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Contents
September
September 16
September 17
September 19
September 20
September 25
September 30
October
October 10
October 16
October 17
October 22
October 26
November
November 10
November 30
December
December 4
December 10
December 14
December 17
December 22
December 25
January
January 1
January 4
January 6
Evening, January 6
January 7
January 14
February
February 8
March
March 18
April
April 10
April 20
May
May 5
May 13
May 19
May 22
May 24
June
June 3
June 10
June 13
June 15
June 18
June 23
June 25
July
July 2
July 7
July 8
July 10
July 13
July 14
July 20
July 23
July 25
July 28
August
August 2
August 3
August 6
August 7
August 9
August 10
August 13
August 14
August 16
August 17
August 18
August 20
August 22
August 23
August 26
September
September 6
September 7
September 9
September 10
September 12
September 13
September 21
September 23
September 26
October
October 5
October 8
October 17
October 18
October 19
October 26
October 27
October 28
October 29
October 31
November
November 1
November 3
November 5
November 8
November 10
November 11
November 13
November 16
November 19
November 20
November 21
November 22
November 23
December
December 3
Still December 3
December 5
December 6
December 9
December 10
December 12
December 13
December 15
December 17
December 18
December 22
December 23
December 24
December 25
December 26
December 27
December 28
December 29
December 30
December 31
January
January 1
January 4
January 5
January 6
January 7
January 8
January 11
January 13
January 14
January 15
January 17
January 20
January 21
January 24
January 26
January 30
February
February 6
Februrary 13
February 18
February 23
February 24
February 27
March
March 1
March 2
March 5
March . . .
April
April 6
April 7
April 8
April 9
April 10
April 11
April 12
April 13
April 14
April 19
April 21
April 24
April 27
April 28
May
May 1
May 4
May 5
May 8
May 9
May 12
May 14
May 15
May 16
May 19
May 20
May 21
May 22
May 23
May 25
May 26
May 29
June
June 1
June 2
June 3
June 7
June 8
June 9
June 10
June 11
June 12
June 16
June 17
June 19
June 20
June 22
June 23
June 24
June 25
June 27
July
July 1
July 3
July 7
July 22
July 23
July 24
July 25
July 26
July 27
July 29
July 30
July 31
August
August 1
August 2
August 3
August 4
August 5
August 8
August 9
August 10
August 12
August 14
August 17
August 20
August 22
August 24
August 27
August 29
September
September 2
September 4
September 6
September 7
September 10
September 11
September 16
September 17
September 18
September 19
September 20
September 21
Epilogue
Go Ask Alice is based on the actual diary of a fifteen-year-old drug user.
It is not a definitive statement on the middle-class, teenage drug world. It does not offer any solutions.
it is, however, a highly personal and specific chronicle. As such, we hope it will provide insights into the increasingly complicated world in which we live.
Names, dates, places and certain events have been changed in accordance with the wishes of those concerned.
The Editors.
September 16
Yesterday I remember thinking I was the happiest person in the whole earth, in the whole galaxy, in all of God’s creation. Could that only have been yesterday or was it endless light-years ago? I was thinking that the grass had never smelled grassie
r, the sky had never seemed so high. Now it’s all smashed down upon my head and I wish I could just melt into the blaaaa-ness of the universe and cease to exist. Oh, why, why, why can’t I? How can I face Sharon and Debbie and the rest of the kids? How can I? By now the word has gotten around the whole school, I know it has! Yesterday I bought this diary because I thought at last I’d have something wonderful and great and worthwhile to say, something so personal that I wouldn’t be able to share it with another living person, only myself. Now like everything else in my life, it has become so much nothing.
I really don’t understand how Roger could have done this to me when I have loved him for as long as I can remember and I have waited all my life for him to see me. Yesterday when he asked me out I thought I’d literally and completely die with happiness. I really did! And now the whole world is cold and gray and unfeeling and my mother is nagging me to clean up my room. How can she nag me to clean up my room when I feel like dying? Can’t I even have the privacy of my own soul?
Diary, you’ll have to wait until tomorrow or I’ll have to go through the long lecture again about my attitude and my immaturity.
See ya.
