a girl with this much hair. “Pull the shoe off; I’m pretty good with poop.” I turn on the hot-water tap to form a shallow lake in the sink, then pour in about fourteen gallons of soap. “The thing is, Annika, you can step in a load of crap, anyone can. But a smart girl doesn’t put up with any. Ever. It’s an Unwritten Rule. Number six, to be exact.”

  “Unwritten Rule? Cool. Where do I get a copy of these Unwritten Rules? Is there a rule book?”

  Should I really have to explain this? I sigh and say, “The rules are unwritten. There is no rule book. If they were in a rule book, they wouldn’t be unwritten.”

  Annika grins. “So, what you’re saying is they’re invisible.”

  “You could say that.”

  “Why don’t you call them Invisible Rules? I like that better.”

  I grit my teeth. “Because they’re my rules, so I get to name them.”

  With this, she jumps up and squeezes me so hard I get bubbles (thankfully clean bubbles) all the way up to my elbows. “Whatever they’re called, thanks!” she squeals.

  Back in the hall I break into a run. I may be dripping from both arms, but I’m not missing Picture Day. I cut through the fifth-grade hallway to save time and realize, too late, that a gaggle of balloons is coming straight at me. It seems to be attached to a gigantic birthday cake with legs.

  I spin and race back the way I came, checking to see if the balloon cake is following me. Spotting an open janitor’s closet, I dive inside, slam the door, and collapse on top of a mop that stinks of pinecones.

  That was close!

  I have a tiny secret. No one else on the Entire Planet knows it except my family and a certain balloon-making clown at the beach last year. But the doctor said the scratches wouldn’t scar his face and I should just forget the whole ugly incident.

  I’m terrified of balloons.

  I know they don’t roar or have teeth or claws or anything, but I despise them with passion. And for a small person I have an awful lot of passion at my disposal.

  You never know what to expect from a balloon. They could pop at any moment and bang! you go deaf. Or worse, a popped piece could hit your eye like a missile and take it right out. Then you’re half blind. Unless you only had one eye to begin with, and then you’re fully blind. Or you could accidentally swallow a small one and forever have it lodged in your intestines. And then there’re the ones little kids have tied to their wrists, ones that blow all around in the wind and bop you in the face when you’re standing nearby, innocently trying to eat your ice-cream cone. And don’t even talk to me about hot-air balloons. Dangling in a wicker basket hundreds of feet above the ground with nothing more than a crappy balloon to keep you from plunging to a cruel demise isn’t exactly my idea of a rockin’ time.

  The possibilities for disaster are endless with balloons—this is Unwritten Rule #1.

  There’s nothing cool about a balloon anxiety in seventh grade. Other anxieties, like Fear of Cappuccino or Fear of Stepping in Potholes—these fears are cute and quirky and highly desirable. Part of growing up an innocent victim of the big city. Very popularity boosting.

  Fear of Balloons, on the other hand, ranks right up there with Fear of Losing Your Mommy at the A&P or Fear of Giant Purple Dinosaurs.

  Cracking the door open, I poke my head out into the hall. Looks clear, but I better not risk fifth-grader land again. Those babies are still too fascinated with inflatables. I head back around the office to see Smartin squashing his face against the window to the hallway. He’s puffing up his cheeks like a particularly ugly pig-nosed blowfish.

  I screech to a stop at Mrs. Patinkin’s classroom and burst inside.

  The whole class is silent. And they look worried. When I get to my desk I realize why. There’s someone sitting at it and she’s definitely not me!

  “Hi. You’re at my desk,” I say.

  The squatter looks up and smiles. “Sorry, Zoë.” Then she holds out a handful of barrettes with a few chocolate chips mixed in. “I think these are yours.”

  “Maisie Robbins is new to the school,” says Mrs. Pat-inkin. “So go ahead and take a seat, Zoë.”

  I look up. Do I have to say it? “I don’t have a—”

  “Right there at the back, next to Martin’s desk.”

  Ugh. It doesn’t get any worse than sitting next to Smartin. As I trudge back, I pass Susannah, who tips her glasses and smiles sadly. Then I pass Laurel, who punches me twice, our secret punch for sympathy. Then comes the worst part. I pass Riley and realize, from this moment on, I might as well be moving to the opposite end of the world. Because that’s how far I’ll be from the boy I’m going to marry.

  The farther back I go, the worse it gets. The air seems to thicken. The ground seems to sway. I pass Harrison Huxtable, who winks and smiles, and then I pass Avery’s smeary glasses. Oh no. There’s one empty seat with a stack of all my worldly possessions piled on the desk, and it’s squashed right behind Avery, and between Smartin and Alice, whose vest is infested with prancing kittens. That girl’s clothing needs to be spayed. Or neutered, depending.

  It’s a moron colony back here.

  Just then, a note launch comes in from the northwest. I catch it easily and uncrumple it. It just so happens to be from the most unbelievably cute guy in school, or the MUCGIS.

