Mirabel is having a good day today, so she came to school with us instead of studying at work with Mama. She meets me after the bell rings, and I say let us go home, and she says let us wait for Mab to be done with tutoring, and I say what if someone comes to the library, and she says we can do palm reading so I say okay because I like palm reading. She does not mean telling each other’s fortunes by looking at the lines on our hands because that is just pretend. She means a game we invented together when we were little. How it works is I close my eyes and hold out my palm, and Mirabel uses her finger to draw a picture on it, and I read what the picture is, and then she uses her finger to erase and draws another. Why I like this game is it is peaceful and soothing with only a little bit of touching, and Mirabel, unlike everyone else in the entire world, is always soft with her fingers. Why Mirabel likes this game is she is as good at it as anyone.
We play in the hallway outside the tutoring room. Mirabel starts easy. “Rainbow,” I guess, and I know I am right because she erases it to draw another.
She draws a face so I know it is a person, and then that person gets lots of hair so I know it is Mama even though the face is smiling and Mama usually is not.
She erases, and the next one is easy. Three lines straight up and down. “Us!” I say. Mirabel squeezes my finger. I squeeze her finger back.
She taps on my palm many times for rain which means green which is an adjective which is an advanced level of this game because most players can only do nouns. (It is more accurate to say most players would only be able to do nouns because there are no other players.) (That is just how it is when you invent your own game.)
Then I hear Mirabel gasp.
I look up from my palm to her face right away. “Why did you gasp, Three?”
She draws lots of squiggles.
“Snake, worm, string,” I guess. “The letter S,” I guess. “Skunk smell. Slippery road. Approximately. Sin x.”
She pulls on my finger so I will look at her face again, and she uses her eyes to signal a signal to mine. I look where she is looking. And then I see what she was drawing. A river.
He is running down the hall. At first I make an assumption he is running to us, and then I make an assumption he is running to the bathroom because he has blood dripping out of his nose and down his lip and chin and neck and onto his shirt. Then I realize he is not running to us or to the bathroom because the Kyles come around the corner and they are running too, so I make an assumption that River is being chased by the Kyles. It is possible they are all three being chased by someone else and River got a head start, but that is not the assumption I make because the Kyles do not have blood dripping out of their noses.
River is running fast, but I can still see that in addition to the nose blood there is a scratch on his forehead and a rip in his shirt and a scrape near his eyebrow. River is running fast, but he gives a little wave to me and Mirabel as he goes by which is very polite under the circumstances. Then he is gone.
Left behind is the memory of his face which was scared and hurt, the echo of his running feet, loud on the linoleum, a dotted line mapping his path, like in a cartoon, except it is drops of blood, and Mirabel’s facial expression, which is shocked like mine must be and upset like mine must be and something else too, but I cannot figure out what because there is a howl building up in my throat, and I know it will be loud and I will not be able to make it stop, but before it can arrive, a very surprising thing happens.
Mirabel takes her hand from mine and steers right into the middle of the hallway where the Kyles are thundering down.
“Move!” shouts one Kyle.
“Shit!” shouts the other Kyle even though Mrs. Radcliffe does not like us to say swears.
One Kyle swerves to avoid Mirabel, slams against the lockers, and falls down. The other Kyle does not see Mirabel because the first Kyle did not swerve away in time, so the second Kyle runs right into Mirabel’s wheelchair and falls down too. Mirabel’s wheelchair does not fall anywhere because it is heavy, and Mirabel gives them both a look that means smug, embarrassed for them, and they should be ashamed of themselves, but they are not her sisters and were not paying attention when Mrs. Radcliffe was doing facial expression cards this week so they might not notice.
“Why did you park there? We were in the middle of kicking that kid’s ass,” says Kyle.
Mirabel does three quick taps on her tablet. “That is why.”
“Now we have to start over,” says the other Kyle.
Mirabel starts typing out a reply to that, but the first Kyle says he is hungry, and the second says he is too. They have had feelings of love for Mirabel for years, but these are not as powerful as the feelings of hunger they have had for seconds. “We’ll bring you back a donut,” they promise her. Then they leave.
