A Girl Called Al: The Al Series, Book One Read online

  “Well,” said Mr. Richards, “then we will do it.”

  Another thing about him. He doesn’t say he’s going to do something and then forget it. Like lots of people do. Mostly grownups.

  He never says, “Some other time.” He never says that. He does what he says he’s going to do.

  He is really very refreshing.

  Chapter Five

  “I think Mr. Richards must have been quite handsome when he was a young man,” Al said when I told her he was going to help us make a bookshelf starting next Saturday morning. “If it doesn’t snow, that is. If it snows, Mr. Richards will have to clean the walks.”

  Mr. Richards is practically my best friend, outside of Al, but I do not think he was ever what you would call handsome.

  “He has great character in his face,” Al said. “And his ears are lovely and close to his head.”

  I had never noticed his ears but I made a mental note to check them the next time I saw him.

  Al is saving up for contact lenses.

  “My mother wears contact lenses,” she said. “She’s in Better Dresses, you know, and they like the people in Better Dresses to be chic. And it makes a world of difference when she has to wear a hat or go to a formal affair. In an evening gown.”

  I can’t see Al in either a hat or an evening gown. But that is beside the point.

  “Next time you come over, you can watch her,” Al said.

  “Watch her what?” I asked. I have only seen Al’s mother a couple of times, outside of the first day they moved in. I do not think she knows my name.

  “Watch her slip the lenses in and out,” she said. “It’s very interesting. That is, if it doesn’t make you nervous.”

  Al stopped and tightened one pigtail. She likes them neat and even. Those pigtails are her badge of nonconformity, she says. She may be right.

  “Why would it make me nervous?” I asked.

  “There’s only one thing,” she said. “Can’t you guess? Take a good guess. What would be the most logical thing that could go wrong?”

  She sat with her hands on her knees and I knew she was trying to see inside my head to see how my brain works. She made a noise like zzt zzt, which meant she was X-raying my head.

  “Figure it out by logic,” she said.

  Al says I have a block about logic, that I reject it. That means I am no good at it. My father says that women are not logical by nature.

  Al watched me without blinking, like a little baby. Little babies or real little kids can look at you for a long time without blinking. One time in church there was a little kid sitting in front of me and I tried to stare him down about a hundred times. He won every time.

  “I have a cramp in my foot,” I said. I got up and jumped around. When I finished she was still watching me.

  “I don’t know,” is what I came up with.

  Al snorted.

  “Just think,” she said, “what would happen if she whipped them in and all of a sudden something went wrong and they kept on going. I mean, where would they end up?”

  “On the floor?” I knew this was not the right answer.

  Al sighed and closed her eyes. She had lost her patience. She loses her patience often but she is quiet about it. When my mother loses her patience, she tells everybody.

  Al sucked in her cheeks. She practices sucking in her cheeks for ten minutes every day. It makes her look very old. It really does the trick. She looks about forty or forty-two.

  “I’ll tell you where they end up. I’ll just tell you!” She started waving her arms around. Then she stopped and said she had to go to the bathroom. I have noticed that she frequently has to go to the bathroom when she is in the middle of a story. I guess the excitement is too much for her.

  “Where was I?” she said when she came back.

  “Where do the contacts end up when something goes wrong,” I said.

  “Oh, yes. Well, I’m going to tell you.”

  One thing about Al is you cannot rush her when she is telling a story.

  Softly she said, “First, they slide down inside your cheek and wiggle around in your throat. Then,” she said, “then …”

  She is like Mr. Keogh when he tugs at his ear because he doesn’t know what he’s going to say next. Only she squints up at the ceiling, like maybe there is something written there. Finally she looked at me and smiled.

  “Then they slip down inside your stomach and into the large intestine.”

  I have never been sure of the difference between the large intestine and the small intestine. They are different in size is all I know.

  She looked at the ceiling and then at me. “Then you know where they go?”

