Sarah Simpson's Rules for Living Read online

  If somebody were to drag me off to the Underworld, I’d stay there and never come back, no matter how much they mooched around up above crying over me. But I wouldn’t get trapped by a handful of stupid pomegranate seeds. I’d ask for a coconut-almond-fudge sundae.

  MARCH 26

  Everybody is mad at me for telling the truth.

  THINGS I TOLD THE TRUTH ABOUT

  1. George’s mother.

  2. Marriage.

  3. What Andrea really looks like in her red pants.

  I told George that his mother was not a star. Dead people get buried in the ground, where they rot and turn into dust, and you never see them again, ever.

  I told Sally that her life was a lie because she and my father had promised to love and cherish each other as long as they both lived and they didn’t.

  I told Andrea that those red pants make her rear end look really, really huge.

  Everybody hates me. But I think people should face facts and tell the truth and not go around being hypocrites all the time.

  APRIL 4

  The Underworld is behind the upright piano.

  Horace and I are spending a lot of time there because the second grade has gotten involved in the play. They are doing a snowflake dance while Demeter mopes around about me going to hell and makes everything winter. All the snowflakes wear white sweatshirts and boings with cut-out paper snowflakes that bobble around when they dance. They look like a lot of short albino beetles.

  Horace says his parents lie too. When he was four, he found Bubbles, his goldfish, floating upside down in his bowl. His parents told him that Bubbles was asleep.

  Later Horace found out that they flushed Bubbles down the toilet.

  Andrea has given her red pants to Goodwill.

  George isn’t speaking to me. He thinks I’m mean.

  APRIL 10

  Last night Katie Costello had a dream about getting on the school bus and then discovering that she’d forgotten to put on her clothes. She wasn’t naked or anything though. She was wearing these very cute pink flannel pajamas.

  THINGS I FOUND OUT TODAY ABOUT DREAMS

  1. Ryan Matthews can smell things in his dreams.

  2. Jason Dobbs has nightmares about spiders.

  3. Ronnie Pincus always dreams in black and white. He says it’s because when his mother was pregnant with him, all they had to watch was this very old black-and-white TV set.

  4. Emily Harris says that when you dream about something you really want, that means it’s going to come true.

  5. Horace says that dreams are the products of the subconscious mind.

  I had a dream too. In my dream it was one of those really perfect spring days. The sky was pale, pale blue like forget-me-nots, and the daffodils were out all along the stone wall behind our house, dozens and dozens of them, like all these little suns, and in my dream I just knew something wonderful was about to happen. It was that Christmas-morning sort of feeling, all happy and excited, when your blood feels like it’s all full of fizzy little bubbles, like ginger ale. So I came downstairs and Sally was sitting in the kitchen in her prettiest dress, the green gauzy one with the embroidery around the hem, with the sun shining all around her, and she smiled at me and said “It’s going to be today, you know” and I knew she meant the something wonderful. And then there was a knock on the front door. So I went to answer it and my father was standing there, and he was smiling too, and he said “Hello, pumpkin, I’ve come home” and in the dream I was so happy that I didn’t even care that he called me pumpkin, which I hate.

  Then I woke up.

  APRIL 12

  Sally told me why my father needs to stay with Kim just now. Kim is having a baby. It’s making her sick. My father is taking care of her.

  feckless (adj.) Unthinking, irresponsible.

  That is what Andrea called my father.

  Sally says that is not fair. People change, Sally says, and when you care for someone, you want them to have what they need to be happy.

  I think if people are going to change, they shouldn’t get married in the first place.

  Also I think Sally could have tried harder to be what my father needed to be happy. She could have put on fingernail polish and stopped wearing those ratty jeans with the hole in the knee.

  So much for dreams.

  APRIL 19

  Horace and I spent most of the afternoon in the Underworld. Horace sat on the floor and I sat on the piano bench. While the second grade was practicing its snowflake dance, Horace explained his Theory of Ethical Lying. I am wrong about always telling the truth, Horace says. Sometimes lying is morally justified.

  Also Benjamin Franklin’s list is not perfect. For example, it doesn’t say anything about not killing cows to make hamburgers.

  Horace is a vegetarian.

  WHEN LYING IS JUSTIFIED, ACCORDING TO HORACE

  1. When your grandmother knits you a stupid orange hat shaped like a jellyfish and gives it to you for your birthday and then asks you how you like it.

  2. When you are helping fugitive slaves and the slave catchers ask you if there is anybody hidden under the floorboards in the living room and there is.

  3. When there are spotted owls living in the trees next to your house and a hunter asks you if you’ve seen any owls.

  4. When your mother asks you if you’ve done your math homework and you say yes, you have, even though you haven’t, but you only do it to save her stress and worry.

  5. When at the time you thought you were telling the truth but later you reconsidered and changed your mind in light of present circumstances.

  6. When telling the truth would really hurt somebody’s feelings.

  I told Horace what I said to George about the star.