September 17
School was a nightmare. I was afraid I’d see Roger every time I turned a corner in the hall, yet I was desperate for fear I wouldn’t see him. I kept telling myself, “Maybe something went wrong and he’ll explain.” At lunch I had to tell the girls about his not showing. I pretended I didn’t care, but oh, Diary, I do! I care so much I feel that my whole insides have shattered. How is it possible for me to be so miserable and embarrassed and humiliated and beaten and still function, still talk and smile and concentrate? How could Roger have done this to me? I wouldn’t intentionally hurt anyone in this whole world. I wouldn’t hurt them physically or emotionally, how then can people so consistently do it to me? Even my parents treat me like I’m stupid and inferior and ever short. I guess I’ll never measure up to anyone’s expectations. I surely don’t measure up to what I’d like to be.
September 19
Dad’s birthday. Not much. 2
September 20
It’s my birthday. I’m 15. Nothing.
September 25
Dear Diary,
I haven’t written for about a week because nothing of interest has happened. The same old dumb teachers teaching the same old dumb subjects in the same old dumb school. I seem to be kind of losing interest in everything. At first I thought high school would be fun but it’s just dull. Everything’s dull. Maybe it’s just because I’m growing up and life is becoming more blasé. Julie Brown had a party but I didn’t go. I’ve put on seven ugly, fat, sloppy, slobby pounds and I don’t have anything I can wear. I’m beginning to look as slobby as I feel.
September 30
Wonderful news, Diary! We’re moving. Daddy has been invited to become the Dean of Political Science at ________. Isn’t that exciting! Maybe it will be like it was when I was younger. Maybe again he’ll teach in Europe every summer and we’ll go with him like we used to. Oh those were the fun, fun times! I’m going to start on a diet this very day. I will be a positively different person by the time we get to our new home, Not one more bite of chocolate or nary a french fried potato will pass my lips till I’ve lost ten globby pounds of lumpy lard. And I’m going to make a completely new wardrobe. Who cares about Ridiculous Roger? Confidentially, Diary, I still care. I guess I’ll always love him, but maybe just before we leave and I’m thin and my skin is absolutely flawless and petal smooth and clear, and I have clothes like a fashion model he’ll ask me for another date. Shall I turn him down or stand him up or will I — I’m afraid I will — weaken and go out with him?
Oh please, Diary, help me to be strong and consistent. Help me to exercise every morning and night and clean my skin and eat right and be optimistic and agreeable and positive and cheerful. I want so much to be someone important, or even just asked out by a boy every once in a while. Maybe the new me will be different.
October 10
Dear Diary,
I’ve lost three pounds and we’re busy getting sort of semi-organized to move. Our house is up for sale, and Mom and Dad have gone to look for a place in ________. I’m staying here with Tim and Alexandria, and as much as you’ll be surprised, they don’t even bug me. We’re all excited about moving and they do whatever I tell them about helping with the house and meals and such — well, almost. I guess Dad will be taking over the new position at mid-term. He’s as excited as a little boy and it’s kind of like old times. We sit around the table and laugh and joke and make plans together. It’s great! Tim and Alex insist they have to take all their toys and junk. Personally I’d like to get a whole new everything, except my books of course, they are part of my life. When I was hit by a car in the fifth grade and was in a cast for such along time, I’d have died without them. Even now I’m not really sure which parts of myself are real and which parts are things I’ve gotten from books. But anyway it’s great! Life is positively great and wonderful and exciting, and I can’t wait to see what’s behind the next corner and all the corners after that.
October 16
Mom and Dad came back today. Hooray, we have a house! It’s a large old Spanish-type house which Mom loves. I can’t wait to move! I can’t wait! I can’t wait! They took pictures which will be back in three or four days. I can’t wait, I can’t wait, or have I said that a million times before?
October 17
Even school is exciting again. I got an A on my algebra paper and everything else is going A and B too. Algebra is the worst. If I can pass that I guess I can do anything! Usually I’m lucky to get a C, even when I kill myself. Isn’t it funny, but it seems that when something is going good, everything else goes good too. I’m even getting along better with Mom. She doesn’t seem to nag at me so much anymore. I can’t figure out which one of us has changed — I really can’t. Am I being more whatever it is she wants me to be so she doesn’t have to always be on my back or is it she is less demanding?
I even saw Roger in the hall and couldn’t have cared less. He said “hi” to me and stopped to talk, but I just walked on by. He’s not going to drop me on my head again! Gee, only a little over three months!