  I racked my brains to remember the diagram of the stomach we have on the wall in biology class. It is a mess. I do not like that kind of thing. I would make a lousy nurse.

  “I’ll tell you,” Al shouted, hopping around on one foot. “They slide right down your legs and into your feet and there is one contact in your left foot and one in your right. All of a sudden you’re walking around on glass. That’s all!”

  Al was exhausted. She sank back into her chair.

  “Don’t you think you’d better warn your mother?” I asked her.

  Chapter Six

  “Can I have my friend Al for supper?” I asked my mother, on account of she was whistling, which she only does when she is in a good mood, and also we were having spaghetti and meat balls, which I know is absolutely Al’s favorite food.

  “Tonight?” she said. “A school night?”

  I explained that Al was going to be alone. Her mother had a dinner engagement. My mother started to say something and then she dropped a meat ball on the floor. She bent over and picked it up and rinsed it off.

  “Waste not, want not,” she said and threw it back in the pot. “Remember that, with the price of food what it is today. Your father works too hard to get the money to pay the bills.”

  All this is true, if beside the point. All I asked was could I have my friend Al for supper.

  “Mom,” I said, “you are a good woman.”

  This usually gets to her.

  “Get me the sugar, like a good girl, will you?” she said. Then she added a little of it, tasted the sauce, and added, “Yes, I guess Al can come for supper tonight. Put another place on the table.”

  I ran down the hall to tell Al she could come. I had already told her I thought it would be all right and she’d said, “My mother left me a turkey potpie in the freezer and a whole quart of ice cream. Butter pecan. Maybe you can come and eat with me.”

  The door opened before I even had a chance to ring.

  “Come on over,” I said, out of breath. “We’re eating the minute my father gets home because it’s his bowling night. We’re having spaghetti. And garlic bread.”

  “Wait,” she said. “I’ve got to comb my hair. It’s a mess.”

  “You look fine,” I said.

  Al changed her skirt and put on a blue sweater that I had not seen before.

  “Is that a present from your father?” I said.

  “Are you kidding? My father never gives me clothes. It’s from my mother. She picked it up on sale at the store. My mother buys all my clothes on sale. She gets the employee discount.” Al braided her hair while she held her rubber bands between her teeth.

  “Come on, we’ll be late.”

  “And who is this young lady?” my father said when we came to our apartment. He has only met Al about fifty times, but every time he gets up and shakes her hand and says the same thing.

  She thinks he’s a riot.

  “All right,” my mother said and my brother Teddy practically knocked us over to get to the table first. He is nine. He is very good in science. He plans to go to M.I.T. and be a bachelor when he grows up. My father says that is all right with him, but Teddy better plan on getting a scholarship.

  “Lord, bless this food and give us humble hearts,” my father said and, just in time, I saw Al’s hand come away
from her fork and fold itself with the other one in front of her.

  “Pass the garlic bread,” Teddy said and my father gave him a dirty look.

  “Ladies first,” he said and passed it to my mother, who took a piece and passed it to Al.

  “Everything was delicious,” Al said to my mother when we were clearing the table. “Absolutely delicious.”

  “It’s a pleasure having you here, Al,” my mother said. I have trained her not to say Alexandra. “A real pleasure. Come again soon.”

  I walked Al back to her apartment but my mother had said to get back fast and buckle down to my homework.

  “You want me to come in for a sec while you turn the lights on?” I asked when we got to the door. Once in a while when I get home before anybody else I don’t like to walk into the dark rooms with no one in them.

  “Oh, that’s all right,” she said, fumbling for her key. She wears it on a chain around her neck, which causes her front to be sort of lumpy. “I always leave all the lights on when I go out.”

  “What time does your mother get home from her dinner engagement?” I asked.

  “Usually late,” she said, putting the key in the lock. “It’s neat. I can do whatever I want. Sometimes I watch TV until real late and slip into bed when I hear her coming.”

