Allie Finkle's Rules for Girls: Best Friends and Drama Queens Read online

  ‘Certainly,’ Cheyenne said. ‘I’m considered highly intelligent, and I enjoy water sports such as swimming and sailing, especially on Lake Ontario.’

  ‘Thank you, Cheyenne,’ Mrs Hunter said, before any of us had a chance to applaud. Well, I don’t know if anyone but me felt like clapping. But I thought a speech that good deserved some applause. Cheyenne hadn’t said ‘um’ once! ‘You may take your seat. Your desk is right next to Erica Harrington . . . Erica, will you show her?’

  Erica waved her arms to show Cheyenne where her (or really my) desk was. Cheyenne smiled graciously and went to sit down at her new desk. I watched as Erica said hello to her and helped her put away her things. All the things Cheyenne owned were very grown-up looking. For instance, her pencil box didn’t have Hello Kitty, Webkinz or Bratz on it. It was just plain.

  Which actually seemed kind of boring to me, but whatever. If I was starting a new school in a new country, I’d have gotten horses on everything. Or at the very least, rainbows or unicorns.

  I saw that Caroline and Sophie had turned around in their seats in front of Erica’s row to say hello. So had some of the other girls. Cheyenne, I could tell, was going to be popular. Probably because of her T-shirt. Who wouldn’t want to be friends with someone who was all talent and no talk?

  Wearing the fact that you are talented on your T-shirt is always a smart move. This is a rule.

  I was going to have to wait until recess to talk to her, of course. Because I was stuck at the back with Rosemary and the Terror Triplets. There was no way I could even throw Cheyenne a special Welcome to Pine Heights note from here. It would never reach her. I was stuck at the back of Mrs Hunter’s fourth-grade class, with the nose-pickers and the zombie brain-eaters.

  Who knew if I’d ever even make it out alive?

  Rule #4

  Friendly People Don’t Tell Other People That Their Games Are Babyish

  I made it out for morning recess, but barely. I had to tell Stuart to knock it off with the zombie drawing four times. Finally I realized the only way he was going to stop showing me his disgusting horror sketches was to make my own, one that was so much grosser than his that he’d realize I was the Queen of the Zombie Drawings. I had to spend all math on mine, so I didn’t raise my hand once, and let Caroline do all the answering, which I knew was unusual for me, and Mrs Hunter noticed.

  She didn’t say anything though. She must have known I was getting acclimatized to my new environment (I learned that expression in the animal books I like to read).

  I showed my drawing to Stuart just before recess. He was so freaked out he could barely speak, except to go, ‘You didn’t draw that . . . did you?’

  So then I showed him my signature, Allison Finkle, at the bottom. Also that the fly pupae coming out of the skull’s eyeballs were of my own creation. I’d gotten the idea for them from a dead squirrel I saw once.

  I am naturally a very talented person.

  The thing is, I have to talk about it, because I don’t have a T-shirt to tell people about it.

  As I was rushing to the coat-rack to get my coat and hat and stuff to go to recess, I saw a weird thing inside Joey Fields’s desk. Or at least I thought I did. It was only out of the corner of my eye, so I can’t be sure. But I thought I saw some of Mrs Hunter’s old copies of the Boxcar Children inside his desk.

  Except that isn’t possible, because boys don’t read those books. Especially weird bad boys like Joey Fields.

  Of all the people in our classroom, the last person I’d suspect of being the one to selfishly hoard Mrs Hunter’s Boxcar Children books for him or herself was Joey Fields. In my dazed state after trying to out-gross Stuart Maxwell, I must have been seeing things.

  Once I was out in the playground with Erica, Sophie and Caroline, I started feeling a bit better. Maybe it was the fresh air, even if it was cold.

  Or maybe it was just being away from all those boys.

  ‘Oh my gosh,’ Erica said, hugging me. ‘I miss you so much, Allie! It’s so horrible, not sitting next to you! I wanted to say a million things to you all morning, and I kept turning my head to do it, only it wasn’t you! It was that Cheyenne girl!’

  ‘Mrs Hunter is probably happy you two are separated,’ Caroline said knowingly. ‘She hasn’t mentioned the words chit-chat all day. It’s a new world record.’