October 22
Scott Lossee asked me to go to the movies Friday. I’ve lost ten pounds. I’m down to a hundred and fifteen which is all right, but I’d still like to lose another ten pounds. Mom says I don’t want to get that thin, but she doesn’t know! I do! I do! I do! I haven’t had one goodie for so long I’ve almost forgotten what they taste like. Maybe Friday night I’ll go on a binge and eat a few french fries . . . ummmmmmm . . . .
October 26
The movie was fun with Scott. We went out after and I ate six wonderful, delicious, mouth-watering, delectable, heavenly french fries. That was really living in itself! I don’t feel about Scott like I used to about Roger. I guess that was my one and only true love, but I’m glad it’s over. Imagine me in my first year of high school and barely fifteen and the one and only great love of my life is over. It seems kind of tragic in a way. Maybe someday when we’re both in college we’ll meet again. I hope so. I really do hope so. Last summer at Marion Hill’s slumber party someone brought in a Playboy magazine with a story in it about a girl sleeping with a boy for the first time and all I could think about was Roger. I don’t ever want to have sex with any other boy in the whole world ever . . . ever . . . . I swear I’ll die a virgin if Roger and I don’t get together. I couldn’t stand to ever have any other boy even touch me. I’m not even sure about Roger, Maybe later when I’m older I’ll feel differently. Mother says that as girls get older, hormones invade our bloodstream making our sexual desires greater. I guess I’m just developing slowly. I’ve heard some pretty wild stories about some of the kids at school, but I’m not them, I’m me, and besides, sex seems so strange and so inconvenient, and so awkward.
I keep thinking about our teacher in gym teaching us modern dance and always saying that it
will make our bodies strong and healthy for childbearing, then she harps and harps that everything must be graceful, graceful, graceful. I can hardly picture sex or having a baby as being graceful.
Gotta go. See ya.
November 10
Oh dear Diary, I’m so sorry I’ve neglected you, but I’ve been so busy. Here we are preparing for Thanksgiving already and then Christmas. We sold our house last week to the Dulburrows and their seven kids. I do wish we could have sold it to someone with a smaller family. I hate to think of those six boys running up and down our beautiful front stairs with their dirty, sticky fingers on the walls and their dirty feet all over Mother’s white carpeting. You know, when I think about things like that, I suddenly don’t want to leave! I’m afraid! I’ve lived in this room all my fifteen years, all my 5,530 days. I’ve laughed and cried and moaned and muttered in this room. I’ve loved people and things and hated them. It’s been a big part of my life, of me. Will we ever be the same when we’re closed in by other walls? Will we think other thoughts and have different emotions? Oh, Mother, Daddy, maybe we’re making a mistake, maybe we’ll be leaving too much of ourselves behind!
Dear precious Diary, I am baptizing you with my tears. I know we have to leave and that one day I will even have to leave my father and mother’s home and go into a home of my own. But ever I will take you with me.
November 30
Dear Diary,
Sorry I didn’t talk with you on Thanksgiving. It was so nice, Gran and Gramps were here for two days and we talked about old times and lay around the living room. Daddy didn’t even go to his office the whole time. Grandma made taffy with us like she used to when we were little, and even Daddy pulled some. We all laughed a lot, and Alex got it in her hair and Gramps got his false teeth stuck together, and we were almost hysterical. They are sorry we are moving so far away from them and so are we. Home just won’t be the same without Gran and Gramps dropping in. I really hope Daddy is right in making the move.
December 4
Dear Diary,
Mama won’t let me diet anymore. Just between us, I don’t really know why it’s any of her business. It’s true I have had a cold for the last couple of weeks, but I know it’s not the diet that is causing it. How can she be so stupid and irrational? This morning I was having my usual half grapefruit for breakfast and she made me eat a slice of whole wheat bread and a scrambled egg and a piece of bacon. That’s probably at least 400 calories, maybe even five or six or seven hundred. I don’t know why she can’t let me live my own life. She doesn’t like it when I look like a cow, neither does anybody else, I don’t even like myself. I wonder if I could go stick my finger down my throat and throw up after every meal? She says I’m going to have to start eating dinner again too, and just when I’m getting down where I want to be and I’ve quit fighting the hunger pangs. Oh, parents are a problem! That’s one thing, Diary, you don’t have to worry about, only me. And I guess you’re not very lucky at that, because I’m certainly no bargain.