Contents
One: Gone
Two: Looking for Sara
Three: Talking with Dad
Four: The Party
Five: A Comma Without a Tail
Six: The Christmas Burglar
Seven: Running Away
Eight: Growing-up Stuff
Nine: Love
Ten: Big Mistake
Eleven: A Very Dark Day
Twelve: Hating the World
Thirteen: Real Trouble
Fourteen: A Great Idea
Fifteen: One Dead Beetle
Sixteen: Thinking of Mom
Seventeen: News
Eighteen: Helping Out
Nineteen: Lester’s Big Night
Twenty: Saying Good-bye
‘The Agony of Alice’ Excerpt
To Grace Isabelle Murphy Meis,
lovingly
1
GONE
MY DAD SAYS THERE ARE GOOD YEARS and bad years for wine. I think there are good years and bad years for kids, too. My fifth-grade year in particular.
I’ll admit I started out as sort of a grump, first because my brother celebrated his eighteenth birthday and asked for lemon cake, which I hate.
“Why don’t you really go for it, Lester, and ask for prune cake?” I said. “Crab apple cake with grapefruit frosting?”
“Nobody’s making you eat it, Al,” he told me. My full name is Alice Kathleen McKinley, but Dad and Lester call me Al.
The second thing that made me grumpy was that I ripped a pocket on my favorite jeans, and it was hanging by one seam.
My mother died when I was in kindergarten, and Dad can’t sew very well. He can cook and clean, but it takes him a long time to sew on a button or something. I don’t know how to sew either so I have to walk around with a flapping pocket.
And the third thing that happened was that one of my very best friends, Sara, moved away. Rosalind, my other best friend, was as surprised as I was.
“Did you know she was going to move?” I asked Rosalind.
Rosalind shook her head. “Maybe she didn’t know either. Maybe she just woke up one morning and her dad said, ‘Let’s move.’”
We were sitting on the school steps waiting for the bell. It was as though one minute Sara was here, and the next she wasn’t. There were other girls we hung around with at school, but we didn’t like them as much as we’d liked Sara.
Megan was okay, even though she has a bratty little sister. Jody was sometimes okay and sometimes not. Dawn just did whatever Jody did.
“Bummer!” said Rosalind. “Sara was a lot of fun.”
We watched Jody and Dawn staggering around the playground with their arms around each other’s shoulders. They were pretending that Jody’s right leg was tied to Dawn’s left one, and they ended up giggling on the ground.
“We didn’t know how much we’d miss Sara until she was gone,” I said. Just like I didn’t know how much I’d miss my mother until after she died, I guess. I should have enjoyed Sara as much as I could while she was still around. I decided to concentrate on Rosalind. She could make me laugh as much as Sara.
“Say something funny,” I told her.
Rosalind wrinkled up her nose. “You can’t just tell someone to be funny,” she said. “It’s only funny when you’re not expecting it.”
“Okay, I’ll think about something else, and when I’m not expecting it, make me laugh,” I said.
We were quiet for a moment.
“Donald Sheavers pulls snot,” said Rosalind.
“What?” I cried. “Rosalind, that’s not funny, it’s gross!”
But she went right on. “You know how it is when you’re getting over a cold and the snot gets thick as glue?”
“Rosalind!” I said again.
She wouldn’t quit. “I saw him blowing his nose once, and every time he tried to grab the snot, it snapped back in like a rubber band.”
“Euuuw!” I said.
Megan came up the walk just then. Everything about Rosalind is round, and everything about Megan is square. She dropped her backpack on the steps and sat down beside us.
“What were you talking about?” she asked.
“Snot,” I said, and grinned.
“Oh!” said Megan, covering her ears.
“The rubber band kind that snaps back up your nostrils when you try to pull it out,” said Rosalind.
“Stop it!” said Megan.
I laughed. “You did it,” I said to Rosalind. “You made me laugh.”
“You’re welcome,” said Rosalind.
When I walked home that afternoon with Donald Sheavers, I tried not to look at him. All I could think about was Donald having a cold. Donald blowing his nose.
We live next door to the Sheaverses, and Donald’s mom used to take care of me on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but I don’t have to go there anymore. And Lester doesn’t have to come straight home from high school on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays either, to look after me. The good thing about being in fifth grade is that I’m finally old enough to stay at home by myself.
“Cat got your tongue?” Donald asked me as we turned the corner onto our street.
“I miss Sara,” I said. “I didn’t know they were going to move.”
“They got kicked out of their house because they didn’t pay their rent,” Donald said. “If they hadn’t moved quick, the sheriff would have put all their stuff out on the sidewalk.”
I stopped dead still. “How do you know?”
“Mom heard some women talking about it at the beauty shop,” he said.
Mrs. Sheavers works part-time at a hair salon, so she hears all kinds of stuff. But I sure didn’t want to hear this.
“That’s a lie, Donald,” I said. “They wouldn’t stop paying their rent.”
“If they didn’t have any money, they would,” said Donald.
“But where would they go? If they don’t have any money, where will they live?”
Donald shrugged. “In a tent, probably. Or maybe they just sleep in their car.”
