Starting With Alice

  Somehow it was easier after that. Once we had the kitten to watch, we didn’t have to sit and look at each other. Megan put her present down on the floor beside me, and I took off the ribbon. I dangled it above Oatmeal’s head and let her jump at it.

  Inside the box was a little red heart made out of glass. I think it was a paperweight.

  “Thank you, Megan,” I said, and we gave each other our secret wink.

  I opened Jody’s and Dawn’s gifts next. Glass-bead bracelets—a pink one from Dawn, a green one from Jody. Sara gave me a book on volcanoes, and Rosalind gave me a box of caramels.

  It was the boys’ presents that were sort of weird. I got a model airplane and some glue from Donald, a comic book from Ollie, and a key chain with a little seal on it from Cory. The seal had a hat on its head with X’s on it, and Donald said the X’s stood for kisses, and that made Donald and Ollie hoot and holler and the girls giggle, and then the boys wrestled around on the floor with Cory, and Dad said, “Okay, everybody. Downstairs!”

  I guess he figured that if we were going to destroy the furniture, it had better be Lester’s. So everyone got up and followed Dad and Lester to the basement.

  Of course, what the boys noticed right away was Lester’s drum set, and they all wanted to try it out. Lester said they couldn’t fool around with it alone, but he’d give each of them a turn.

  So he put on a CD and showed Donald and Cory and Ollie how to use the pedal for the bass drum and the sticks for the tom-toms. While the guys were drumming, Megan and Dawn and Jody started dancing to the music, and then Megan taught me one of the steps and Dawn and Jody taught Sara and Rosalind.

  The surprising thing was, Rosalind caught on to the dance step quicker than anyone else. Her feet just seemed to know what to do, and when Jody took her hand and held it up in the air, Rosalind made a turn around underneath, just like she’d been dancing all her life. Maybe, up in her room, all by herself, she had. That’s the way it is with friends, I guess. You think you know everything about them, and then they surprise you.

  We danced until we got sweaty, and suddenly I realized that we were having a good time—we were laughing and kidding around, and pretty soon the girls got their turns on the drums. Jody tried to get Cory to dance with her, but he wouldn’t.

  We went back upstairs for cake and ice cream, and Sara asked if we could give Oatmeal some ice cream too. Dad said no, you really shouldn’t give cats much cream, but we could let her lick our bowls when we were finished.

  So everyone started setting their empty bowls on the floor after the ice cream was gone, and I went to get Oatmeal.

  “Where is she, Dad?” I called.

  “Isn’t she there with you? Did you look behind the couch?” he said.

  Cory and Donald looked behind the couch and we checked under the other chairs, but the kitten wasn’t there.

  I went in my room and looked under the bed. In my closet, where Oatmeal sometimes sleeps on my dirty clothes. I checked Dad’s room too. She wasn’t there.

  “Rosalind,” I said, and I could feel my lips begin to quiver, “I can’t find Oatmeal.”

  We all started looking then. We looked under the sofa pillows and on the dining-room chairs, and then we went back to the basement to see if the kitten was there. It was right then that I saw that someone had propped open the basement door a few inches, the door that leads out into the backyard. It had gotten warm in the basement while we were dancing, and I guess someone decided to let in some air.

  I’d forgotten to tell my friends that Oatmeal was an indoor cat—that we never let her out.

  Lester came downstairs with his headphones on, but when he saw us swarming around the basement, he took the headphones off.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “Oatmeal,” I said. “She got out, I think. Somebody propped open the basement door.”

  “I didn’t know she wasn’t supposed to get out,” said Ollie. “I just didn’t know that.”

  “I forgot to tell you,” I said, hoping I wouldn’t cry.

  “We’ll make a search party!” said Jody. “We’ll all go out and look for her.”

  “She—she doesn’t know about cars or anything.” I gulped, trying not to let the tears slide out of my eyes. “If she met up with a dog, it could kill her.”

  Lester slipped on his shoes. “I’ll come too,” he said. “Where did you see her last?”

  “I think she was coming down the basement stairs when we started dancing,” Dawn said.

  “I saw her when I was playing the drums,” Cory said.

