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

  “I think maybe my father is coming to see me,” Al said on our way up.

  “That’s nice,” I said. “When is he coming? I would like to meet him.”

  “I’m not exactly sure. He said he might drop in. He is at a convention in the city. Either he’ll drop in or maybe he’ll invite me to a hotel for dinner and maybe go to a play.”

  “Will your mother go too?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “My mother and father have a very friendly relationship, you know.”

  If they have a very friendly relationship, I do not see why they are divorced, but that is none of my business.

  “That’s nice,” I said. Al never talks about her mother and father and I have always wanted to know why they got divorced.

  “Excuse me,” I said, “I know it is none of my business, but I would like to know why your mother and father got a divorce.”

  Al said, “My father is a perfectionist. My mother says no woman can stand being married to a perfectionist.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  I don’t think either my mother or my father is a perfectionist.

  I am glad.

  Chapter Seventeen

  It was snowing when I woke up the next morning. My brother Teddy was over his cold and was acting like an idiot, leaping around and throwing his oatmeal in the dog’s dish so he could get outside faster.

  The dog does not like oatmeal, so he left it.

  I like everything but liver. The dog loves it. His nose quivers when my mother cooks liver. She would not like it if she knew the dog got mine. She would have a fit, in fact. At those prices.

  Anyway, my mother came in, and when she saw the oatmeal in the dog’s dish, she started hollering at Teddy about wasting food.

  He put his hand in front of his mouth and started imitating her. He always gets spoiled when he has a head cold. He is getting extremely fresh for a nine year old. I would not dare to imitate my mother in front of her. I would at least wait until she left the room. Teddy says this is sneaky. He is my mother’s favorite. Most girls I know say their brother is their mother’s favorite. It is sort of an unwritten law.

  I will admit, though, that the last time he came to the table and made a face and said, “What? Pork chops again!” she sent him to his room and he didn’t get any supper at all.

  She said she would do it and she did. My mother is very consistent. It is one of the best things and one of the worst things about her.

  It was a pretty snow, with big, wet flakes.

  “This won’t last,” my father said. He considers himself an authority on snow and whether or not it will last.

  “I hope not, sort of,” I said. “We are just about to finish our bookshelves. We have to put a coat of shellac on them and then they are set. If it’s a big snow, Mr. Richards will have to shovel walks and we will not be able to get much done.”

  “It’s a pity his job cuts into your woodworking,” my mother said. She still does not like me to go down there all the time, but when she found out me and Al were doing something useful she didn’t mind so much. She even said, “I suppose you’d like me to invite Mr Richards for tea too.”

  I got hysterical thinking about Mr. Richards coming into our apartment and sitting down and saying he’d like a shooter of tea. I laughed so hard I couldn’t breathe and she had to thump me on the back.

  “Why don’t you kids give him a hand after school?” my father said. “That old geezer shouldn’t be shoveling, especially a heavy, wet snow like this. He must be getting on for seventy.”

  “Seventy’s not so old,” I said. “Gosh, they’re plenty of kings and presidents and actors and all kinds of people who are seventy.”

  “True,” my father said, “but they’re not necessarily out shoveling snow.”

  He has a point.

  I met Al in the hall.

  “How was it?” I said. “Did you have a good time with Mr. Smith?”

  “We went to a fantastic place,” she said. “It had rugs on the floor so thick I went in up to my ankles. And I had crepes suzette for dessert—you know, those pancakes they set on fire. It was pretty cool.”

  “How did the air pollution go?” I said.

  “Well, I told them about it and what you breathed when you went out and what your lungs looked like and all. They were pretty interested but my mother changed the subject and we talked about comic strips. Mr. Smith likes “Peanuts” and a whole mess of others and we got along pretty well. He’s not such a bad egg.”

  “That’s good,” I said. “I’m glad you like him better.”

  It snowed all the way to school.

