30 Days of No Gossip (3 page)

Vi had reached the front entrance by then. She pushed the front door open with her butt and stepped out into the sunlight. Car riders were standing beneath the sign, waiting for parents to pick them up. Since Vi and I were supposed to be bus riders and neither of us had called our moms, I knew we had time.

“People want privacy,” Vi continued. “You take that away from them.”

That wasn’t true at all. Was it?

“I think we should stop being friends,” Vi told me.

The gasp escaped my lips before I even knew it was about to happen. “We aren’t just friends. We’re sisters, remember?”

That was what Vi and I had said when we were younger. We’d even introduced ourselves to people as sisters. With moms who were best friends, and with the amount of time we spent together, we pretty much were. Sometimes we went on vacation together and stayed at each other’s houses all weekend.

We couldn’t stop being friends, especially not because of something stupid I’d done.

Vi had stopped walking backward by then and was standing just a few feet away from all the car riders. She faced me with a cold, hardened look on her face. This wasn’t the Vivienne I’d always known. I’d never seen her so angry. Did I just lose my best friend?

“I’ll be your friend on one condition,” she said finally.

“Anything.”

I tossed the word out before I considered what she might ask of me. It could go far beyond just asking me to apologize for telling Travis she liked him.

She waited several seconds, drawing out my agony, before finally blurting out the two words I never wanted to hear. “Stop gossiping.”

Chapter Three

IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE. I COULDN’T DO IT.

Vi didn’t just want me to give up gossip. It would mean I’d have to stop writing the
Troy Tattler
, stop telling anyone anything about anyone else. It was pure craziness.

“But . . .”

I’d been about to argue that if I didn’t write the
Troy Tattler
, who would? Halfway through the sentence, though, I’d thought better of it. Arguing would just make it worse.

“Thirty days of no gossip,” Vi added. “No newspaper, no talking about other people, even Sydney and Jessica.”

Our closest friends? It was easy for me to tell her I could do it, but what about when some juicy piece of gossip came my way? How would I keep that to myself ? Could I do that for thirty days? Thirty days wasn’t too long . . . was it?

“You know what, forget it,” Vi said, noticing the look on my face. She turned around and nudged a girl who lived two houses down from her. “Can you give me a ride?”

“I’ll do it,” I yelled out.

Vi turned back to face me. “It was a stupid idea. You won’t be able to pull it off. I know you. Gossip is your life.”

“You’re my best friend.” I sounded sad, even to myself. “Our friendship is far more important to me than the
Troy Tattler
or gossip. I can do it.”

And I meant it. It was just thirty days. Thirty days was nothing compared to
forever
without Vi.

“It’s silly,” Vi said. “Forget it. Forget the whole thing.”

“No,” I insisted. “Let’s do this. I can do this.” I wasn’t sure who I was trying to convince more, myself or Vi.

Vi narrowed her eyes, stepping toward me again. “Are you sure? Because I have ways of finding out if you slip up.”

“You won’t have to find out,” I assured her. “If I
agree not to gossip for thirty days, we’ll stay best friends, right?”

It was important that I clarified that. I didn’t want the thirty days to be up, only to find we were back to her being mad at me.

She considered for a moment. “Yes,” she said. “If you can pull this off . . .” She looked sad for a moment. “Then you’ll still be the best friend I’ve always had. But only if you agree not to gossip,” she ended firmly, losing the sad look. “No more talking about people or telling people’s secrets.”

I wanted to argue that what I’d done had been to try to help her. I wanted to argue that I would never give one of her secrets away unless I thought it was in her best interest. I wanted to point out that sometimes it was necessary to give away someone’s secret if they were, say, getting themselves in trouble or missing a great opportunity. Like finally getting the boy they’d liked forever to notice them.

I wanted to say all of that, but I knew it was pointless. I just needed to agree to whatever Vi asked and work out the rest later.

Vi’s neighbor leaned forward to say something before taking off toward a car. Vi turned back to me.

“My ride’s here,” Vi said. “So we have a deal?”

I nodded. “Thirty days of no gossip. Deal.”

