Suddenly Ollie came in the closet holding a couple of bats.
“Hey!” he yelled. “Look at Alice!”
Before I could push the volleyball on through, Jody and Dawn appeared in the doorway. Dawn shrieked with laughter.
“Look, everybody!” she cried. “Alice is pregnant.”
I bopped the volleyball hard with my fist, and it finally slid on down my jumper and bounced on the floor, but not until more kids had gathered.
“Alice just had a baby!” Rosalind giggled.
“Yeah, she dropped it on the floor!” laughed Sara.
I could feel my cheeks starting to burn. Everyone was laughing and pointing at the volleyball, which rolled into a corner just as Mr. Dooley looked in.
“She had it down her dress!” Donald told Mr. Dooley, pointing.
“Let’s put the stuff away now and clean out our desks,” Mr. Dooley said. “And be sure to check the lost-and-found box for anything you might have lost this year.”
I went back to my desk to throw out all my spelling papers. Why do I do such silly things? I wondered. On the very last day of school why couldn’t I have made up a poem about Elijah and written it on the blackboard? Why couldn’t I have drawn a picture of Mr. Dooley and his baby so we could all sign our names and wish him a happy summer?
Instead, the last thing anyone would remember about me was that I had stuffed a volleyball down my jumper and pretended I was having a baby.
21
THE COOKING LESSON
THE FIRST MORNING OF SUMMER vacation Lester didn’t even come up from the basement. I didn’t blame him. I sort of wanted to spend the rest of my life in bed too with the covers up over my head. I hoped that everyone who had seen what I did with the volleyball would have either such a wonderful or such an awful summer that they would forget all about what I had done in the closet.
But I ate my cereal and drank my juice, and finally Mrs. Nolinstock asked me to go downstairs and see if my brother “intended” to eat any breakfast.
I went halfway down the steps and sat on the one that squeaked. I could see the lump that was Lester under the sheet. I moved one way on the step. Creeaak, it went. I moved the other way. Craaack!
Finally the lump said, “What d’ya want?”
“Mrs. Nolinstock wants to know if you intend to eat breakfast,” I told him.
“Tell her I intend to stay in bed all day. This is vacation,” Lester muttered.
“I thought you had a job at the miniature golf place,” I said.
“I do. Seven to ten in the evenings.”
“That means you have all day to do whatever you want,” I said.
Lester rolled over. “Yeah? If I come upstairs, I’ll run into her. And if I leave to get away from her, where am I supposed to go if I don’t have a car?”
Now I began to get scared. What if Lester just packed his clothes and ran away? What if he saved up his money from the miniature golf job and bought a bus ticket to Louisiana or someplace?
I went down the rest of the steps and sat on the edge of his bed. “Lester,” I said, “if we could do everything Mrs. Nolinstock does, Dad wouldn’t have to hire her anymore. Right?”
“Yeah?” said Lester. “And how are we going to do that?”
“Well, she always takes her shoes off and lies down for a while after she finishes cooking. I could sneak out in the kitchen and copy some of her recipes, and we could cook them ourselves,” I told him.
“Fine,” said Lester, closing his eyes again. “You do that.”
“And we could clean the house ourselves. I’ll do the floors if you’ll do the high places.”
“Deal,” said Lester. “You do the floors and the rugs and the bathtub and toilet, and I’ll do the bookshelves.”
That took care of cooking and cleaning, but Dad still had Lester and me to worry about, and I guess he worried plenty.
During the summer Mrs. Nolinstock was to spend all day at our house on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. We had Tuesdays and Thursdays to ourselves. Dad said that he would trust us to get along together then, that he wasn’t going to ask Mrs. Sheavers to watch me during vacation. So I invited Rosalind to come over one Thursday and help me make spaghetti sauce. I had copied down Mrs. Nolinstock’s recipe and was pretty certain we had everything we’d need, but I wasn’t sure about some of her handwriting.
“Have you ever made spaghetti sauce?” I asked Rosalind.
