Absolutely Normal Chaos (10 page)

Mom keeps asking Carl Ray if he has written to his parents yet, to tell them about the money, and Carl Ray keeps saying, “Nope.” That does seem a little strange—that he hasn’t told his own parents—don’t you think? Tonight, Mom said, “Carl Ray, if you don’t write them pretty soon,
I
will,” and Carl Ray looked so mournful and sad that she turned to my dad, and he said, “Don’t look at
me
.”

One other thing about Carl Ray, while I am on the subject. He’s been watering the Furtzes’ lawn without anybody asking him to or without getting any “gold” for it. What do you think of that?

Now I will talk about the truly wonderful and di-viiiiine Alex Cheevey.

He came over TO MY HOUSE on Tuesday. I was upstairs when I heard Dennis shouting, “MARY LOUUU, MARY LOUUU, THERE’S A BOY AT THE DOOR. MARY LOUUU, MARY LOUUU,
THERE’S A BOY HERE FOR YOUUU.” Honestly. It was embarrassing. He made it sound like it was the strangest thing in the world for a boy to be here for me.

And when I came downstairs, there was Dougie standing with his nose pressed against the screen staring at Alex and there was Tommy right next to him, without any pants on at all.

Alex waited on the porch while I begged and pleaded with Maggie to watch Tommy and the others while Alex and I went out for a few hours. She asked me about a thousand questions (“Well, who IS this boy?”—“Oh, is this the Alex I met?”—“Don’t you want me to say hello?”—“Where are you going?”—and on and on in this singsong voice) but finally she agreed, if I would give her this red scarf I have. I gave it to her.

When I escaped from the madhouse, Alex and I walked to the end of our street and then I decided to show him the big tree over in the field, the one where Dennis, Dougie, and I used to go all the time, the one that looks like a fort underneath. So we walked over there and went in under the branches and sat down and talked.

I can’t even remember half of what we talked about. Part of the problem is I’m not sure I was always paying attention, because when I am with
Alex my brain is like mush and mostly I am just looking at him and feeling as if my muscles are melting and my blood is filled with millions of little bubbles all fizzing around.

So we held hands right there under the tree. It was very romantic. And in the middle of that, do you know what he told me?

He said that he made up the Murphys—they don’t exist! All those times he was over on our street and up at the pool, it was just because of ME!!!!! He was coming over to see me, but he didn’t have the nerve to say so because he thought I would tell him to jump in the lake or something.

Can you imagine that?

Well, I love Alex Cheevey. I really do.

Good night.

Friday, July 13

Egad, Friday the thirteenth. Well, it wasn’t unlucky for me, at least. In fact, it was a pretty lucky day for everybody I know except Beth Ann. But I’ll explain that in a minute.

Carl Ray came home in his car today. I have to admit, it’s a pretty cute thing. A little black Ford with red (red!!! Carl Ray???) seats. He’s so proud of it, he almost died from grinning so much. He made
us all come outside and look at it and sit in it, and after dinner he actually took me, Dennis, and Dougie for a ride in it to the Tast-ee Freeze (and he even bought us ice cream), and then when we got home, he spent about two hours polishing it, even though it was as clean as can be. Boy, is he happy.

Except for the ice cream, he still hasn’t bought anyone anything, but the Sears catalogue is about to fall apart from so many people looking through it.

Now, Alex. He didn’t have to be at work until four o’clock today, so we went to the pool early and then, on the way home, just as we were turning the corner of my street, who should we bump into but Beth Ann. Boy, was she surprised to see Alex Cheevey, the Truly Wonderful and Divine, holding my hand!

She stood there with her mouth gaping open. You could see all her fillings. Boy, did she look terrible. Her eyes were all puffy and red and she looked like a complete wreck. She said, “I need to talk to you, Mary Lou,” and she kept looking at me and then Alex and then me and then Alex, as if her head was on a bouncy spring and she couldn’t control it. You know those dogs people put on the back ledges of their cars? Like that.

Alex said he had to go, so off he went. (Sigh.)

I was pretty surprised that Beth Ann wanted to
talk to me. I seemed to recall that the last time I saw her, she told me that I made her sick and we weren’t best friends anymore. But she seems to have forgotten that.

