Alice in Blunderland

She paused. “Did you get it all done at school, then?” she asked.

  “No, ma’am,” I said.

  She studied me for a moment. “Are you putting it off until later?” she asked.

  “No, ma’am,” I said.

  She went back to the kitchen. I decided I wouldn’t say anything else to her except “Yes, ma’am” and “No, ma’am” for as long as she worked at our house. That would drive her crazy, but at least she couldn’t tell Dad I was rude! The house smelled good, though. It smelled like cinnamon.

  When Lester came home, I told him just to say “Yes, ma’am” and “No, ma’am.” He sat down on the couch with the sports section of the Washington Post. He put one foot on the coffee table. Mrs. Nolinstock came to the doorway.

  “Feet off the table,” she said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Lester, and put his foot on the floor.

  “Homework?” she asked.

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Lester.

  “You’ll be getting right on it, then?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Lester, and went right on reading the newspaper. I laughed and Lester even smiled a little. I figured she would quit that very day.

  But when Dad got home and Mrs. Nolinstock put on her jacket, she said, “See you Wednesday,” and left. Yes, ma’ams and no, ma’ams didn’t bother her at all.

  That evening Lester said, “Dad, did you know that all the seniors at school have their own cars?”

  “You’ve taken a poll?” said Dad.

  “Everyone has a car when he’s a senior,” Lester said. “I think we should get one for me this summer so I can start driving to school next fall.”

  “We’re three blocks from the high school, Lester. Surely your legs will carry you three blocks.”

  Lester jabbed at the chicken and dumplings Mrs. Nolinstock had made for us. “Maybe you didn’t have a car when you were a senior, but it’ll make me feel like a freak if I don’t. Some of the juniors have one already! Lisa has a car. Even Mickey has a car! How am I supposed to ask a girl out when I don’t have a car?”

  “You can always use mine, Les.”

  “But I can’t use it during the day! I can’t drive a girl home from school. I can’t take the guys to the deli.”

  “Les, until you have a real reason to own a car, you’re going to have to share mine,” said Dad. “And we certainly are not going to buy you a car until you have a part-time job and can earn the insurance money yourself.”

  “You said I couldn’t have a job until summer!”

  “That’s right. I want you to concentrate on your grades.”

  “So how can I get the money to pay for insurance? The last two years of high school are the most important, Dad! Lisa will never go out with me if I don’t have a car. None of the girls will want to go out with me. I’m a dork, a freak, a nerd, a nobody!”

  The phone rang just then, and I hoped it was Lisa telling him she liked him even without a car. Mickey, even. But it wasn’t. Lester answered, and then he came back in the kitchen.

  “Dad, it’s Aunt Sally,” he said. “And she’s crying.”

  We all stopped eating. Uncle Milt! I thought. Something must have happened to my uncle. Dad jumped up and went to the phone.

  “I hope nothing’s happened to Carol,” said Lester. He and our cousin Carol have always been great buddies.

  I swallowed what was in my mouth, but I didn’t take any more bites. I don’t like to think about people dying. Since I was born, my mom has died, Uncle Charlie’s died, and so has Lester’s dog. I felt I just couldn’t stand for it to happen to someone else.

  “Sal, I can certainly understand how upsetting this is,” we heard Dad say.

  “Maybe she’s sick,” Lester said to me in a low voice.

  It seemed a long time before Dad came back to the table.

  “What is it?” asked Lester.

  “What’s happened?” I said.

  Dad sighed and shook his head. “Carol’s eloped,” he said. “With a sailor.” He sat back down.

  Eloped? Wasn’t that when a woman climbs out of her window and runs off with her boyfriend to get married?

  “She climbed down a ladder?” I asked, still trying to figure it out.

  “No, Al. She was a student at Northwestern near Chicago, remember? Sal just found out that Carol left school and went off one weekend and got married.”

  “Oh,” I said. Then, “What’s so awful about that?”

  Dad looked at me in surprise. “Number one, she’s only nineteen, and that’s pretty young to be settling down with someone for life. Number two, Sal and Milt don’t even know this sailor. Number three, Carol’s their only child, and Sal had always imagined a big wedding with all the relatives there. I know it hurts that Carol didn’t even tell them.”

