Alice on Her Way
Page 1
READ WHAT REAL READERS
HAVE TO SAY ABOUT
Alice!*
“I cry and laugh and feel embarrassed and excited with Alice as I read these books. I stay up all night without sleeping all of the time reading your books because I just can’t wait to find out what will happen next.”
—Leslie
“Please, never stop writing Alice books. I hope they make lots of girls as happy as they made me!”
—Caitlin
“This is so embarrasing. I kant beleve Im doing this. I love your Alice books and I’m a BOY! I sneak in my sister’s room to read them since she loves them.”
—Anonymous
“your books are sooooooooo good and make me laugh all the time, the events are unexpected and cover a great deal of real life situations (which is why they’re my favorite!!) i can never put an Alice book down without reading at least a couple of chapters!”
—Eileen
*Taken from actual postings on the Alice Web site. Visit Alice at kids.simonandschuster.com to read more!
Imagine it: a weekend without your parents; a weekend in a hotel with your best friends; a weekend in one of the biggest, loudest, craziest cities in the world. Jealous yet? Well, get ready to turn green with envy because Alice, Pam, Liz, and Gwen are headed to New York City for the weekend! Sure, it’s a school trip and there’ll be some educational stuff like museums and plays and visiting Ellis Island, but what the girls really can’t wait for is everything they’re going to do when their teachers go to bed. Bars, clubs, dancing, shopping, and boys… anything is possible. The city awaits them, and all they have to do to have the time of their lives is sneak past a few hotel clerks.
Alice can’t wait to hit New York. A weekend with her friends is just what she needs right now. Sophomore year and driving lessons are a lot harder than she thought they would be, and it’s time for her to get away from all that work and have some fun. Plus, she’s got the loooong bus ride home in the dark with her new boyfriend to look forward to….
Funny, cool, and always provocative, Phyllis Reynolds Naylor does it again, proving that she understands what real girls think and feel, with this seventeenth book in the beloved Alice series.
PHYLLIS REYNOLDS NAYLOR includes many of her own growing-up experiences in the Alice books. She writes for both children and adults, and is the author of more than one hundred and twenty books, including Starting with Alice; Alice in Blunderland; Lovingly Alice; The Agony of Alice; Alice in Rapture, Sort Of; Reluctantly Alice; All But Alice; Alice in April; Alice In-Between; Alice the Brave; Alice in Lace; Outrageously Alice; Achingly Alice; Alice on the Outside; The Grooming of Alice; Alice Alone; Simply Alice; Patiently Alice; and Including Alice. In 1992 her novel Shiloh won the Newbery Medal. She lives in Bethesda, Maryland, with her husband, Rex, and is the mother of two sons, both grown and married. She has three grandchildren.
JACKET PHOTOGRAPH COPYRIGHT © 2005 BY NICK VACCARO
JACKET DESIGN BY ANN ZEAK
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alice on her way
Books by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Shiloh Books
Shiloh
Shiloh Season
Saving Shiloh
The Alice Books
Starting with Alice
Alice in Blunderland
Lovingly Alice
The Agony of Alice
Alice in Rapture, Sort of
Reluctantly Alice
All But Alice
Alice in April
Alice In-Between
Alice the Brave
Alice in Lace
Outrageously Alice
Achingly Alice
Alice on the Outside
The Grooming of Alice
Alice Alone
Simply Alice
Patiently Alice
Including Alice
The Bernie Magruder Books
Bernie Magruder and the Case of the Big Stink
Bernie Magruder and the Disappearing Bodies
Bernie Magruder and the Haunted Hotel
Bernie Magruder and the Drive-thru Funeral Parlor
Bernie Magruder and the Bus Station Blowup
Bernie Magruder and the Pirate’s Treasure
Bernie Magruder and the Parachute Peril
Bernie Magruder and the Bats in the Belfry
The Cat Pack Mysteries
The Grand Escape
The Healing of Texas Jake
Carlotta’s Kittens
Polo’s Mother
The York Trilogy
Shadows on the Wall
Faces in the Water
Footprints at the Window
The Witch Books
Witch’s Sister
Witch Water
The Witch Herself
The Witch’s Eye
Witch Weed
The Witch Returns
Picture Books
King of the Playground
The Boy with the Helium Head
Old Sadie and the Christmas Bear
Keeping a Christmas Secret
Ducks Disappearing
I Can’t Take You Anywhere
Sweet Strawberries
Please DO Feed the Bears
Books for Young Readers
Josie’s Troubles
How Lazy Can You Get?