Well! To make a very, very, very, very long story short, she and Derek broke up. Apparently, Derek has been messing around with someone else, and the way Beth Ann found out about it was that she went to the store with her sister Judy, and when they came out to the parking lot they saw Derek-the-Di-viiiiine walking with some girl and he had his arm around her!

And do you know what Beth Ann did? She went right up to ole Derek and this girl and asked him what he was doing and he looked at her like she was a stranger. He called her today and said that maybe they should both see other people for a while.

God.

It’s funny, but if this had happened a week ago, I probably would have been happy in a very mean way. But now I feel sorry for Beth Ann, even if she has been acting like a real snot. I mean she was
really
upset, sobbing and all. I was afraid she was going to go completely hysterical.

The only thing was she didn’t even ask me about Alex, and I have to admit that even though I wasn’t ready to tell her any
details
or anything, I did sort of
want to brag about him a little. But I could tell she didn’t exactly want to hear how happy I was and how wonderful Alex was when she was suffering this enormous tragedy.

I read Books Seven and Eight of the
Odyssey
but I can’t remember any of it. I haven’t been able to concentrate too well lately. I keep thinking about Alex right in the middle of reading.

Saturday, July 14

Well, this evening was almost a complete disaster.

Alex came over at six thirty. We were going to walk to the movies. But first he had to come in and my parents had to do their how-very-nice-to-meet-you routine and check him out and all. They made such a fuss that it was embarrassing. You could tell that they thought he was an okay kind of guy, and I have to admit that if I was a parent, I would think so too. He just looks so
clean
and all. He didn’t talk much, just “hello” and “yes” and stuff, but I think they liked that about him.

Anyway, there they were going on and on about how nice it was to meet Alex and where were we going and when would we be back, and in the middle of all this, there sits Carl Ray watching TV, and Maggie walks through in her curlers and
bathrobe, and Dennis and Dougie are gaping over the stairway, and Tommy is putting his finger in his nose. Honestly. What is Alex going to think?

I couldn’t
wait
to get out of there.

But just as soon as we walked out the front door and I was about to breathe an enormous sigh of relief, who comes following us out but Carl Ray, the Shadow. He says, “Want a ride?”

Alex was surprised because he’s not as used to Carl Ray sneaking up on people as I am, and I was surprised because I couldn’t believe Carl Ray was actually offering to do us a favor. But I figured he just wanted to show off his car and it would be nice to have a ride. So we said sure.

It was kind of strange, Alex and I riding in the backseat and Carl Ray driving us like our chauffeur. Alex was sitting way over near his door, and I was way over near mine. Carl Ray kept looking at us in his rearview mirror.

So we get to the movie theater and I’m wondering why Carl Ray is pulling around the back instead of dropping us in front, but I didn’t say anything. And I did think it was kind of funny when he pulled into a parking space. And I started to get a little uneasy when we got out and he got out too.

Sure enough, ole Carl Ray drops the big bomb: “I think I’ll come too.”

Alex gave me this horrified look and I gave Alex a horrified look. I said to Carl Ray, “You’ll come
too
?”

And he said, “Yup. Might as well. Long as I’m here.”

I wonder if my parents paid Carl Ray to do this.

He stood with us in line and bought his ticket, and stood in line with us while we bought popcorn, and the whole time I was sweating like crazy trying to think how in the world we could get
rid
of him and I couldn’t even say anything to Alex because Carl Ray was right there, the Shadow, the whole time.

I thought I was going to die.

He followed us to our seats and sat right next to me! I was in between Carl Ray and Alex. I gave Alex one of those I-don’t-believe-this-is-happening looks and then I gave him a how-in-the-world-are-we-going-to-ditch-him? look and he gave me one of those oh-well-what-can-we-do? looks and then the movie started.

I won’t go into all the details, like how Carl Ray watched every move Alex made and every time Alex moved his arm, Carl Ray turned and looked at his arm like it was a snake or something. I won’t go into that.

I will just say that I was a complete wreck and I couldn’t wait to get out of there.

But Alex and I must have both been thinking the same thing, because when it was finally over and we got outside and started walking to the car, Alex said, “Hey, Mary Lou, why don’t we walk home?”