But the running feet and falling down and slamming into lockers made a lot of noise, so the tutoring-room door opens, and many people look out.
I take three deep breaths to help my surprised howl stay away, and then I tell everyone about River and the chasing and the blood and the Kyles, but I can guess they do not care because they do not say anything and they all go back inside.
Except for Mab.
Mirabel looks at her.
“Don’t look at me like that,” says Mab.
“Like what?” I ask. I can see how Mirabel is looking at Mab, but I cannot see what it is like.
“Why do you even care?” Mab says.
“Care about what?” I ask.
Mirabel keeps looking at Mab the way she was looking at Mab before.
“Not his fault,” Mirabel’s Voice says quickly, so I can guess that was what she had started to type to the Kyles before they got hungry.
“What is not his fault?” I ask. I do not ask Whose fault?, even though Mirabel did not say, because I can guess it is River, and my sisters do not like when I ask too many questions.
“I never said it was,” says Mab.
“Help him,” says Mirabel’s Voice.
“How?” says Mab.
Mirabel’s Voice does not answer that question but instead answers a different question. “You can.”
“Not my problem,” Mab says anyway.
I do not say anything because that is true but it is not kind, and Mirabel does not say anything, maybe for the same reason, so Mab says, “I’m like half his size. If he can’t stop them, how can I stop them?”
“Numbers,” Mirabel’s Voice says.
Even Mab does not know what this means which it is nice when I am not the only one.
Mirabel sighs, which means frustrated, and types, “Safety in.”
“Two is not a number,” Mab says.
“Lie,” I say because two is a number.
“You know what I mean,” Mab says.
“Lie,” I say.
Mab turns to me. “She thinks River’s vulnerable alone, but with me by his side, surely we can take them.”
“Who can you take?” I ask.
“Exactly,” Mab says.
Which does not answer my question so in case she is not in a question-answering mood, I decide to skip right to the important one. “His face is sad and hurt and bleeding, One. Why would not you help him?”
“It’s complicated.” She looks confused, but I do not know why she would be. “You know?”
“No,” Mirabel’s Voice and I say at the same time.
“He says he can’t stop thinking about me. He writes me notes in class. He’s always looking at me.”
Now it is my turn to sound confused because I am confused. “Why does that mean you do not want to help him?”
“He’s evil,” Mab says.
“It is more accurate to say his family is evil,” I correct.
“And he said he was going to find some proof or something,” Mab says, “something we can use.”
Mirabel’s hand flips out, palm up, which means So what? which is a good question.
“So if he does … I don’t know…” Mab says. “I want him to do it because it’s the right thing to do, not because he likes me.”
“Why does it matter why he does it if he does it?” I ask.
“Because otherwise that makes me the jerk.” Mab pulls the sleeves of her hoodie down over both of her hands as if she is cold. “Otherwise, I used him and manipulated his feelings to get what I want.”
I consider this. “That is bad,” I say. “But it is not as bad as letting him get beat up.”
“I’m not letting him.” She waves her hands around but her hands are all tucked in so she waves her sleeves around instead.
“Maybe his family is evil,” I say, “but ours is not.”
Mirabel points at me which means I am correct. “Right thing to do,” her Voice says.
“According to who?” Mab asks, but I do not know why since she knows who Mirabel’s Voice speaks for.
Mirabel holds up her hand with her fingers out wide. Five. Two plus Three. She means according to her and according to me.
Mab’s sleeves flop into a shrug. “Who died and put you in charge?” she says, but then she stops saying anything because she does not need to be in a question-answering mood for us all to hear the answer to that question in our heads anyway. She tucks her sleeves under her armpits. “Sorry,” she says. She does not mean because she does not want to help River. She does not mean because he is getting beat up. She means because she accidentally said that hard, sad thing, and it made everyone feel bad.
“It is okay,” I say so she will not feel worse.
But Mirabel is typing. “I know how you can make it up to me.”