30 Days of No Gossip (5 page)

“I had to park my bike,” I told her.

“We could have given you a ride.” This from Sydney, who had also turned around to look at me. I wondered if Vi had even said anything to them. Maybe she wasn’t speaking to anyone.

“I didn’t mind,” I told Sydney. Mom usually only let me ride my bike on weekends, when there wasn’t much traffic on the roads. During the school week, she was sure some rushed commuter or parent would run over me on the way. But this morning we had to be here early, which meant there wouldn’t be much traffic. After I begged long enough, she finally agreed to let me ride it.

“He’s in front of me,” Sydney whispered back to me. As if I couldn’t see.

I nodded. “I can tell.” I looked over at Vi for approval. She was staring out the window, but I knew she had to have noticed my silence when I was clearly being invited to gossip.

“Are they holding hands?” Jessica whispered.

I played innocent, as if I had no idea what was going on. “I don’t know,” I said with a shrug.

Vi still didn’t look at me, but I knew she had to be fully aware of what was going on here. She was listening to every word, so I had to be on my best behavior.

Jessica looked at Sydney, who just shrugged. They both turned around to face forward.

I looked at Vi. She was still staring out the window. There had to be some way to get her to talk to me. If I started talking to her, eventually she’d talk back. Or she’d listen, which is all I really needed her to do.

“So . . . ,” I began, searching for something to talk to Vi about. What did we normally talk about? I know Vi didn’t gossip, but we always seemed to have more than enough to say. I would talk about things going on at school, maybe whatever was happening with Sydney and Jessica. Most of the time, I was talking and Vi was listening. I glanced at Vi out of the corner of my eye. Now that I thought about it, Vi rarely said anything at all. I just chatted away while she listened.

“Are you ready for midterms?” I asked.

Her head jerked around. She leaned over and dug into her backpack, which she took everywhere with her. Once she even took it to a water park with my family. We had to get a separate locker just for her.

Without saying a word, she pulled out her notebook and set it on her lap. My comment about midterms had reminded her to study. That was good news because it meant she was actually responding to something I’d said, even if it wasn’t to say a word. But it was bad news because it meant she planned to study the whole way there.

Studying? Really? The ride to Four Cedars was more than an hour. If she studied the whole way, I’d have no one to talk to. I needed someone to talk to even if she would never say a word back.

I looked at Syd and Jess in front of me, their heads pressed together as they whispered and giggled. I wanted to be up there, laughing along with them. No, scratch that. I wanted to laugh and whisper with my BFF. I just had to find a way to get back to the great friendship we’d once had without gossiping.

The idea came to me as I watched her do mathematical formulas in the left column of the page of her notebook. It wasn’t my first choice of things to talk about, but it would make her happy.

“We could talk about your bedroom,” I tried. It was a sad attempt to get her to talk to me, I knew.

Her hand completely paused. She’d heard me. She was listening. I continued.

“This is the perfect chance to go over our plans,” I said. “You know. Your interior design project.”

She started writing again. I took that as a sign she’d heard me.

“Pssst.”

The sound came from just behind me as I was in the middle of coming up with a way to get through to Vi. I was sure the noise wasn’t for me, but I couldn’t keep myself from turning around.

I saw Kelsey O’Dell standing in the aisle, looking at me, Kelsey, the girl I’d been gossiping about with my friends before Vi banned me from gossiping.

“Can you come back here?” Kelsey asked.

Kelsey and I hadn’t spoken since third grade, although I’d certainly said plenty
about
her. So if she wanted me to move to the back of the bus, I could only assume I was in trouble for something.

“Excuse me,” I said to Vi. She didn’t even look up, but I still felt like I should excuse myself. I would have felt really bad if she’d kept talking to me when my attention was on
Kelsey. She
was
drawing what her bedroom would look like with all her furniture rearranged, which meant she’d been listening to me.

I got up and headed after Kelsey, moving as quickly as I could to avoid being caught moving around by the driver. I had a bad feeling about this, but what could I do?

Kelsey wasn’t all the way at the back of the bus. Just seven rows behind us, actually. She motioned for me to sit down next to her as she slid onto the seat. I hoped this didn’t mean we were settling in for a long conversation.