  “Hey! When a person gets married, I think she should have it any way she wants. And how do you know the sailor’s not a really nice guy?” said Lester.

  “Well, maybe if you were a parent, you’d feel differently,” said Dad.

  “So where are they now?” asked Lester.

  “On a honeymoon in Mexico. Carol just called.”

  “What does Aunt Sally want you to do? Go after them?” I asked.

  “No. She just wanted to talk. She had such high hopes for that girl. Carol’s been a free spirit since the day she was born, though.”

  “And the most interesting person in that family,” said Lester.

  “Les… ,” Dad said, and then he looked at me, too. “Al… I don’t think I could take any more shocks to my nervous system. Promise me one thing: If either of you ever considers eloping, getting a tattoo, buying a motorcycle, or going bungee jumping, just give me a little warning, huh? Break it to me gently?”

  “Sure, Dad,” said Lester.

  “I promise,” I said.

  I thought about Aunt Sally and Uncle Milt being sad. I thought about Aunt Sally wanting to plan a wedding for Carol, and now there wasn’t any wedding at all. Somehow Lester’s problem about not having a car didn’t seem so important after that.

  18

  APRIL IN MARYLAND

  MR. DOOLEY CAME BACK TO SCHOOL after spring vacation. He looked tired and happy. The skin under his eyes was sort of blue, but all he did was smile.

  We crowded around his desk to see pictures of the baby.

  “His name is Elijah David Dooley,” he told us. “He weighs seven pounds, ten ounces, and he has blue eyes and brown hair. All he does is eat and sleep and wet and poop and cry, and he’s absolutely wonderful.”

  We passed the pictures around. There was a photo of Elijah David Dooley sleeping with his thumb in his mouth. Elijah David crying with his toothless mouth wide open. Elijah in his mother’s arms. Elijah having his first bath in the sink. And there was a picture of Elijah David Dooley wrapped in a blanket and wearing the little blue knit cap that said HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BEETHOVEN on the front in white letters.

  I smiled at Mr. Dooley and he smiled back. When the last bell rang at the end of the day, Mr. Dooley said he’d made an extra copy of the picture of Elijah in his new cap, and it was for me.

  Everything seemed fresh and new when I walked home from school that afternoon. The trees had more leaves, flowers were beginning to bloom, and the air smelled warm and clean. I would be ten years old in May, and I thought maybe this would be a new start for me. Ten seemed very grown up.

  But I didn’t feel grown up that night when I went to bed. Dad came in my room as usual to read to me—I still like him to read aloud—but I was thinking about the picture of Mrs. Dooley holding her baby.

  Dad read another chapter of The Incredible Journey, then asked if I wanted to read a chapter to him. I shook my head and just lay there on my side, holding on to my pillow.

  “When I was little—when I was just born, I mean—did Mother hold me and rock me too?” I asked.

  I couldn’t see Dad’s face because he was sitting behind me on the edge of the bed, but I could hear the surprise in his voice. “Of course!?
?? he said. “She hardly ever wanted to let you go. I almost had to beg for a chance to hold you myself.”

  I kept staring at the wall. “Did she feed me from her breast?”

  “Sure. Sometimes when she needed to sleep, I gave you a bottle. But most of the time she nursed you; you got your milk from her.”

  “And did she give me a bath in the sink?”

  “In a basin, I think. Don’t you remember those pictures in your baby book, Alice?”

  He got up and went into his bedroom, then came back with my baby book in its white silk cover. BABY DEAR, it said in pink letters. I guess I remembered the pictures. Dad held the book while I turned the pages.

  There I was, asleep in my crib, my knees drawn up to my chest, my behind in the air. Another picture of Mother in a swing, holding me on her lap. Mother feeding me strained spinach. Mother giving me a bath.

  “It’s not fair,” I said finally.

  “I know it’s not fair,” said Dad quietly. “Nobody should have to lose her mother when she’s only five years old.”

  “I mean about remembering,” I said. “It’s not fair that I can’t remember her. The way she held me and all the things we did.”