  To my favorite Backie,

  Don’t be sad. Think about how much you’ve helped us Fronties. Don’t the Backies deserve the same? Just don’t forget us when the chocolate chip bag is full.

  Riley Sinclair

  P.S. Remember to use your power for good, not evil.

  That’s another thing about Riley. He’s a very good sort of person. Sometimes, I think, far too good for the sort of girl who complains as much as I do. He likes it when I help people, but he gets grumbly when I go too far. Like the time I told Sylvia she should think about dyeing her hair bright red to take the focus off her cowlicks.

  Riley said, “You’re stomping all over her self-esteem!”

  But I said, “No! It’s just like redecorating. Like throwing a really pretty blanket over a lumpy old couch.”

  “So now you’re calling Sylvia a lumpy old couch?” he asked.

  I just patted his cheek. Poor guy. He missed the whole point. Which, obviously, was the really pretty blanket.


  I look up now to see Riley smiling at me from the front. Now I feel worse. Suddenly I’m a Backie and no longer even in the same category as my number one and number two BFIS or the MUCGIS.

  I slump down in my new chair, which is really more of a stool, since the back is broken off. It’s strangely tall, so my feet don’t even hit the floor when I swing my legs. They just dangle back and forth like a toddler on a bus. Not only that, but the smell of Smartin lingers on and on.

  I raise my hand.

  Mrs. Patinkin smiles at me, looking genuinely sorry. “Your desk was closest to the blackboard, Zoë. Maisie has depth-perception problems and will reap the benefits of sitting up front. Now, are we all ready to conjugate the verb suffer?”

  I swing my legs and the back of my knee gets pinched in a crack in the chair seat. At least there’s no blood. I guess the lack of blood makes me smile or nod or something, which Mrs. Patinkin takes as an answer that, yes, I am ready to conjugate. Even though I’m so not.

  “Good. We’ll make it a pop quiz, just for fun.”

  So not.

  You Can’t Polish a Poodle

  By the time I get on the city bus, almost every seat is taken either by kids on their way home from school or by adults who probably wish they had earplugs. Unless I want to sit beside the frazzled lady with the whiny triplets, and I so don’t, I’m stuck with Harrison Huxtable, which is bad because he’s playing with his yo-yo and the minute I sit down he starts letting it “sleepwalk” into my ankle.

  “I’m going to be in a professional competition,” he says. “Yo-Yo-Palooza. It’s in March. Remember how you told me to practice, practice, practice, and one day it’d pay off?”

  “Sort of.”

  “It worked. Want me to show you how I Walk the Dog?”

  I smile and shake my head no. “I’m not really in the mood right now…”

  “Okay, here goes,” he says, and winds the string up. Only he has to stop a few times because his fingers get wrapped up, too, and then he has to stop to detangle. Once he’s finally free, he smacks his gum and grins. “Ready?”

  I smile and shake my head no.

  “Okay, here goes,” he says, and flings the yo-yo down until it smacks against the floor and, no longer spinning, bobs and twirls at the end of the string while he moves his hand to the right. “See? That’s Walk the Dog.”

  I think it’s Kill the Dog, but I just smile and raise my eyebrows to show him I’m impressed. And just when I’m thinking how lucky everyone is that I don’t always say what I’m really thinking, the bus stops and someone calls out, “Hey, look at that old nutcase!” and the whole bus rocks with kids’ laughter.

  I scramble over Harrison Huxtable’s giant lunch box and mash my face into the window. By the time I realize what I’m looking at, the bus starts to pull away.

  But not before I see what I really did not want to see. And that’s a little old lady charging down Allencroft Boulevard toward the school. Nice red purse. Granny glasses hanging on a chain. No big deal.

  Wearing fuzzy pink footsie pajamas. Outside. On the street. In the middle of the afternoon. Very big deal.

  Especially when it’s your grandma. Or, more specifically, my grandma!

  She must be coming to pick me up. Like she used to. Since Mom worked, Grandma always met me at school and walked me home to keep me safe from, you know, twisted strangers. She came to meet me right up until the last day of fifth grade, which was more than a little embarrassing since I was the only fifth-grader with her own security. But Mom said until I was too big for a twisted stranger to stuff into a backpack, I was busing it with a bodyguard.

  So how did Gram forget that she hasn’t picked me up in a year and a half?

  Worse, how did she forget to get dressed?

  Harrison explodes laughing. His yo-yo falls to the ground and rolls under the seat. “She’s wearing footsie pajamas outside!” he shouts. “Just like mine, only pink!”

  This has an instant happy-sad effect. Happy for me, because the bloodthirsty wolves in the seats behind me instantly go after Harrison’s flesh and bones instead of Grandma’s. Sad, because Harrison just offered himself up as roadkill.

  A seventh-grade boy admitting to wearing footsies is so socially taboo it doesn’t even need an Unwritten Rule.