“Nope,” she said. “But it’s probably got lots of ketchup in it.”
I looked at the recipe. I didn’t see any ketchup. I read off the ingredients: “‘One-half pound ground beef; one can tomato sauce; T. paste to thicken; onions…’ I understand everything except ‘T. paste to thicken,’ ” I said.
“A capital T stands for tablespoon,” said Rosalind. “A lowercase t stands for teaspoon.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Positive,” said Rosalind. “It looks like you’re supposed to stir in a tablespoon of paste.”
“Like school paste?”
“I guess so. It will make it thick, all right,” said Rosalind.
“But can you eat it?” I asked.
“I used to eat paste in kindergarten and I’m still here,” said Rosalind.
So we got out the ground beef and browned it in a big pot and added the tomato sauce and the spices, and when it began to bubble, I measured out a tablespoon of thick white paste from the jar I’d brought home from school. I’m not supposed to cook unless Lester is home, and Lester was home, all right. He just wasn’t awake.
Actually, the spaghetti sauce looked pretty good until we put the paste in it. I thought it would dissolve and make the sauce thicker. Instead, little white lumps settled down over the top. Some of them began to foam.
“I think I’ll be going home,” said Rosalind.
“No, you won’t!” I told her. “I invited you to stay for dinner. You can start making the salad.”
By the time Lester came up from the basement and Dad came home from work, we had the sauce ready, and Dad boiled the spaghetti. There was a salad by every plate. I sprinkled Parmesan cheese on the sauce to hide the lumps.
“Smells good,” said Dad.
“Mmm! Spaghetti!” said Lester. “I’ve only got twenty minutes to eat. Have to be at work by seven,” he said. “Care if I go ahead?”
“Please do,” said Rosalind, and put her hands in her lap. “You first.”
We passed the bowl of spaghetti and then the sauce. I noticed that Rosalind kept digging through her serving, pushing little lumps of paste to one side.
A few minutes later, though, Dad stopped eating. He was pressing one finger against the lump on his plate—a big lump—about the size of a pea.
“What is this?” he asked. “Looks like something didn’t dissolve.”
“It’s the thickening,” I said, without raising my eyes.
“Cornstarch?” asked Dad. “Flour?”
Now Lester was smushing a lump on his plate. “Tastes like paste!” he said.
“It is. That’s what Mrs. Nolinstock’s recipe said,” I told them. “A tablespoon of paste.”
Dad looked at Rosalind, then at me. “Could I see that recipe?” he asked.
I got up and found it on the counter. Dad took his glasses out of his pocket and put them on.
“Al, this means tomato paste,” he said. “The T stands for tomato. You can buy tomato paste in cans, just like tomato sauce, only it’s thicker.”
“Arrrgggghhh!” Lester cried, clutching his chest. “She poisoned me!”
I shot daggers across the table at Lester. How could Dad ever trust us to get along without Mrs. Nolinstock if he acted like that?
“I’m really going home now,” said Rosalind. “Thanks for dinner, Alice.” She got up and went home. Lester went out and drove away.
I looked at Dad. “I really am a blunderbuss,” I said.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” he said. “At least you tried.”
&
nbsp; Tried to get rid of Mrs. Nolinstock, but of course I didn’t tell him that.
Lester seemed to have a better plan for getting rid of her. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoon that Mrs. Nolinstock was at our house, he invited the Naked Nomads to practice in our basement.
Our neighborhood was going to have a block party on the Fourth of July, and Lester’s band had been invited to play. So Lester had an excuse to practice.
The first time they came, Mrs. Nolinstock looked relieved that they were all going down in the basement. But as soon as they plugged in their amplifiers and their electric guitars, as soon as the drums began to play, I could tell by the way she squinted her eyes and rubbed the skin over her temples that she had second thoughts about running the McKinley household.
The day of the party Rosalind came over because her brother is one of the Naked Nomads. And because Rosalind came, I invited Sara, too.