  “No, it’s not,” said Dad.

  “And it’s not fair that she had to die before she could see me start first grade and lose my teeth and get a cat,” I said, and my chin wobbled.

  “Not a bit fair,” said Dad.

  I turned around and snuggled up against Dad’s leg. “What would happen to me if something happened to you?” I asked.

  “Well, I’m going to try hard not to let something bad happen to any of us,” said Dad. “But there’s Aunt Sally and Uncle Milt and Uncle Howard and Uncle Harold. One of them would take you in, don’t you worry.”

  “Lester too?”

  “Sure.”

  “We wouldn’t have to go to an orphanage?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Lester wouldn’t just… give me away for somebody else to raise, would he?”

  “Heavens no.”

  I hugged his leg even harder. “Drive carefully, Daddy,” I said.

  “I will,” he told me.

  On Saturday, Dad was at work, Lester was out looking for a summer job, and Mrs. Nolinstock was in the kitchen making a turkey casserole and another pie. A butterscotch pie this time, my favorite. She had her cooking things spread all over the kitchen table, so I sat on a high stool eating my breakfast at the counter.

  “Did you go to cooking school or what?” I asked. I had stopped saying just “Yes, ma’am” and “No, ma’am,” not because I liked her any better, but because it got boring.

  Mrs. Nolinstock didn’t answer. When she cooks, she whispers the recipe aloud to herself: “Three eggs, one and one-half cups milk… ,” she said, and opened the refrigerator.

  I guessed she was going to be as rude to me as I had been to her.

  “Or did you just learn all this stuff yourself?” I went on.

  “. . . six tablespoons flour, one and one-third cups brown sugar… ,” she continued. I didn’t want her to make a mistake on our butterscotch pie, so I didn’t ask any more questions.

  When she had everything mixed, though, and started stirring, she said, “I taught myself.”

  I watched a while longer, her wooden spoon scraping the sides of the pan. “How do you know when it’s done?”

  “The pie filling gets thick,” she said, and held up the spoon to show how the mixture was clinging to it.

  My toast popped in the toaster and I buttered it. “Do you have any kids?” I asked.

  “No, it’s just me and Mr. Nolinstock and our work,” she answered.

  “No pets?”

  “No time,” she said.

  “What kind of work does Mr. Nolinstock do?”

  “He’s a bookkeeper,” she told me. Then she took the pan off the stove and held it out so I could see the thick golden pudding inside. “Now we cool it before we pour it in the pie shell,” she said, and began washing the spoons and bowls and measuring cups.

  “What do you do for fun?” I asked, studying the way her hair stuck straight out in back, caught by the rubber band.

  She paused a moment and looked over at me as though she hadn’t understood the question. “This is fun,” she answered. “My work is fun.”

  I didn’t think she had understood at all. “I mean, if you could be doing anything you wanted right now, what would it be?” I asked.

  “Exactly what I’m doing right now,” said Mrs. Nolinstock. “Making a meal that someone will enjoy.”

  Imagine that! Mrs. Nolinstock was having fun! I didn’t know you could work and have fun both at the same time. She’s sort of like my dad, I guess. He likes being manager of a music store so much that we moved all the way here from Chicago just for that.

  Rosalind and Sara came over that afternoon. Rosalind had a new camera and wanted to take a whole roll of silly pictures. We made all the stupid faces we could think of. Sara and I pushed our noses up with one finger and pulled down the skin under our eyes with the others.

  Click went the camera.

  Rosalind and Sara hung coat hangers over their ears while I held the camera.

  Click.

  We stuck pieces of black licorice on some of our teeth so it looked like teeth were missing, and we took turns with the camera.

  Click, click, click.

  Then Sara put two large buttons over her eyes and scrunched up her face a little to hold them there while I took a picture.

  Rosalind wedged a comb between her lips so that it stretched her mouth wide, and Sara took a picture of that.

  Then I got two green vitamin pills and put them in my nostrils to look like I had a nose full of snot. Sara and Rosalind howled.