When Dad came home, I helped him make dinner. I stirred the tomato sauce while he boiled the spaghetti. My dad looks like a big teddy bear. He has thick hair at the sides of his head, not so much on top. It’s a little gray above the ears, and the skin at the corners of his eyes crinkles when he smiles.
He was humming to himself as we cooked, but I was thinking about Sara. There were a lot of kids in her family. I tried to imagine them all living in a tent. Living in a car! I tried to imagine us living in our car. Dad sleeping on the front seat, maybe, and Lester stretched out in back.
When Lester got home and we finally sat down at the table, I said, “Dad, would you ever just wake me up some morning and say, ‘Alice, let’s move’?”
Dad paused with a forkful of spaghetti halfway to his mouth.
“Not unless he’d just robbed a bank or something,” said Lester.
I toyed with my salad, turning a pickled beet over and over. “If we ever got so poor we had to live in our car, would I have to sleep on the floor?” I asked.
“Naw, we’d probably stick you under the hood, Al. Stuff you down between the engine and the radiator,” said Lester.
“So who’s moving and who’s poor?” asked Dad.
“Sara,” I said. “They had to leave because they couldn’t pay their rent. Donald thinks maybe they’re living in a tent or even their car.”
“Well, I hope not!” said Dad. “There are places they can go for help, though.”
But why hadn’t Sara asked me for help? I wondered. I would have given her all my money. I would have even gone around and collected money from neighbors, just so Sara could keep coming to our school.
I lay in bed that night thinking about he
r. About the way at first nobody liked the skinny girl who chewed with her mouth open and never washed her hair.
Then Rosalind and I invited her for a sleepover at my house, and we called it a shampoo party. We all washed our hair and brushed Sara’s to show her how great it looked when it was clean, and we pretended we were rich ladies having tea at the Plaza, chewing our dainty sandwiches with our lips closed.
I wanted her back so I could tell her how funny she was, how smart she was, how many times she had made me laugh. Like the time I took a picture of her with coat hangers draped over her ears. And then she put two big buttons over her eyes and scrunched up her face to hold them there. I wanted her to know I loved her stories. Sara made up the scariest stories! Especially the one about a girl’s mother who turns into a praying mantis and her arms drop off and she gets this long bony face with huge eyes and jaws! I wanted to tell her how much fun I’d had at her house once, playing in big boxes out in the yard and helping myself to whatever I wanted in the refrigerator for lunch.
Maybe Rosalind and I could go looking for her. If she was in a tent, maybe we’d find it. If she was sleeping in her family’s car, maybe we’d see her there. I felt my mattress jiggle as Oatmeal, my gray and white cat, jumped up on my bed to sleep with me. I reached out and scratched her behind the ears in the darkness. She licked my hand, but she didn’t purr. I didn’t feel like purring either.
2
LOOKING FOR SARA
I WANTED TO LOOK FOR SARA, BUT I didn’t want to go alone. I didn’t want to tell Jody and Dawn and Megan either, because they were some of the girls who never liked her much. I was sure that if I told Jody that Sara’s family got kicked out, she’d say, It figures.
At recess, when all three girls were pretending their legs were tied together, I told Rosalind to come back behind the building, and then I said, “I’ve got a secret, but you have to cross your heart and hope to die if you tell.”
“I’ll cross my heart, but I won’t hope to die,” said Rosalind. “But I won’t tell, either.”
“Okay,” I said. “Donald Sheavers’s mom heard that Sara’s family got kicked out of their house because they couldn’t pay the rent. He said they might be living in a tent or their car.”
When Rosalind hears something interesting, her eyes open as wide and round as her face. She’s sort of a large girl, and so is her stepmother. She has two older brothers and a dad, too. I could tell that she was trying to imagine her own family living in a car.
“Gosh. How embarrassing!” Rosalind said.
“No wonder she didn’t tell us she was leaving,” I said.
“So what do you think we should do?” Rosalind asked. That’s what I like about Rosalind. She’s always ready to do something.
“We could go look for her,” I said.
“Then what?” she asked.
I guess I hadn’t thought very much about “then what.”
“I’d give her all my money,” I said.
“It still wouldn’t be enough to pay the rent,” said Rosalind. “You’d have to sell something.”
“Like what?”
“Like anything in your house that people would pay a lot of money for,” said Rosalind.
I thought of each room in our house and tried to remember exactly what was in it. We’re not very rich, so I wasn’t sure what would sell for a lot of money. In fact, we’re not rich at all. The biggest things in our house are the couch, the refrigerator, and Dad’s bed, and I knew I’d better not try to sell those.
When I got home from school that day, I said, “Lester, do we have anything in this house that’s worth a lot of money?” I wouldn’t try to sell anything unless Dad said I could, of course, but I was just curious.
“My CD collection, maybe,” said Lester. “Or my bike.” He was sitting by the phone, waiting for a call from his girlfriend.
There are two girls who call Lester a lot—Lisa, his girlfriend, and Mickey, who would like to be his girlfriend. If Lisa liked Lester as much as he likes her, Lester would be really, really happy. If Lester liked Mickey as much as she likes him, Mickey would be really, really happy. The trouble with love is that it’s not always the same people who love each other.
