30 Days of No Gossip Read Online Free PDF Page A

morning’?” I could almost see her gaping jaw. “I have to know what you’re going to wear.”
    She had to know. Was it gossiping to tell her? I thought about it a minute and decided probably not. Gossiping was talking about other people, right?
    “My red T-shirt and some jeans.”
    “The ones with sequins on the back pockets?” she asked.
    I nodded, then remembered she couldn’t see me. “Yes.”
    “Good. What do you think Vi will wear? Do we need to call and tell her to wear something that fits?”
    I winced. Granted, Vi wasn’t a fashion plate, but she had far more important things to worry about than clothes. She was on the honor roll because she spent time studying instead of trying to figure out what to wear tomorrow. That was a good thing. We all should be like that. Plus, Vi could make a normal bedroom look like something out of a magazine, so I was pretty sure that if she really caredabout it, she could outdress every single one of us.
    I realized I couldn’t even stick up for her. Not without gossiping. I clamped my mouth shut. Again, I had that feeling that I was holding in words. Maybe I should just stay away from talking to people for the next twenty-nine-and-a-half days.
    “I’m sure she’ll wear something cute,” I said, biting my bottom lip nervously as soon as the words were out. I was so confused about what was gossip and what wasn’t, I wasn’t sure what to say anymore.
    “I’ll call her and tell her what we’re wearing,” she offered. “That should take care of it.”
    “Don’t!”
    I didn’t mean to yell into the phone, but I could already picture the conversation in my mind. Sydney would call Vi and tell her that she and I had just talked and decided tomorrow we’d be wearing our sparkly jeans and red tees. Vi would deem it “gossip” and stop speaking to me forever.
    Maybe not, but I couldn’t risk it. “I’ll call her,” I rushed to say. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
    “Wait,” I heard her say as I was reaching for the button to hang the phone up. “I wasn’t finished talking.”
    Another suppressed groan. I’d figured as much. She’dwant to talk. And talking meant gossiping. And even if I listened to gossip, I could get in trouble. Even one “uh-huh” could be heard as agreement.
    “What are we going to do about Trevor?” Sydney asked.
    “What do you mean?” I asked. I wasn’t playing dumb this time. I really had no idea.
    “The bus,” she said, sighing.
    Oh, yeah. The whole bus thing. Trevor was supposed to sit at the front of the bus and Kelsey would be at the back, pretending she didn’t like Aiden. The plan had been that we’d sit up front, where Sarah and Trevor would be sitting, all hand-holdy and stuff, while Aiden stared at Sarah with puppy-dog eyes like he always did. We were supposed to watch the action, I guess. But now that I’d overheard someone saying Aiden had told Emma he might like Kelsey back, all of that had changed. I wasn’t even sure Aiden would sit near Sarah.
    Of course, I couldn’t say any of that. I had to hold it all in, along with all the other words that were backed up inside my chest. This was a lot harder than I’d thought.
    “We can just sit in the middle,” I finally said. “No big deal.”
    “No big deal?” Sydney asked. “No. Big. Deal  ? Who are you and what have you done with Maddie?”
    Uh-oh. Busted. How was I supposed to deal with this? Nobody had told me how to deal with this.
    “Gotta go,” I rushed to say. “My mom’s calling.”
    I hung up the phone without waiting for a response and tapped in Vi’s number as quickly as possible. She had a cell phone too, but hers had unlimited minutes. Since she wasn’t much of a phone talker, that was kind of a waste.
    No answer. Of course. Why had I thought there would be? I hung up the phone around the time it went to voice mail and stared at my laptop screen. What if I IM’d her? Would she reply to me then?
    I decided it was worth a try. I opened my