Alice in April
Page 1
If I had to sum up seventh grade in seven words, they’d be: “there’s nothing you can do about it.” It’s opening your eyes every morning and knowing that a whole day’s just waiting to happen and you’re going to be caught up in it, ready or not.
“APRIL IS THE CRUELEST MONTH,” SAID THE poet, and Alice McKinley would agree. It begins with Aunt Sally reminding her that she will soon be thirteen (as if anyone could forget something so important) and that she will be the “woman of the house.” Alice dives into her new role by planning her father’s fiftieth birthday party—and telling everyone in the family to get a physical. But that means Alice herself will have to disrobe at the doctor’s! Then there’s the latest crisis at school, where the boys have begun to match each girl with the name of a state, according to its geography—mountains or no mountains!? Will flat, flat Delaware or Louisiana be her fate? Though even worse is the fear that she might not get a name at all.
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Here’s what fans have to say about Alice:*
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PHYLLIS REYNOLDS NAYLOR includes many of her own life experiences in the Alice books. She writes for both children and adults, and is the author of more than one hundred and thirty-five books, including the Alice series, which Entertainment Weekly has called “tender” and “wonderful.” In 1992 her novel Shiloh won the Newbery Medal. She lives with her husband, Rex, in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and is the mother of two grown sons and the grandmother of Sophia, Tressa, Garrett, and Beckett.
Alice in April
BOOKS BY PHYLLIS REYNOLDS NAYLOR
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Outrageously Alice
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Alice on the Outside
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Alice Alone
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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ISBN: 978-1-4391-3224-1(eBook)
This Atheneum Books for Young Readers paperback edition May 2011
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds.
Alice in April / Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. —1st ed.
p. cm.
“A Jean Karl book.”
Summary: While trying to survive seventh grade, Alice discovers that turning thirteen will make her the Woman of the House at home, so she starts a campaign to get more appreciated for taking care of her father and older brother.
ISBN 978-0-689-31805-4 (hc)
[1. Single-parent family—Fict
ion. 2. Family life—Fiction. 3. Schools—Fiction] I. Title.
PZ7.N24Aj 1993 [Fic]—dc20
92017016
ISBN 978-1-4424-2757-0 (pbk)
ISBN 978-1-4391-3224-1 (eBook)
For Sophia Frances,
the newest member of our family,
with love
Contents
Chapter One: Woman of the House
Chapter Two: A Topographical Question
Chapter Three: April’s Fool
Chapter Four: The Sewing Lesson
Chapter Five: Family Business
Chapter Six: Humiliation
Chapter Seven: Looking Ahead
Chapter Eight: Mending Fences
Chapter Nine: Wyoming
Chapter Ten: The Secret’s Out
Chapter Eleven: Confrontation
Chapter Twelve: House Guest
Chapter Thirteen: Cleaning the Ducts
Chapter Fourteen: Loving Lester
Chapter Fifteen: Trial Run
Chapter Sixteen: Researching N.C.
Chapter Seventeen: Being Miss Summers
Chapter Eighteen: Birthday Surprise
Chapter Nineteen: The Party’s Over
Chapter Twenty: A Letter to Myself
1
WOMAN OF THE HOUSE
IT WAS AUNT SALLY WHO STARTED IT. March wasn’t even over before I got a note from her reminding me of my birthday in May. As though I might forget or something.
Our little Alice is going to become a teenager, she wrote. Community property, that’s me. It was what she said next, though, that got me thinking: It’s a big responsibility, because you’re the woman of the house now, you know.
I guess it was the word “woman” that sounded so strange. Up until then I’d thought of myself as the only girl in the family, but this was different. Woman of the House sounds pretty official.
“What did Sal have to say?” Dad asked as he divided the mail among the three of us: The New York Times Book Review for himself, Muscle and Fitness for Lester, and “Occupant” for me. So far that week I’d got a packet of shampoo, a round tea bag, coupons for one free doughnut when I buy a dozen, two packs of razor blades for the price of one, and paper towels at twenty cents off.
“She says I’m Woman of the House now,” I told Dad.
“Woman?” said Lester, looking around. “Where?”
Lester is twenty years old and looks thirty because he has a mustache. I’m twelve and look like I’m ten. Sometimes, anyway. It depends on whether you’re looking at me sideways or head-on.
“I’m practically thirteen,” I told Lester, in case he had forgotten.
He gave a low whistle. “I can’t believe I’ve spent more than half my life in the same house with you.”
“I can’t believe I’ve spent my whole life with you!” I retorted.
“Just our luck, huh?” said Lester.
Dad was opening all the bills. “Your mother used to say that if she had to choose two children all over again, she’d take the two she got.”
I was a little surprised. “All I can remember is how she used to say we were taking five years off her life.”
Dad put down the envelope in his hand. “That was your aunt Sally, Al.” My name is Alice McKinley, but he and Lester call me Al. “Your mother never said any such thing.”
“Sorry,” I told him. I always do that. Mom died when I was little—five, I guess—and Aunt Sally, in Chicago, took care of us for a time. I can never remember who was who. I thought about that awhile, though. “If she wanted me so badly, why did she wait seven years after she had Lester?”
Dad smiled. “We were waiting for you, sweetheart. Babies don’t always come right when you want them, you know.”
“I know,” I said. I was thinking about Elizabeth’s mother, across the street, who was expecting a baby in October. Elizabeth Price has been an only child for twelve years, and she’s in a state of shock—partly because she’s about to be displaced, and partly because anything having to do with bodies shocks Elizabeth.
