Free Rules for Stealing Stars by Corey Ann Haydu Page A

the conversation. She’s mad at me and desperate to make sure I feel the deep, dark crevices of that anger and disappointment.
    â€œAll I wanted was to get out of this stupid house for five minutes. You had one small job and you couldn’t even do that right,” Eleanor says. I’ve never seen her like this, like Mom. Ready to explode with only a tiny push of an invisible button.
    â€œI’m sorry. I saw these photos she was looking at and I got all weird and you know when I’m around Mom I can act sort of—”
    â€œSilly, it’s late,” Eleanor says. “I’m tired. I had a bad night. You shouldn’t be pretending you’re, like, mature enough for this stuff. It’s okay. We don’t expect that fromyou. That’s why we take care of you. Because you need us. And we thought you might be ready for more, but clearly, clearly you’re not.”
    â€œOkay,” I say. But it isn’t.

Thirteen
    I go looking for Marla in the morning.
    She’s not in her sad, gray-walled room with its tarnished brass bed that she begged Dad for. She’s not in the kitchen or the TV room. She’s not on the porch next to Dad, stealing the comics section from his paper. She’s not in the bathroom with the claw-foot tub that she likes to take long baths in. I think maybe I’ll check in Mom’s sewing room, but we’re not supposed to go in there, and I don’t want to get myself or anyone else into any more trouble. I even approach Mom and Dad’s room, but I can hear Mom’s heavy breathing, and I don’t think she’s awake.
    Eleanor and Astrid have the television on downstairs. Ihear loud voices and cheesy music and the volume moving up and down every few seconds, because Eleanor likes it loud and Astrid likes it quiet. I should not sneak into their room without asking. I’m in more than enough trouble with Eleanor already.
    But I have a creeping feeling about Marla, and I need to know where she is, I need to see that she’s okay.
    Guilt is this thing that feels gray and heavy. It’s a cement wall between me and the rest of the world. Sleeping and eating and writing LilyLee are stuck on the other side, with me stranded over here, unable to do anything at all.
    I’ll do anything to tear it down.
    So I head into Eleanor and Astrid’s room. The beds are made. The shades are drawn. Eleanor’s closet door is open, and nothing interesting is inside.
    Astrid’s closet door is closed.
    I look under the beds and take an extra-long look at Eleanor’s closet, in case somehow Marla is hiding in the back.
    She isn’t.
    She is in Astrid’s closet. The bad closet. Alone. I know it.
    â€œMarla?” I say at the closet door.
    â€œOne second.” Her voice sounds far away.
    â€œAre you really in there?” It is a stupid thing to say, but I say stupid things when I’m nervous.
    â€œOne second. I promise, Sil,” she says. Marla calls me Sil instead of Silly when she likes me, which is almost never. I stand outside the door with the world’s straightest back and widest eyes.
    I do not open the door. It’s pretty possible that I don’t want to go in there, curious or no.
    The things Astrid said about her closet—vague half sentences—were creepy. Eleanor’s mouth—the way it turned down and got crooked when she talked to me last night—was even scarier.
    It would take a lot for Astrid to avoid something magical, I think. Eleanor likes night-lights when she’s sleeping and flashlights when she’s camping and explicit itineraries when she’s doing anything else. But Astrid is her perfect counterpart. She likes playing hide-and-seek in pitch black and sleeping outside instead of in the tent and running off for a little while when we’re on the beach, terrifying everyone but most especially Mom.
    I’m not sure I want to see anything that Astrid is too