The Sisterhood

What are you working on there?” someone said.

I slammed my sketch pad closed and looked up. “Ms. D!” I said. I thought I was alone. While I was waiting out in the hall for Mom to finish up with Stricker and Stonecase, I’d been drawing to take my mind off the nightmare I was about to face at The Program.

Ms. Donatello was my favorite teacher when I was at HVMS before. Not that there was a lot of competition for that spot.

Now she was standing there in the hall with a big armful of books and posters. “I just came in to work on my classroom,” she said. “And, Rafe, I’m so sorry to hear about Airbrook. I see you’re keeping up with your art, though. That’s wonderful.”

“Thanks,” I said. I could tell she wanted to see what I was drawing, but I kept that sketch pad closed tight. I wasn’t ready for anyone to see my Loozer comics yet, especially the parts about Leo the Silent.

Leo was my brother who died a long time ago, when we were practically babies. So in that way, he’s a real person to me. Nobody can see him or hear him, but we still talk things through sometimes.

If you know my story, then you might have started wondering where Leo’s been. I still talk to him, but mostly these days, I do it in my art. That seems like a pretty good place for Leo to hang out, right?

One of these days, maybe I’ll start putting those comics online. Then Leo won’t be a secret at all. In fact, maybe he’ll even be famous.

But in the meantime, I was keeping that stuff to myself.

“So does this mean you’ll be joining us back here at HVMS?” Ms. Donatello asked me.

“Uh… maybe,” I said. “Mom’s in the office, talking to Mrs. Stricker and Mrs. Stonecase about it right now.”

“Ah, the Sisterhood,” Donatello said, and winked at me.

“Huh?” I said.

“Ida and Charlotte are sisters,” Donatello said.

“No way!” I said.

“Way,” she said. “Did you notice they both have an initial P in their names? It stands for Petaluma.”

And almost right away, it all started making sense.

The Sisterhood didn’t think I could make it through this crazy Program thing, did they? They couldn’t just keep me out of school for good, but they could make it really hard for me to get back in.

I mean, unless I was being totally paranoid and living in my own fantasy world on Planet Rafe.

I kept thinking about what it said on that brochure. “The hardest week of your life is about to begin.”

But now I was also thinking, Okay, bring it. Game on, sisters!

“Hello?” Ms. D said, and waved her hand in front of my eyes. “Earth to Rafe, are you there?” When I looked up at her, she was staring back at me kind of funny.

“You know what?” I told Ms. Donatello. “Forget what I said before. I’ll definitely be back here at HVMS this fall.”

Because now I had two good reasons for doing this.

First, more than anything, I needed to make Mom happy.

But also now, if I had to go back to HVMS (and I did), then I was going to make sure the Petaluma Sisters were just as sorry about it as I was.

So how weird was this? All of a sudden, I was fighting to GET BACK IN to Hills Village Middle School. Life is crazy sometimes, isn’t it?

Maybe this game wasn’t going to have a whole lot of winners, but if I played it right, then at least I wouldn’t be the only loser.