“So how much would you get for your CD collection if you sold it?” I asked.
“I’m not selling,” said Lester.
The only thing I had a lot of were books. “If I sold all my books, how much would I get?” I asked him.
“Fifty cents a book, maybe. Why? What are you trying to do, anyway?” said Lester.
“Pay somebody’s rent,” I told him.
“You’re nuts,” said Lester.
The phone rang just then. Lester picked it up and took it into the coat closet, closing the door behind him.
If Rosalind and I found out that Sara’s family was living in a tent, I’ll bet he’d sell his CD collection then. If we found out they were living in a car, maybe Dad would sell our sofa. When Saturday came, I was going to ask Rosalind to walk around the neighborhood with me and look for Sara.
My brother works part-time at a miniature golf course on Saturdays. Dad is manager of a music store, the Melody Inn, so he’s gone on Saturdays too. I’m supposed to let Dad know where I’m going if I leave the house, so I called the Melody Inn and left a message with Loretta, the girl who runs the Gift Shoppe, a place under the stairs where you can buy musical gifts.
“Please tell him I’m going to be out with Rosalind,” I said.
“Gotcha,” said Loretta.
When Rosalind came, she looked like she was going on a safari. She was wearing a hat, sunglasses, and binoculars on a strap around her neck, and she had a backpack full of sodas and cheese crackers.
Rosalind is only a few months older than I am, but she looks more grown up. She has two little bumps in front under her T-shirt, only we don’t talk about those.
“So where do you want to look?” Rosalind said.
“I guess we should look for a tent or a parked car with a lot of people in it,” I said.
“It’s ten thirty on a Saturday morning,” said Rosalind. “If they’re living in a car, they’re not going to stay in there all day.”
“Where would they go?” I wondered.
Rosalind shrugged. “They’d probably be standing on street corners begging for money, I guess.”
I didn’t like to think of Sara begging for money on street corners, and I wanted more than ever to find her. So we set out for the first place we could think of where someone might set up a tent—an empty lot over near the train tracks.
The lot was full of weeds. There was nothing in it but some empty Pepsi cans and an old tire.
“Where do we look next?” asked Rosalind.
“I’m thinking,” I told her.
“Let’s go sit down somewhere,” said Rosalind. We walked over to a low wall by an automobile parts store, and Rosalind took off her backpack. She handed a can of Sprite to me and opened one for herself. Then she opened a package of cheese crackers.
We tried to think of all the other places we knew where someone could put up a tent.
“What about that lot behind the furniture store next to the alley?” I said. So we finished the Sprite and set out for the furniture store. I remembered the alley from the times we had driven by. I think I had seen some homeless people living there.
We walked seven blocks to the furniture store, and when we went around to the alley, I knew right away that we shouldn’t be there. A large cardboard box rested against a chain-link fence, with a man’s jacket thrown over the top. An old chair sat beside the box. On down the alley, someone was in a sleeping bag, and farther still, there was a little shack made of tin and cardboard.
I looked at Rosalind and Rosalind looked at me. Then she looked at the shack through her binoculars.
“Do you see anybody?” I asked.
“No, but I see some feet sticking out,” she said.
“Do you think it’s Sara’s family?”
“I don
’t know, and I’m not going down there to find out,” she answered.
We decided to stay where we were at the end of the alley and just call out her name.
“One… two… three,” I said, and then we both called together: “Sa-ra! Sa-ra!” We waited and called again. “Sa-ra!”
The sleeping bag began to move, and a man raised up and looked at us. “Shut up!” he yelled. “Get out of here.”
But another man crawled out from the tin and cardboard shack.
“Who you want?” he called.
“Sara,” we said.
“She’s in here, darlin’. Come and look in here,” he said.
Rosalind and I ran away as fast as we could. We didn’t stop till we reached the corner. Rosalind opened another Sprite while we caught our breath.
“We shouldn’t have gone back there,” I said, feeling foolish. “We don’t even know if they’re still in town.”
“We don’t even know if they’re in Maryland!” said Rosalind.
We headed back toward our neighborhood, peeking in parked cars as we went along to see if any looked as though a family had been sleeping inside. Then we stopped at the playground and swung awhile. When we finally got back to the house, Rosalind finished all her cheese crackers. We had been gone a long time. Maybe a couple of hours.
The phone rang. It was Dad.
“Alice, where have you been?” he asked. He sounded worried and angry both.
“Out with Rosalind,” I said.
“That’s not good enough,” he said. “When you leave a message, I want to know exactly where you’re going. I don’t want you just wandering around. How would I know where to look if you didn’t come home?”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“So where were you?” he asked.
“Looking for Sara,” I said, in a small voice. “Donald Sheavers said she was probably living in a tent or a car.”
There was silence at the other end of the line. Then Dad said, “Alice, are you there alone?”
“No, Rosalind’s here,” I said.
“Every time that girl comes over, there’s trouble!” said Dad.
“It was my idea!” I told him. I didn’t want him to tell me I couldn’t see Rosalind. I didn’t want to lose her, too.