  ‘You don’t think she moved Allie on purpose because of that,’ Sophie cried. ‘Do you?’

  ‘No,’ Caroline said. ‘Although I did notice there were a lot fewer disturbances from the back today. Allie seems to be having a good influence on those boys. How are you handling things back there, Allie?’

  I made a face. ‘Let’s not talk about it,’ I said. ‘I just want to forget about the back row for fifteen minutes. Let’s go play queens, OK?’

  ‘I thought you’d never ask,’ Erica said with a smile, and took my hand. We were about to run across the playground together when Erica stopped dead and I nearly ran into her. Which made Sophie almost hobble into me, and Caroline almost run into her.

  ‘What?’ Caroline asked. ‘What is it?’

  ‘You guys,’ Erica said. ‘Look.’

  Erica pointed. It was kind of hard to see what she was pointing at because she was wearing mittens. But we looked in the general direction of where her arm was waving, and saw the saddest thing. Which was Cheyenne sitting all by herself on one of the swings. The swings were pretty much deserted because it was the middle of winter and too cold to go swinging (we’d tried it once and ended up getting snot on our faces).

  Cheyenne must have known about this since she wasn’t swinging. She was just sitting there, staring down at her feet. No one was talking to her and she wasn’t talking to anybody else.

  ‘Awwww,’ Sophie said. ‘The poor thing.’

  ‘Should we ask her to play?’ Erica wanted to know.

  ‘Mrs Hunter would want us to,’ I said. I was sure of that.

  ‘Should we ask her to play queens?’ Caroline sounded as if she didn’t think so.

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘she is talented.’

  ‘How do you know?’ Caroline asked.

  ‘Because,’ I said, ‘her shirt says so.’

  ‘Anyone could buy that shirt,’ Caroline pointed out intelligently.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. Actually, I hadn’t thought of that. ‘But most people wouldn’t unless they really were talented.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Sophie said. ‘Who would want to walk around with a big lie on their chest?’

  Caroline looked at Erica. ‘You’ve sat next to her all morning. Do you think she’d like playing queens?’

  Erica shrugged. ‘Who wouldn’t? Well . . . except Rosemary.’

  This was true.

  ‘Oh well,’ Caroline said, giving a little shrug of her own. ‘We’re just going to have to find out for ourselves. Come on.’

  So we all ran over to where Cheyenne was sitting, and said, ‘Hi!’ and, ‘Hello, Cheyenne!’ and, ‘Do you want to play with us?’

  To my surprise, however, instead of looking up gratefully and saying, Oh, thank you for coming over to me when no one else on the whole playground would, the way I expected her to, Cheyenne said very briskly, ‘That depends. What game are you playing?’

  ‘We like to play a game we call queens,’ Caroline explained, because she is the champion speller of our school, so we usually let her do all the talking. ‘We pretend that we’re four queens, and that an evil warlord is trying to force Sophie to marry him, only she doesn’t want to marry him because her heart belongs to another, Peter Jacobs – he’s over there in the green coat, playing kickball.’ Caroline helpfully pointed Peter out. ‘He’s in Mrs Danielson’s fourth-grade class next door—’

  ‘You guys!’ Sophie squealed, blushing with embarrassment. But you could tell she liked the attention.

  ‘So we have to fight the evil warlord with swords and truncheons and boiling oil and stuff,’ Caroline went on. ‘We play it in this cool wooded area over there.’
Caroline pointed at the secret fort where we usually play queens. ‘Anyway, you can come over and play with us, if you want.’

  Cheyenne looked over at where Caroline was pointing. Then she smiled politely and said, not getting up from her swing, ‘No thank you. Actually, I don’t know whether or not you noticed, but we’re in the fourth grade. That’s a little old for playing such babyish games of let’s pretend, don’t you think?’

  I was so shocked I didn’t know what to say or do. I couldn’t believe she’d actually said that – that our game was babyish. I just stood there staring at her until I felt someone’s hand on my arm and heard Caroline going, ‘Well, I’m very sorry you feel that way. We’ll leave you alone now. Bye,’ and realized Caroline was pulling me away.

  ‘Oh my goodness, oh my goodness,’ Sophie was saying, over and over, as Caroline dragged the three of us away from the swings. ‘Did you hear what she said? Did you hear? She did not just say that. She did not!’