  Jody was the first one out the basement door, and the rest of us followed. How could a party that had been going so well turn out so badly? I wondered. If anything happened to Oatmeal, it would be one of the worst birthdays I’d ever had.

  And yet, outside, it was a beautiful May night. Dad always said it had been beautiful the night I was born, too. He said it was just the right kind of night for bringing a new baby girl into the world. Why couldn’t it be that kind of a happy night right now?

  We scattered over the backyard; the others called, “Oatmeal! Oatmeal!” while I called, “Here, kitty-kitty-kitty,” in the high kind of voice that usually brought Oatmeal running. We didn’t see her, though.

  I grabbed hold of Lester’s hand in the darkness, and he gripped my fingers as we walked across the wet grass toward the street. I didn’t think I could stand it if I saw that Oatmeal had been run over. I’d cry in front of everyone, I knew it.

  The girls looked behind all the bushes in the yard, and the boys checked behind the trash cans in the alley. If Oatmeal had wandered away, she’d probably never find her way home again. If anyone found such a cute little kitten, they’d probably keep her. I fought back tears again.

  “I’m going to get Killer and see if he can help,” said Donald.

  “Killer?” cried Dawn.

  “His real name is Muffin, but we call him Killer just for fun,” Donald said.

  We waited till Donald came back with his dog on a leash.

  “That’s a dog?” said Cory. “He looks more like a mop.”

  “He looks a hundred years old!” said Sara.

  “He is, in dog years, but Oatmeal loves him,” said Donald.

  “Oatmeal and Muffin,” said Jody.

  “Just like Pancakes and Syrup,” Megan whispered to me.

  “Why don’t we start across all the backyards on the block?” Lester suggested. “Since Oatmeal’s outside for the first time, she might stay away from a noisy street. My guess is she’ll be exploring around the neighbors’ bushes.”

  So we formed a line and started across Donald’s backyard, with a circle of light from Lester’s flashlight pointing the way.

  “Hey, this is cool!” I heard Ollie say. “It’s like a night rescue. We should have infrared glasses so we could see in the dark.”

  “I’ll bet that dog of yours can’t even see,” said Jody to Donald.

  “He can’t,” said Donald. “But his nose still works.”

  Muffin was walking up ahead, Donald holding on to the leash. We crossed one neighbor’s yard, then another. All at once the dog’s tail began to wag. Then he began to walk a little faster. He almost began to trot.

  He went right over to a lilac bush beneath a window, and when Lester turned the beam of light on Muffin, we saw a gray-and-white kitten come out from under the bushes and rub up against Muffin’s leg.

  “There she is!” everyone cried.

  “Oatmeal!” I called, and scooped my little kitten up in my nine-year-old arms. Everyone crowded around, talking to her, saying what a naughty little cat she was, patting her on the head.

  We walked back to our house with Lester, following the beam of his flashlight. The air had a sweet smell, like a touch of honey, and Oatmeal felt like a powder puff in my arms, a little purring bundle of fluff.

  I felt like purring too. I think that deep down, where no one could hear it, I was purring. It was my ninth birthday, and ni
ne friends—counting Lester—were celebrating with me. They weren’t all “best” friends—maybe only a few—but you don’t have to be best friends just to like someone.

  We were making a new start on a new street in a new state, and Oatmeal was back in my arms. I couldn’t wait to get home and tell Dad. And for the first time, Lester reached over to pet my kitten.

  Find out what happens next for Alice in

  BEING PERFECT

  LESTER LIES TO ME SOMETIMES, ONLY HE says it’s just teasing. Then I go and believe him.

  We were talking about names once, and he said he’d let me in on a secret if I didn’t tell Dad. He said that we weren’t Scotch-Irish at all, that our grandparents had escaped from Russia, but we didn’t want anyone to know it.

  My real name, he said, wasn’t Alice Kathleen McKinley; it was Alicia Katerina de Balencia Blunderbuss Makinoli.

  “Honest?” I said.

  “Cross my heart,” said Lester.

  “Write it down,” I told him. So Lester wrote it down for me.