  WHEN LYING IS JUSTIFIED, ACCORDING TO HORACE

  7. When telling the truth would really, really upset a little five-year-old kid.

  APRIL 21

  GOOD PEOPLE

  1. Mother Teresa

  2. Martin Luther King, Jr.

  3. Abraham Lincoln

  4. Mahatma Gandhi

  BAD PEOPLE

  1. Hitler

  2. Attila the Hun

  3. Darth Vader

  4. Me

  Everybody hates me.

  I wish I could just live in the Underworld forever.

  APRIL 24

  Sally says that when you’ve done something mean, you will never feel better until you apologize. So I have apologized to George and Sally and Andrea.

  WHAT THEY SAID

  1. Okay.

  2. That’s all right, sweetheart; you’ve been having a hard time.

  3. Don’t worry about it, kid. I don’t know what I was thinking when I bought those damn pants.

  I still don’t feel better. George didn’t mean it when he said okay. He wouldn’t look at me and he was talking from behind his bear.

  It’s awful when a little kid stops liking you. George used to follow me around all the time and was always asking me to read to him and help him make raspberry Jell-O and stuff. He’s really pretty cute, George. He has a sort of little pointed face like an elf and he wears these baggy little overalls.

  George doesn’t like the name George either.

  He wants to be called Willoughby.

  Willoughby is a character in George’s favorite picture book, which is all about these bears who live in a cave and sleep in bunk beds and have adventures. Willoughby sleeps in the top bunk bed. He is a very short bear.

  APRIL 27

  Today is the anniversary of the day Sally and Jonah met. They are celebrating it. Jonah brought Sally a big bouquet of yellow roses, and they have gone out to dinner. Sally was wearing her green dress. That dress makes her skin look creamy and her eyes look really green. Jonah just kept looking at her.

  Jonah was wearing a suit jacket, but even that doesn’t help his belly. I don’t know what Sally can be thinking. My father runs and works out at the gym. Emily Harris says my father is really hot.

  Jona
h isn’t.

  I called my father in California.

  This is what he said: Kim and Greg cannot come to the phone at this time. If you leave a message after the beep, they will return your call as soon as they can.

  Later

  My father has returned my call. He’s had a lot on his mind, he says. He’s worried about Kim. She keeps throwing up. Also they hadn’t expected her to get pregnant, and it’s taken a lot of getting used to.

  I know what Andrea would say about this, because I already heard her saying it to Sally in the kitchen.

  WHAT ELSE MY FATHER SAID ON THE TELEPHONE

  1. He is going to come see me in the play.

  2. He has a lot of things to talk to me about.

  Maybe he wants me to come live in California with him. I could help take care of the baby.

  Nobody wants me around here.

  MAY 5

  Sally and Jonah have decided to move in together. I knew this was going to happen. All that “We’re just friends” stuff was just too good to be true.

  First Sally told me privately by myself and Jonah told George. Then they both told both of us together. Jonah got very solemn and made a little speech and told me that though of course he knows he can never take the place of my real father, he hopes I’ll come to regard him as a father too. The more fathers in your corner, the better, Jonah said.

  Sally just hugged George. George is all excited. He is already calling Sally “Mom.” He thinks we’re all going to be a family and live happily ever after. He doesn’t understand that we will never be a family. Families are born, not patched together.

  REASONS WHY SALLY CAN’T MARRY JONAH

  1. He wears socks with his sandals.

  2. He sings “Puff, the Magic Dragon.”

  3. He likes pea soup.

  4. Our house doesn’t have enough room.

  5. George hates me.

  MAY 9

  Horace says I am too stupid to appreciate my good luck. He thinks Jonah is great. According to Horace, the SAVE THE WHALES bumper stickers show that Jonah’s heart is in the right place. Horace says you can tell a lot about a person by their bumper stickers.

  REASONS WHY HORACE KNOWS NOTHING ABOUT THIS

  1. Horace’s parents have never been divorced.

  MAY 10

  BUMPER STICKERS OF PEOPLE I KNOW

  1. Ronnie Pincus’s father’s pickup truck has a green bumper sticker that says FUND FAMILY FARMS.

  2. Jason Dobbs’s father’s pickup truck has a red-white-and-blue bumper sticker that says WHEN GUNS ARE CRIMINAL, ONLY CRIMINALS WILL HAVE GUNS.

  3. Emily Harris’s mother’s car has a pink bumper sticker that says MARY KAY COSMETICS.

  4. Andrea’s VW Beetle has an orange bumper sticker that says A WOMAN NEEDS A MAN LIKE A FISH NEEDS A BICYCLE.

  5. Katie Costello’s parents’ station wagon has a powder-blue bumper sticker that says WE SUPPORT NATIONAL MOTHERS OF TWINS CLUBS.

  6. Ryan Matthews’s mother’s car has a black-and-white bumper sticker that says GRAVITY: IT’S THE LAW.

  7. Sally has half of a bumper sticker that says VOTE FOR that was on the car when she bought it and she scraped off the part she didn’t approve of, and a whole bumper sticker that says THE ARTS ARE NOT A LUXURY.

  8. Horace Zimmerman’s parents’ cars have bumper stickers that say SAVE THE SPOTTED OWL, STOP GLOBAL WARMING, GET INVOLVED, PEACE BEGINS WHEN THE HUNGRY ARE FED, and ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN BUMPERS.

