Rule #9 by Sheri Duff Read Free Book Online Page B

is his last name. Alec—no, Jake—no, Jackson. I can’t remember his first name. I told Alicia you would watch out for him. Maybe show him around the school?” Now he’s looking at me instead of all of us.
    Great, the second day of school and I’m supposed to watch out for the new kid who can’t make friends by himself? I don’t think so. Not going to happen, Dad.
    “He plays football too.”
    Oh, joy. Definitely not going to happen, Dad.
    Football. Always football. What, is he trying to find me the perfect suitor? Before my father left my mom, he didn’t want me dating anyone. And now he’s picking out my boyfriends. What does he think this is, the late eighteen-hundreds in England, and football is some sort of social class?
    My father’s not the king of anything.
    “Dad, I gotta go.” I wait for him to say something: Bye , I love you , I miss you , anything. But he’s not paying attention to me. He’s scoping out the kids hanging outside, probably scouting more players. I leave the table. “Love you too, Dad.”
    I don’t look back.
    Natalie and Vianna follow me. Vianna says goodbye; Natalie doesn’t.
    “He starts next week.” My father’s voice echoes after me.
    Natalie and Vianna follow me through the front door of the school. When we hit the halls, we take a right toward the theater department. We have twenty minutes before class starts, so we head back outside to another seating area and secure a table just past the theater department, where my father will not find us. The football coaches never pass this side of the building, and neither do the jocks.
    Natalie dumps her bag of polish on the table and searches for the perfect color. Vianna pulls out a notebook and last year’s yearbook for ideas. This year she’s the editor. I can’t focus on anything so I stare at the mountain range. Pikes Peak has a dusting of snow, even though we haven’t seen any in Pine Gulch. By tomorrow the sun’s rays will melt the snow and it will disappear like it was never there.
    Kind of like my dad.
    Natalie raises her left hand, scrutinizing the pink polish, which matches her cropped top. “My dad called me last night to see if I could watch Annabelle Moo-Moo,” she says.
    “Why do you call her that?” Vianna asks. .
    “Call who what?” Natalie asks.
    “Your sister. Why do you call her Moo-Moo?” Vianna says.
    “Half-sister. And because it annoys his wife. Who names their daughter after a cow, anyway?” Natalie turns her hand toward Vianna.
    “Annabelle is cute.” Vianna squints, then shakes her head at the color choice.
    “I know, I know. The only problem is she’ll turn into her mother when she grows up. That’s what my mom says, anyway.” Natalie grabs the polish remover. “I can’t handle a bitch stepmom and a nasty little half-sister at the same time."
    “That’s mean. She’s only, what, like five or something?” Vianna says.
    The sad thing is even if Natalie wanted to like her baby half-sister or her stepmom, she couldn’t. Natalie’s mom took the divorce hard. Ms. Young locked herself in her room for the first month. When she finally came out, Natalie’s dad announced his engagement. That’s when Ms. Young stopped eating and lost a ton of weight. The first few pounds were fine. She looked healthy. But she wouldn’t stop the extreme workouts, and then she would only eat diet shakes, which made her lose her best qualities. Her high cheekbones caved in, and the muscles on her arms were replaced with skin that hung. She tried to flaunt her new body, especially after Natalie’s stepmom became pregnant. Now she hides her body. She can’t figure out why she still has the flab. Gaby says, “Skin isn’t flab, it’s skin—fill it in.”
    “Who knows, maybe Annabelle will take on more of your dad’s traits,” Vianna says.
    “And that would be so much better?” Natalie scrubs the polish off with a cotton ball. She digs into her skin like she’s removing an ink stain that won’t