Laura Lippman - To The Power Of Three

“Three is an excellent number,” Perri said. “All the best books are about groups of three. Nancy Drew has two friends. And my mom read me these books while I was sick, about three girls in Minnesota in the olden days, Betsy, Tacy, and Tib. Betsy wants to be a writer, and she’s kind of the leader, so I guess I’m Betsy.”

“Am I Tacy or Tib?” Kat asked eagerly.

“Tacy, because she has the prettiest hair.” Perri paused. “And because Betsy and Tacy were friends first .”

Perri wasn’t being mean, only accurate, Josie thought. She and Kat had been friends first.

“So Josie is Tib.”

“Yes. Although Tib had blond hair. They were always forming clubs, too. Do you want to start a club?”

“Sure,” Kat said.

“Sure,” Josie echoed.

The bell rang, signaling the end of lunch. They had to go to the playground now, although Perri was excused because of her recent illness. She was allowed to stay inside and read, with a teacher’s supervision. Josie would have been miserable under such circumstances, but Perri was clearly delighted for a chance to skip recess.

“We’ll decide on the club Thursday,” Perri whispered. “At Kat’s house.”

Thursday afternoonwas warm and bright, one of November’s lingering surprises, and the three girls left the Hartigans’ farmhouse with a basket of Fruit Roll-Ups and string cheese packed by Kat’s mom. Under the rules they could not cross major streets without a grown-up. This meant they could not go north, toward Old Town Road, the major road that wove through much of Glendale. And the cul-de-sacs that lay to the east and south were of little interest, although one family did have a basketball hoop.

However, there was a wooded area behind the Hartigan farmhouse, and there were no rules forbidding them access to this, although Kat said they were supposed to watch for deer ticks in the summer. With the trees bare, they felt they had to walk as far as possible for privacy, all the way to the creek for which their school had been named. But no one had said they couldn’t cross the creek, Perri pointed out, so they did, jumping from rock to rock. On one flat but mossy stone, Kat slipped a little, so her leg went into the water up to her shin. Kat laughed, but her fall seemed to make Perri nervous, and she took forever to cross. Only Josie crossed quickly and dryly, leaping with her usual fearless grace.

Once across the creek, they found a place where someone had held a campfire a long, long time ago. “Teenagers,” Perri said. “They probably did drugs here.” Kat and Josie nodded solemnly, having heard many stories about teenagers and the strange things they did. Felled trees formed a ring of benches, and Perri took a seat on one of these, indicating that Kat and Josie should do the same.

“It smells funny here,” Josie said. “Like poo.”

“The Snyders’ farm is over there,” Perri said. “Binnie Snyder smells like poo. Haven’t you noticed?”

Binnie was the redheaded girl who had wanted Josie to be adopted, the last-chosen girl now that everyone knew what a good athlete Josie was. But Josie didn’t remember that she smelled any way in particular.

“Her father is scary,” Kat said. “He comes after people with a shotgun if they put even a foot on his property. So we have to be careful and not walk too far.”

“That never happened,” Perri said. “That’s a made-up story.”

“It did. He chased my father off.”

“My dad says that’s because your dad keeps trying to buy the Snyder farm and he doesn’t want to sell.”

It was the first time that Josie had seen any kind of disagreement between Perri and Kat, and she found it fascinating and frightening at the same time.

“Well,” Kat said at last, “wanting to buy something isn’t a reason for someone to chase you with a gun. All you have to do is say no. “

They all could see the logic in that.

“I think,” Perri said, “that our club should be named after the three of us, but it should be, like, a code. So we can talk about it but no one knows we’re talking about it. We should take two letters from each of our names, so it sounds like an Indian tribe. So we’ll be…the Pe-ka-jos .”

Kat nodded, but Josie said, “Pe-ka-jos? That sounds like those little dogs, the ones with the smushed noses. What about Ka-jope?” She thought she was being clever, not trying to put her own name first.

“Because that will look funny, written down. Besides, Pekajo was a real tribe that lived in Maryland a long, long time ago. We learned about them in social studies before you came.”

Kat looked puzzled, as if trying to recall this lesson. Josie wasn’t fooled, though. She may not have been at Glendale, but she had been in Maryland, and her old school was a good one, more advanced than Meeker Creek.

“Well, if we name ourselves for a real tribe, then it’s not a secret code. It’s just…dumb.”

“Yours is dumb, too. It doesn’t sound like a tribe at all.”

They sat in silence, glaring at each other. Finally Kat spoke.

“What about Ka-pe-jos? It sounds like Navajo, sort of, if you pronounce the j like an h .”

Perri and Josie nodded, pleased with the compromise.

“Now we take a vow.” Perri began, “We, the founding tribal council of the Ka-pe-jos…”

Kat held her right arm straight in front of her, palm down, and Josie followed.

“Not like that,” Perri said. “You look like Nazis.” She put her right hand over her heart. “We, the founding tribal council-”

“But now it’s just like the Pledge of Allegiance,” Kat pointed out.

Perri adjusted her arm yet again, folding her hands as if she were praying. But she shook off that posture before the others could say anything. “We should join hands and stand in a circle.”

Kat had to suppress a small giggle, earning a frown from Perri, but Josie had no problem feeling serious and grave.

“We, the founding tribal council of the Ka-pe-jo tribe, pledge to…um, be good friends and warriors, taking care of one another as best we can. We will do good deeds in the world when possible. All for one and one for all.”

“Isn’t that the Three Musketeers?” A new version of the film had just been released on video, one with all of Josie’s favorite actors.

“So?”

Josie had no real objection. “Just saying.”

“All for one and one for all. This is our vow.”

“This is our vow,” Kat and Josie repeated in unison.

Dry leaves rustled and cracked. The girls turned and saw two girls, redheaded Binnie Snyder and the dark-haired second-grader who often trailed her on the playground. The two clutched sheaves of autumn leaves to their chests. They looked embarrassed, which Josie thought odd. Kat, Perri, and Josie were the ones who had been caught holding hands, reciting vows. Binnie and Eve were just two girls in the woods, gathering leaves. But they turned and ran.

“They’re doing the extra-credit project,” Perri said, her tone outraged. “Binnie is such a suck-up. She’s always competing to be first in class.”

“Well, she’s not,” Kat said in her mild, reasonable way. “She wasn’t even chosen for gifted-and-talented. She’s only good in math.” Binnie could multiply huge numbers in her head, in fact, but she made terrible faces while she did it.

“But they were spying on us. They’ll tell our secrets. We have to make sure they don’t.”

“How do you do that?” Josie asked, even as Kat nodded.

“You’ll see,” Perri said.

In school the next day, Perri passed a note to Kat, who sat between Seth and Chip. She smiled, refusing to show it to the now curious boys. Yet she left the folded bit of paper on her desk when she went up to the board to do her seven-times table. Chip swiped it, giving a short bark of a laugh, then slipped it to Seth as soon as Mrs. Groves stopped looking at them.