“Well, we ate paste and we’re still alive,” Rosalind told me. “What are we going to cook next?”
“You didn’t eat any, Rosalind!” I said. “You just got me in trouble, that’s all.”
But it’s hard to stay mad at Rosalind, so we went up and down the street, sampling the food that neighbors put out on card tables and watching the older kids dance. The Naked Nomads had set up their equipment in our yard next to the sidewalk, and every time they finished a song, people clapped.
Mrs. Nolinstock had baked a big cake with chocolate frosting, and everyone said what a marvelous cake it was. Mrs. Sheavers had made a big fruit salad, and she put it on the table right beside the cake. She didn’t just set it down either. She sort of snuggled it up to the cake, like the McKinleys and the Sheaverses had made these desserts together, and somehow that made me nervous.
When Donald wasn’t looking, I moved the fruit salad way over to the other side of the table and put a long row of plastic forks and spoons in between.
It was a good block party, though. After the Naked Nomads had played about three numbers, they took off their shirts, and the older girls who live on our block clapped when they saw that the boys had painted American flags on their chests.
When I walked by, one of the girls said, “Hey, aren’t you Lester’s sister?”
“Yes,” I said.
The girls giggled. “So does he have anything painted on any other part of his body?” one of them asked.
I grinned. “Yeah,” I said. “He’s got the American eagle on his butt.”
“Alice!” said Sara, poking me.
But Rosalind said, “Two eagles, one on each side.”
The girls shrieked with laughter and moved toward the band. Rosalind and Sara and I laughed too and got out of there quick before someone told Lester. He wasn’t the only one who could tell fibs!
I could see that he was having a really good time as the girls crowded around him. Lester had told Dad and me that Lisa Shane said she might come with one of her girlfriends. When I saw a red-haired girl I didn’t know smiling at him—a red-haired girl with a friend—I decided I would go over and talk to her a little bit when I had a chance so she would know I wasn’t crazy all the time.
When Rosalind and Sara went down the street to get some potato salad and I saw the red-haired girl by the lemonade stand, I walked over. “Hi. I’m Lester’s sister,” I said. The girl and her friend stopped drinking and looked down at me. I decided I wouldn’t say anything about the box I’d sent her unless she asked.
“You’re Alice?” the red-haired girl said.
I smiled. “Yes. It’s a nice block party, isn’t it?”
She smiled too. “Yeah, it is. Lester said that his friends were invited to hear him play, so Kim and I dropped by.”
I really wanted to help my brother. I wanted Lisa to really, really like him even though he doesn’t have a car. Even though he has a sister who sticks her nose in his business. “Well, he’s awfully glad you’re here, because you’re special,” I said.
The girls looked at me and then at each other, laughing a little.
“Really?” the red-haired girl said.
“Yeah,” I said. “He’s sort of shy and—”
“Lester? Shy?” the girls both said together.
I began to wonder if I had said the right thing. “I mean, he’s okay now, but that’s why Mom made him wait a year to start kindergarten.”
“Wow!” exclaimed the friend named Kim. “It’s hard to imagine.”
I decided I’d better stop right there, so I just said, “But, anyway, it’s nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you, too,” Kim said. “I’m glad Mickey told me about the party.”
I froze. Mickey? The red-haired girl was Mickey? I had told Mickey Larson that she was special? “Good-bye,” I said, and disappeared as fast as I could into the crowd.
The Naked Nomads were playing a fast number now, and as I passed our yard again, looking for Rosalind and Sara, I saw still another girl I didn’t know, this one with brown hair, dancing with two other girls in front of Lester. The brown-haired girl was smiling at Lester as he played the drums, and he was smiling back. Maybe that was Lisa!
“Look at the crowd around Les,” I heard the brown-haired girl say.
I will not throw up, I told myself, but I felt like it. I had just told Mickey Larson—the telephone pest—that she was special! And I could see her and her friend Kim standing next to the Naked Nomads, like worshippers in a church.
When I found Rosalind and Sara at last and told them what I’d done, I asked if they thought I should go up to Lisa and tell her that she was special.
