Just Between Us

by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Overview

An incurable gossip tries to learn how to keep secrets to herself

Sometimes Cass just can’t help herself. Tell her something personal, even something embarrassing, and before you know it, the whole school will have heard. It’s not that Cass doesn’t want to keep secrets—she just doesn’t know how. After her bad habit lands her in a fight with one of her friends, Cass asks her family for help. Mom proposes a psychological experiment. Every time Cass manages to keep a secret, she’ll get a dollar—and a lesson worth far more than that.
 
It’s easy at first, but pretty soon Cass is so full of gossip, she feels like she’s going to burst. When an earth-shattering secret traps her in the middle of her two best friends, she learns that sometimes it’s more important not to keep your mouth shut.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781497681996
Publisher:	Open Road Media
Publication date:	03/03/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	108
File size:	2 MB
Age Range:	9 - 12 Years

About the Author

Susan Beth Pfeffer wrote her first novel, Just Morgan, during her last semester at New York University. Since then, she has written over seventy novels for children and young adults, including Kid Power, Fantasy Summer, Starring Peter and Leigh, and The Friendship Pact, as well as the series Sebastian Sisters and Make Me a Star. Pfeffer’s books have won ten statewide young reader awards and the Buxtehude Bulle Award.
Susan Beth Pfeffer wrote her first novel, Just Morgan, during her last semester at New York University. Since then, she has written over seventy novels for children and young adults, including Kid Power, Fantasy Summer, Starring Peter and Leigh, and The Friendship Pact, as well as the series Sebastian Sisters and Make Me a Star. Pfeffer’s books have won ten statewide young reader awards and the Buxtehude Bulle Award.

Read an Excerpt

Just Between Us

---

By Susan Beth Pfeffer

OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA

Copyright © 1980 Susan Beth Pfeffer
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4976-8199-6

---

CHAPTER 1

"I'm never going to speak to you again, Cass Miller!" my best friend, Jenny, screamed at me. "No matter how often you apologize!"

So I apologized. "I'm sorry, Jenny," I said. "I didn't know Laura would tell everybody."

"But you shouldn't have told Laura in the first place!" Jenny cried. "I told you that in confidence. It was a secret. Why did you tell that big-mouth anyway?"

"Because it was interesting," I said. We were standing outside in the playground. School had ended a few minutes before, and already, thanks to Laura and her big mouth, everybody knew Jenny had just bought her first bra. "Besides, you didn't tell me it was a secret. How was I to know?"

"Interesting?" Jenny said. "What was so interesting about"—she lowered her voice almost to a whisper, but it sounded like a scream to me anyway—"about my buying a bra."

"Because your mother doesn't wear one," I said patiently. "You see, Laura was telling me about her older sister and how she wants to be a cheerleader, only her father won't let her unless she wears a bra. So naturally that made me think of you and how worried you were that your mother wouldn't let you buy one because she doesn't believe in them."

"You told Laura that my mother doesn't wear a bra!"

I never knew anybody could screech so softly. "It's okay," I said. "Laura's sister doesn't, either. Sometimes my mother doesn't. In the summer. You know."

"All I know is you have an even bigger mouth than Laura," Jenny said.

"I do not," I said indignantly. "I only told Laura. She's the one who told everybody else."

"But you should have known she would," Jenny said. "Honestly, Cass, I tell you a very personal secret and you blab it to Laura and she blabs it to the whole world. And then you look at me like you're Little Miss Innocent. It drives me crazy when you do that!"

So I looked down at the ground and tried not to feel innocent. I still couldn't understand why Jenny should be so mad at me when it was all Laura's fault. Or at least mostly her fault.

Jenny's forgiven me a lot in the years we've been friends, so I just waited for her to forgive me again. Instead she looked at me and said, "I don't even know why I bother."

"Bother?" I said.

"With you," she said. "You'll never learn how to keep a secret."

"I can keep secrets," I said. "If you tell me it's a secret, I don't tell anybody. But you didn't tell me not to tell Laura."

"I thought you'd have enough brains to know that on your own," Jenny said. "I guess I should have known better. You can't keep anything to yourself. You tell the world the most personal things about people."

