A Girl Called Al: The Al Series, Book One (5 page)

“I have to write my autobiography for English,” Al said. “I have to make it interesting and informative. I also need a picture of myself when I was little. Boy, was I ever a funny-looking kid.” She started to laugh.

“So was I,” I said. “My mother said she felt better when she saw her babies were funny-looking. She said the funnier-looking they are when they're born, the better they turn out in the long run.”

“No kidding?” Al went and looked at herself in the mirror. “Is that right? If it is, I should be a winner.”

We got down to our homework but it was sort of hard because Al was in a real chatty mood.

“Imagine if we were sisters,” she said. “And we lived in the same house and slept in the same room and did our homework together every night. I wonder if we'd fight. Do you think we would?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Have you ever wanted a sister?” Al asked.

“I'd trade Teddy in on a sister, if that's what you mean,” I said.

“He's better'n nothing,” Al said. Then she started doing her math. When she does her math she breathes hard, thumps around, and stares at the ceiling and sighs. Finally I said, “Would you please shut up? I can't think.”

It was time for me to go. “I've got to be back by eight-thirty or my mother will never let me come again on a school night.”

“I'll walk you down the hall,” she said.

“You don't have to do that,” I said.

“I know I don't,” she said. She turned on the television.

“What'd you do that for?” I said as we went out the door.

“It's nice to come back and hear voices,” she said. “It's sort of like coming in to a party or a whole bunch of people. You know?”

“Sure,” I said. “Thanks for the pizza.”

Chapter Twelve

Al has always been a little on the fat side, but lately I've noticed she is starting to bulge. I don't mean she is starting to get a figure. I mean she bulges at her waist and she has a couple of chins. She's even got creases in her neck, like a baby, but on a baby it looks O.K.

“What's up?” I finally asked her. “You pack away candy bars and junk like there was no tomorrow. Where do you get all the dough? You inherit a million dollars or something?”

“I have more money than I know what to do with,” Al said, pulling back the wrapper from her latest purchase. “My mother gives me an allowance, right? Which I either put in the bank, where it stagnates, or else I blow it. On myself. My father sends me checks. He sent me ten dollars last week. For nothing. Not a birthday, not anything. So you see.”

Al pushed her glasses back up on her nose. They slide down lots of times.

“Want me to treat you?”

I was tempted, to be sure. My mother and father would give you the shirt off their back, but they would just as soon not give you any extra money, on account of they do not have any. That and they think their kids ought to work for what they get. My father says this is an old-fashioned idea but he is an old-fashioned man.

I am almost always broke. I am used to it by now.

“No, thanks,” I said. “My mother got the dentist bill last week and she is really cracking down. She says she is going to make Teddy and me pay our own bills if we don't stop eating candy and chewing gum.”

“If I know your mother,” Al said, “when she says it, she will do it. She is a tough cookie, your mother. No offense. I mean it in a nice way. I like your mother. She is a good egg.”

We walked down the hall to our lockers.

“My mother took me to the doctor so he could put me on a diet,” Al said. “She says I am getting so gross she can hardly stand it. She gets very upset when people get fat. She says there is absolutely no excuse for it. Being in Better Dresses, as she is, she sees quite a lot of fat women who would give their eyeteeth to get into a size ten. She says if you are fat you might as well forget about looking good in clothes. She thinks a lot about clothes,” Al said, “being in the business and all.”

As we went down the front steps Martha Moseley was standing there at the bottom, with a bunch of kids all around. Martha is a pain. Her sister is a cheerleader at the high school and Martha is always jumping around and showing off, twirling a baton and practicing cheerleading.

“Tub a butter, tub a lard, hit 'em again and hit 'em hard,” Martha yelled. I didn't notice the first time because, as I say, she is always hollering about something. But when I saw the kids snickering behind their hands, I listened.