All Because I’m Older
Maudie in the Middle
One of the Third-Grade Thonkers
Books for Middle Readers
Walking Through the Dark
How I Came to Be a Writer
Eddie, Incorporated
The Solomon System
The Keeper
Beetles, Lightly Toasted
The Fear Place
Being Danny’s Dog
Danny’s Desert Rats
Walker’s Crossing
Books for Older Readers
A String of Chances
Night Cry
The Dark of the Tunnel
The Year of the Gopher
Send No Blessings
Ice
Sang Spell
Jade Green
Blizzard’s Wake
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Atheneum Books for Young Readers
An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division
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www.SimonandSchuster.com
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.
Copyright © 2005 by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
Book design by Ann Zeak
The text for this book is set in Berkley Old Style.
First Edition
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds.
Alice on her way / Phyllis Reynolds Naylor.— 1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: Alice is adjusting to her new stepmother, her brother’s new apartment, her ex-boyfriend, and getting a driver’s license.
ISBN 0-689-87090
-6
ISBN-13: 978-1-43911-560-2 (eBook)
[1. High schools—Fiction. 2. Schools—Fiction. 3. Stepmothers—Fiction. 4. Family life—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.N24Alc 2005
[Fic]—dc22
2004021203
To Sara Cherner, for all her help
Contents
Chpater One: Going Out
Chpater Two: “Getting to Know You…”
Chpater Three: Alice Blue Gown
Chpater Four: Plans
Chpater Five: How Could He?
Chpater Six: Mothers
Chpater Seven: The-New-Girl-Who-Came-to-Learn-About-Sex
Chpater Eight: Home-Style
Chpater Nine: Alone Together
Chpater Ten: Pamela’s Story
Chpater Eleven: Questions
Chpater Twelve: Wheels
Chpater Thirteen: Hello, Tracy!
Chpater Fourteen: Getting Ready
Chpater Fifteen: Problem
Chpater Sixteen: We’re Off!
Chpater Seventeen: The Big Apple
Chpater Eighteen: Breaking Out
Chpater Nineteen: Pamela… Again
Chpater Twenty: What Happened at School
Chpater Twenty-one: Party?
Chpater Twenty-two: Decision
Chpater Twenty-three: Changes
Chpater Twenty-four: Alice Was Here!
Chpater Twenty-five: On My Way
alice on her way
1
Going Out
My dad’s relatives live in Tennessee. Once, on a trip, we stopped in Bristol for lunch. The manager had a clip-on tag with the word Necessary on it. Dad smiled at him and said, “I see you’re the indispensable one around here.”
The manager smiled back and said, “It’s my last name. There are lots of us in Bristol.”
Lester, my brother, didn’t believe him and checked the phone directory on the way out. “There are twenty-seven listed!” he said. “Imagine going through life as Mr. Necessary.”
I guess I was thinking about that last Sunday, a January morning so cold that small puddles of icy water collected on the windowsills. Lester came by for brunch, and Dad placed a big dollop of applesauce on each plate beside the pecan pancakes he makes on weekends. It reminded me of the applesauce they served in that restaurant down in Tennessee.
“Mr. Necessary,” I said, grinning at Dad. “What would we do without you to make pancakes for us on Sunday mornings?”
Dad smiled. “I guess you’d make them yourselves—no one’s indispensable.”
“Not even Sylvia?” I asked. My new stepmom was still asleep upstairs. She likes sleeping in on weekends.
The skin at the corners of Dad’s eyes crinkled. “Except Sylvia,” he said, and smiled some more.
I decided to go for it. “If anything happened to me, you’d miss me. Admit it.”
Les paused, fork in hand. “Sure we would! I’d say, ‘Hey, Dad, you remember that strawberry blonde who used to hang around here—old what’s-her-name?’”
I kicked at him under the table and reached for the syrup. I’d sure miss Lester, I know that. I even miss that he doesn’t live here anymore, even though he’s in an apartment only ten minutes away and drops by a few times a week. Lester moved out because he got this great deal on an apartment he’s sharing with two other guys. He says he comes by for the pancakes, but I think he misses us. We’re the only family he has, after all. I’m his only sibling! Don’t tell me I’m not indispensable!
“Lester,” I said, “no matter where you are, you’re always part of this family.”
“Huh?” said Lester.
“Absence makes the heart grow fonder,” I said. “It just makes us appreciate you more when you come over.”
“Glad to hear it,” said Lester. “You don’t really want that second sausage, do you?” He reached over and forked one of them off my plate.
“Go ahead,” I told him. “You can be as cool and blasé as you want, but you know how important we are to you.”
“Yeah, right!” said Lester.
I got up to read the comics in the living room, and as I left the table he said to Dad, “Now, what did she say her name was again?”
He’s impossible! I settled down on the couch with my feet tucked under my robe and thought about the new semester. I was still trying to get used to having my seventh-grade English teacher upstairs in Dad’s bed. To Dad and Sylvia’s plans to remodel our house. To wearing braces. To not being Patrick’s girlfriend anymore. But there were also four big things to look forward to: the Jack of Hearts dance (providing I had a date); a school trip to New York; my sixteenth birthday; and—best of all—my driver’s license.
