Elizabeth ran all the faster, but Pamela was in better shape than any of us, probably because her mom’s boyfriend is a NordicTrack instructor and her mom’s been getting herself in shape. In shape to move away with him, I guess, because they went to Colorado and were talking about opening a ski shop. Pamela’s staying here with her dad, though. It’s hard to get her to talk about it anymore. I think one of the reasons she runs is to work off all that anger.
We’d just turned the corner and were starting up the next block when Elizabeth suddenly covered her face. “Oh, my gosh, it’s Justin’s dad!” she cried. “Alice, get in front of me quick!”
I stared. “Elizabeth, it’s just a car! His dad isn’t even looking this way, and if he was, he wouldn’t recognize you! Nobody would recognize you, not even your mother!”
The car turned at the next corner, and Elizabeth gave a sigh of relief. I thought maybe the silliness was over for a while, and we ran another block, but then suddenly Elizabeth disappeared. Just vanished, as though she’d fallen down a manhole.
“Now what?” said Pamela.
We stopped and looked around. Elizabeth was gone. And then we saw her foot sticking out from beneath a hedge. We knelt down and poked at her.
“Go away!” she shrieked. “Didn’t you see? Brian’s coming!”
I looked up the street. Brian was coming down the hill on his bike, heading for his job at the doughnut shop, I supposed.
“So?” I said. “He’s going to work.”
“He’ll tell Justin how awful I look! How awful I smell! Just go! I mean it!” Elizabeth screeched.
Brian, of course, stopped to see what Pamela and I were looking at, and saw Elizabeth lying under the hedge.
“What happened? She get run over?” he asked, quickly wheeling his bike across the sidewalk.
“Not exactly,” Pamela told him.
Brian came closer and squatted down beside Elizabeth. “Maybe you should call 911,” he said anxiously. He reached out to take her pulse, and suddenly Elizabeth scrambled to her feet and started to run, Brian staring after her.
We followed, but could hardly keep up. She didn’t stop till she’d reached my front porch, and the three of us collapsed in a heap on the steps.
“Well, that … should have been good … for at least two hundred calories,” Pamela huffed. “Why don’t you just wear a rubber raincoat, Elizabeth, so your sweat can’t evaporate? Then no one will recognize you, and the fat will absolutely pour off.”
Lester came out on the porch with a cup of coffee. “I thought I heard voices out here,” he said. “Since when did you start getting up so early in the morning, Al?”
My full name is Alice Kathleen McKinley, but Dad and Lester call me Al. He looked at me, then Pamela, and then his eye fell on Elizabeth. She still wouldn’t take off the hood of her jacket, and her dark glasses were all steamed up.
“Who is that?” he asked. “What is that?”
“Elizabeth,” I told him. “She doesn’t want anyone to see her sweat.”
“She doesn’t want anything to jiggle,” Pamela said.
“She doesn’t want anyone to hear her pant,” I added.
Lester studied Elizabeth some more. “Hey, kiddo, if it doesn’t sweat, jiggle, or pant, it’s not alive,” he said, “and I’m outta here.” And he went back inside.
Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, Alice on the Outside
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