I looked at Lester. “When I was born, were you in a state of shock?”
“Uh-uh,” said Lester. “Not till after I saw you. Then I went catatonic.”
I took my mail upstairs and opened the latest Occupant envelopes. There were coupons for deodorant, sink cleaners, ravioli, and mouthwash. There was also a little envelope of rich chocolate cocoa, which I ate with my finger.
Aunt Sally, I knew, collected coupons and kept them in a little box with dividers in it. I wondered if Mom saved coupons. And then I got to thinking about how, if I was the Woman of the House now, I had to start thinking about things like this. Saving money, I mean. Running a home. Looking out for Dad and Lester. Simply looking after Lester was a full-time job.
I lay back on my bed and stared up at the ceiling. Woman of the House. In charge, sort of. It was weird that all these years I hadn’t thought of it once. I’d always felt that Dad and Lester were here to take care of me, but now that I was going on thirteen …
I arranged all my coupons alphabetically, put them in a corner of a drawer, and went back downstairs where Dad and Lester were still reading their mail.
“What we’ve got to start thinking about,” I told them, “is spring cleaning.”
Dad lowered his magazine. Lester lowered his jaw.
“Cleaning?” asked Dad.
“Clean, as in scrub, sweep, vacuum, and polish?” said Les.
“Whatever,” I said. “What we could do is divide up the work.”
“I’ll dust the piano keys,” said Dad.
“I’ll rinse out my coffee mug,” said Lester.
“I’m serious,” I told them. “I don’t think we’ve done any spring cleaning since Mom died.”
“Frankly, Al, I don’t think your mother ever did any spring cleaning. She vacuumed and straightened up regularly, but I don’t remember her making a big deal of spring,” said Dad.
“Oh,” I murmured. Actually, I was sort of glad, because I didn’t much like the thought of scrub-sweep-vacuum-polish either.
If Mom didn’t do spring cleaning, though, what did she do? Since I didn’t much remember her at all, I tried to think about all the women I saw on TV and what they worried about. Toilet bowls. Ring around the collar. Fiber. Dentures.
I was just going to get a pen so I could make a list when the phone rang. It was Pamela Jones, of the long blond hair. So long she can sit on it. At least I thought it was Pamela. It was her voice, but I could hear sobbing in the background.
“Pamela?” I asked.
“Alice,” she said. “You’d better come over. I’m here at Elizabeth’s.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Illinois.”
“What?”
“Illinois,” Pamela said again. “Hurry!”
I grabbed my jacket and went outside. Woman of the House could wait.
2
A TOPOGRAPHICAL QUESTION
THE FIRST THING YOU SEE WHEN YOU GO in Elizabeth’s house is Elizabeth. Above the couch, there’s a huge color photograph of Elizabeth in her First Communion dress, with lacy gloves and a veil down the back of her dark hair. She has her hands folded as though she’s praying. I suppose she is praying. There’s a prayer book in her lap, with white flowers on it.
I asked her once what she prays about, and she said, “Everything.” I asked, “What’s everything?” and she said she asks God to make her a better person and to protect her mother in childbirth.
I asked Lester once what he prays for, and he said a Porsche while he’s still young enough to enjoy it.
Elizabeth’s folks were out for the evening, which is why Pamela answered the door.
“Is Elizabeth moving to Illinois?” I asked, looking over at the couch where she lay in a heap.
Pamela shook her head. “Elizabeth is Illinois. Come in and talk to her.”
Sometimes, when you’re twelve, you think everyone else is normal and you’re the one who’s crazy. Right at
that moment I decided that I was normal and everyone else was nuts.
“What is this? A geography assignment or something?” I plopped down beside Elizabeth. She slowly sat up, her eyes red.
“I just found out,” she said. “It’s the cruelest thing anyone’s ever done to me, and I will never speak to a boy again, even if he’s the pope.”
That was pretty strong for Elizabeth.
Pamela explained: “You know that table at the back of the cafeteria where Mark and Brian and some of the other guys sit? When Elizabeth walked by them today, they called her ‘Illinois.’”
I was still trying to understand. “Miss Illinois?”
“J-j-just Illinois.” Elizabeth sniffled.
“So?”
“Well, Jill called her about ten minutes ago and said that the guys at that table are giving every girl in seventh grade the name of a state. That’s why they called Elizabeth ‘Illinois.’”
“So?” I said again. No one was making a bit of sense.
“Based on the shape of her breasts,” Pamela added.
“And Illinois is f-f-flat!” Elizabeth bawled.
It hit me all at once:
1. Seventh-grade boys were staring at our anatomies. One specific part of our anatomies.
2. They were talking to each other about us.
3. I was going to be named after a state.
I didn’t move. I felt as though I had been freeze-dried.
“Listen, Elizabeth.” Pamela squeezed onto the couch along with us. “It’s really not that bad! There are some hills in Illinois, really! There just aren’t any mountains, that’s all.”
Elizabeth sniffled again. “Are you s-s-sure?”
“She’s right!” I said. “I used to live there. There are lots of big hills that … well, maybe not big hills, but … more like slopes. Not ski slopes, of course, but well … you know those places where the road goes up and down?”
Elizabeth’s face was clouding over again.
“Listen,” said Pamela. “It could be much worse! You could have been Louisiana, you know. Now that’s flat.”
“Or Delaware,” I said. “Feel sorry for the girl who gets Delaware.”
Elizabeth took a deep breath. “I still think they’re awful. We don’t go around making fun of boys.”