  I jump up and pull the cord to signal to the driver that I need to get off. Fast. Thankfully, the next stop is around the corner, so none of the wolves can see me tearing back to find Grandma and take her home.

  Back at home that night, Mom pours dry rice into a pot of boiling water. Steam spills out and hides her face for a moment. “I’m going to have to ask you to sort through the laundry hamper after dinner. Grandma lost her teeth and I don’t want them going through the dryer again.”

  I stick a wooden spoon into the pot and drown the rice bits that are swimming on the surface.

  “Mom?”

  “Yes?”

  “When people get old and start forgetting things, do they also start doing crazy stuff? Sometimes in public?”

  She looks at me funny. “Yes. Sometimes. Especially if they have Alzheimer’s.”

  “What’s that?” I ask.

  “It’s when older people’s minds age quicker than their bodies.”

  “Mm.” I stir the rice around the pot and stare at the bubbling water. “What do their families do about Alzheimer’s?”

  “Mostly just try to cope. And when it gets to the point that the older person needs constant care, their families often put them into a nursing home. So they’ll be safe and well cared for.”

  Not my grandma. Not in my lifetime. I study my mother’s face. “We’d never do that, would we? To Grandma?”

  She pauses too long, then puts the box of rice back into the cupboard. “If it became necessary, we’d consider it.”

  I don’t like that answer. Or that pause. And I especially don’t like the word Alzheimer’s.

  Grandma is like my rock. Nothing blows her over, makes her wilt or melt away. After Dad died, Mom spent a lot of time in bed sniffling, so Grandma moved in to “set things straight.” And she so did.

  I remember coming home from kindergarten one spring day and all these suitcases were piled up in the hallway. I didn’t know who belonged to them, but they looked like a good fort, so I dumped my backpack on the floor and crawled inside. Just as I was pretending to feed my wolf-cub children, Grandma’s face poked in and said, “Boo!” Which was scary but good, since I hadn’t seen Grandma in a long time and she always smells like baby powder and hugs.

  “Grandma!” I shouted as I trampled over my cubs to kiss her cheek. I knocked over the whole pile of suitcases, but Grandma didn’t mind. She just said, “That’s what luggage is for,” and scooped me up in her arms.

  Grandma moved in that day. Suddenly we had hot meals on the table, laundry folded and put away, and, lots of times, warm and chewy chocolate-chip cookies on the kitchen counter when I got home from school.

  I’ve never even known anyone smarter than Grandma. She used to talk on and on about baseball stuff, like whose batting average was .375 and whose ERA was 1.79. I didn’t know what she was talking about; it was just fun to listen. And crossword puzzles—that was the best part. Every Sunday morning we used to sit and do the crossword in the newspaper until we finally got fed up, ripped it into tiny shreds, and made cocoa. I always got fed up first, so I got pretty good at making cocoa.

  “I hear some nursing homes are quite chichi these days,” Mom says now. “Big rooms, high-definition TV, spectacular views. You’ll probably put me in one someday.”

  “Are you kidding? I’d never lock you up.”

  “It’s not prison, Zoë. Some nursing homes are very nice.”

  “Who takes care of these old people—the ones whose families don’t want them?”

  “Nurses. And their families don’t ‘not want them.’”

  “Can they leave if they want to—these old people?”

  “Well, no. But—”

&nbs
p; “Then it’s prison and Grandma’s never going.”

  She squints at me and pours a glass of milk. “Did something happen to Grandma today, Zoë? Is there something I should know about?”

  “Nope,” I lie. “It was a perfectly normal day.” Once I’m satisfied there are no survivors, I smother the steaming rice pot with a lid, turn down the heat, and set the timer for twenty-five minutes.

  Just then Grandma’s footsies come swish-swishing into the kitchen. She sits at the table and lifts her feet onto an empty chair. She pulls a tissue from her bathrobe pocket and blows her nose before picking up a pen and eyeballing this morning’s crossword puzzle. “That Alex Trebek from Jeopardy! is a ninny,” she says, scribbling down an answer. “On television for the whole world to see and he’s not even wearing a tie today.”

  I stare at a clod of gum stuck to her pajama footsies and say nothing.

  The phone rings.

  “Zoë, will you put the chicken on a plate, please?” Mom asks, picking up the phone. Covering the receiver with her hand, she rolls her eyes and whispers to me, “It’s the office, you’ll have to take over. Try to pull off the skin before you slice the chicken, it’s easier on Gram’s stomach.” She goes back to her phone call and rubs her forehead with her hand. “Francine lost the Fullerton contracts?”

  Here we go again. I don’t know why this Francine chick is given any responsibilities at all, because Mom’s always having to swoop in and cover for her. I guess it’s because Francine is a single mom with three kids and Mom doesn’t want to fire her and be responsible for a bunch of kids having no food and no roof over their heads.