  9. My father’s convertible has a bumper sticker that says CLUB MED.

  When I have a car, I want a bumper sticker like the one I saw last week in the Pelham Friendly Supermarket parking lot. It said PLEASE FORGIVE ME. I WAS RAISED BY WOLVES.

  Horace says if I get a bumper sticker, it should read DON’T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU THINK.

  Horace can be very annoying.

  MAY 12

  My father is not coming to the play. He can’t leave Kim. She is still sick.

  HOW I FEEL ABOUT THIS

  1. Mad.

  MAY 14

  Sally doesn’t get angry very often, which goes to show that red hair doesn’t always mean a hot temper. Not that Sally’s hair is orange like mine, but it’s definitely reddish. A sort of copper color.

  Today she got angry at me. She said that I am moping around making everybody miserable and that I am thinking only of myself.

  OTHER THINGS SALLY SAID TO ME

  1. Sooner or later bad things happen to everybody.

  2. But we have to pull ourselves together and move on.

  3. Sulking won’t make the divorce go away.

  4. I should be glad for my father about Kim and the baby.

  5. I should be glad for her about finding Jonah.

  6. Instead of deliberately making everybody feel guilty all the time.

  7. And she can’t stand much more of this.

  So then I got angry too.

  I yelled and threw a spoon.

  After all, it’s not like Sally got stuck in a mess. Or my father. Sally is running around with Jonah, picking out this special wallpaper that’s made out of something like soybeans. My father is lying around next to a swimming pool with Kim. They’re not stuck with anything. The person who is stuck is me.

  THINGS I SAID TO SALLY

  1. She messed up my life.

  2. If anybody is selfish around here, it’s her.

  3. She never even asked me about Jonah moving in.

  4. How come I don’t ever have a say in anything?

  5. Why does everybody get what they want except me?

  6. And how come we didn’t celebrate Purple Feathered Hat Day that she’d promised we’d celebrate together all the rest of our lives?

  7. And if she were any kind of a good mother, she wouldn’t act like that.

  Then Sally burst into tears and ran out of the kitchen and went upstairs to her bedroom and slammed the door.

  I went to my bedroom and slammed the door too.

  This is all Sally’s fault.

  WHAT I HAVE DECIDED TO DO

  1. Run away from home and live in New York City and never speak to Sally again as long as I live.

  Later

  I’ve been hating Sally for three hours.

  But then it got hard to stay angry. Right at first when you get angry, it feels like you’re going to stay that way forever. You want to scream and stamp and bite and smash things, and you think of all the really terrible things you could do to everybody.

  But then, no matter how hard you try to hold on to being angry, the feeling just gradually starts to ooze away. I don’t mean I wasn’t still mad at Sally. I just stopped wanting to throw stuff at her.

  Also I was hungry.

  So I went downstairs and Sally was sitting at the kitchen table looking miserable and all red and puffy around the eyes.

  It serves her right, I thought.

  But before I could say anything, Sally looked up and said, “You’re right, I should have asked you. And I feel horrible about Purple Feathered Hat Day. I wouldn’t blame you if you hated me.”

  So I told her I didn’t hate her exactly.

  Then I made a piece of peanut-butter toast and Sally made a cup of tea and we had a long talk.

  Sally said if it’s not okay with me about Jonah and George moving in, then they won’t. It’s my house too, and it wouldn’t be fair.

  But I could tell that she really, really wanted them to.

  So I said it was okay.

  I guess Jonah’s really not so bad.

  Horace says it’s not Jonah’s fault he’s going bald. It’s because of a chromosome he inherited from his mother.

  Even Later

  After I talked to Sally, I called my father and said it was all right about him not coming to the play. And I said I was happy about the baby, and I even asked how Kim was feeling, which was really polite of me, seeing that I don’t care. Sally thinks I should be nicer to people, but I’m not going to get stupid about it.

  If
the baby is a girl, Kim wants to name her Moonlight Sonata.

  Andrea says that’s the dippiest thing she’s ever heard.

  PEOPLE I MADE UP WITH TODAY

  1. Sally.

  2. My father.

  PEOPLE I HAVEN’T MADE UP WITH

  1. George.

  MAY 20

  I am in debt for life to geeky Horace Zimmerman. This is how it happened.

  Sally and Jonah went off to pack the stuff at Jonah’s house into boxes. While they were packing, I was supposed to take care of George and keep him from getting underfoot. So I took him and his bear for a walk down to the pond.

  George wasn’t very happy about being with me, and he wouldn’t look at me, but he came along anyway. The pond is back in the woods, and there’s a little path that leads to it. It’s one of my favorite places, the pond. There are water lilies there and cattails and lots of googly little frogs, and the water is clear, clear green. We sat down next to the water and George wouldn’t talk to me, but I could tell that he was thinking. George isn’t like most little kids. He doesn’t just run around and yell all the time. He really thinks about things, and sometimes you can just see him worrying and turning things over in his head.

  Then he started to cry. Not sobbing or yelling like he does when he falls down and skins his knee, but tears just bubbling up and running down his cheeks without making a sound.