Outrageously Alice (6 page)

But Patrick just wouldn’t quit.

“Well, if you’re going green, how about carrying this around for me?” he said. He held up one of the posters about the band concert, with the word
CONCERT
in big green block letters.

“Why not?” I said.

“Wait a minute. Better idea!” Patrick took the roll of tape he was going to use to put up the posters and taped two of them together, back to back. “Stand up,” he said. I did, and he hung them over my shoulders like a sandwich board.

At first I felt angry at him, but when everyone on the bus started to laugh, I realized they were laughing with me, not at me.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll wear this all day.”

Patrick looked surprised. “You will?”

I shrugged. “You asked me to wear it, I’m wearing it.” All the kids clapped.

At school, everyone looked at me, pointing and laughing, and I just laughed along with them. Miss Summers noticed too. She was passing my locker and stopped to talk. Her eyes were the bluest I’d ever seen, even though
she has brown hair, not blond. She had on a gray and blue and lavender dress that sort of changed colors when she walked.

“Well, you’re looking different these days, Alice!” she said cheerfully. “In fact, you’re a walking advertisement!” She laughed. “How are things going?”

“Great!” I said. “But I miss having you for English this year.”

“I miss having you in my class, too,” she said, and smiled at me with her beautiful blue eyes. I noticed that she didn’t wear blue shadow, though. I wondered what color she wore.

The thing is, I
liked
being noticed—being a little bit crazy, a little bit wild. I loved going down the halls at school with Patrick’s sandwich board around my neck, and I didn’t want the day to end. There had to be something more I could try. I was ready. Boy, was I ready!

THAT EVENING, BEFORE I WENT TO THE
Camera Club the next day, I decided I’d better ask Lester if I could have the camera Crystal had returned after they broke up. I doubted Dad would want me to use his.

Lester and a bunch of his guy friends were in the living room watching Monday night football, and I knew better than to ask him a question during the game. I waited till the team was standing with their arms around each other, then edged over to Lester’s chair. Les had one fist in a bag of Fritos and the other in the air, cheering the team on.

“Lester …,” I whispered.

“Later!” he said. “I’m watching the game.”

I pointed to the set. “They’re just standing there talking,” I protested.

“That’s a huddle, kid,” said one of his friends. “Okay! Here we go!”

The players lined up, but then they stood around some more, bent over with their hands on their knees. I don’t understand football at all. A minute later all the players were piling onto everybody else, and Lester leaped to his feet.

“Touchdown!” he yelled. You couldn’t prove it by me.

“Lester,” I said again when a commercial came on.

“What?”

“Did you have any plans for that camera you gave Crystal? The one she returned. I’ve signed up for the Camera Club at school and I need it.”

“Actually, I was going to wrap it up and give it to you for Christmas.”

“Lester!”

“Merry Christmas, Al. It’s yours,” he said, and waved me away.

I took it to Dad, who put in a roll of film, showed me how to adjust it for distance, and how to work the flash.

“Have fun,” he said, handing it back. “First roll of
film’s on me. After that, you pay for the film and developing. Okay?”

I realized then that it would have been a lot cheaper to sit around the Explorers’ Club and talk about trips on Amtrak than it was going to be to take pictures. I was thinking about going back in the living room and asking Lester if—since this was to be my Christmas present—he’d throw in a couple rolls of film, too, but he and his friends were ab solutely mesmerized by the game.

“I’ll bet I could walk in there naked and they wouldn’t notice,” I told Dad.

“Well, don’t try it,” he said.

The more I thought about it, though, the more curious I got. One of the guys put his feet on the coffee table, all the magazines slid off, and he didn’t even look down. In the movies, of course, a brother’s friends always think his kid sister’s cute, and she grows up and marries one of them. It could happen!

I went upstairs, took off all my clothes, and put on my bathing suit. Then I casually walked through the living room, picking up empty bottles and cans. The guys didn’t even look in my direction. Everyone was yelling at the quarterback.

So I went back up and put on the peacock feather
headdress I’d worn on Halloween, and this time I paraded slowly around the living room. I guess I caught a commercial, because suddenly Lester muted the sound. Without even looking, I knew that all eyes were fastened on me.

