The next day, lunch went exactly as you would expect. After I got my sandwich, instead of going to the It Girls table, I headed over to the members of the Kindness Club. Lucy was wearing two of Oliver’s ties around her neck, one yellow and one green, like yellow and green pencil cases, or like yellow flowers and their green stems. Theo was talking about a storm that was gathering strength in the Atlantic Ocean. “It’s Tropical Storm Doris right now,” he said. “But it may turn into Hurricane Doris soon.”
Lucy speared a cubed piece of cheese with her fork, but paused before popping it into her mouth. “Why do they name storms anyway?”
“It’s easier to track them that way,” Theo said. “Before the nineteen-fifties, they just referred to storms by year and the order they occurred.”
“Hmm,” Lucy said. “I guess it’s a bit easier to remember where you were for Hurricane Stanley, than where you were for the second storm of two thousand and twelve.”
“It’s massively easier,” Theo said. “Storms can occur at the same time, for one thing. And for another, humans process memories—”
“Chloe,” a voice behind us said gravely. Monroe’s voice.
Theo didn’t finish his thought. I turned around. “Hi, Monroe,” I said. “Theo was just telling us a true story about tropical storms.”
Lucy and Theo both smiled, but Monroe did not. “I like your necklace,” Lucy told her.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That I like it,” Lucy said.
Monroe slipped it into her shirt so you couldn’t see it anymore. “Is this some sort of last-minute science project meeting?” she asked me.
“Sort of,” I said. “But mostly because I wanted to have lunch with them.”
“Chloe, we discussed this.”
“I know, but—”
“But nothing,” she told me. “You know, I wasn’t supposed to invite anyone into the club unless all members approved the invitation first. It’s a rule. I wrote that rule.”
“I know.”
“I made an exception for you.”
“I really appreciate it,” I told her. “I want to be in your club, and I want to be in this one. You could be in the Kindness Club, too. I mean, it’s also up to my fellow club members, but if you want—”
“You must be kidding me,” Monroe said. “I don’t want to be in the stupid club you have with them. And it’s not possible for you to be in both, either. You have to pick. Their club, or my club.”
I felt everyone’s eyes on me. “Well then,” I said, “I’m sorry, but if I can’t be in both, I pick the Kindness Club.”
“So you lied again. You told me you wanted to be an It Girl. Well, don’t think for a second that you’re rejecting me right now, because I’m rejecting you. I’m taking back your invitation. And what’s more—”
Her voice caught, and for a moment I thought she might cry.
But she just narrowed her eyes, and went on. “What’s more is this. I went out on a limb for you—twice. But there won’t be a third chance. I won’t ever make the mistake of being your friend again. But you guys—” Her eyes shifted between Lucy, Theo, and me. “You guys deserve each other.”
And with that, she turned on her heels and left us.
“Whoa,” Lucy said softly. I didn’t speak. I just followed Monroe with my eyes, as she walked back to her table. There was a part of me that felt a little bit unkind, for wanting her to make the exception, and then letting her down. After all, Monroe was fighting battles, too.
But then I turned back to Lucy and Theo, and I realized that I belonged with them. Even if Lucy had a style unlike anyone else’s. And even if Theo had no style, and was a bit obsessed with his work. They were still the kindest people I’d met since moving to Braywood, and when it came to having things in common, kindness was what mattered most. I’d never choose to be in a club they weren’t allowed to be part of.
That afternoon, when we walked into the science lab, Mr. Dibble was not standing in the front of the room. Instead there was an exceptionally tall woman in a lab coat. A name was written on the board behind her: Dr. Eleanor Whelan. The name sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place it.
We all filed in, and she cleared her throat to quiet us all down, and rapped the board with a long ruler. “I am Dr. Eleanor Whelan,” she said. “I’ll be taking over this class, and Mr. Dibble will return exclusively to his duties as principal. I went to Harvard and Yale, where I earned degrees in both biology and chemistry, and I helped author that book you all have on your desks. So now you know a bit about me. Please open your textbooks to page thirty-six.”
There were the sounds of kids swiping through pages to get to the right one. Down the table, Theo had his hand raised. “Excuse me, Dr. Whelan?” he said.
“Yes?”
“Mr. Dibble had assigned special projects to us.”
There was a chorus of groans, and someone said, “Don’t tell her.”
But Theo went on: “Each table of students was its own group,” he said. “And every week, a different group had to give a report.”
“I see,” Dr. Whelan said. “Well, that’s not on my syllabus. So you won’t have to worry about that this semester.”
There were whoops from the other kids.
“Now to page thirty-six—”
“But Lucy, Chloe, and I already did our report!” Theo said.
“Teacher’s pets,” a voice called. Monroe’s voice.
“That’s enough,” Dr. Whelan said. I honestly didn’t know if she was speaking to Theo, or speaking to Monroe. But it didn’t matter. The three of us looked at each other sadly. And then we opened up our textbooks to page thirty-six, because we didn’t have any other choice.
At the end of the day, Theo suggested we take things up with Mr. Dibble himself. After all, Theo maintained, it wasn’t fair for us to be in the exact same position as the other kids in class, when the three of us were the only ones who’d had to do extra work. At the very least, Dr. Whelan should excuse us from a quiz, or give us bonus points.
So we headed to the principal’s office. The receptionist pressed a button on her phone to call to Mr. Dibble. He must’ve told her to send us in, because that’s what she did.