  ‘She didn’t mean it,’ Erica was saying, because Erica can’t believe anyone would ever say anything mean. ‘Maybe she misunderstood, because she’s from another country. Why would she say such a mean thing?’

  ‘Of course she meant it,’ Caroline said. I had never seen Caroline so mad. There was practically steam coming out of her ears, she was so angry. She was practically stomping towards the bushes that guarded the secret entrance to our private fort where we played queens. ‘Just because we like to play our own made-up games instead of whatever it is she likes to play. Which is apparently nothing. Apparently all she likes to do is sit and stare into space.’

  ‘Well . . .’ Erica looked over her shoulder at Cheyenne. ‘Maybe she doesn’t know any better.’

  ‘Some people have no manners,’ Caroline said. ‘Come on, you guys, let’s forget about her and just play.’

  We ducked beneath the bushes and went inside our secret castle and played a nice round of queens, forgetting all about Cheyenne O’Malley.

  Or at least, we tried. Well, I tried.

  But it was sort of hard to concentrate when I kept hearing Cheyenne’s voice in my head, saying, Actually, I don’t know whether or not you noticed, but we’re in the fourth grade. That’s a little old for playing such babyish games of let’s pretend, don’t you think?

  I don’t know if the other girls were hearing that same voice in their heads or not.

  But I do know for me it was awful! Was fourth grade too old for games of let’s pretend? Caroline, Sophie, Erica and I played let’s pretend games all the time. We pretended we were queens. We pretended we were space-shuttle captains (a game I borrowed from my brothers who played space shuttle all the time with the radiator between their rooms. But I would never, ever tell them I’d gotten the idea from them. And we didn’t use the stupid radiator when we played). We played pretend with our AmericanGirl dolls (well, not Caroline because she didn’t have one, but she used Erica’s extra ones). Sometimes we pretended we were in high school and got dressed up like teenagers in Erica’s sister Missy’s stuff (and then had to deal with Missy’s anger when she found out and we got caught. But it was totally worth it). Sometimes we played mad scientist and mixed together all the different cleaners we found under the kitchen sink in Caroline’s house to see if they would explode. Sometimes we pretended we were movie stars and dressed up in Sophie’s mom’s stuff (and then had to deal with Sophie’s mom’s anger when we got caught. But it was also totally worth it).

  Was that babyish?

  Maybe it was.

  But it was also totally fun! I mean, if dressing up in someone else’s mom’s clothes and make-up is babyish, well, then I didn’t want to be grown up.

  When the warning bell rang, letting us know it was time to line up to go back inside, I don’t think I was the only one who didn’t think recess had been quite long enough to get over the trauma of the morning.

  But we came out of the bushes and hurried to get into our lines to go back inside anyway. As we did, I noticed that Cheyenne wasn’t by herself any more. She was walking with Marianne and Dominique, two girls from our class.

  ‘Oh look,’ Erica said. ‘Cheyenne found some friends. Now we don’t have to worry about her any more.’

  ‘Who’s worrying about her? Not me,’ I said.

  ‘You don’t think she’s telling them what you said about Prince Peter, do you, Caroline?’ Sophie asked worriedly. Sophie’s crush on Peter was a secret, but it was a secret we talked about so much that we sometimes forgot it was a secret.

  ‘No,’ Caroline said. ‘Why would she do that? That would just be malicious.’

  Being the champion speller of our school – but not of our district, Caroline had been beaten out by a girl from a rival elementary school in the district championship last month – Caroline sometimes used big words we didn’t understand. But I knew what malicious meant.

  I couldn’t tell yet if Cheyenne was malicious or not. I hadn’t really known her long enough. One thing I did know was, she wasn’t all that friendly. Friendly people don’t tell other people that their games are babyish. That’s a rule.

  But maybe Cheyenne was just having a bad day. We all do sometimes, especially on our first day at a new school in a new country. Probably we should give Cheyenne another chance. The fact was, she was most likely just scared and maybe a little nervous . . . even though she hadn’t seemed that way. She had seemed pretty confident actually.

  Still, even the most confident people have bad days sometimes. Or at least, that’s what I’ve been told by my mom, and people on TV.