  “If this keeps up,” I said, “I think it would be good if we helped Mr. Richards shovel. So he won’t have a heart attack or something. He must be getting on for seventy.”

  “Good idea,” she said. She put out her tongue and caught some snow on it. “It tastes like chocolate,” she said.

  I put out my tongue and it didn’t taste like anything to me except snow. “Mine tastes like vanilla,” I said.

  I have learned to go along with the gag, as Al says.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “How do you like my new tie?” Mr. Keogh wanted to know.

  “Well,” I said, “it is different.” It was blue and red and yellow in a sort of squiggly pattern. It would be good for Saturdays.

  “I’ll tell you frankly, Mr. Keogh,” Al said, “it doesn’t do too much for you. If you know what I mean.”

  Mr. Keogh looked down at his tie. “Indeed I do know, Al. Indeed I do. And I’m a man who needs all the help he can get.”

  He winked at us and we had a good laugh. We are all friends.

  “Mr. Keogh,” I said, “I thought you might be interested to know that Al and I are practically finished making bookshelves. At home, I mean. Mr. Richards, who is our assistant superintendent, is teaching us on Saturday mornings. We are coming along pretty good.”

  “That’s fine. I’m glad to hear it. How are you coming along on your social-studies project? Just as good?”

  Al and I are doing a project on different countries for social studies.

  “Mr. Keogh, I have written to all the embassies and information bureaus of all the places I want to find out more about, and I have probably got more stuff in the mail than any other kid in our class,” I said.

  “How’d you manage that?” Mr. Keogh asked.

  “Well,” I said, “my father tipped me off. He told me if I wrote for information and just signed ‘Miss’ they would think I was only some little upstart kid. Whereas, if I signed my letter ‘Mrs.’ or put ‘Mrs.’ on the back of the envelope, they would think maybe I would take a trip to their country with all my children and my husband and they would make a lot of money from me. So I put ‘Mrs.’ on the back of the envelope and they sent me everything in sight.”

  “Excellent,” Mr. Keogh said. “Tell your father I think he is a very clever man. The only thing is—and he straightened his new tie—“the mailman must be a little perplexed. When he has all this mail addressed to ‘Mrs.’ and he gets a load of you, he must wonder what monkey business is going on.”

  “Oh,” I said, “we don’t see our mailman all that much. He only really comes around at Christmas time. He starts bringing this big load of mail just about a week or so before Christmas. His feet hurt something terrible but he still brings this mail right to our door instead of dropping it in the box.”

  “Hm,” Mr. Keogh said, “we must share the same mailman.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  By the time we got out of school the snow had stopped.

  My father was right.

  “I wonder if Mr. Richards will have to shovel any of this,” Al said. “I should think those lazy old tenants could do a little work themselves. Mr. Richards is much too fine a man to be at their beck and call. You know something?”

  Al stuck her hands on her hips and stopped in the middle of the sidewalk.

  “No. What?” I said.
r />   “Mr. Richards is a prince. He is the nicest man I know. Outside of Mr. Keogh.”

  “How about my father?” I asked. “I thought you liked my father a lot.”

  Al got red. “Yes,” she said, “I do. He is great. And for that matter, how about my father?” She sounded like Teddy does when he is looking for a fight, which is a lot of the time.

  “I don’t know your father,” I said. “But from his picture I would say he would be nice, very nice. I like his eyebrows.”

  Al turned and started walking again. “Don’t forget,” she said, “Just don’t forget that Mr. Keogh and your father have perfectly good wives and families.”

  I nodded. “That is true.” Mr. Keogh’s wife has a little baby boy. I have seen pictures of him and if he had a bow tie on he’d look just like Mr. Keogh.

  Al walked very fast. I had a hard time keeping up.

  “Mr. Richards has no one. He is all alone. That is very important.”

  By this time we were practically running.

  “He doesn’t seem to mind,” I said finally, when I could get my breath. “He never seems to be lonely.”

