Incredibly Alice

by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

  I was barely chewing my brownie. I’d done a lot of whining and wailing already about how much I’d miss him, and here he was, going to Spain!

  “I don’t know if ‘Life on the Bay’ can equal ‘Life in Barcelona,’” I said.

  “It will if you’re on the lookout for adventure. Use the time he’s away to really broaden yourself, try new things. You’ve already made a good start.”

  “I’m thinking about going to visit him in Spain, if I can save enough for the plane ticket.”

  “There you go!” said Les. “Now, that’s positive thinking.”

  I divided the second brownie and gave him half. “Thanks, bro,” I said. “You’re a good listener.” I took my glass out to the kitchen, then picked up my bag and said, “Dad says to sign the three places he’s marked on that insurance policy. But read it first, he says. You can get it back to him next week.”

  “Will do,” Les told me, and I went on outside and down the steps. The full moon made my shadow on the path to the street. It was only when I fumbled for my car keys that I realized I’d left my jacket back in the apartment. That was exactly the hoodie I needed for my summer job. I retraced my steps across the lawn and had just reached the evergreen at the bottom of the outdoor staircase when I heard footsteps coming down and a man’s voice saying, “Be good, Andy, but not too good.”

  I paused.

  Andy’s voice: “Hey, Bob, aren’t you forgetting something?”

  “Oh, yeah,” the guy named Bob said. “Sorry.”

  A couple more footsteps. Another pause. I wasn’t about to go on up in the middle of this.

  Andy’s voice again: “This is only a fifty.”

  “Well … listen, I don’t have any more on me.”

  “Come on, Bob. I gave you the full treatment. I did everything.”

  “Honest! Here. Check my wallet.”

  “We’ve been through this before.”

  “Aw, I’ll get it to you, Andy. I’m just—”

  “No, you won’t. Don’t call me again. No more jobs. That’s final.”

  And then the guy saw me.

  “Uh … company,” he said over his shoulder, and came on down, passing me at the bottom of the steps.

  Andy moved out a little farther on the second-floor landing so she could see me, and we stared at each other for a couple of seconds.

  “Oh, Alice, hi,” she said. And then, “Just a business transaction, sweetie. Students always claim poverty, you know.”

  I didn’t like the patronizing tone in her voice. I didn’t like being Alice the Innocent, lectured by Woman of the World. I headed back to the car and sat behind the wheel hyperventilating. At last I turned on the engine and headed home. I could pick up my jacket another day.

  I’d intended to call Les when I got home and tell him what I heard on the stairs, but Pamela called and wanted me to check out some new prom photos on Facebook. And when I finally remembered to call Les, he didn’t pick up. So I went to bed.

  Around noon on Sunday, I reached him and said I wanted to stop by again—I’d left my jacket.

  “How about right now?” he said. “I want to show you something.”

  I wondered what that could be as I drove back to Takoma Park. Show-and-tell, that’s what, not that what I had to tell was all that conclusive. Andy could have loaned this friend some money and he was supposed to pay her back. She could have bought something for him, and he’d forgotten to pay her.

  I pulled up in front of the big yellow house with the brown trim and climbed the side steps.

  “Come on in!” Les yelled when I knocked, and I opened the door. He was coming down the hall in his stocking feet.

  “I got up about fifteen minutes ago, and Paul’s at the gym,” he said. “Take a look at this.”

  Now what was Andy up to? I wondered as he opened the door to her room. Cautiously, I peeked inside. Then I stared. Except for the curtains and furniture, the room was empty. The dresser, the bookshelves, the desktop …

  I looked all around before I spoke, as though Andy might be in the closet or something.

  “When?” I asked.

  “While I was asleep this morning, I guess. It’s like the wind blew in and whisked her away. And just in time, because I got an e-mail from my friend at the U. He found the memo he was telling me about. Andrea Boyce has been a ghostwriter for more Maryland students than you could count. Her ‘tutoring’ consists of not just helping them write essays and term papers, she does the whole job, and charges accordingly. And she’s good at it.”