"I do not tell the world," I said, but this time I was looking at the ground seriously. "I only told Laura. If you'd just said it was a secret ..."

"Well, we won't have to worry about it," Jenny said. "Because from now on I'm not telling you anything. At least nothing that counts. Not until I think you know how to keep a secret, and that'll probably be never." She turned around and started to walk away.

"I'll learn how!" I cried after her, but if she heard me, she didn't show it. Instead she walked out of the playground and away from me.

"What was that all about?" Robin asked.

I really liked Robin. She had started school with us in September, and we became friends real fast. Even though I'd only known her a month, I felt like she was my second-best friend. After Jenny if Jenny was still my friend at all, after what I'd said.

"Jenny's mad at me," I said. "Really mad this time."

Robin looked at me. She'd never said so, but I didn't think she liked Jenny very much. Jenny sure didn't like Robin maybe because I liked her but I never told Robin that. Just realizing I'd kept that secret made me feel a little better. Jenny was wrong. I didn't tell the world everything.

"Did you do something wrong?" Robin asked.

"Sort of," I said. "I guess so."

"Did you apologize?" Robin asked.

"I tried," I said. "But she wouldn't listen. She says I can't keep a secret. And I can. Really."

"I believe you," Robin said.

"You shouldn't," I said with a sigh. "Jenny's right. I can't keep secrets. I never could. It's just that some things are so interesting, and if people don't tell me they're secrets, I just know everybody else would be interested, too, so I tell them. I always have and it always gets me in trouble. Last year I told my Uncle Herb what Mom said about Aunt Rhoda, and boy, was he mad. But Mom was even madder. That kind of thing. It happens to me all the time."

"Have you tried to do something about it?" Robin asked.

"Do something?" I asked. "What can I do?"

"I don't know," she said. "But maybe your parents could think of something. Whenever I have a problem like that, I talk it over with my parents. Sometimes they come up with real good ideas."

"They do want to help," I said. "Mom said she'd do anything if it would help me learn how to keep secrets." Actually Mom had said she didn't know what she'd do if I didn't learn how to keep them, but that was just another way of saying it.

"Then talk to them," Robin said. "Let me know what they come up with."

"I will," I said, and felt better already. Mom was majoring in psychology, after all. And that meant taking care of problems of the mind she'd told me so. Keeping secrets, or not keeping them, was a problem of my mind, all right. Maybe Robin was right, and she would be able to come up with a solution. And then Jenny would forgive me and we'd be friends again. Who knew? Maybe even Uncle Herb would forgive me.

So that night at supper, I brought up the subject. I didn't tell the whole story exactly (Jenny would have killed me if I'd told my big brother, Billy, about the bra), but I let everybody know enough so they could try to come up with solutions.

"You're crazy," Billy said. That's Billy's solution to everything.

"I don't know," Dad said. Dad's an assistant vice-president at Wonderworks Waterworks, Inc., and he knows the answers to all kinds of things, but never to my problems. He's real good talking about swimming pools, though.

"You're serious about this?" Mom asked me. She was getting a glint in her eyes.

"I'm serious," I said.

"Because it's much better if problems like this can be cured during childhood," she said.

"Cass is always going to be crazy," Billy said. "Childhood has nothing to do with that."

"Shut up, Billy," Dad said. "Your sister has a problem, and she's come to us for help."

I smiled at him, and kicked Billy under the table. Billy said "ouch!" but we all ignored him.

"I can think of a way to help you, Cass, but you're going to have to be willing to help yourself," Mom said.

"I'm willing," I said. "This not keeping secrets is driving me crazy."

"Some drive," Billy said.

"I'm taking a course now called Behavioral Psychology," Mom said, and she got that look in her eyes she gets when she's talking about one of her courses. Mom's back in college now so she can become a psychologist. She says there's more to life than swimming pools.

"Yeah?" I said. I had trouble keeping Mom's courses straight. Fortunately she was in her last year, although she said she was going to keep on taking courses until she got her Ph.D.

