What a wonderful week at home, except of course for Reynolds, Ali thought. Caroline had taken Ali and Reynolds to Griffith Park to ride the trains. Actually the trains didn’t go anywhere, but you could get on and off them and run all over the place. Ali and Reynolds had their picture taken with Santa at the Panorama City reindeer lot. They had also gone to Corriganville which was Ali’s absolute favorite place: cowboys, western streets, gunfights, riding horses, playing by the lake, going in the saloon for a root beer, running through the rocks on the hillside. It was all just like the westerns on television.
But it was Sunday, and getting close to the time they had to go back to the boarding homes where they lived during the week. It was always hard to get into the car on Sunday night and go back. Reynolds would often get quiet and moody on Sunday afternoon, and go to his room and shut the door. Ali would look at television, if any westerns were on, or through her two books that she was reading.
The school book was about a family. The kids were named Dick and Jane and Sally and there was a dog named Spot and a cat named Puff. The mother and father were always close by, teaching Dick and Jane and Sally about everything. Ali enjoyed reading the book, but when she looked at the pictures, she thought how different their home was from Dick and Jane’s. She’d look at the picture of the father smoking a pipe and sitting in his chair reading the newspaper in her book, and then look up at the picture of her father on top of the piano. She would love to have a real dog or cat, but her mother said that wasn’t possible with her working and Ali’s father gone most of the time, so Ali had to settle on her stuffed animals. Everybody in the pictures looked happy and always seemed to be nice to each other. Didn’t anybody cry? Did Dick and Jane always get along? They all lived together, all the time, in one house. It sure looked nice in the book.
The other book Ali enjoyed reading was Alice in Wonderland (she especially liked the pictures). In some ways she thought she was like Alice. Alice had adventures and was by herself a lot. Sometimes Alice cried and was confused. It was more real than Dick and Jane to Ali, and it definitely looked like more fun than Dick and Jane’s life.
“Honey, it’s time to go back to Mrs. Amity’s-----are you ready?----do you have your books?” asked her mother.
“Yes, I think so,” said Ali with a sigh.
“What are you thinking about?” inquired Ali’s mother after she noticed Ali looking at the cover of her two books.
“I’m thinking that it was nice that Dick and Jane and Sally lived at home all the time------but it seems like Alice had more fun than Dick and Jane. I think I’d rather be Alice”, said Ali.