  “So she’s not a hooker?”

  “Don’t think so. Wasn’t selling her body so much as her brain. My friend said they haven’t been able to trace any of these students’ essays to the Internet, but there were just little phrases that seemed to turn up often enough to let them know they were all being written by the same person. She’s original.”

  “And this is a crime?”

  “It’s aiding and abetting cheating. Mostly it falls on the shoulders of the students who pass it off as their own work, but it’s been worrisome enough that some professors have talked about grading almost entirely by test results, not essays, just to shut her down. It means that students who don’t really know their subjects are passing their courses, and this reflects on the whole school.”

  “Did you tell her what you’d found?”

  “Yeah, tried to. I knocked on her door around eleven last night and said, ‘Andrea, we need to talk,’ and she didn’t answer. First time I’d called her Andrea—first time I knew—and that must have spooked her. This morning she was gone. No forwarding address.”

  Whoa! I couldn’t believe it!

  “You’ve been harboring a fugitive, Les!” I said excitedly. “Have you told Mr. Watts she’s gone?”

  “No. I’ve got to break it to him today. Thought I’d pick up some apricot strudel to take with me.”

  “And now you’ve got to rent her room all over again. Well, you have to admire her entrepreneurial spirit.”

  “Or not,” said Les.

  29

  PRANK DAY

  It was as though everything between prom and graduation had a good-bye tag on it—everything said, This is your last … The Ivy Day Ceremony (a guy from my history class was the poet and a girl from choir carried the ivy); the senior class gift to the school—(two more armchairs for our library); the arrival of our caps and gowns… .

  If I thought I’d been busy with the play and homework and articles for The Edge, I’d had no idea what the last weeks of May would be like. Not only did I have to get through all my final exams while simultaneously doing all my packing for ten weeks of work on a cruise ship, but when I got back from that, I’d have only a few days before I left for the University of Maryland.

  I was frantically going through my closet, my dresser drawers, my chest like a madwoman, tossing stuff into three different piles: “Keep,” “Toss,” and “Maybe.” Every so often I’d have a change of heart and pull something out of the “Toss” pile and add it to the “Keep” pile or vice versa. It was the “Maybe” pile that grew higher by the minute, meaning I was only deferring the decisions until later.

  “I hate to even suggest this,” Sylvia said, looking in on me, “but since you’ll be living only forty minutes away come fall, you’ll be able to do a little of this on weekends once you start college.”

  “Don’t even think it!” I wailed. “I need all the motivation I can get.”

  At school people were carrying their yearbooks around from class to class so friends could write sentimental, embarrassing, or crazy stuff in them no one else would understand. Luckily, I didn’t have to show mine to Dad and Sylvia. Some of it they’d understand and approve: To a talented girl who helped make The Edge what it is today: controversial. Phil. And To one of the best friends I ever had. You’ve got my shoulder to cry on whenever you need it if I can use yours. Hugs, Gwen. From Pamela: To Alice, the girl who can’t wait to lose her V card. Pamela Jones. Some people wr
ote the usual HAGS (Have a great summer) or Yours till the chocolate chips. I was taken aback when Sam wrote, To the only girl I really loved. But when I found out he wrote, My love goes with you in Jennifer Sadler’s yearbook—another of his ex-girlfriends—and A piece of my heart will be with you always to the girl he was dating now, I decided that Sam was in love with love. I hope he goes into theater someday.

  There were all these grad parties also—so many that there might be three or four scheduled on the same Saturday afternoon, a few more in the evening. I was picky about the ones I’d attend, and even then, I dropped in for maybe an hour at each one. I avoided the ones where people were most likely to be sloshed, went to the parties of my best friends, had a party of my own on a Sunday afternoon just so I could attend Gwen’s that night… .