“Tub a butter, tub a lard, hit 'em again and hit 'em hard,” Martha yelled once more. I looked at Al. Her face was practically the color of a beet, which is one vegetable I really hate.

“I think I will sock her in the nose,” I
said. “She is really a brat. Ever since the first grade she has been a brat and people get more so as they get older, my mother says.”

Al said, “I have gained five pounds in the last two weeks.”

“I thought you said the doctor put you on a diet,” I said.

“He did. He put me on a rigid diet.”

I waited.

“I am supposed to eat yoghurt and cottage cheese and lean meat and vegetables without butter. And grapefruit. I eat grapefruit until it comes out my ears. Then I'm so hungry I sneak a couple of peanut-butter sandwiches and a banana or two.”

Al stopped walking suddenly.

“Tell me something. Do you think how a person looks is the most important thing about the person? How about what they're like inside. For instance, take Mr. Richards. He is a lovely man, the best. He looks a little old and beat-up and maybe not like an actor or anything, but inside he is a good man. If he was good-looking on the outside and mean and stingy on the inside, that would be terrible. Right?”

“Yes,” I said. “That is true. But people do sort of judge you by how you look, at least until they really get to know you, and it is sort of nice to look good. You know, to feel you look as good as you can. Like the way you look when your hair isn't braided and you have that blue sweater on.”

“Hah!” Al said. “That blue sweater wouldn't button around me in a million years. As a matter of fact, I can hardly fit into any of my clothes.
She
is having a fit, as you can well imagine. She says she will not buy me anything new until I lose some weight.

“And you know something? I don't care! I don't care a darn!” Al shouted. “If she has to buy me Chubbies, then she has to buy me Chubbies!”

“What are Chubbies?” I asked.

“They are dresses that people who are fat have to wear. They are quite disgusting-looking, and frankly, I think my mother, being in Better Dresses, would be humiliated if she had to buy me a Chubby.”

She smiled at me with her mouth.

I did not know what to say.

Chapter Thirteen

“You two young ladies are getting very grown up,” Mr. Richards said. “I swear, in a couple of months I won't know you. You'll grow up tall and good-looking and you'll have so many young fellas at your doorstep you won't know what to do with 'em all.”

Al and I looked at each other. We have both decided that we will probably never get married and will share an apartment and have a cat or two and a dog or two and never do any wash except when we want to. We will only change the sheets when we want and we will also only eat and sleep when we want.

My father says the best of all possible worlds does not exist, but I think this would be close to it.

“We're never going to get married,” Al said. Mr. Richards listened like he always does, and he skated around the floor a few times while she finished telling him about our plan.

“Well, now,” he said, “I don't think that's such a hot idea. Like I say, when these young fellas start courting you two, you'll learn to pick and choose. You lose a little of that baby fat,” he said, looking at Al, “and you'll be a real looker. Yes, sir, a stunner.”

“And you”—he turned to me—“when you grow into your bones and learn not to stoop over but to stand up proud and tall, you might even be a model.”

Secretly, I have planned all along on being a model. I have never told this to anyone except once to Al when I was sleeping over at her house. I looked at her to see if she looked guilty, if she had told him. Instead, she looked like she was about to explode.

“Baby fat!” she hollered. “I'm so gross my mother has to buy me Chubbies. Why, I bet I weigh more than you do.”

Mr. Richards said, “I wouldn't put it past you,” and all of a sudden we were all laughing. We laughed so long and so hard that my stomach ached, and tears were rolling down Mr. Richards's face, and Al said, over and over, “Oh, oh, oh.”

“A good laugh is good for the soul,” Mr. Richards said when we finally calmed down. “Now how about some carrot sticks?”

He has taken to keeping carrot sticks in ice water in his refrigerator, I have noticed. Another thing, Mr. Richards is a very tactful man. That is, he would not say, “I am giving you carrot sticks instead of bread and butter and sugar because they are not fattening.” He does not say anything that would embarrass anyone, ever. We helped ourselves and then he said, “What I was saying when I was interrupted was that you two young ladies, when you set your minds to it, are going to be beauties. You got all the makings if only you'll just put 'em all together at the right time. Yes, sir, I want to be around when the lines start to form outside your doors. Yes sirree.”