“What do you know about Sarah Dooley and Trevor Finn?” Kelsey asked.

I don’t know why I was surprised. This should have been exactly what I expected her to say. If Sarah and Trevor were still a solid couple, she’d have nothing to worry about. If, however, they were having trouble, it might start a chain reaction that went all the way down to Kelsey. If Sarah was free, she might finally realize Aiden liked her and like him back, at which point Aiden’s whole thing about
maybe
liking Kelsey would be over. And Kelsey would have a good reason to be mad at Emma.

Just like Vi would have a good reason to be mad at me if Travis ended up with someone else.

So in this situation, Kelsey was Vi. I had to talk to her
the way I’d want someone to talk to Vi. I had to get her to be not mad at Emma. And I had to do it without gossiping.

Yeah,
that
would be a challenge.

I took a deep breath and plunged in. “Emma’s your best friend, right?” I asked.

That wasn’t gossip. It was a fact. Plus, it was a question, so that made it double-not-gossip.

“She was,” Kelsey said, pursing her lips until they made an almost straight line. “Until she told Aiden I like him.”

Treading carefully, I started, “Sometimes best friends do things to help each other. We really just want to help.”

“She knew I didn’t want her to say anything,” Kelsey said angrily. “I feel like it’s a betrayal.” She shook her head, as if shaking the whole thing off. “Anyway, I want to know what’s going on up there. You know everything.”

I
knew
everything. A gigantic lump suddenly formed in my throat. She was counting on me to deliver information, but I couldn’t, not without betraying my own best friend. After what Kelsey had just said, how could I take that chance? If I even said one thing, I ran the risk of Vi saying the same thing about me.
She betrayed me. I trusted her.

Best friends keep secrets. They trust each other. Even if it was in the best interest of that best friend, the other best friend should never break that bond, no matter what.
That was how Kelsey felt about it, and that was how Vi felt about it too. I was starting to understand why Vi was so mad.

So I simply told her, “I’ll see if I can find out.”

Yes, it was a cop-out. It was what I had to say without breaking my promise to Vi. I practically sprinted back to my seat, where Sydney had now plopped down in my place next to Vi.

“What if you put the bed over here?” I heard Syd ask as I passed the two of them. Their heads were bent over Vi’s sketch pad, and I felt a twinge of envy. Just minutes ago Sydney and Jessica had their heads bent together like that, gossiping, and now Sydney was doing the same thing with Vi, only not to gossip. Without gossip, I wasn’t sure I really had anything to talk about.

I paused next to Jessica’s seat as that thought hit me. Was that exactly Vi’s point?

“Sit,” Jessica commanded.

I looked down and realized she’d probably been looking up at me for a couple of seconds. The bus hit a bump and I had to grab on to the back of the seat to keep from falling over. I sat down next to Jessica.

“Where did you go?” Jessica asked.

That question threw me for a second. How did she
know I’d gone anywhere? I heard Sydney laugh behind me and remembered she’d taken my seat.

“Kelsey wanted to know what was going on up here,” I said quietly. I didn’t want Vi to hear. Not that I had anything to hide. I just didn’t want her to get the wrong idea.

“What did you tell her?” Jessica asked. She whispered too. She probably thought we were trying to keep Sarah and Trevor from hearing. Emma was sitting across from us too.

“Nothing,” I answered with a shrug. “I don’t know what’s going on. Don’t care.”

That last part may have sounded rude, but I knew if I didn’t add it, Jessica would proceed to tell me everything she’d observed. Which was gossip. Vi would overhear her telling me all that, and our friendship would be over.

It didn’t matter. Jessica wasn’t listening.

“They’re fighting,” Jessica whispered. “Look.”

I looked. I shouldn’t have, because that was participating in the gossip. Sure enough, Sarah and Trevor weren’t all cuddled together like they normally were. I could see the tension in the air between them. It was creepy.

Here’s what I wanted to say:
OMG. What happened? I want to hear every single detail of everything you saw. Does Emma know? Is that why she keeps looking nervously back at Kelsey?
Because you know if Trevor and Sarah break up, that gives Aiden a chance, which will really make Kelsey mad.