  “That’s disgusting.” Rosalind laughed and started to take my picture, but one of the pills fell out. I put it back in and Rosalind lifted the camera again, but the pill fell out just like before. The next time I pushed it up farther still and tilted my head a little so the picture would show green stuff hanging out of my nostrils, and Sara covered her eyes because it looked so gross.

  After the picture was taken, I got one of the vitamin pills out but not the other. When I tried to pry it out with my finger, I think I pushed it even farther back. It gave me a strange feeling in the back of my throat.

  I looked at Rosalind and Sara in horror. Did this mean I was going to go the rest of my life with a vitamin pill stuck in my nostril? Would I graduate from high school with the pill still in my nose? When I was a bride, would I walk down the aisle with green stuff coming out of my nostrils?

  “Whadab I gowig to do?” I gasped.

  “Blow,” said Rosalind.

  I got a Kleenex and blew as hard as I could. Nothing happened. I could only breathe through one nostril.

  “Don’t try to get it out with your finger; you’ll only push it farther in,” said Sara. “My brother stuck a peanut up his nose once, and we had to take him to the emergency room.”

  I gave a little cry. The thought of having to tell Mrs. Nolinstock that I had something up my nose was almost worse than going to the hospital.

  “Do you have any tweezers?” asked Rosalind. “Maybe we could operate.”

  “I dod wad you to operate!” I cried.

  “But maybe I could reach it with tweezers,” said Rosalind.

  Now my nose began to run. Stuff started to come out. Green stuff!

  “Euuuw!” said Rosalind. “Get the tweezers!”

  I didn’t know where we kept them. Lester had a pair, maybe. I went down in the basement to look through Lester’s stuff, the girls behind me, and we opened the top drawer of his dresser.

  Lester has a very messy drawer. Shoelaces, guitar picks, comb, socks, baseball cap, Band-Aids, Jockey shorts, a CD…

  “What are you doing?”

  I think I jumped three inches off the floor as Lester came downstairs. “Get out of there!” he yelled at me. “Who said you could go through my d
resser? Al, I want you to keep your nose out of my business and your hands out of my stuff!”

  At the word nose, Rosalind pointed to mine. One side looked a little bit swollen, and the green stuff had dripped down to my upper lip. Lester stared at me.

  “What’s wrong with your nose?” he asked.

  “She’s got a vitamin pill in it,” said Sara.

  “How did that happen?” Les asked. “You swallow them, Al. You don’t inhale them.”

  “We were looking for tweezers,” I said, tears in my eyes.

  “Well, you shouldn’t be using tweezers, either,” Lester said. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s dangerous to fool around with your nostrils? You get an infection in your nose, it goes straight to the brain.” He sounded as though he cared!

  I started to cry, right there in front of Rosalind and Sara, and then my nose really dripped.

  Lester reached into the bottom drawer of his dresser and took out a flashlight. “Tip your head back,” he said. I did. He shined the flashlight up my nose. “There’s a vitamin pill up there, all right,” he said.

  What did he expect? A frog?

  “Wait here,” said Lester.

  “Dod tell Bissus Dolidstock!” I begged, my nose even more clogged.

  I sat down on the edge of Lester’s bed. Rosalind and Sara just stood looking at me sorrowfully. I would be The Girl with the Green Snot who nobody ever wanted to play with. I would be The Girl with the Lump in Her Nose, and in high school I would be chosen The Grossest Girl Graduate and have to carry Kleenex with me wherever I went.

  Lester came back from the kitchen with the pepper shaker. He sprinkled some in his hand and held it up to my nose. “Breathe in,” he said.

  I did the best I could with only one nostril open.

  Ker-choo! I sneezed.

  Nothing happened.

  “Again,” said Lester.

  I stuck my nose in the pepper again, and Lester put one hand over my mouth.

  Ker-CHOO! I went. The vitamin pill shot out of my nostril and hit the side of his wastebasket.

  “Thank you, Lester!” I cried. “How did you know that would work?”

  “Let’s just say I have experience,” he said. I was so relieved I wanted to hug him, but wasn’t sure he’d let me. So I said, “I’ll do something for you sometime.”