  Sometimes I think that Al does not remember that I have known Mr. Richards a lot longer than she has. I have never said this to her but I think it. She acts kind of uppity about Mr. Richards sometimes, like she discovered him or something.

  “That’s all you know.” Al narrowed her eyes so they were little slits, like Mr. Richards’s. “That’s all you know.”

  When we got out at our floor I asked Al if she wanted to come in for a snack. Practically every day we go to my house for a snack on account of Al’s mother doesn’t believe in snacks.

  “No,” she said. “Thanks, but I am cutting down on snacks. That and I want to see if there’s a letter or anything from my father. I am sort of expecting to hear from him today.”

  “Did you check the mail?” I asked.

  “I forgot,” Al said. “I will drop off my books and go back and check.”

  “O.K.” I said. “I think my mother made brownies, if you change your mind.” I could smell them. As a matter of fact, I could almost see the smell coming out from under the door. The way it does in the funny papers. Big waves of smell. It is a nice thing to come home to.

  “How was your day?” my mother asked. One thing about my mother, she is usually glad to see me. Not always, but usually.

  “Pretty good,” I said. “Can I have a brownie?”

  “One,” she said. “Did I hear you talking to Al?”

  “She went back to check the mail. She expects to hear from her father today. He is coming to see her soon.”

  “That’s nice,” she said.

  I heard the elevator stop and I went to the door.

  “Did you get a letter?” I asked.

  “No,” she said.

  “Maybe that means he is on a plane right now and will just call you up,” I said. “He’s probably just about over our heads right now,” I said, and sure enough, we could hear an airplane going over very low, getting ready to land. We live pretty near the airport and get so used to the noise we don’t even think about it.

  “Maybe,” she said.

  “How about a brownie?” I asked. “My mother just made them.”

  “No offense,” Al said, “but I am not in the mood right now. And I am on a diet.”

  She fished around for her front-door key. “I am going to wash my face and brush my teeth and fix my hair,” she said.

  “Oh,” I said, “that way you will be all ready for when your father calls.”

  “No,” she said, “I thought it might be fun if we went to see Mr. Richards.”

  “Oh, all right,” I said. We never get dolled up for him, I felt like saying. He is not the kind of person who expects people to get dolled up. I was about to say this to Al when she said, “I’ll stop by for you when I’m ready,” and went into her apartment.

  “Did Al hear from her father?” my mother asked.

  “Not today,” I said.

  Mr. Richards was not there when we arrived, so we sat down to wait. He came in about five minutes later.

  “Had to put ashes on that ice out by them garbage pails,” he said. “Well, ladies, tell me about yourselves. How was your dinner date?” he said to Al. “You give ’em the air pollution stuff?”

  “They thought it was great,” she said. “We had a nice time. I had crepes suzette. You know what they are?”

  “You bet,” Mr. Richards said. “Them little pancakes you light up. I never had ’em myself but I used to work in a classy restaurant where they had ’em. Always wanted to try ’em for myself.”

  We looked at each other.

  “Why not?” Al said.

  “Well”—he got out a frying pan—“I’ll give it a whirl, but I don’t know. I’m more of a flapjack man myself.”

  We watched while he threw some flour, eggs, milk, and sugar into a bowl and sizzled some butter in the pan. When he had a stack of about six cakes he put two on each plate.

  “How do you get it to flame up?” Al said.

  “I reckon brandy,” Mr. Richards said. “I keep a bottle of brandy for toothache. I’ll pour a mite on and set a match to ’em and we’ll see what we get.”

  He put a tiny bit of brandy on top of each cake and lit them. They flamed up pretty well.

  Mr. Richards took the first bite.

  “I’ll take mine with maple syrup any day,” he said. “What say, ladies? You agree?”

  Al said, “Delicious,” but she couldn’t help making a face and we wound up throwing the rest in the garbage.