"Behavioral psychology helps train people to change their behavior," she said. "Like people who are afraid of flying. Behavioral psychology trains them not to be afraid."

"And you could train me?" I asked.

"Dorrie, do you think this is a good idea?" Dad asked Mom.

"It'll be fine," Mom said. "I'll train Cass and then I can use the results for my paper. I've been trying to figure out what to do a paper on. This is just perfect."

After three years of Mom being in school, I'm used to being in her papers, so that didn't bother me. "How would you train me?" I asked. I hoped it wouldn't hurt.

"Let's see," Mom said. "I think positive reinforcement is the best approach."

Positive reinforcement didn't sound like it would hurt, but you never knew with Mom and her psychology classes. "What's that, Mom?" I asked.

"That means you'll get a reward every time you keep a secret," Mom said. "Nothing big, of course, but a reward of some sort."

"But if she keeps the secrets, how will we know whether she kept them?" Billy asked. Billy can make me real mad sometimes, but he's very smart.

"Because I'll know what the secrets are," Mom said. "I won't be the only one to tell her, though. I think it'll work better that way. This is really exciting."

"Reward?" I said.

"They usually give rats food," Mom said.

"Rats?"

"We usually train rats," Mom said. "You know, they go through a maze and then they're given some food, so they learn how to get through the maze."

"I wouldn't mind getting food," I said. "Chocolate cake, maybe, for every secret I keep."

"You will not," Mom said. "We don't need a fat secretkeeper around here."

"Maybe something that isn't fattening," Dad said. "Cass likes carrots."

"But I eat carrots all the time," I said.

"I don't think food will work," Mom said. "Besides, that would just condition Cass to expect food as a reward. You'd be amazed at how many things just condition you into bad habits."

"But I have to get a reward," I said. "Otherwise I won't learn how to keep secrets."

"How about money?" Mom asked. "Money is a great conditioner."

"Money?" I said. I'd get paid for keeping secrets? This sounded better and better, even if I did end up in a term paper.

"A dollar a secret," Mom said. "But no money on the days you don't keep the secret. By the time you have ten dollars, you should be able to keep a secret as well as anybody. And in addition to the money, think how good it will feel not to worry about saying the wrong thing all the time."

"Ten dollars?" Billy said. He didn't care about good feelings. "That's not fair. How come Cass gets ten dollars and I don't get anything?"

"Cass will be earning the money," Mom said. "We frequently pay our subjects for experiments."

"Then I'll be a subject, too," Billy said. "I could use ten dollars."

"I'd have to train you slightly differently," Mom said. "So you could be a control group."

"How differently?" Billy said.

"You'd have to give up money every time you failed," Mom said. "So you might end up with nothing. You might even end up in debt."

"Forget it," Billy said. Billy's always borrowing money from me. The last thing he needed was to be in more debt. "Experiment with Cass instead."

"This is going to be such fun," Mom said. I knew then she didn't want Billy to mess up her experiment by being in it. I didn't care, just as long as I learned how to keep secrets, and earned my ten dollars.

"Every morning someone in the family will tell you something," Mom said. "We'll all tell you different things, so it'll be up to you, Cass, to figure out what's a secret and what isn't."

"But that's hard," I said. "I thought you'd tell me which secrets I'm supposed to keep."

"Let me explain something to you, honey," Mom said. "You say you can keep secrets if you know that's what they are."

I nodded.

"What you need to learn, then, is discretion."

"What's that?" I asked.

"It's not blabbing to Uncle Herb that Mom said Aunt Rhoda can't be trusted to bring up their children," Billy said.

Mom turned pale green. I think I matched her.

"Yeah," Dad said. "That's discretion, all right. Too bad you don't have any either, Bill."

"Everybody knows Cass told him that," Billy said.

"Billy's right," I said. "Okay. I have to learn discretion."

"So we'll tell you things and you'll have to figure out what's safe to tell people and what isn't," Mom said. "And every night before you go to bed I'll ask you if you told anybody whatever that secret is. It'll be up to you to be honest about it."

"I'll be honest," I promised. After all, lying wasn't my problem. Being too honest was.

