Rules for Secret Keeping by Lauren Barnholdt

doesn’t know any top-level secrets, there
are
no top-level secrets about how I run my business; I just do it. You put the secret in the locker and I pass it, easy as that.”
    â€œYeah,” Daphne says. She looks really cranky.
    â€œOh,” Emma says. “Sorry.” She gives us both a winning smile. “Now, this total travesty we’ve just encountered can call for only one thing.”
    â€œWhat’s that?” I ask.
    â€œA sleepover,” she says. “To plan on how to take Olivia DOWN.” She claps her hands excitedly.
    â€œHmmm,” I say. “A sleepover.” To be totally honest, I don’t love sleepovers the way some people do. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing, like,
bad
about sleepovers. I’m all for the having-fun part, and the gorging-yourself-on-pizzapart, and the doing-makeovers part. But I like to have people over to
my
house, because I do sometimes, just once in a while, get nervous sleeping other places. But only once in a while. And only certain places. I’m totally fine sleeping at Daphne’s, for example. “I could probably ask if I could have everyone over at my house,” I say.
    â€œSleepovers are always at Emma’s house,” Charlie says. She’s at our table now, and sets her tray down next to Daphne’s lunch bag. It contains one container of blueberry yogurt and five wrapped-up, low-fat cheese sticks. Hmm. Weird. I don’t think Daphne needs to be too worried. One juice box probably isn’t going to stick out in this crowd.
    Emma nods. “They are,” she says, and doesn’t offer any other information—like, for example,
why
sleepovers are always at her house. “So tonight. Seven o’clock. Be there.” She looks across the table at Daphne. “You’d better come too.”
    â€œThanks,” Daphne says. “Sounds great.” She kicks me under the table, like,
“Hello, why the heck would we go over to her house, especially if she likes Jake, duh.”
    â€œLook,” I try. “I’m going to need to ask my mom if—”
    â€œSamantha,” Emma says, sighing. “That’s fine, but if I were you, I’d be there. How can we stop this if we don’t have a plan?”
    â€œI don’t know,” I say.
    â€œUgh, this yogurt is definitely not agreeing with my stomach,” Charlie says. She sets it down on her tray. “Why don’t they have Fage here like every other place?”
    â€œYou should get your mom to write a note,” Emma says. “Like, protesting the food or something.”
    â€œTotally.” Charlie dumps her spoon back into her yogurt and pushes her tray away from her. Her cheese sticks go untouched. She picks up one of Olivia’s flyers. “So what’s the deal?” she asks, waving it. “With this?”
    â€œThe deal,” Emma says, “is that someone is starting the exact same business as Samantha. I told you that in math.”
    â€œIt doesn’t seem, like, exactly the same,” Charlie says, her eyes scanning down the page. “It seems like this one is virtual.”
    â€œVirtual?” I ask.
    â€œYeah, like on the internet, digital, you know, the wave of the future.” Charlie pushes her chair back and looks around the cafeteria, bored. “I really wish Mark was in this lunch period.”
    I still don’t know who Mark is, and I’m about to maybe ask her, just in case he has a cute friend Emma can get hooked up with so that she will stop thinking about Jake, when I remember what my dad said to me yesterday about everything going digital nowadays, and I feel my stomach do a flip.
    â€œOoh, that reminds me,” Emma says. “Did you give my note to Jake yet?”
    Daphne and I look at each other across the lunch table. “Um, not yet,” I say. “But I will as soon as I see him.”
    When lunch is over, and Emma and Charlie