  “Stick to flapjacks and you can’t go wrong,” Mr. Richards said. I agree.

  Chapter Twenty

  “I’m going shopping after school,” Al said. “You want to come?” We always get out early Friday afternoon, so I told her, “Sure. What are you going shopping for?”

  “I have decided to buy myself a sweater with the money I got from my father. I figure ten dollars ought to be about right.”

  “I thought your mother always bought your clothes at her employee discount,” I said. “Will she think it is all right for you to go to some place else and pay full price?”

  “It is my money,” Al said. “I have decided to take the bull by the horns and buy myself something nice to wear. Instead of buying myself junk. Food junk. You know.”

  She looked at me like she was expecting me to argue with her. I thought the whole idea was great. Beautiful. I told her so.

  “Beautiful,” I said. “I will help you pick it out. What color do you want?”

  “I think I will have pink. Pink is a good color. My mother says elderly women buy pink so the reflection will make them look young. They even have pink lamp shades in restaurants so that the ladies will look young.”

  “But you are not elderly,” I said.

  “So what?” Al shrugged. “Some days I feel awful old.”

  She tossed a pigtail over her shoulder. “Let’s go,” she said.

  “One thing I know,” I said as we went downtown, “one thing that would make you look better is if you stopped wearing those pigtails. Comb your hair out and it looks great. It kind of shines and it’s real pretty.”

  “Holy Toledo,” Al said, “you’d think I was trying out for Miss Teen Queen of America,” but she looked pleased and her cheeks got pink even though she had on a white blouse.

  We went to the sweater department of the store, which was not the one where Al’s mother worked.

  “Yes?” The lady gave us the fishy eye. They must train salesladies to give the fishy eye. She acted like we had a large paper sack under each arm and were preparing to stuff them full of sweaters and run for the nearest exit.

  “I want a pink sweater,” Al said.

  “What size?”

  Al said, “I don’t know. I have never bought a sweater for myself before.”

  The saleslady stood back and narrowed her eyes. “I would say a thirty-six,” she said and reached into a g
lass case and came out with a couple of pink sweaters.

  Al said, “I will take this one.”

  “Don’t you want to try it on?”

  “I’m going to wear it,” Al said. “That is, if I can afford it. How much is it?”

  “With tax, that comes to nine dollars and forty-five cents,” the lady said. “But you’d better slip it on and see if it fits. There’s a dressing room back here.”

  Al slipped it on and it fit fine, which was a good thing because I think she would have worn it even if it hadn’t fit.

  “It looks very nice,” I said, because it was what she wanted to hear and also because it was true. “That color is good on you.” This is what my mother always says.

  All the way home Al kept running her hand over the sleeve of the sweater.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever had a pink sweater before. It’s the first thing I’ve really bought for myself. To wear, that is. It is a good feeling to buy something for yourself to wear. You know? I will write my father and thank him for the check and tell him what I did with it. I think he would like that. Maybe I will have a picture of myself taken wearing the sweater and send it to him. Do you think that would be good?”

  “That’s a great idea,” I said. “Then he can show it to all his friends and say, ‘This is my daughter.’ He would probably like that a lot.”

  “You know something?” Al said. “I don’t think he’s ever really going to come to see me. I just decided that now. I think he thinks he will, but he’ll never make it. Sort of like Mr. Richards never getting to see his daughter and his grandchildren. He wanted to, but he never did.”

  “Oh, no,” I said. “He’ll come when he isn’t too busy. Men get awfully busy. He’ll come when he isn’t on a trip.”

  “Do you really believe that?” Al asked me.

  “He thinks about you,” I said. “He sends you money and most kids’ fathers don’t even give them a quarter without an argument.”

  “That is true,” Al said. “But I feel sorry for him. I am the only daughter he’s got and he’ll never really know me. Just like Mr. Richards will never know his daughter. And she’s the only one he’s got. That is really kind of sad, don’t you think?”