Starting With Alice

  “I don’t know. Come a little closer and I’ll see,” I said.

  “Not on your life,” he told me. “Just let me know if you want a Coke or something, and I’ll roll a can across the floor to you. Okay?”

  I think Dad was right. Our family wasn’t complete until I came along. Mom and Dad must have looked at Lester and decided, No, we need a little bit more.

  And that little bit more was me.

  13

  THE SHAMPOO PARTY

  LESTER GOT SICK AFTER I DID. HE SAID IT was my germs that did it, but he was eating nachos again in two days, so he couldn’t have been as sick as I was.

  Four kids in my class had the flu—Donald Sheavers and Megan and two boys I hardly knew, so I don’t think they got it from me. The main thing I missed was writing a report on an insect and reading it to the class. The day I came back to school, Sara read her report on the praying mantis.

  Sara reads with a lot of expression, and what she told us… it was awful! About how the female eats the male after they mate. Just gobbles him right up. And then she rubbed her stomach and said, “Yum-yum!”

  That made us laugh, but it was awful at the same time, and we looked at Mrs. Burstin.

  “It’s true, class,” the teacher said. “Sara is exactly right. Very good research, Sara!”

  “Man, I’m never getting married!” said Ollie Harris, and everybody laughed. That made four people in third grade who were never getting married!

  “Don’t worry, Ollie. You’re not a bug,” said Rosalind, and we laughed some more. Sara laughed too.

  I told Rosalind about my plan for the sleepover, but she wasn’t too crazy about the idea.

  “Why do you want another best friend?” she asked. “I thought I was your best friend.”

  I had to think fast. “Because I thought the three of us could be triplets too. Megan and Dawn and Jody aren’t the only ones who can be triplets.”

  “Sara’s hair stinks,” said Rosalind.

  “That’s why we’ll make it a shampoo party, but we won’t tell her why we’re doing it. We don’t want to embarrass her,” I said.

  “But we’ll still be best friends, you and me?” asked Rosalind.

  “Sure,” I told her.

  The good thing about being “best friends” is that you’re supposed to tell each other all your secrets and help each other out of trouble. The bad thing about being best friends is you aren’t supposed to like anyone else as much as you like each other. And if you talk to somebody else too much, your best friend gets jealous. But I decided that, for now, anyway, Rosalind could be my best friend.

  We sat down across from Sara at lunch and talked some more about praying mantises. She said that her uncle was an entomologist—a person who studies bugs—and that’s how she knew what the female praying mantis does.

  ‘’I’m going to have a sleepover on Friday,” I said. “Do you want to come? Rosalind will be there too.”

  “Okay,” said Sara. She was eating a ham sandwich and chewing with her mouth open again. You could see the yellow mustard and the white bread and the green lettuce all mixed up together just inside her mouth. I looked at her eyes instead, which were deep blue.

  “Don’t you have to ask your mom first?” I said.

  “She’ll say yes,” said Sara.

  I found out where she lived and said we’d pick her up.

  “Okay,” said Sara.

  Her face is as thin as Rosalind’s is wide. She has thin lips and a pinched-in nose, and her long stringy hair makes her face look even thinner.

  Megan and Dawn and Jody must have heard me talking about a sleepover, because Dawn started talking a little too loud about a sleepover she was going to have that weekend and how they were going to make taffy and teach each other to dance. I knew they were trying to make it sound like they were going to have a better sleepover than we were just because I didn’t invite them.

  When Friday came, I got in the car with Dad, and we drove to the address Sara had given. It was a tiny house with a chain-link fence around it and toys in the yard. Dad went to the door with me and knocked.

  Sara answered with three of her brothers, all crowding around staring at us. There were more kids on the couch watching TV. Sara’s mother came out of the kitchen. She was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt with REDSKINS on it. She had the same thin face as Sara.

  “Hello,” said Dad. “I’m Ben McKinley, and I understand your daughter is coming to a sleepover at our house. I thought I ought to give you our address and phone number.”