  At one party Sam’s cheeks were brighter than I’d ever seen them, and Liz and I were laughing at how red they got when he drank. “Hope he doesn’t have another one,” I said. “They’d pop.” At Tim’s the keg was disguised under a scarecrow costume. To reach the tap, you lifted the shirt, and that was a lot of fun.

  I didn’t go to Ryan’s—it would just have been too awkward—but it still was a week of saying good-byes and forgiving faults and truly wishing everyone good luck.

  At our school Senior Prank Day usually falls on a Thursday, the day before Senior Skip Day, when students take off en masse, many of them heading for the beach. Because the forecast for Friday was chilly and rainy, and I’d be on a cruise ship all summer, I decided to save my money and skip both school and the beach. Gwen, Pamela, and Liz planned to do the same. I wouldn’t miss Prank Day, though. Usually a bunch of seniors put their heads together and come up with some big joke. But somehow, when we got to school on Thursday, a week before graduation, we knew this was going to be a day like no other.

  Phil had got word of it first and had told us the jocks were in charge of Prank Day this year. He alerted the newspaper staff to take notes or photos for our last hurried edition of The Edge.

  I was driving Dad’s car, and as I approached the school, I could see the racing lights going around and around our school billboard like the lights on a marquee, and instead of our school’s name, followed by the principal’s, followed by the words Spirit Week or Cheaper by the Dozen or any of the other themes or productions we’d promoted, there was a huge full-color advertisement for Budweiser Light.

  Drivers were already honking with amusement as they turned into the student parking lot, and I knew that Mr. Gephardt must have okayed this one, as it couldn’t have been rigged up electrically without his consent.

  What really made me laugh, though, was the big maple tree in the center of the circular drive, because it had been lavishly decorated during the night with bras and jockstraps, hanging from almost every branch.

  So I entered the building knowing that almost anything could happen, and almost everything did. As the news traveled around that each athletic team had been assigned to pull one prank, we looked for signatures—a football was dangling from the billboard out front, and a bra on the maple tree had a softball in each cup, signed by members of the girls’ softball team.

  It was hard to settle down to anything like a normal school day, and at first, when we heard the microphone click on in homeroom for morning announcements, no one was paying attention. Then someone said, “Hey! Listen!” And suddenly everyone grew quiet.

  There was something like a moan, followed by deep, heavy breathing and a husky male voice saying, “Oh, baby …”

  Half the class was shrieking with laughter and the other half was saying, “Shhhh. Be quiet!”

  We were all giggling, trying to figure out which guy and girl were doing the vocals. The breathless female voice said, “This … is your … morning … wakeup call, all you hot-blooded, hard-bodied dudes and chicks out there—(oh, yes, baby, yes!)—and [pant pant] we wanna give you … the news … of the … day.” At this point we got a recording of bedsprings squeaking loudly and then the guy and girl moaning together, “Oh, yeeeeeessss!”

  There was so much laughter, we could hardly hear what the daily announcements were. I guess most of the teachers were resigned to the fact that not a lot was going to be accomplished on Senior Prank Day because as the morning went on, some were already prepared with short documentary films to show in class or fun quizzes, played like a game show.

  When we heard a commotion in the hall outside the conference room next to the office, we got there just in time to see a life-size blow-up doll in a black negligee being carried through the doorway on the hands of students, while our laughing but red-faced principal tried to explain to the budget committee why she had been lying on her side on the conference table. See you around, big boy, said a note tied to her toe, signed by the captain of the basketball team.

  “This is wild!” Liz exclaimed when we found a couple of goldfish swimming in a bag of water submerged in the iced tea canister in the dining room, courtesy of the swim team.

  “Who did the voices on the morning announcements?” everyone was asking, and it turned out to be one of the girls on the gymnastics team and a guy from tennis.

  Things got even wilder that afternoon when the inflatable doll was found seated in a history teacher’s chair when he entered and later in the chem lab. I think all the teachers had their eyes on the clock, waiting for the day to be over, but it didn’t end the way everyone hoped.