But it didn’t hit me until Vi was gone, leaving me standing there alone with no ride home.
Thirty days of not telling anyone anything.

It probably wouldn’t fully get through to me until I saw something important I wanted to tell people about. But I had to do it. Vi was the best friend I’d ever had, and I couldn’t sit across the room from her, knowing she wasn’t speaking to me
because
 . . . of gossip.

*  *  *

By the next morning, I already missed gossiping. But I missed Vi more.

When we made our deal, we weren’t clear on whether or not she’d be speaking to me during those thirty days, but I had my answer by the next day. She hadn’t taken any of my calls—and we were used to talking at least an hour a night—and she didn’t meet me to walk to the bus together.

So I showed up for school early to stand next to her locker.

I considered it a bad sign that she walked right past me and started working her locker combination. After thirteen years, it had come to this? Vi pretending I didn’t exist while I begged for her attention?

“You aren’t speaking to me?” I asked.

Silence. I was aware at this point that I looked like a total stalker, but I didn’t care. I leaned against the locker next to hers and talked like nothing had changed.

“You can’t go thirty days without speaking to me.” She said nothing. “We’re sisters.” Silence. “I told you I’d go thirty days without talking. If you ignore me, how will you know whether or not I didn’t gossip for thirty days?”

Still nothing.

I decided to appeal to her the only way I knew how. “We took vacations together, remember?” I gave her a second to respond, and when she didn’t, I added, “We had that contest to see who could collect the most seashells?”

She closed her locker and started walking. I chased after her. I realized I probably looked like a crazy person, trying to talk to someone who wasn’t even looking at me, but I didn’t care. If I had to go thirty days without talking to my BFF, I’d die.

“Could you just agree that you’ll talk to me as long as I don’t mess up?” I asked. “I’ll give you permission to stop speaking to me forever if I mess up.”

She didn’t say a word, just stared straight ahead, her jaw clenched. She was mad. I could tell from the look on her face. I assumed she was still mad about the whole thing I’d done with Travis. But she had to forgive me . . . right? That was what friendship was all about.

I decided to try something different. “Are you ready for midterms?” I asked, rushing to keep up with her. I had no idea she could walk so fast. “All studied up?”

No answer. I began to get an uneasy, desperate feeling. I thought I might even feel myself breaking into a sweat.

“We have our field trip tomorrow,” I blurted, my voice
all tight. “I thought we’d sit together on the bus and hang out. All our friends are the same.”

No matter what excuse I threw her way, she just kept walking. It was like I was invisible or something. I wasn’t invisible to anyone else in the hallway, though. I had to rush around them as they grunted and gave me looks. I didn’t care. Until I got Vi to talk to me again, nothing else really mattered.

“Hey, guys.”

From out of the crowds of people gathered in the hallway stepped Sydney, smiling at us like it was any other day. She fell into step next to Vi and leaned around her to include me in the conversation.

“You won’t believe it,” Sydney gushed. “Kelsey just stomped past Emma and Aiden. OMG. It was epic.
Epic.
I can’t believe you missed it. I think Emma and Aiden might be going out.”

I opened my mouth, dying to say the words that were now stuck in my chest. Seriously, that’s how it felt. Like a ball of words stuck in my chest that I couldn’t get out. I wondered if someone could get really sick from holding words in like that. Maybe even die. Vi would feel really bad if I died from my chest being all clogged up with words, wouldn’t she?

I looked over at Vi, who glanced my way for the first time.
Don’t do it
, her eyes said.
Your chest will come unclogged on its own.
Okay, so she didn’t know about my chest being clogged, so that wasn’t possible, but she did know I wanted to say something.

It wasn’t like I even wanted to gossip. I was just going to correct Sydney and let her know that Emma didn’t even like Aiden. It was Kelsey. So if Emma was hanging around Aiden, chances were she was just talking about how much Kelsey liked him and that was really sweet of her. She was trying to help—like I’d been trying to help Vi yesterday when I spilled the beans to Travis Fisher.

