Not That I Care by Rachel Vail

day, the first day of seventh grade. I wrote and wrote, until I got up to the part about Mom yelling at Dad, and finding out the truth of why Dad had left us. Then I started erasing, with the new gummy eraser. I didn’t like it, any of it.
    I erased the whole day.

eighteen
    T he next day, CJ was giving me the Silent Treatment more than the boys. I have no idea why. At our lockers before lunch, CJ even gave her new combination to Zoe instead of to me.
    In case CJ gets sick or something, Zoe could unlock her locker and get her stuff for her, and bring it over to her house. I actually live closer to CJ than Zoe does. Last year when CJ got bronchitis, I brought her not just the homework, almost every day, but also, each time, a little thing—a paper-clip bracelet once and the next day a fortune-telling origami thing I spent the entire day making for her. Nothing big. Nothing great. I was the one who had her combination, then.
    Zoe’s shiny blue eyes opened wide as she looked down at CJ’s new combination for a second before she folded it up and crammed it into her shorts pocket. She smiled her molar-exposing smile at me, almost like she was apologizing. Like I cared or something, that CJ gave her the combination and saved me all that work of making presents and bringing the homework if she gets sick this year.
    Zoe could blurt it out to the boys, was the only thing. I wasn’t getting the impression she’d been one hundred percent successful at giving them the Silent Treatment, which we had all made a pact to do. CJ could end up with every boy in the school rummaging through her locker, trusting Zoe Grandon, the blabbermouth, with her combination. Zoe had already announced her own locker combination out loud: 7-14-2. Anyone with a locker near ours could steal her lunch or jacket any time. Zoe has no sense of privacy or secrecy.
    If CJ hates me , I remember thinking, What will I do? I tried to think how to win her back. “Well, my father is at it again,” I said.
    CJ whispered, “Oh, no,” and gave me that head tilted, hand-up-by-her-neck imitation of her mother when she’s trying to be sympathetic. At least she still cared. I didn’t look away like I usually do when she acts all nice.
    “What happened?” Zoe asked.
    “You wouldn’t understand,” I explained to her. “You have the perfect family.” I wrote down my new combination and gave it to Olivia. I can give my combination to whoever I want, same as CJ, and Olivia is much more honest and moral than anybody else around; exactly the type of person you’d want to give your combination to. “Here’s my combination,” I told Olivia.
    “Thanks,” Olivia said. She couldn’t give me her combination because she has a key lock. Everybody else has combinations. Last year I might have thought she was a loser for doing something different, but I am not such a conformist anymore. She can have a key lock if she wants. How generous of me. I watched her lock up, her long, skinny fingers carefully turning the key. She’s the least rough person I’ve ever noticed. Definitely a good person to trust with your combination.
    CJ slammed her locker shut.
    “My family is so far from perfect,” Zoe protested.
    I leaned against Olivia’s locker and said, “The Grandons? You’re all so happy and friendly and cute, we could throw up.” In fact, I felt like throwing up.
    “Mm-hmm,” CJ agreed. “Everybody thinks so.” Then she smiled at me. Thank the Lord , I thought.
    Zoe tugged at her T-shirt and fidgeted around. “My family? Please.” She smiled big at CJ.
    “Face it, Zoe,” I told her. “You have no problems.”
    She had no answer for that, so she asked what my father had done.
    “He called last night with this whole thing, there won’t be a check again this month, blah, blah, blah.”
    Nobody said anything. We started walking to the cafeteria. I could just hear my mother saying, You sure have a gift for killing a conversation, Morgan . To lighten things up,