Not That I Care by Rachel Vail Page A

I added, “You should’ve heard my mom. She went nuts. And she says I have a nasty mouth.”
    CJ put her arm around me. I didn’t shrug it off; it felt good even though I had to hunch a little because I grew a few inches this summer.
    We sat down at our lunch table. CJ and Olivia were both looking at me all sympathetic as we opened our lunches, so of course Zoe had to horn in on the attention. “My family isn’t so perfect,” she mumbled.
    “Yeah, right,” I said.
    She was still smiling like she always does, but I noticed for the first time that there was a tightness around her mouth and that her hands were fluttering up near her face nervously. “My sister Colette got her belly button pierced,” Zoe said in a quivering voice. “And my dad saw it.”
    CJ turned away from me to look wide-eyed at Zoe. “Did he have a fit?”
    “Oh, yeah,” Zoe answered with her mouth full. “When I was on the phone with you?” she said to CJ.
    CJ nodded. So I guess they were on the phone together last night. I shoved my uneaten sandwich back into my lunch bag.
    Zoe nodded, too, swallowing. “That was my father,” she said. “Screaming at Colette that she better have it out by today, and she’s screaming no way, it’s her body, he can’t make her, and he’s like, oh, yes, I can. CJ was on the phone with me the whole time.”
    Hurray for you , I thought.
    “That’s true,” CJ whispered to me and Olivia. “I heard the whole thing.”
    Olivia opened her pretzel sticks and told Zoe, “I agree with your sister. Even though, gross, still, it’s her body.” She held the box toward me.
    I took a pretzel and, sucking on it, said, “Maybe.” They waited while I chewed. I don’t talk with my mouth full. “But your sister doesn’t have to make such a dramatic point about it.”
    Zoe shrugged and said, “Well, anyway, my family is far from perfect.”
    Tommy and Jonas were suddenly sitting down at our table. I hadn’t even seen them walk over. As they climbed onto the bench, CJ was telling Zoe, “You must be so upset.”
    “Why?” Tommy asked. “What happened?” He pointed his chin at me, as if I would be the one to break our Silent Treatment and explain.
    “Nothing,” I said.
    CJ put her arm around Zoe. Jonas reached across me and grabbed a couple of Olivia’s pretzel sticks. Excuse me, am I invisible?
    “You could ask,” I told him.
    He stopped chewing and lowered the uneaten halves of the pretzel sticks back into Olivia’s box. “Sorry,” he mumbled, and stood up.
    “Later,” Tommy said as they walked away in their untied high-tops.
    “Much,” Zoe said.
    That made me laugh. She really is funny, I thought. So I asked her if her father is actually going to check her sister’s belly button. She nodded with a nauseated look on her face and said, “Tonight.” She tried to smile and added, “Should be a comedy.”
    CJ, who knows nothing about families falling apart, told Zoe, “If you need to get away, you can call me and come over.”
    “Or me,” I offered. “Anytime.”
    CJ smiled at me.
    Olivia told Zoe, “My house is closest. You can ride your bike over if you want.”
    Zoe told the three of us that we’re the greatest. Then the Levit boys threw a bunch of minimarshmallows at us. We laughed and gobbled them up.
    After school, I rode straight to Sundries instead of home. My money was in my pocket, and I plunked it on the counter as soon as I walked in and checked that nobody I knew was in the store.
    “Wait a while,” said slow Mrs. Dodge, who owns the place. “Catch your breath.”
    I hate when old people feel like they can tell kids what to do. I looked at the ceiling and waited, counting silently to ten. “May I please have the thing?”
    “What thing?”
    “That I put on hold,” I whispered. “The Barbie.”
    “Ah,” she said in a voice so loud it echoed throughout the store. “The doll. Yes.” She bent down to retrieve it from under the counter. I prayed she’d hurry, because I