I raise an eyebrow at her. “It’s really not.”
“Yup, it is. It was just the same for him in Boston, I promise you.”
“What are you talking about, Pooh? Boston has museums, historic stuff, parks, baseball, millions of people, nontoxic bodies of water—”
I’m just getting started when she interrupts. “He was sick of all the kids he’d known since grade school, the ones he never liked but his parents made him hang out with, the ones who were there when he accidentally called the kindergarten teacher Mommy and remember when he got hit in the face with a volleyball in sixth grade and cried so hard they had to send him home. He wants a million things he doesn’t have. He wants everything. He thought there was no one new to meet and no one he wasn’t bored to death of and nothing to do on Saturday nights and nowhere left to go. He felt trapped there like he’d never get out. And then suddenly? He got to come here. He doesn’t think Bourne’s lame. He thinks it’s exciting.”
“No way.” I’m laughing now, shaking my head.
“Maybe not Bourne itself, but all the new people, new school, new possibilities.”
“They’re beating him up,” I remind her.
“Exciting!” She shrugs. “Roils the blood. Muddies the waters. I bet he loves it.”
“He doesn’t. He’s terrified.”
“Because you know what else it does?” It’s like she hasn’t even heard me. “It makes pretty girls feel protective of you. It makes pretty girls stand up for you in front of everyone.”
“You’re crazy, Pooh.”
“I’m not. I’m telling you. Here’s not so different from anywhere. You can’t see that now but you will. When you leave, you’ll see. And River Templeton? He’s not so different either. Teenage boys are teenage boys. I bet you anything he’s over the goddamn moon to be here.”
“How could that possibly, possibly be the case?”
“Easy,” Pooh says. “You’re here.”
Two
Mab kicks over a stack of checkout cards, and I know she did not mean to, but she should be more careful because the checkout cards go everywhere, and that is a whole afternoon of work wasted. If you think it is ridiculous that I am using cards and pencils to track library books in this day and age, you are correct. If you think I am too stupid to know how to use a computer instead, you are incorrect. When Mrs. Watson gave me the books, she did not give me the scanner you use to catalog, lend, and track the books. I asked, but she said it got sold. Leave it to humanity to think the book scanner is more valuable than the books.
Mab says she is sorry about my cards, but she does not look sorry about my cards.
“Come downstairs,” she says.
“What is downstairs?”
“Mirabel.”
“Mirabel is always downstairs.”
“Exactly. We need to talk. All of us.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Three heads are better than one.”
“Like Cerberus?” There are two books about Greek mythology inside the microwave.
“Yes,” Mab says. “Exactly like Cerberus.” But she is being sarcastic enough that even I can tell.
Downstairs, she is all red and talking with a lot of extra breath. “I did it.”
Mirabel high-fives her.
“What did you do?” I ask.
“What you wanted me to.”
“You picked up all my checkout cards and put them back in the right order and placed them neatly in a neat pile with something heavy on top so they will not go everywhere if someone kicks them accidentally?” That is what I wanted her to do, but I do not see when she could have done it since it just happened.
“The other thing,” she says.
But I cannot think of another thing.
So she rolls her eyes and says she talked to River, and she talked to the Kyles, and she told the Kyles to stop and to spread the word and tell everyone else to stop too.
“Thank you,” Mirabel’s Voice says, and her eyes might have tears in them, and her face might show happy or it might show relieved.
“Why do you look red and panty then?” I wonder to Mab.
“We need a plan,” Mab says, “and a sister pact.”
“I vow to always eat your creamed spinach,” I say immediately. Neither of my sisters likes creamed spinach. “As long as it is raining.”
“Not that kind, Monday,” Mirabel’s Voice says at once so she must have it saved, but I do not know why she would. Then she adds, “Thank you,” which is polite. Then she adds, “Stop.”