I said, maybe a little too quickly, “Oh, great idea! It’s sooooo nice out.”

Alex said to Carl Ray, “Thanks a lot for the ride! You don’t mind if we walk home, do you?”

For the eternity of about five seconds, I thought Carl Ray was going to find some way to get us in his car, but all he did was give us this little sad look and say, “Naw. Go ahead.”

I almost felt sorry for him, but then I figured we were entitled to a
little
privacy, weren’t we? Do you think Carl Ray is lonely?

Alex and I had the greatest time walking home. We were both in such a good mood. The closer we got to my house, the slower we walked. Then I started getting a little nervous, thinking he might try and kiss me or something. I don’t know the first thing about it. I need some practice. But he didn’t do anything like that.

Sunday, July 15

I wish this summer could go on and on and on, and I wish I could always be this happy. It seems that whenever you are sad or just normal, you’re always
wishing you were happy, but when you’re happy, you start worrying about when all this happiness is going to end. At least that’s the way I am. Already, I’m worrying that I’m too happy, and I’m either going to have to pay for this or it’s all going to end real soon.

It reminds me of the wheel of fortune that Mrs. Zollar talked about. She said that Shakespeare and all his buddies believed in the wheel of fortune, that your luck kind of went round and round, and when you (or your luck) were at the top, everything would go right. But that it was inevitable that the wheel had to keep spinning, and sooner or later, you’d be at the bottom of the wheel, when everything would go badly. The only thing that kept people from jumping off cliffs when they were at the bottom of the wheel was knowing that sooner or later they would be at the top again.

I feel as if the gods are going to spin my wheel any minute. Oh, pleeease, let me stay where I am for a while!

I also wish everyone’s wheel was at the top at the same time. Beth Ann, for instance, is at the bottom of her wheel and she’s driving me crazy. She must have called me ten times today to tell me about Derek. First she said that he was a complete creep and she never wanted to see him again and she cried. Then she called back and said that she loved him sooooo much and maybe she should call him and tell him how much she missed him, and she cried. Then
she called back and said she figured out why he was doing this: to make her jealous because he liked her so much, and she cried. Get the picture?

And, of course, she never once gave me a chance to say one word about Alex.

Alex, by the way, called at lunchtime (I don’t know how he was able to get through, what with Beth Ann calling all the time) to say he couldn’t come over today because he had to go to his grandmother’s house with his parents. It was his grandmother’s birthday and a whole bunch of relatives would be there.

Since I didn’t have too much to do today and since it was raining like crazy, I stayed home and read some more of the
Odyssey
. I think I’m getting to the good parts.

Lotus-Eaters and Cyclopes

In Book Nine, Odysseus starts telling about all these great adventures he’s had. There were two I really liked
.

One was about lotus-eaters, people who eat flowers. When Odysseus and his men visited them, his men ate a bunch of lotus flowers and it made them forget all about their home and their loved ones and they wanted to stay with the lotus-eaters forever. (I wonder if that’s what happened to ole
Derek!!??) But Odysseus forces them back on their ship and he ties them to some benches and they leave. (They’re trying to get home after they’ve sacked all these cities
.)

Then they come to the land of the Cyclopes, a weird group who live in caves and don’t have any laws. Odysseus and some of his men go up to the cave of this horrible one-eyed monster Cyclops, and pretty soon this Cyclops starts smashing a couple of the men on the ground and tears out their arms and legs and stuff and eats them. (Ugh.) That’s for supper. He does it again for breakfast. Finally, Odysseus (who, if you ask me, brags a little too much about his cleverness) comes up with this great plan. He tells the monster his name is “Noman,” and then he gets the monster drunk and pokes his eye out with this huge burning club. Homer really gets into all the gory details too, about the eye bubbling and hissing and all. It’s a little too much for me
.

But the best part is when this monster’s friends all come and start calling to him, asking why he is screaming and stuff. And he says that “Noman” (no man, get it?) is killing him, and since his friends think that no man is killing him, they go away. Anyway, they all (or at least the ones who haven’t been eaten) finally do escape through Odysseus’s plan (he’s real proud of it) of tying them underneath
some sheep and goats who are in the cave and will be let out in the morning. It’s a little hard to imagine
.