  “Yes, that’s a good idea. I’m Bev Evans,” said Sara’s mother. She got a pencil and wrote down our address and phone number. “Do you have everything you need, Sara?” she asked.

  Sara held up her canvas bag. “I think so.”

  “Have a good time,” said her mother. “Behave yourself.”

  “I’m sure she will,” said Dad.

  All Sara’s brothers and sisters crowded around the door and watched her leave. As we walked back out to the car, Sara said, “They’re excited because they get to sleep in my bed tonight with Melody.”

  Dad laughed. “How many brothers and sisters do you have?”

  “Six. I’m the third oldest, and I make seven. I sleep with Melody, but tonight Stephanie and Gayle get to take my place.”

  “Where do they sleep when you’re home?” I asked.

  “On the couch,” she said simply, as though every family put some of their kids to bed on the couch.

  I thought about Sara as we drove home. Maybe if there are seven children and their parents all living together in a tiny house, there’s too much to do and too little room to keep everything as clean as you’d like. Or maybe washing your hair just isn’t as important as other things you have to do.

  By the time we got to our place, Rosalind’s mother was just driving up, and Dad talked with her a few minutes while Rosalind and Sara and I ran into the house and down the hall to my bedroom. Sara and Rosalind started taking things out of their bags—pajamas and toothbrushes and books and stuff. Rosalind took out a huge jar of purple bubble bath.

  “Let’s use it all!” she said mischievously.

  “All of it?” I said, and Sara started to grin.

  “The whole thing! Just to see what happens!” said Rosalind, and we started to giggle.

  But first we had a tea party on the coffee table in the living room. Rosalind and I had it all planned. I had made little cracker-and-cream-cheese sandwiches with olives on top and chocolate marshmallow cookies and hot cocoa.

  We used cups and saucers and even napkins, and pretended that we were having tea at the Plaza Hotel in New York City. I’ve never been to the Plaza. I’ve never even been to New York, but Rosalind says that’s where you go to have a really fancy party, so we pretended we were ladies in evening gowns, and we held the handles of our cups with our pinkies sticking up in the air.

  “Now, remember,” Rosalind said to me as though she were my mother, “you have to chew with your mouth closed.”

  “Yes, Mother!” I said, and Sara laughed.

  Rosalind daintily tasted her cocoa and put the cup back down, then gently bit into a cracker sandwich.

  “Wipe your mouth, Alice,” said Rosalind, “and try not to let crumbs fall in your lap.”

  “Yes, Mother,” I said.

  “Sara, keep your lips together. I don’t want to see you digesting your food,” Rosalind scolded.

  “Yes, Mother,” said Sara, and giggled some more.

  One thing they don’t allow at the Plaza, I’ll bet, are little kittens jumping up on your lap and on the tea table. Oatmeal had to join the party, of course, and Sara and Rosalind took turns holding her, pretending she was their baby. There was a string hanging out of Sara’s sleeve, and every time she moved her hand on the table, Oatmeal jumped at the string.

  After we’d finished our cracker sandwiches, Dad said we could make brownies, except that he would put them in the oven for us and take them out again.
br />   “Let’s put all kinds of stuff in them,” said Rosalind.

  “Like what?” I said.

  “Peanut butter,” said Rosalind.

  “Raisins,” said Sara. “And M&M’s, if you have any.”

  I had a package left from Halloween, so we put raisins and M&M’s in the batter, some butterscotch chips, a little coconut, and a big glob of peanut butter. Rosalind swirled it around.

  “Ready!” I called, and Dad put the pan in the oven.

  The house soon filled with a wonderful chocolately smell. Even Lester poked his head into the kitchen. “Hey! What smells?” he said.

  “You!” I told him, and we laughed.

  “What’s cooking?” he wanted to know.

  “Chocolate-butterscotch-raisin-peanut-butter-M&M’s brownies,” said Rosalind.

  “With sardines,” said Sara, and we laughed some more.

  “I guess I’m not hungry after all,” said Lester, and went down in the basement to practice his guitar.

  While the brownies were baking, I got out my black-and-white notebook and showed Sara and Rosalind the lists of things I liked and hated.

