She Can't Read Minds

“This is stupid.” I shouted, grabbing onto Leslie’s hand as Cal shoved me up into the tree house in his backyard. It was freezing outside; we were wearing barely any winter ware and there was two feet of snow on the ground yet we were sitting all a tree house. I yelped when Leslie yanked me into the tree house. “Dear god, I thought I was gonna die for a second there.”

Markus chuckled from where he sat along the wooden walls of the small clubhouse, “We could tell.” Jenna and Bridget beamed from their corner of the wooden dwelling like proud parents whose kid just made honor roll. Leslie sat on Bridget’s other side with a notebook in her lap and a pen hanging between her teeth now that everyone was inside the house.

I stuck my tongue out at me as I scurried to his side. He grinned, putting an arm around me to pull me closer. “Okay,” Cal spoke up, sitting down next to Leslie who shifted the open notebook onto his lap instead, “so we have to find a way to make Nellie go bye-bye. Hm.”

Jenna gasped, “We’re killing her?”

“No dumbass,” Bridget joked, swatting at Jenna’s shoulder, “we’re just gonna make her realize she isn’t dating Markus. Why would we kill her?” Jenna shrugged her shoulders, focusing onto Cal who gave them an annoyed look. Lately he’s been acting more like Leslie in certain situations and she’s acting more like him in other situations.

“Moving on.” Leslie gave them a look and they quickly bit their lips to keep quiet until Cal could speak up again.

“We could just tell her.” Markus suggested weakly like it was the simplest thing ever. I rolled my eyes at him, shooting down his idea. He gave me a look like he understood what I meant. “Then what are we gonna do?”

“I don’t know.” I mumbled to him, leaning my forehead onto his shoulder and closing my eyes. Markus rubbed my back gently.

“Well,” Cal finally spoke up, “we could involve Griffin in this. He’s not so bad after you get to know for a few days. He actually is kind of good company.” Leslie nodded, referring to her brief relationship with the guy. Markus flashed an uneasy smile to us; his eyes even more unsure. “Marky?”

“No,” He shook his head, “I don’t think we should bring him into this. He’ll just make it all worse. She is his sister after all.” I glanced up at Markus before looking toward Cal and Leslie. “He’ll tell her and everything will go whoosh.” Markus turned down his thumb and jutted out his bottom lip slightly.

“Nothing will go whoosh.” Cal told him, straight faced.

“Yeah, everything will be whoosh-less.” Leslie added, equally straight in the face.

“What’s with all the whoosh talk?” Jenna asked, straight in the face. Bridget grinned beside her, looking about ready to laugh. I just sat there while everyone else gave her weird looks. I didn’t understand how they could say something like that with such straight faces. “So, it’s agreed? We’re gonna bring Griffin into this.”

Cal nodded, closing the notebook and shoving the pen into the spiral, “I guess so, unless someone else has an idea.” I smiled, raising my hand. He raised an eyebrow at me and laughed. “Miranda?”

“My idea, hey, picture this.” I bit my lip as Markus stared at me, curiosity edging off of him. Everyone else seemed to want to hear it too. “Us never coming back out into this tree house until the sun’s up, there’s no snow, and the temperature is over 10 degrees.” Markus chuckled, agreeing to it.

“Best idea of the day.” Markus chuckled, grabbing my hand. Cal rolled his eyes, making gagging noise like any other brother would do. We piled out of the tree house and ran into the house.

Cal
“Griffin?” I asked, leaning against the wall in the hallway of my house. Everyone else was sitting downstairs, cooing over Jane. Not Miranda though; she was hiding somewhere only Markus knew. Someone yawned on the other end of the phone.

“Well damn man, what’d you want?” Griffin groaned. Some girl mumbled something in the background. “Chick, get the fuck out!” She said something back to him as she scurried around. The volume of her voice changing rapidly as she moved. “I don’t care. Leave. You were horrible.”

“Uh, Griffin, want me to call you back?” I asked, rubbing the back of my neck.

“Nah man, she’s leaving.” He said to me before cursing at the girl once more who was sobbing. Then a door slammed and Griffin must have been shifting around or doing something involving motion. “What’s up?”

“I-uh, we need to talk to you about your sister.” I told him, sounding off and a little confused.

Griffin grunted a little, “We?”

“Leslie, me, Miranda, Markus.” I said, glancing a Miranda standing at the end of the hallway from the corner of my eye. She was rubbing her arm and looking at me and the floor.

“About Nellie?” He asked, followed by a cough.

“Yeah, we’ll be right over.”

“’Kay man.”