Mr. Dibble stood up and gave us each a fist bump. There were piles of paper all over his desk, on the windowsill, and on every chair except for the one Mr. Dibble had been sitting in. “Sorry I can’t offer you seats,” he said. “I’ve been buried these past couple weeks, performing double duty as a principal and science teacher. It’s a good thing I just gave up one of those jobs.”
“That’s actually what we wanted to talk to you about,” Theo said. “You picked us as the first group to give a report.”
“Ah, yes, I remember,” Mr. Dibble said, in a voice that made me wonder if he really did. “Well, you’re off the hook now.”
“But we finished it!” Theo said. “It was due today! We told Dr. Whelan about it, and she didn’t seem to care.”
Mr. Dibble sank back down into his seat. “I’m sorry, kids,” he said. “Dr. Whelan insisted on using her own syllabus as a condition for coming here, and we had to say yes. She’s an excellent teacher—one of the very best in the business.”
“She wrote our textbook,” Lucy said.
“Yes,” Mr. Dibble said. “We were lucky to get her—especially at this late date. But I will try to think of a way to make it up to you.”
A breeze came through the open window, sending a bunch of the piles on Mr. Dibble’s desk down to the floor. We bent to help him pick them up. He thanked us, and we started to walk out, but he called us back. “Wait, you three. Don’t I at least get to know what the project was?”
Theo pulled our report out of his backpack. It was all typed up, with a very professional-looking cover. “You said we could be creative,” Theo reminded him, as Mr. Dibble began to flip through the pages.
“That’s right,” Mr. Dibble said. “I give points for creativity. What made you think of this?”
“Well, Chloe always does kind things,” Lucy said. “And we wondered what effect that would have on people who aren’t. That was the beginning of it.”
“Very interesting,” Mr. Dibble said.
“It didn’t work on everyone,” I admitted. “There was one girl . . . well, I used to think being kind was easy. I actually didn’t think about it that much. And sometimes that’s what it’s like. The kind thing is there, right in front of you, and you do it. But sometimes it’s hard to figure out. Sometimes you have to be kind when you don’t want to be, and sometimes people don’t even want your kindness. Sometimes it doesn’t change them at all.”
“That may be true,” Mr. Dibble said. “But keep in mind, just because you didn’t see the effects of your kindness in the case of that girl, doesn’t mean it didn’t change her. Maybe you encouraged her to be kind to someone else down the line, and on and on. Before you know it, you have changed the lives of people you’ll never even know. I remember learning about the butterfly effect when I was just about your age.”
“Theo told us about it,” Lucy said. “If a butterfly flaps its wings, it can cause a hurricane on the other side of the world.”
“Exactly,” Mr. Dibble said. “It’s not always a storm that’s set into motion when we act. Think of the things you set into motion with this project—the positive side of the butterfly effect. The neighbor in your report—what do you think she will do now that you’ve been kind to her?”
Lucy shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said.
“We can’t know,” Theo said. “That’s the part of the butterfly effect that’s impossible to measure.”
“True,” Mr. Dibble said. “But I suspect ‘Mrs. G,’ as you call her here, will find opportunities for kindness where she wouldn’t have in the past, and perhaps the people she is kind to will do the same. It reminds me of Newton’s third law of motion.”
“There’s another one?” Lucy asked.
“Wow, Newton was a busy guy.”
“Every action has an equal and opposite reaction,” Theo supplied.
“And in this case, you put the actions in motion,” Mr. Dibble said. “I knew you kids would come up with the right questions to ask. And I knew you’d make important discoveries, the ripples of which could go global.”
“Did you hear that, Theo?” Lucy asked.
“I did,” he said.
“You know,” Mr. Dibble went on, “part of the reason I wanted to open the classroom up to this kind of project was because of the lessons I remember from being your age. Not just the ones I learned from my teachers, but the ones I learned from the kids, too. Trust me, when you’re my age, you will remember this. May I keep your report?”
“Of course,” Theo told him.
He put it on his desk. “This is one for the pile that I’m happy to have. Excellent work, you three.”
We said good-bye and headed out. “I have my doubts about him remembering to make it up to us,” Theo said, once we were back in the hall.
“You want to hear something funny,” I said, and Theo nodded for me to continue. “I don’t really mind. I’m glad we did the project. Even if we don’t get credit.”
“Me too,” Lucy said.
“Yeah, well,” Theo said. “It’s not like it affected my GPA in a negative way, so I guess I don’t, either.”
“I think we should keep the club,” I said. “There’s no rule that it has to end just because the project is over. We can keep being kind.”
“Do you mean I should keep doing dishes for Anabelle every night?”
“No,” I said. “I don’t think being kind means your sister always gets to have her way. She can do the dishes sometimes.”
“Unlike Mrs. G, who can’t tend her garden because of her back,” Lucy said.
“And unlike Monroe, who doesn’t want me to do any more kindnesses for her,” I added. “She’d probably consider it unkind if I did. But I can help you in Mrs. Gallagher’s yard. I’ll clean up her leaves when they fall.”
“I will, too,” Theo said.
“And maybe,” I went on, “we can help other people who can’t garden for themselves. Or if their cars are really dirty and we could wash them for free. Or we could leave quarters by vending machines . . . or . . . or . . .”
“Or a million things!” Lucy said.
“We should make a list,” Theo said. “And we should categorize the different kinds of kindnesses. Some take up a lot more time than others. And some take more people.”
“I declare a meeting after school to discuss all the possibilities!” Lucy said. “What do you say?”
“Well, I’m sort of grounded,” I told her. “I better go home right now. But can we have a makeup meeting? Like at lunch tomorrow?”
“Absolutely,” she said.
“See you at our table,” Theo said.