This is a new idea and Al and I will have to think it over. It is not unpleasant. But I'll tell you one thing. If it turns out the way he says, I will never giggle and twitch my rear when I walk down the street, like some people I know.

“Mr. Richards, I've been thinking,” Al said, helping herself to another carrot stick. “I've been thinking about your daughter and how she has children of her own. So they're your grandchildren. Right?”

“Right as rain.”

“What do they look like? How many boys and how many girls?”

“I don't rightly know,” he said. “I never have seen 'em. I wrote a letter or two and said I'd be pleased to see 'em, but I never got an answer. They live a long way away and I guess maybe they don't know about me. I been gone a long time and maybe their mother doesn't think I should come around. I wasn't all that much of a father to her.”

Mr. Richards sat down. “Like I said, my wife wasn't much older'n you two and pretty as a picture. She wrote me that she got married again some time after she left. A big handsome fella. Made good money, I understand. I sent some money to my daughter three, four times, and after a couple times, she sent it back. Said she didn't need it, they was getting along fine. It cut me up some at the time, I remember.”

Al said fiercely, “That wasn't very nice.”

“It was her way. She was proud. So was I, although about what I don't know. Folks do things they're not happy to recollect, that's for sure.”

He stood up and said, “Here's a trick I bet you can't do.” He put a book on his head and walked around the room and the book didn't tip even a little bit.

“Can you skate around the kitchen with that on your head?” I asked and Mr. Richards said, “I believe that is beyond me.” He tried anyhow and we had another fit of hysterics on account of he bounced the book off his big toe and hobbled around pretending that he had broken it.

“I have never laughed so hard in my whole entire life,” Al said after we'd said good-by and were on our way up in the elevator. “I wish Mr. Richards was our age so that he could be our friend all through our lives.”

“It wouldn't be the same,” I said. “It is much better that he is old. I can't feature him being a grandfather and all and never seeing his grandchildren, though. Or his daughter. It seems very strange. I mean, most fathers really think their daughters are special. They say fathers are partial to daughters. I don't know why that is. Doesn't it seem strange to you?”

“You are a conformist,” Al said in a cold tone. “You think everyone should follow all the rules. They don't, I can tell you. How about if I ever get married. Just suppose I do. Then if I had babies my father would be their grandfather and he wouldn't come to see them.”

“How do you know?” I said.

“Well,” she said, “if he doesn't come to see me, he's certainly not going to come to see them, is he? That's logical.”

She stomped off at our floor and didn't even say “See you” like she usually does.

It wasn't until I got into bed that night and thought about it that I knew I'd hurt Al's feelings. What a dumb thing to say to her, that fathers think daughters are so great. That was terrible. Her father only sends her postcards and money. He doesn't even come to see her. I could kill myself for being so dumb. I will apologize first chance I get, but I doubt if that will make her feel any better.

Chapter Fourteen

My brother Teddy has a bad cold. He looks terrible. His eyes are all red and runny, just like his nose, and he makes the most disgusting noises.

“Play Monopoly with me?” he sort of whined.

“No,” I said. “I have to do my social-studies project.” I was going to do it with Al, but now I don't know. My mother had baked gingerbread just before I got home from school. It has a very good smell, better than lots of perfumes. Too bad they can't bottle the smell of gingerbread cooking. They would make a fortune.

“Boy, that's a delicious smell,” I said. “Smell that gingerbread?”

The end of Teddy's nose quivered. “You know I can't smell it,” he said. “I'm all stuffed up.”

“Too bad,” I said. “It's the best smell.”

“How come Al hasn't been around lately?” Teddy whined. “She usually practically sleeps here.”

“She's my best friend,” I said.