  I whispered my real name over and over so I could remember it. That night at the dinner table I watched my dad eat his green beans and wondered what other secrets he was keeping from me.

  “What’s Dad’s real name then?” I asked Lester later.

  “Hmm,” said Lester. “That’s a hard one to remember. It’s Ivan Ilvonovich Rostropovich.”

  “I thought you said our last name was Makinoli.”

  “Right! Ivan Ilvonovich Rostropovich Makinoli.”

  “Then what’s your real name?” I asked.

  “Dmitri Rachmaninoff Schvaglio Deuteronomy Makinoli,” said Lester.

  I studied my brother. “Honest?” I asked.

  “Would I lie to you?” said Lester.

  “Honest honest?”

  “Cross my heart,” said Lester. “But it’s a secret, and Dad’s sort of touchy about it. He’ll get around to telling you sometime.”

  The next day at school I couldn’t help myself. Instead of writing Alice McKinley at the top of my fourth-grade spelling paper, I wrote Alicia Katerina de Balencia Blunderbuss Makinoli.

  When we traded papers with the person beside us for checking, my friend Rosalind said, “What’s this?” and pointed to the name at the top.

  I thumped my chest. “Me,” I said. “I just found out.”

  Rosalind looked at the name again. “Are you sure that last name isn’t supposed to be Macaroni?”

  “No,” I said. “It’s not.”

  Rosalind got up and went to the dictionary. When she came back, she said, “Do you know what a blunderbuss is?”

  “No,” I said.

  “A person who goofs up,” said Rosalind.

  “Lester!” I yelled when I walked in the house that afternoon. My brother is about seven and a half years older than me, and he gets home from high school before grade school even lets out. “You just stuck ‘Blunderbuss’ in there. That’s not part of my real name at all!”

  “Imagine that!” said Lester.

  “I’ll bet you made that whole thing up,” I said.

  “How’d you guess?” said Lester.

  I don’t know why Lester couldn’t have been a girl. Why couldn’t I have had an older sister instead, one who would show me how to braid my hair and sew on a button and make fudge and cut my toenails?

  My mother died when I was in kindergarten, and Lester and I live in Takoma Park, Maryland, with our dad, Ben McKinley. We moved here last year from Chicago. So instead of a big sister who could braid my hair, I’ve got a brother who plays the drums in a band called the Naked Nomads and tells me lies. I’ve got a cat, though, named Oatmeal, and that’s our family—me and Dad and Lester and Oatmeal.

  The fact is—and that’s why Lester made me angry, I guess—I really am a blunderbuss. Fourth grade is definitely the worst. I have already made more embarrassing mistakes in the fourth grade than in all the other grades put together.

  Last Sunday, Dad took me to the mall and I had to go to the restroom. After I flushed, I tried to open the door of my stall, but I couldn’t get it unlocked. I pushed and pulled, but the metal bar wouldn’t slide. My father was waiting outside, but I would be stuck in there forever, I thought! They would have to feed me through the space under the door! I was too embarrassed to yell. Too embarrassed to pound on the door.

  I could hear three women talking at the sink, and I decided I would wait until they had gone. Then I would crawl out under the door. I heard the women go out. I heard their voices fade away. Then I got down beside the toilet and crawled out underneath the door. There was still a woman left at the sink.

  She gave a little gasp and turned around. I think she thought I was a dog.

  “Hello,” I said as I washed my hands.

  She just stared.

  On Monday, Sara, my second best friend, wanted to borrow a piece of paper at school. I handed her one. I had been eating a Hershey’s candy bar the night before when I did my homework. There was chocolate on the paper.

  “Euuuw!” said Sara, handing it back. “What’s this? Poop?”

  Everybody looked at me and laughed. I’ll bet my face was as red as Sara’s T-shirt.

  On Tuesday we were eating beans and franks in the lunchroom. My mouth was full, and suddenly I sneezed. I sent beans and franks flying all over Megan’s tray. “Euuuw!” said Megan, and she dumped her tray in the trash can.

  Wednesday night it rained. I was in the bathtub when I heard raindrops pattering down on our roof. And right that minute I remembered that I had left my geography book on the front steps. It would be ruined!