  Her door opened and, sure enough, the hall light was on, and the one in the living room.

  “It was great,” she said. “It was very delicious. Tell your mother for me.”

  I said, “Sure. See you.”

  “You know something?” she said. “I can remember when I was a little tiny kid and my father used to say grace. I can remember it clear as anything. It used to make me feel like I was a pilgrim or something. You know?”

  I said, “Sure,” and then she clicked the lock and I went home.

  Chapter Seven

  “Mom,” I said, “don’t you think it’s about time you had Al’s mother over? You know, for a drink or a cup of tea?”

  My mother said, “I suppose so.”

  “Well,” I said, “you’re always telling me to be friendly and nice to new kids who come to school. Some day I may be a new kid myself and in bad need of a friend. Isn’t that what you say?”

  “Yes,” she said, “you’re right. It’s just that with her work and my family there isn’t much opportunity.”

  “You’re making excuses,” I said. It was what she always says to me when I try to get out of something, like a D in a French test.

  “Yes,” she said, “I’m making excuses.”

  “How come you don’t like Al’s mother? She is really very nice.”

  “How can I like or not like her when I don’t know her?”

  “That’s just it,” I said. “You are judging on first impressions and appearances.”

  “You certainly have total recall when it suits you,” my mother said, shaking her head. “I hear my words coming back at me as if there were a tape recorder in the house.”

  “Mom, I think it would be nice. I know Al would like it if you would ask her mother over. It would be a nice gesture.”

  My mother went to the chest in the dining ell where she keeps her linen napkins and tablecloths and her box of good stationery.

  “For Pete’s sakes,” I said, “just give her a call. You don’t have to bother to write a note. She only lives in 14-C.”

  “If you don’t mind, I’ll do it my way.” My mother has had this box of stationery as long as I can remember. She uses it to answer engraved wedding invitations and things like that. The paper has a thin line of blue around the edges and her initials all curlicued at the top in the same blue. My father calls it her putting-on-the-dog stationery.

  Finally she licked the envelope and said, “Would you mind just putting this in their box? I don’t think a stamp is necessary.”

  “When did you ask her for?” I said.

  “Next Sunday. I asked her and Al to come for tea.”

  “Do you think you could get rid of Teddy for the afternoon?”

  “Outside of tying him to his bed, I don’t see how,” she said.

  “And Daddy. Is he going to be here?” I’m not sure Al’s mother would appreciate my father. I think he’s funny and Al thinks he’s a riot, but you never know.

  “Now just stop it,” my mother said. “We can’t exterminate all male members of the family just to keep Al’s mother happy. Don’t make me sorry that I asked her.”

  She was right. I ran out and put the invitation in their box fast.

  “My mother is inviting your mother to our house,” I said to Al the next day.

  “What for?”

  “For tea, dope. On Sunday. You’re invited too.”

  “I don’t know,” Al said. “I hope she doesn’t have a previous engagement.”

  Al’s mother sent back a note on stationery that was even more putting-on-the-dog than my mother’s. It was cream-colored and about a half inch thick and had her initials in black.

  “One-upmanship,” my father said.

  She would be delighted to come on Sunday at four. She and Alexandra would be delighted. It was so kind of my mother to ask them.

  My mother started polishing silver and ironing napkins. “I wonder if I’ll have time to take the curtains down and wash them,” she said.

  “This thing is geting out of hand,” my father said when she started waxing the floors and made him sit all scrunched up in one corner of the room.

  “Don’t you think you should get a haircut?” my mother said, squinting at him.

  “That does it.” He put on his old Army jacket my mother has been trying to get rid of for years. “When the coast is clear, put a candle in the window,” he said.

  “Oh, dear,” my mother said. “I wish I’d never got into this.”

  Chapter Eight

  “My mother says maybe you can sleep over Friday night,” Al said on our way to school. She had on her navy-blue coat that her mother bought on sale. It was a very good buy, Al said. It is only a little too big. She is still growing.