I couldn’t say any of that, though, because it was considered “gossiping.” Which was really messed up because I wasn’t doing anything more than correcting her. But I realized that with what Vi had asked me to do, even standing here listening to Sydney might be against the rules.

“What?” Sydney asked, looking from me to Vi. She must have sensed all the tension. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Vi’s just . . . mad at me. Right, Vi?”

Vi gave me a look. Hey, progress. Two looks in less than a minute. They were both mean looks, though, so I wouldn’t count them.

“Why?” Sydney asked.

Vi came to a stop and turned to face Sydney, which meant her back was facing me. I moved around her so I could be a part of this too.

“It’s a long story,” Vi replied. “And it’s between the two of us. Nobody else.”

“I can’t talk about it.” I flashed a grin at Sydney, even though the last thing I felt like doing right now was smiling. “Are you ready for midterms?”

Sydney looked over at Vi. It was a “Is she for real?” look. She probably thought I’d lost my mind or something to be asking about midterms. I never talked about studying or schoolwork or anything like that. If Vi brought it up, I always changed the subject to something more important.

Like shoes.

Or clothes.

Or who liked whom, who was going out with whom, and who was mad at whom.

“Who cares?” Sydney asked. “Didn’t you hear what I said about Kelsey and Emma and Aiden? This is big.
Huge.
How can you talk about tests at a time like this?”

I took a deep breath and blurted, “If you can’t say something nice about someone, you should just keep your mouth shut.”

I’d heard that saying before, but not in those exact
words. It didn’t matter, though. Sydney just stared at me.

But this wasn’t about what Sydney thought of me. This was about avoiding gossip without letting anyone know I was avoiding gossip. I knew, as well as Vi probably knew, that if I told people I couldn’t gossip anymore, they’d freak out.

No more
Troy Tattler
. No more catching everyone up on what was going on with everyone else around here. I’d be talking about schoolwork and other things that would make everyone yawn. Pretty soon nobody would want to talk to me or sit with me at lunch, and I’d be stuck sitting there alone, remembering the days when everyone liked me.

Gossiping was just so much fun.

For just a second I let my mind wander. Vi wasn’t talking to me anymore, anyway. So when Syd and Jess called, what would stop me from talking about whatever I wanted to talk about? It wasn’t like Vi would have bugged my cell phone or something. Syd and Jess wouldn’t run to her right away to tell her I was gossiping. The only way she’d ever know was if someone passed along what I’d said and Vi overheard.

The two sides of me battled it out for a second, but in the end, I knew the answer. I had to stop gossiping. I couldn’t lose Vi as a friend forever, not only because she was
like a sister to me but also because she balanced me out. If I didn’t have Vi around, I’d just sit around saying bad things about people, looking for ways to pick everyone around me apart. I’d be left with only Sydney, Jessica, and all the other people in school who rushed toward me to say bad things about other people. With all that negativity, eventually I’d become a horrible person.

The kind of person my mother would be ashamed of.

Besides, I could do this. How hard could it be . . . really?

Chapter Four

The Troy Tattler

By Maddie Evans

If I could gossip, I’d tell you that Aiden Lewis told Emma Mayfield he might like Kelsey O’Dell. She likes him back but she’s still mad at Emma, so Emma can’t tell her the good news. I can’t tell you the good news either, because I can’t gossip.

Teacher gossip I can’t tell you: Mr. Boucher was out sick last Friday and all his classes had subs. But if he was sick, why did a student on vacation spot him at the lake, tossing his fishing pole into the back of his truck late Friday afternoon? Too sick to come to school but not too sick to fish?

“Maddie!”

My mom’s voice jerked me out of my internal gossip fest. I knew exactly why she was yelling for me. I’d heard the phone ring while I was typing, but I didn’t want it to be for me. If it was for me, that could mean only one thing—

Sighing, I reached over and grabbed the phone on the nightstand next to my bed. I had a cell phone, but my friends never called me on it because my parents bought me a phone that had, like, six minutes of talk time a month or something. I used it for sending gossip texts and checking social networking sites for any new news.