“What
is
it?” somebody said.

“Swat it, and see if it flies,” said someone else.

“Al, go upstairs and get human,” Lester told me.

Suddenly I rushed back up to my room, my face as red as ketchup. They didn’t think I was cute, they thought I was demented. I caught one glimpse of myself in the mirror and ripped off the headdress.

Would I
ever
grow up? I wondered. This was the kind of thing I might have done back in fifth or sixth grade; I couldn’t believe I’d tried something so ridiculous now.

“Nice try,” Lester said later, and I did something even more stupid. I got up and slammed my door.

The next morning I set off for school, camera in my book bag, to make my second try at getting a life. At noon, however, something happened I didn’t expect. There’s a new guy, Justin Collier, who’s in my English class. He’s not quite as good-looking as Mr. Everett, but he’s tall and looks as though he’d be a lot of fun. He was passing our table in the cafeteria with two other boys and stopped to kid around with us. Elizabeth was really thrilled.

“Hey, Green Eyes, you’re in my English class, aren’t you?” Justin asked me.

“You’re just now noticing her?” Pamela quipped. She had her eye on Justin too.

“Hey, gimme a break! I’m a transfer student,” Justin said. “My dad’s in the navy.”

“So we’re supposed to salute?” Pamela asked. I mean, when Pamela’s on the prowl, you know it.

“Whooaa!” said Justin. “Who’s the babe with the blue eyes and the sassy mouth?”

“Pamela Jones,” I said. “I’m Alice, and this is Elizabeth.”

“Hi,” Elizabeth said, and smiled.

“Hi, Pamela Alice Elizabeth,” said one of the other boys, trying to balance his empty tray on Elizabeth’s head. She giggled.

“Anyway, I was supposed to get a course outline and never did. I wondered if I could borrow yours and make a copy,” Justin said.

“That’s one of the oldest lines in the book! Alice, don’t fall for that,” said Pamela.

“Hey, Blue Eyes, what’d I ever do to you?” Justin said. “I
need
it! I’ll take it to the library, make a copy, and bring it right back.”

“Never trust a guy six feet tall,” Pamela said, grinning.

“Ha! Never listen to a girl with blue on her eyes!” said Justin. “You girls always hang out together? The three hot mamas?”

We giggled some more.

“All but Elizabeth,” Pamela joked. “She’s going to be a nun.”

I couldn’t believe Pamela said that. It was as though she was jealous of Elizabeth, and was trying to put her down. First of all, it’s not necessarily true. And second, even if it was true, it made being a nun sound like an insult. I could almost feel Elizabeth shrinking beside me.

“No kidding?” Justin Collier looked at Elizabeth. They were all looking at Elizabeth, and her face was so red, she looked as though she had a fever.

Pamela noticed too, of course, and immediately tried to backpedal: “I mean, she’ll probably be one of those nuns who’s so hot, she’s kicked out of the convent, but …”

“Pamela, shut up,” I whispered.

Elizabeth was as angry as she was embarrassed.

“Don’t mind her,” she said to Justin. “She’s naturally hot. Her parents are nudists.”

I felt as though I were sitting between two erupting volcanoes. Pamela had never told us
not
to tell anyone
about her parents, but somehow we just knew that the information was confidential.

Not anymore.

“Heeey!” said one of the boys, turning again to Pamela. “You go to those sunbather camps, huh?”

“Man, just tell me where you meet and give me a pair of binoculars,” said the third guy. They were all leering at Pamela.

I thought she’d go along with it. I thought she’d enjoy all the attention and laugh it off. Instead, Pamela leaned forward and stared around me to give Elizabeth a long, withering look. Elizabeth glared right back.

I quickly snatched my English outline from my notebook and gave it to Justin. “You can keep it till tomorrow, but be sure to give it back,” I said.

The guys loped off, leaving the three of us there at the table. I could feel knives passing through me, left to right and right to left.

Suddenly Pamela got up, pushed her chair in with a bang, picked up her tray, and left. Elizabeth got up, picked up her books, and went out by the other door.

It was as though they were both mad at me! Was eighth grade nuts or what?