  So I wasn’t going to start disliking Cheyenne yet, much less hating her (because You aren’t supposed to hate people. That’s a rule too. Even though of course there are a lot of people who deserve to be hated, such as murderers and people who are mean to animals on purpose). I was going to give her another chance.

  Starting right after lunch.

  I invited Rosemary, Caroline, Sophie and Erica over for lunch, mostly because I wanted them to try Dance Party America, but also because I wanted them to see how big Mewsie has gotten. Mom doesn’t mind when I invite people over for lunch without telling her first, because I know how to make my own lunches now and she always buys extra food just in case I want to have people over. And when my mom doesn’t have enough hot dog buns or whatever (microwave hot-dogs are always a big hit with my friends), we can go to Erica’s, because Mrs Harrington always has tons of food, since Erica has a brother who is a teenager. I once saw John eat eight oranges in a row without stopping or even noticing he was doing it. He wouldn’t have stopped either except that his mom made him because she said he was going to make himself sick.

  But when we got to my house for lunch that first day back after Winter Break, I couldn’t show my friends Dance Party America. That’s because my Uncle Jay was lying on the couch in the TV room all wrapped up in a blanket watching the twenty-four-hour news channel, which we kids aren’t supposed to watch, but Uncle Jay knows the password to the parental V-chip Mom installed (so do us kids actually, which is how Uncle Jay knows it, but we told him not to tell that we know it).

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I asked him. Uncle Jay lives in an apartment on campus, where he is a student.

  ‘Hello,’ Uncle Jay said, turning down the sound of the TV with the remote. ‘That’s a very gracious greeting.’

  ‘Hi, Mr Finkle,’ Caroline said. Caroline isn’t very shy around adults. That’s because of her cosmopolitan upbringing as the daughter of an East Asian studies professor. My dad just teaches computers. ‘Are you not feeling well?’

  ‘Please,’ Uncle Jay said, not getting up from the couch, ‘call me Jay. Mr Finkle was my father. And no, I’m not feeling well.’

  ‘Do you have a broken toe?’ Sophie wanted to know. She showed him her Velcro bootee. ‘I do too.’

  ‘I don’t have a broken toe,’ Uncle Jay said. He didn’t even raise his head up from the couch cushion. ‘If only my problem was that simple.’

  ‘Do you have the
flu?’ Erica asked. ‘My sister, Missy, got it when we were in Florida last week. She threw up for three days straight.’

  ‘I have been stricken,’ Uncle Jay said, ‘but not with a virus. And something about me is broken, but it’s not my toe. It’s my heart.’

  By this time Kevin had finally peeled off his snow-suit and come into the room. He looked down at Uncle Jay on the couch and went, ‘Are you going to die?’

  ‘Death is inevitable,’ Uncle Jay said.

  Mark had also come into the room. He looked down at Uncle Jay and asked, ‘If you die, can I have your Xbox?’

  ‘Mark!’ I cried. Boys can seriously be so stupid sometimes. Also deeply thoughtless. That’s a rule.

  ‘Of course you can,’ Uncle Jay said, giving Mark a pat on the hand. ‘I won’t need it any more, where I’m going.’

  ‘Jay.’ I heard my mom’s voice coming from her office, which is just off the utility room. ‘Stop being so dramatic. Kids, leave Jay alone. He’s having a bad day. His girlfriend just broke up with him, that’s all.’

  Rule #5

  Just Because Something Is Popular Doesn’t Mean It’s Good

  I was shocked. Shocked to hear that my Uncle Jay’s girlfriend, Harmony, had broken-up with him, and that Uncle Jay, in his depression over this, couldn’t go back to his apartment, where the break-up had occurred, because the sight of it made him too sad.

  Instead, he had to lie on our couch in the TV room watching CNN and eating microwave popcorn.

  ‘But who’s going to feed Wang Ba?’

  Those were the first words out of my mouth. It maybe wasn’t the most sympathetic thing to say.

  But when you have rescued a turtle from a Chinese food restaurant where it was facing certain death, and your uncle has promised to take care of it, you too would ask who was going to feed it upon learning that your uncle had decided to live on your couch instead.

  ‘Don’t worry about Wang Ba,’ Uncle Jay said with a sigh. ‘My neighbour’s promised to look in on him.’

  ‘That’s a relief,’ I said.