  I leaped out of the bathtub and pulled on my underpants. It was dark outside, so I ran to the front door, slipped out on the porch, and grabbed up the book. And there was Donald Sheavers from next door, taking trash to the garbage can. He saw. He says my name is Alice Kathleen Underpants McKinley.

  Fourth grade stinks. Fourth grade is when everything you do embarrasses you. Fourth grade is when everyone knows you’re a blunderbuss whether it’s part of your name or not.

  One morning at breakfast I said to my dad, “I’m going to try to go the rest of my life without doing any more embarrassing things. I won’t do anything unless I think about it first.”

  “Good luck,” said Lester.

  “That doesn’t sound like much of a life to me,” said Dad.

  “Why not?” I asked, my mouth full of scrambled egg.

  “Because if you have to stop and think before you do anything, you’ll never do anything spontaneous at all.”

  It seemed like more fun than being a blunderbuss.

  Donald Sheavers came over to walk to school with me. He always stands with his nose pressed against the back screen until Dad invites him in. Then he sits and plays with Oatmeal till I finish my breakfast.

  Oatmeal is a gray-and-white cat. The only things she does are eat and sleep and play and poop and pee. If you laugh at a cat because she does something funny, she’ll just do it again. Cats don’t get embarrassed, even when they throw up.

  “I should have been born a cat,” I told Donald Sheavers on the way to school.

  “You might get worms,” said Donald.

  “Not if I lived inside,” I said.

  “You might get fleas,” said Donald.

  “Not if I never went out,” I told him.

  “You might get run over,” said Donald.

  “Not if I stayed in the house,” I said.

  “So who wants to live like that?” said Donald.

  We have a man teacher in fourth grade. His name is Mr. Dooley. Out on the playground some of the kids call him “Mr. Dodo” or “Mr. Doo-bee” or “Mr. Doo-doo,” but he just smiles. We’ve only been in his classroom for two weeks, but Mr. Dooley never seems to get angry. Donald says if you set fire to Mr. Dooley’s pants, he still wouldn’t get mad.

  He’s not a blunderbuss, either. He never seems to make mistakes. He doesn’t spill food on his shirts or forget our names or lose his attendance
book or squeak the chalk on the blackboard. I guess he’s as perfect as a teacher can be.

  I decided I wanted to be like Mr. Dooley. Even if kids made fun of me, I would just laugh.

  Mr. Dooley thinks we are the weird ones. He says fourth grade is a zoo. Except for Donald Sheavers and me walking to school together every morning, the boys and girls in fourth grade keep away from each other.

  Mr. Dooley says boys and girls our age are like salt and pepper. He says we are like north and south. He says we are like magnetic poles that repel each other. He says he likes teaching fourth grade.

  But one day Mr. Dooley’s car wouldn’t start, and he was late getting to school. The principal had to come down to our room and take over until he got there. And I could tell that Mr. Dooley had a headache when he came in. His eyes were sort of squinting, and his eyebrows came together over the top of his nose.

  “Donald, either sit on your chair the way it was intended or put it on your head,” he snapped.

  Donald put his chair on his head, and Mr. Dooley sent him to the back of the room.

  There was a special guest in school that day who was going to talk about her books. We were going to be studying one of them in our class, and Mr. Dooley had been reading it aloud.

  We were very lucky to have an author visit our school, Mr. Dooley said. When we joined the fifth graders in the all-purpose room, he wanted us to be on our best behavior. He wanted us to show them that we could be just as grown up as they were. I wondered if Mr. Dooley had ever taught fifth graders. Out on the playground they didn’t seem very grown up to me.

  We are never on our best behavior just before lunch because we’re getting hungry. We were joking and laughing as we followed Mr. Dooley down the hall to where the author was waiting. As we giggled and pushed our way into the all-purpose room, the fifth graders looking at us, Mr. Dooley suddenly yelled, “If you don’t settle down, I’m going to seat you boy-girl-boy-girl.”

  We were so quiet then that we could even hear Mr. Dooley’s stomach growl as we passed him in the doorway. It was a loud gurgling rumble. We almost laughed, but didn’t. We were so quiet, we could hear our own breathing.