When Lester came through the living room, I said, “You haven’t forgotten your promise to teach me to drive, have you?”
“Not when you remind me three or four times a week,” he said. “I’ve got a big paper due the middle of February, though. Wait till the weather’s warmer. Then we’ll do it.”
My brother’s in grad school, working on his master’s in philosophy. Dad wonders what kind of job he can possibly get with that. Les says he’ll sit cross-legged on a mountaintop and people will pay to climb up there and ask him the meaning of life.
“My birthday’s in May,” I reminded him. “If I’m going to get my license then, I have to take a thirty-hour driver’s ed course first. And I don’t want to sign up for that until you teach me some of the basics. I don’t want to embarrass myself hugely and crash into something.”
“Al, if I taught you to drive a Sherman tank and insured you through Lloyd’s of London, you’d still probably run into something,” Lester said. “Yes, I’ll give you some driving lessons, but it won’t be in my car.”
Would it be in Dad’s car then? I wondered. He’d traded in his old Honda for a new one—automatic transmission, the works. Could I see him letting me learn to drive in that?
Didn’t anyone understand how important this was to me? Being able to drive, to just get in a car and take off, was a basic human need! I had to drive! I needed to drive! I wanted to transform myself into an exciting new version of me—a woman with car keys in her jeans.
I threw back my head and wailed, “I want to shed this skin and fly, Lester!”
“Well, do it in the bathroom, please,” Les said.
Of course, I didn’t think about driving all the time. There were other things on my mind: algebra, our school newspaper, stage crew. A lot of the time I thought about Pamela Jones. Worried about her, you could say.
It’s funny about Pamela. Back in sixth grade I used to think she was the girl who had it all. Blond hair so long she could sit on it. She could sing. She could dance. I was jealous as anything. But sometime last year she started losing confidence in herself. She dropped out of Drama Club because she didn’t think she was good enough to get a part in the musical. I told her if she didn’t sign up for Drama Club this semester, I’d write her name on the sign-up sheet myself, and I did.
It’s not like I have this great storehouse of self-confidence. I can’t even carry a tune. I’m a B student, average height and weight, an okay figure—nothing great. But the only way I’m going to find out what to do with my life is to try different things and see what I do best. What I enjoy the most. So I’m part of the stage crew for high school productions. I’m a roving reporter for our newspaper, The Edge. I work part-time at my dad’s music store, and I run a couple of times a week—just put on my sweats and running shoes and use that time to work things out in my head.
Sam Mayer is one of the student photographers for our newspaper. I’ve known him since we were in Camera Club together back in eighth grade. We were dissecting frogs once in our life science class, and on my birthday he gave me a tiny box with a frog’s heart in it and a note that read, I’d give you my own, but I need it.
He’s sixteen already so he’s got his license, but he doesn’t have a car—shares one with his mom.
We ran into each
other in the hall as I left American History on Tuesday and headed for algebra. “I liked your article, Alice,” he told me. Each person on the newspaper staff had been given the assignment to do an in-depth feature article to use in future issues. I’d titled mine “Who Says?” It was about the sort of mindless things we do—traditions, maybe—whether we want to or not. Who says that the guests have to stand when the bride comes down the aisle, for example? Who says she has to have a diamond engagement ring? Who says we have to eat turkey on Thanksgiving or be with someone special on New Year’s Eve? Who says?
“Thanks,” I said. “I’ve had a lot of good feedback on it. The last I heard, you were going to write a story on how it feels to break up.”
“Dumb idea,” Sam said. “Everybody would know I was talking about Jennifer and me. I’ve decided to do a three-part photo-essay: Where we go when we’re not in school, what we do to earn money, and what we give back to the community.”
“Sounds good,” I told him.
“I’m working on the first part now—where we go outside of school—and thought I’d head for the mall this weekend, take some pictures, ask a few questions…. I could use a helper, though. Wanna come?”
“Sure, why not? When?” I said.
“Saturday?”
“Can’t. I work for Dad on Saturdays.”
“Friday night, then?”
“Okay,” I said.
“I heard you’re going out with Sam Mayer on Friday,” Elizabeth said to me in the cafeteria.
I stared. “I’m just helping him with a piece he’s doing for The Edge. He only asked me forty minutes ago! How did you know?”
“I heard him telling Patrick.”
“Patrick?” I said. “Why?”
“I guess Patrick and some of the guys from band are playing for a faculty dinner Friday night. Patrick asked Sam if the newspaper was going to cover it.”
“And…?”
“And Sam said he didn’t know, but they’d have to get another photographer because he was going to the mall with you.”