  It was still fun when someone looked out the window and saw that all the cars in the student parking lot had For Sale soaped on their windshields. But shortly after the last bell, we could hear a banging and rattling from the sophomore corridor, angry yells, and when I went to check, notebook in hand, I found that someone—many someones—had glued all the handles of the sophomore lockers in place. They wouldn’t move up or down and the doors wouldn’t open. Only a lucky few were able to get inside.

  “I’ve got to get my bag, or I’ll miss my bus!” one girl was yelling.

  “My dad’s waiting outside,” said a guy. “Who the hell did this? I’ve got a dental appointment!”

  Buses sat idling in front of the school, and the line of cars and buses grew longer, snaking out into the street and far down the block. Horns were honking. The day had gone so well—been so funny—and now … It was too late for the wrestling team to take back their mascot, a blue monkey with long arms, dangling from one of the lockers near the end of the row.

  The only guy I knew on the wrestling team was Brian Brewster, so I went looking for him. We’d had a great story for our last issue of The Edge, and I hated to see it ruined.

  “Brian!” I yelled when I saw him far down the hall, and I knew he’d heard because he half turned, then ducked into a restroom with two other guys.

  I could hear them talking when I got up to the doorway.

  “They know, man!” Brian was saying.

  “You said one good yank,” another voice protested. “Shit! I yanked one myself and the thing wouldn’t budge. We’ve got Beck out there, Gephardt, the security guys… .”

  I walked in and they stared. Two guys at the urinals quickly repositioned themselves until they could get their jeans zipped.

  “You’re right,” I said. “The whole school’s waiting.”

  Brian stared at me. “I tried it with epoxy on a basement cupboard at home,” he explained. “Four good yanks and it opened. I don’t know why these handles are so different.”

  “Whatever. Senior Prank Day is riding on this,” I said. “Somebody needs to make a statement.”

  To his credit, Brian went out first, and the others followed.

  Beck and Gephardt were furious, and so were a bunch of parents, car keys in hand.

  “It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” Brian apologized. “We thought a good hard yank would do it. We really messed up.”

  “Yes, you really did!” one father yelled. “My son has a trombone in there and a lesson in ten minutes. Suppose you work on number 209. Chew it open if you have to, dammi
t.”

  Brian and another guy headed for that locker, but neither could get the handle to budge.

  The maintenance supervisor came on the scene with a small can of acetone and a rag. He poured some on the rag and applied it to the door handle, trying to jiggle it up and down until at last the handle began to move. Finally the door opened. He handed the can and the rag to Brian. “Only a few hundred more to go,” he said. “Come on down to the maintenance room and get some more acetone.”

  “None of you leaves until every locker is open,” Mr. Beck told the wrestling team. “Then I want to see Brian in my office.”

  Why are there always a few, it seems, to ruin something for the many? It had been such a great day—probably the best Senior Prank Day in the history of the school. But epoxy had practically been poured down all the sophomore locker handles sometime that afternoon, Phil told me when he called that night, and it had taken until almost seven o’clock before they all had been unglued. Music lessons had been missed, jackets left behind, homework gone undone, car keys not retrieved… . Nobody was injured because of it, and nothing had been irreparably damaged—except, that is, the reputation of the wrestling team and the goodwill of the parents.

  “So how do we write this up when we don’t know the outcome?” I asked Phil. “Prank Day was going to make such a great story.”

  “Let’s write two separate stories,” he suggested. “We’ll title the first story ‘Best Senior Prank Day Ever’—you can write that one—and I’ll do ‘Except for This,’ concentrating only on the wrestling team stunt.”

  Like all the other seniors, I took advantage of Senior Skip Day the next day, but I almost wished I’d gone to the beach, rain or not, because there was texting all day about Brian and the locker incident. One of the rumors was that he wouldn’t get his diploma. And though Brian has never been one of my favorite people, he was still part of our “family”—and we didn’t want to see that happen.