Here’s what I said: “That’s too bad. What did you bring for lunch?”

Jessica gave me that look. It matched what Sydney had said last night. Who
are
you and what have you done with Maddie? I knew what was coming, so I braced myself for her next words.

“You’re being weird.”

Those weren’t the exact words I’d expected, but they weren’t a surprise, either. I just shrugged.

“I told you I’m trying to be more positive.”

“You’re Maddie Evans,” Jessica responded. “If Maddie Evans doesn’t talk about people, what does she talk about?”

She didn’t say that last part quietly. I looked around, glad to see nobody was really paying attention to us. Vi and Sydney had stopped talking, though. Sydney gave us a half smile before saying something that brought Vi’s attention back to her drawing.

“There are lots of things to talk about,” I said. “Can you believe how hot it is?”

The weather?
Really?
I couldn’t come up with anything better than that?

“I know. We’re going to burn up out there.”

Those words came from Sarah, who spun around in her seat and looked directly at me. Her eyes were flashing something I couldn’t quite read, but from her expression, I knew instinctively she’d figured out people were gossiping about her. She saw my silly talk about the weather as a way to get away from it.

“Pimento cheese,” Jessica blurted. We both looked over at her, surprised at her sudden outburst. Then I remembered I’d asked Jessica earlier what she’d brought for lunch. She was trying to cover up the fact that she’d been talking about Sarah by talking about her sandwich.

“We were talking about what we brought for lunch,” I lied to Sarah. Well, it wasn’t exactly a lie. I’d been
trying
to talk about what we brought for lunch. It wasn’t my fault Jessica hadn’t been cooperating.

“Cool.” She spun around in her seat. “I brought cold chicken.”

“Excuse me.”

That came from Trevor, who suddenly stood and started toward the back of the bus. The bus driver yelled out that if we didn’t stay seated, he would turn around and take us all back to school. At that point, Sarah burst into tears.

My first instinct was to turn to Vi, but her attention was on her drawings. Typical Vi. Major drama was happening
right in front of her and she was more interested in what she was doing. At least it had caught Sydney’s attention. She was staring directly at Sarah.

I looked at Jessica. She had a horrified look on her face. I gave her a “what should we do?” look, but she was no help. It looked like I was on my own with this.

Sighing, I stood and moved up to sit next to Sarah. We weren’t good friends, but we’d gone to school together since kindergarten. I figured if you’d both slept on the same mat in kindergarten during nap time, you had at least a little bit of a bond.

“It’s okay,” I said, reaching out and touching her arm. That was as close as I could get to a hug. I looked around. People were starting to stare, and I knew later they’d ask me what was going on. “It’s going to be okay.”

What else could I say? She was crying. I didn’t know what to do when people cried.

“He. Broke. Up. With. Me.”

Sarah said those words quietly, inserting a sniffle in between each one. She said them so quietly, I didn’t think anyone heard them but me. Why was she telling me this, though? She knew I was the school gossip. Didn’t she think I’d tell people?

As I watched her wipe tears away and slide down farther
in her seat, it hit me that she probably wasn’t even thinking about that. It was just now hitting
her
that other people might see her crying, including Trevor.

I slid down even with her. I tried to think of something smart to say—some little piece of wisdom that would make her stop crying—but I’d never even liked a boy, let alone dealt with a boy not liking me back. Being broken up with had to be far worse than either of those things.

“He’s stupid,” I said quietly.

Yep, that was it. My big wisdom. I expected Sarah to wipe her tears away and look at me like I was a piece of lint on her brand-new black T-shirt. Instead, she looked up at me and hiccuped.

“You think so?” she asked.

I nodded and smiled. “Here’s what I think will happen. You’ll meet some really cute boy in a couple of weeks and he’ll like you and you’ll like him. Trevor will see you together and realize what a big mistake he made, but by then it’ll be too late.”

She was listening now, in a way people used to listen to me when I talked about other people. This wasn’t gossip, though. This was
helping
someone. And it felt really, really good.