“Maybe you’ve done enough for one day,” said Sara.
We sat down on the curb at the end of the block and watched balloons go up in the air. Someone was filling them with helium, but little kids kept letting them go by mistake. We went over and helped tie the balloons on to kids’ wrists so they couldn’t float off.
When I got up my nerve to go back toward our house again, there was a whole bunch of girls now crowded around the Naked Nomads, who were taking a break.
Lester was teaching the girl with the brown hair to hold a guitar and strum a few notes, and the other girls looked as though they were waiting their turn. The girl named Kim was joking with Rosalind’s brother Billy, and Mickey was trying on Lester’s shirt.
Maybe I hadn’t ruined anything after all. Maybe the block party would be a nice thing that Lester could remember all his life. When the music started up again, Rosalind and Sara and I danced on the lawn. We held hands and whirled around and around, each of us leaning back as far as we could, till Rosalind suddenly let go of our hands and we all fell backward on the grass.
The sky was going around and around too, and we laughed. And then, after we caught our breath, we just stayed there in the grass, listening to the music and looking up at the clouds.
I crawled over and lay between Rosalind and Sara.
“Next year we’ll all be fifth graders,” I said.
“Yeah, but it won’t be as much fun as fourth,” said Sara.
“Fun?” I said. “Fourth grade was fun?”
“Sure,” said Sara. “Remember the time the author burped into the microphone?”
“Remember the way Mr. Dooley’s stomach growled?” said Rosalind.
We talked about Megan’s sleepover and my Christmas tree decorating party and Mr. Dooley’s baby.
“Maybe it was a good year,” I said. Not perfect, but okay.
22
PLAYING TARZAN
“I CAN’T UNDERSTAND IT,” I HEARD Lester telling Dad the next morning. “The girls were swarming around us like flies! They sure must have liked the music.”
Dad grinned.
“One of them said she really went for shy guys! Do I look like a shy guy to you?”
“You certainly don’t. You looked like you were having a whale of a time yesterday,” said Dad.
“And another girl wanted to know if I had a tattoo somewhere I wasn’t telling. Man! That sure never happ
ened back in Chicago!”
I walked into the kitchen in my pajamas just then and didn’t say a word. I got down my cereal and poured the milk and kept my eyes on the bowl.
“How about you, Al? Did you have a good time at the party?” Dad asked.
“It was okay,” I told him.
“I saw you whirling around with Rosalind and Sara,” said Lester.
“Yeah. I spent almost the whole afternoon with them,” I said.
“One of the girls said she met you,” Lester added, reaching for the butter.
“Yeah?” I mumbled.
“She said you came over and talked for a while.”
“There were so many people, I can’t remember them all,” I said.
When I went back to my room, I collapsed on the bed in relief. For once I had been a real blunderbuss and it had turned out perfectly A-okay!
Lester and I started to be friends again after that. Maybe it was because he realized I hadn’t ruined things between him and Lisa Shane, or maybe it was because we both felt the same way about Mrs. Nolinstock.
One Saturday night in August, after Lester got home from his job at miniature golf, we sat up watching an old Tarzan movie.
Lester thought it was funny. He laughed all the way through it. I thought it was the most exciting, the most romantic movie I had ever seen, and I didn’t laugh at all.
In the part I liked best, Tarzan and Jane had just escaped a tribe of natives who were trying to kill them because they thought Tarzan had set fire to their village. Actually, lightning started the fire, but the natives didn’t know that. So Tarzan and Jane leaped on this homemade raft, which was right there at the water’s edge.
They were floating down the river, and Tarzan leaned over and kissed Jane. What they didn’t know, though, was that there was a waterfall ahead, and the raft was traveling right toward it.
I screamed, “Look out!” but Lester just laughed, and the next thing I knew, Tarzan had grabbed Jane around the waist with one arm, and with the other hand, he grabbed a vine that just happened to be dangling from a tree and swung them both to safety.