CHAPTER 2

"Don't tell your father," Mom said to me the next morning, "but you know that lamp in the living room? The new one?"

I nodded.

"I told him it cost twenty dollars, but really it was closer to fifty," she said. "He'd be furious if he ever found out."

I looked at her and smiled. "That's today's secret, isn't it?" I said. "That's my first secret."

"Maybe," Mom said, trying to look innocent. "Not that I'm saying it is."

She didn't have to. I just knew it was, that she'd made the first secret an easy one to get me started on the right track. That secret was so easy, even Laura could have kept it. I only hoped the secrets got tougher as the conditioning went along. I wanted a challenge, so I'd be sure I could really do it right.

I'd called Jenny the night before to tell her about the experiment, even though I knew she was still mad at me. I figured she'd forgive me sooner if she knew I was trying to improve myself. She did sound a little mad, but I had the feeling that she was feeling a little better. Besides, I swore never to tell a secret again, even if they pulled off all my fingernails. And Jenny knew I took vows like that very seriously.

Before school started, I told Robin all about Mom and the experiment. She was very interested. One of the things I liked about Robin was how she always listened to me without screaming. Jenny screamed at me a lot. She had all the time we'd been friends, which was practically forever.

"My parents would love to hear about it," Robin told me. "They're always trying to figure out ways of getting me to remember things."

"Like what?" I asked.

"Dumb stuff," she said. "Like turning off lights when I leave a room. And hanging up my coat when I come in. And I never remember to give people messages."

"That stuff sounds easy," I said. "If this experiment works, I'm sure Mom will be happy to work something out for you. And you get money, too. Or at least I will tonight."

"That's terrific," Robin said. "I know you're going to do really well with it, Cass."

"Thanks," I said. I wished Jenny would say things like that. I felt a little disloyal, but sometimes I wished Robin could be my first best friend and Jenny my second.

I felt so good about the experiment that I wanted to tell everybody about it, but I decided the one person I should really talk to about it was Laura. So right before the bell rang, I found her and said I had something to tell her. And I did.

"That's nice," she said, as though she couldn't understand that I was telling her everything for her own good.

"But don't you see?" I said. "If I can learn to keep a secret, so can you."

"But I don't want to," Laura said.

"No?" I said.

"No," she said. "People only tell me things if they don't care if everybody else knows. Because they know I'm going to tell everybody."

"And that doesn't bother you?" I asked.

"No," Laura said. "That's the only way I can get people to listen to me."

"That's not true," I said.

"Sure it is," Laura said. "Suppose I told you I wanted to talk to you about all this terrible stuff that was happening to me. And I told you. Would you be interested?"

"I don't know," I said.

"That's a nice way of saying you wouldn't be," Laura said. "But if I told you I knew terrible things about Jenny, wouldn't you want to hear?"

I felt awful, but I nodded.

"When I grow up, I'm going to be a gossip columnist," Laura said. "The way we're different, Cass, is that I know when a secret's interesting and when it isn't.

You tell everyone everything. I just tell people the interesting stuff."

"Oh," I said.

"Still, I hope you do okay with that experiment of yours," she said. "Let me know how it comes out. If it isn't a secret."

I nodded at her while she walked away. It had never occurred to me that Laura was smart. That seemed to be the one thing she kept secret.

Jenny came over to me at lunchtime and sat down next to me. I'd decided to have lunch with Robin, since she wasn't mad at me. Still, I was glad to see Jenny wanted to eat with us. Jenny makes me mad sometimes, but she always says interesting stuff.

"How's the secret business?" Jenny asked as she sat down.

"Really, Jenny," I said. "Did it ever occur to you that might be a secret?"

"Oh?" Jenny said, blushing. "Is it?"

"Of course not," I said, smiling triumphantly. "I just wanted you to see what that felt like."

"Okay, I see," Jenny said. "I knew it wasn't a secret anyway. You couldn't keep a secret if they put masking tape all over your mouth."

(Continues...)

---

Excerpted from Just Between Us by Susan Beth Pfeffer. Copyright © 1980 Susan Beth Pfeffer. Excerpted by permission of OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---