  Rosalind asked if she could write her own list in my notebook, and I gave her my green pen.

  Things I like, by Rosalind Rodriquez

  Animals

  Marshmallows

  My grandmother

  Jesus

  Cookie dough

  Things I hate, by Rosalind Rodriquez

  People who don’t like animals

  Megan, Dawn, and Jody

  Shrimp

  Having my picture taken

  When she was done, she handed the notebook and pen to Sara.

  Things I like, by Sara Evans

  Friends

  Rocky Road ice cream

  My sisters and brothers

  Bubble gum

  Books about science

  Things I hate, by Sara Evans

  For a long time Sara couldn’t seem to think of anything to write down. Finally she wrote just one word: Teasing.

  I noticed that Sara didn’t put any people in her hate column, and yet she didn’t seem to have many friends at school. Until now, anyway.

  The timer on the oven dinged, and Dad came into the kitchen to take the brownies out of the oven. They looked really weird. There were holes where the M&M’s had sunk in, I guess, and the coconut stuck through on top like someone needing a haircut.

  “Hmm,” said Dad, looking them over. “Tell you what. Let them cool for a while, and then you girls have a taste. If you’re still alive after ten minutes, I’ll try one.”

  They weren’t bad, actually. Too sweet, but the raisins gave them a good flavor. Sara thought we ought to write down the recipe and send it to a baking contest.

  Lester ordered pizza for dinner, and Dad made a salad. We sat down at the table, and I saw Lester’s eyes go from me to Sara to Rosalind and back to me again.

  “So what have we here?” he said. “The Three Musketeers?”

  “We’re triplets,” said Rosalind. Sara giggled.

  “The Terrific Triplets,” I told him.

  “Oh no!” said Lester. “You mean I have to have three sisters instead of one? Three sisters like Alice?”

  “It could be worse,” I said. “You could have three sisters like Megan and Dawn and Jody.”

  “Or you could have a praying mantis for a sister,” said Sara. Now even Dad was staring.

  “You know what they do, don’t you?” I said.

  “Yes,” said Dad. “They’re not very nice to their husbands.”

  “We had to write reports on insects for school,” I explained. “Sara wrote hers on the praying mantis, and Rosalind chose the black widow spider.”

  “And what are you going to write about?” Lester asked me. “Roaches? Ticks?”

  I leaned across the table, right up to his face. “How about fleas, Lester?” I said, and everybody laughed.

  Rosalind and I couldn’t wait for the bubble bath, so we decided to take it early and then play cards in my room. The three of us crowded into the bathroom, took off our clothes, giggling, and wrapped ourselves in towels while the bathtub filled. Rosalind took the lid off the purple bubble bath and dumped the whole thing under the running water.

  It was like a volcano. Suds piled up higher and higher, till they were crawling along the wall toward the ceiling and oozing out over the edge of the tub. We dropped our towels and climbed in, laughing and squealing, and we couldn’t even see each other, only our faces peeking out from the suds. When we saw the bubbles creeping across the bathroom floor toward the toilet, we screamed and hooted some more.

  Dad tapped on the door and we screamed again. He opened the door a crack, but he didn’t come in.

  “Alice?” he called. “Is everything okay in there?”

  I was laughing too hard to answer.

  Dad poked his head in. All he saw were three faces among the bubbles. “Good grief,” he said. “Well, if anybody gets lost in there, let me know.” And he went back out into the living room.

  We had a great time. We slipped and slid around the bottom of the tub and bumped into each other, sort of swimming through the bubbles.

  Then I got out my shampoo and we all lathered up. We turned our hair into spikes and then horns and then cones, and finally, when we were through with all the bubbles, I turned on the shower. We rinsed our hair and washed all the bubbles down the drain.

  After we’d dried off and mopped up the floor, we put on our pajamas and, with towels around our heads, went back to my room and brushed our hair. Rosalind said she washes her hair every night. I didn’t think that was true, but I said I washed mine two times a week. Sara didn’t say anything. But Rosalind and I told her she had beautiful hair, especially when it was shiny like it was now—sort of chestnut colored with red in it. Sara just grinned and grinned when she saw herself in the mirror.