Patrick came by on his way to band, carrying a pair of
drumsticks and rapping out a little rhythm as he went.

“What’s this?” he asked, stopping by the table. “Eating alone?”

“I am now,” I snapped.

“What’s wrong? You mad or something?”

“Everything’s wrong,” I said. “I’m sick of eighth grade.”

“Why? I think it’s great!”

“You would,” I retorted. “Any guy who would grab a girl and pull her into a broom closet and French-kiss her without even letting her know who he is would probably love this lunatic asylum.”

“That was three days ago!” Patrick said. “You going to remember it forever?”

“Well, it was stupid.”

“Okay, so it was dumb. I thought you’d enjoy it, that’s all. You didn’t, so sue me.”

“You could at least apologize.”

“I’m sorry you don’t have a better sense of humor,” Patrick said, and walked away.

I was near tears when the bell rang, but at least I had the Camera Club to look forward to after school. Unless, of course, we all had to sit in a circle and show each other our baby pictures or something.

The first surprise was that we met in the biology lab. The second was that the club’s sponsor, Mrs. Pinotti, was a tiny little woman who looked for all the world like a sparrow. She wore wide canvas shoes, shaped almost like a duck’s foot; she had a sharp nose like a bird’s beak; a lined face; closely cropped brown hair, like feathers; black beady eyes; teeny little hands; and she was dressed in a brown turtleneck and slacks. She was also fascinating.

Because I’d missed the first couple meetings, I was spared the sessions on the mechanics of a camera and listened to this tiny woman talk about how the great photographs are a whole lot more than pretty pictures.

“Anyone can see a pretty scene and snap it,” she said. “The artistry comes in looking at your subject in a new way. Capturing its shadows, taking it from an unusual angle, photographing just a piece of it up close. The great photographs—the ones we remember—capture feeling, soul, mood, action, and drama. The rest end up on picture postcards.”

A number of kids were nodding, but this was all new to me.

“In the next two weeks,” she said, “I’d like you to shoot a whole roll of film on a single subject. It can be one person
or one group—a family, a couple; it can be a room at different hours of the day, a garden—but I want all thirty-six exposures on the same subject. Let’s see how much variety we can get on a single theme. I’ll try too.”

After that I sort of sat on the sidelines and listened to the other kids talk about what they were doing with their cameras. I learned that the photo shop across the street would sell us film and develop it at half price when we showed our club membership cards, so I paid my three-dollar dues and became a member. A guy named Sam wanted to try out his flash attachment and asked another girl and me to pose for him while he checked it out. I didn’t know any of the kids well and felt more of an explorer here than I had at the Explorers’ Club. Here I was investigating new territory without Pamela, Elizabeth, or Patrick around. It was lonely and exciting both.

Pamela came over around eight and her eyes were red. I took one look at her and said, “Come on up.”

We sat on the edge of my bed and she said, “I don’t think I can ever forgive Elizabeth for telling about my folks.”

“I know,” I said, “but you shouldn’t have said what you did, either. She’s just as mad at you.”

“What
I
said was supposed to be a compliment. I mean, what girl wouldn’t want guys to think she’s so sexy that if she ever joined a convent, they’d throw her out?”

“Elizabeth, that’s who.”

“Well, she should have stopped to think before she said what she did about my parents,” Pamela said, and reached for a tissue.

“I just don’t see what the big deal is!” I told her. “You told
us
! How were we supposed to know you never wanted us to mention it to a living soul? And besides, what’s wrong with your folks being nudists? They don’t think it’s wrong, so why should you?”

“Because I don’t want anyone talking about my parents!” Pamela said, and suddenly I was astonished to see her break into tears. “Oh, Alice,” she sobbed, leaning against me. “They’re separating.”

This was just too much. I put my arm around her. “Why? When?” I tried to remember when I’d seen her parents last. Hadn’t they gone to a movie together sometime last summer? Didn’t that mean anything?

Pamela just went on crying but finally straightened up. “I don’t know why. Mom just told me tonight. I think someone else is involved, but I’m not sure.”

“Your dad’s moving out, then?”

“No. My mom.”

Her
mother
? Mothers sometimes left their families?
Mothers
got involved with somebody else?