  “Is it for supper?” I asked.

  “I’ll check.”

  We got to school before anyone else. Even Mr. Keogh. He is usually sitting at his desk, marking papers or something, by the time we get there.

  Al went behind the desk. “All right, class,” she said, tugging at her ear. She really did sound like Mr. Keogh. “Let’s just cut out the horsing around and get down to business. We have a lot to cover today. Yes, Herman? No, you may not go to the boy’s room. It is much too early to go to the boy’s room.”

  I was in stitches. Herman is always waving his hand to go to the boy’s room. I know it isn’t nice to make fun of people, but sometimes I can’t help it. I think it is all right if the people you make fun of don’t find out.

  “And Isabel, stop making goo-goo eyes at Thomas. We do not allow our students to make goo-goo eyes at each other. It is strictly out of order. Out of order, indeed.”

  I was laughing so hard I was practically on the floor.

  “Very good, Alexandra, very good indeed. If you were as good a student as you are a thespian, you would get straight A’s.”

  Mr. Keogh was standing at the door. He looks very young with his hat on. It is only when he takes it off that he looks old.

  It was very embarrassing to be caught in the middle of something like that. I was sorry that we had got to school early. I will not do it again.

  Al was very quiet the rest of the day. Even at lunch time, when we met in our usual place, she wasn’t hungry.

  “He called me ‘Alexandra,’” she said, breaking up little pieces of her sandwich and making balls out of them. “I must have hurt his feelings and now he doesn’t like me. He’s mad.” She was talking about Mr. Keogh.

  “He’ll get over it,” I said. I wondered if Al would remember about asking me to sleep over on Friday. I wanted to go and I did not want to go. Al’s mother makes me nervous. She is always friendly, but she makes me nervous anyway. The last time I w
as there she had on pajamas with feathers on them. They were hostess pajamas, Al said. My mother doesn’t wear hostess pajamas. With or without feathers.

  Everything turned out all right. Al came to our apartment just before supper. She rang her special ring—two, then one, then two.

  “You can come for supper Friday,” she said, smiling. She does not smile often and I keep telling her she should because she has nice teeth. They are very white and even. Mine are a little on the yellow side.

  “Should I bring my sleeping bag?” I asked. Practically all the times I go to friends’ houses I bring my sleeping bag, on account of most of the kids I know don’t have extra beds.

  “We have a cot,” she said, “that we use when we have guests.”

  In all the time I had known Al, I had never slept over. This was what my mother called An Occasion.

  I brought my new nightgown and even a bathrobe and slippers, which is silly, but my mother insisted. I knew I wouldn’t use the bathrobe and slippers, but my mother was firm, very firm.

  Al’s mother was taking a tub when I arrived. I could smell the oil and bath salts and gunk she puts in her tub. It must clog up the drains something awful.

  Al’s mother had a dinner engagement. She came out wearing a black dress and said, “How are you, dear?” I have a theory that when mothers call you ‘dear’ it is because they can’t remember your name. “I’m so glad Alexandra has such a nice little friend to keep her company.”

  She started to kiss Al good night but Al stuck out her hand and said, “Shake, Mom. See you.” Then Al’s mother left.

  We had a blast. We stayed up until midnight watching television. Then we had a snack, cocoa and potato chips. Finally, when we turned the lights out, Al said, “Mr. Keogh called me ‘Al’ again this morning.” Her voice sounded happy. “And I got a post card from my father. It was from Miami, Florida, and it said ‘Swimming every day. Hope to see you soon.’”

  “Good,” I said. I was very sleepy. “That’s great. Go to sleep.”

  Chapter Nine

  First thing when we woke up, we checked to see if it had snowed during the night. Fortunately, it hadn’t, so we decided to go down to Mr. Richards’s place early. Not too early, on account of it was Saturday and he likes his shut-eye. That’s what he calls it, not me.