  Dad brought in some popcorn and Sara taught us a card game, Speed. We played it on my bed.

  Then we unrolled the two sleeping bags Dad had brought up from the basement and turned out all the lights except for a tiny night-light in one corner. Sara said she’d tell us a ghost story. I thought it was going to be “The Golden Arm” or something like that, but it wasn’t. It was awful!

  Sara made it up, I could tell, because it was about a girl’s mother who turns into a praying mantis. First her arms dropped off and bony sticks appeared in their place. Then her legs dropped off and sticklike legs unfolded beneath her. One day when the girl came home from school, there were two humps on her mother’s back that became wings, and the next time the girl came home, her mother’s head had changed into a long bony face with huge eyes and giant teeth and…

  Before Sara had even finished the story, Rosalind had crawled into my bed with me and then Sara crawled in too, and when morning came, we found we had slept all night all scrunched up together. It’s a wonder no one fell out of bed.

  Dad made waffles for us, and after my friends went home, I thought about Sara. Maybe if kids tease you, you just sort of get used to hanging out by yourself, and her imagination helped keep her company. Whatever, I liked having Sara for a friend, and I think Rosalind did too.

  “How was the sleepover?” Lester asked me later after Dad had driven the girls home. He was lying on the living-room rug with a pillow under his head, reading the comics. “What was all the screaming about last night? Did you poison the brownies?”

  “We were swimming in bubbles,” I said. And then, “Sara made up a story about this girl whose mother turns into a praying mantis. First her arms drop off and then her legs, and then she grows wings and these big teeth and…”

  While I was talking, I saw Oatmeal come into the room, stepping daintily, one paw in front of the other. I saw her stop to rub up against a leg of the coffee table. Then she gently stepped up on Lester’s stomach and began turning around and around, the way she does when she wants to settle down and nap.

  I finished the story, but
I didn’t say anything about Oatmeal. Before, Lester would have pushed her off without even looking at her. He didn’t push her off this time as she nestled down, but he didn’t look at her, either. He didn’t even pet her.

  Oatmeal stayed anyway. Maybe she knew that although he couldn’t love her yet, she was safe with him. Her eyes began to close and she started to purr.

  14

  K-I-S-S-I-N-G

  AT SCHOOL I BEGAN TO NOTICE THAT Sara washed her hair more often. She smiled more too. That made her look a lot better.

  When we ate together in the lunchroom and Rosalind caught either of us chewing with our mouth open, she’d say, “Keep your lips together, Sara,” or, “I don’t want to see you digesting your food, Alice,” and we’d giggle and say, “Yes, Mother.”

  Of course, the next thing coming up at school was the Valentine’s Day party. Megan and Dawn and Jody gave each other miniature boxes of Russell Stover chocolates and pretended they didn’t know who they were from.

  We all got valentines from Mrs. Burstin, and we had pink punch to drink and little paper cups filled with candies with words on them: HOT LIPS or I DIG YOU or OH, BABY!

  When Mrs. Burstin wasn’t looking, the boys tossed their candies at the girls they liked and some of the girls tossed them back. A couple of candies hit me on the side of my head, but I couldn’t tell who had thrown them. They were probably meant for someone else.

  Mrs. Burstin was glad to get rid of us at recess, I’ll bet, and sent us outside even though it was cold. We put on our jackets and caps and stood shivering on the steps.

  The kids who hadn’t thrown their valentine candies around inside the classroom were whacking each other with them now, and every time a candy landed on the sidewalk, one of the boys would stamp on it as hard as he could and smush it into the cement.

  There was a lot of giggling and whispering and punching going on among the boys, I noticed, and they kept trying to push each other toward the steps where some of us girls were trying to keep warm.

  All at once a blond boy named Cory Schwartz was pushed right over at me until he practically fell in my lap. His lips sort of puckered up, and in a split second I rolled away from him down the steps, scrambled to my feet, and started to run.