Amalee (13 page)

You don't have to paint an enchanted garden on your wall to change the look of your bedroom. A few creative touches can transform your space into a place that's totally great … and totally you. Here are some ideas for how to remake your room, one detail at a time.

To Start

Clean up! Seriously. Make your bed, straighten your shelves, organize that mess on your desk, pick up — and put away — those piles of clothes on the floor. There's no need to become a neat freak, but too much clutter will overwhelm the eye and distract from your room's new look.

On the Walls

Cut a large piece of poster board into a big fun shape, like a star or a salamander or a daisy or an interesting blob. Glue on strips of colorful wrapping paper, pictures cut out of catalogs or magazines, cool quotes typed out or written in calligraphy, photos of your pets
or friends. Outline or accent your collage with glitter. Let it dry. Hang it up!

 

Parents won't let you paint your walls? Maybe they wouldn't mind if you painted your windows … with washable paint, of course. Paint a whole scene, like Carolyn's garden mural, or decorate with stylish designs or blocks of color. Use just a thin layer of paint so the sun can still shine through, like stained glass.

On the Ceiling

Create a cool mobile using two chopsticks (tie or glue them into an X to make the mobile's frame), some colorful string (use it to hang your mobile from the ceiling and to dangle the objects at different lengths), and an assortment of funky, lightweight odds-and-ends (a small plastic monkey from a gumball machine, a paper umbrella from a Chinese restaurant, a dried flower saved from a bouquet, a dangly earring that's missing its match, puzzle pieces, twisty straws, Barbie doll clothes, a match-box car).

A memory book is a great place to store all your photographs and mementos for years to come. You can make your own memory book by stapling or tying together several sheets of blank paper between a cover made from decorated poster board or cardboard. Or, you can glue your memories into a ready-made scrapbook purchased at a bookstore, stationery store, or craft store. Here are a few tips for creating a memory book that you will want to flip through time and time again.

• When you develop a roll of photos, write the important information — year, names, place, occasion — on the back of each photograph right away. Then, when you get around to putting the photos in your memory book, you won't have any trouble remembering all those details.
  
• Use your scissors! Many photos can be improved with a little bit of trimming. Cut off boring edges, save the good corners from otherwise blurry shots, “zoom in” on important people or pieces of images, cut away backgrounds that appear again and again. Don't be afraid to collage together pieces of photos
  on your memory book pages for a fun, funky effect.
  
• Save ticket stubs, playbills, notes from friends, candy wrappers, postcards, pressed flowers, horoscopes, and other flat mementos to paste into your book along with your photos.
  
• Use scraps of colored paper, glitter, gel pens, and stickers to create a different background for each page.
  
• Write in catchphrases or jokes that you and your friends have, sayings from your parents or grandparents, pieces of conversations that you want to remember, song lyrics, or quotes that remind you of the people, events, and places in your memory book.
  

Here's a sneak peek at Dar Williams's next book,
Lights, Camera, Amalee,
in which Amalee and her friends return … to make a movie! But first she meets a relative she didn't even know she had….

 

When Sarah and I headed home to my house that afternoon, we walked in to see not only my dad but also two of his friends waiting for me, looking very serious. Like Mr. Chapelle's assignment, their silence had a language of its own.

My dad had been extremely sick the year before. We thought, when it was all over, that it was something called viral meningitis that had turned into something else, but we never knew for sure. Had whatever it was come back?

Dad was looking out the window with a tired expression, as if he were trying to figure out how much the whole world weighed. His brown hair was always a bit wild, but now it made him look like he'd been pummeled around in a windstorm.

His best friend Phyllis's long legs were stretched out, with her feet on another chair. She had her head in her hands as if she had a terrible head ache.
His also-best friend Carolyn was wearing a sleeveless T-shirt, and had her thin freckly arms folded. She was pacing without looking up.

“Is everything all right?” I asked immediately.

Dad turned to me and said, “I just told Phyllis and Carolyn some weird news.”

“A dying old lady would like to talk with you,” Phyllis said without looking up. “And your dad thinks it's a good idea.”

I looked at my dad to explain. So did Carolyn.

“Somebody wants to meet you,” he said. “Your grandmother. Sally's mother.”

Sarah spoke up. “Your mother's mother?”

We called my mother Sally. She had died when I wasn't even a year old. Phyllis and Carolyn, along with my dad's other friends, Joyce and John, considered themselves to be like my moms. Whenever we talked about Sally, it was like we were talking about an old friend we'd fallen out of touch with. We liked her, but we didn't know her anymore.

We treated it like that because we didn't have any choice. That's what I thought, at least. There was no way to get to know Sally, so there was no use being sad about her. But this was different. This was a living person who maybe looked like Sally or talked like her.

“I didn't even know Sally had a mother. Why didn't you tell me? Did you know?” I asked. Maybe Dad had only found out now.

Dad sighed. “I guess I knew.”

He guessed he knew? As far as I knew, I never had any living grandparents. How could he keep this from me?

Dad didn't notice my frustration as he continued. “She wants to meet you, because she thinks she is dying.”

“But she's a vampire, so don't hold your breath,” Carolyn suddenly interrupted, arms still folded.

Phyllis peeked up and shook her head. “Carolyn, you aren't helping.”

Did they all know about my grandmother? Carolyn would have told me, unless they didn't care if she was dead or alive. What would make them feel like that?

Dad tried to explain Carolyn's disgust. “Your grandmother is a pretty tough old bird. That's what Carolyn is saying. The last time we spoke was right after Sally and I got married. We ran off and did it and then surprised her with the news. She didn't take it well. She hurled a bunch of insults at us
about how we'd ruined our lives, told us not to expect a penny of support from her, and, I'm sorry to tell you all this, told her daughter not to bother showing up again. After you were born, we tried to get back in touch with her, but it was too late. That's the whole, awful story.”

“No, the story continues now with a morbid twist,” Carolyn said drily. “Because now she's contacted your father to say she wants to see you, Amalee.”

“I'm telling you what happened so you can make an educated decision about whether or not to see her,” Dad said.

“I wouldn't go,” Phyllis said. “She doesn't deserve to see you.”

“No, let her see how cool you are, and tell her how glad you are that she didn't interfere and mess you up like Sal — that she didn't interfere with you,” Carolyn said.

“You think she messed up Sally?” I asked.

“She definitely played a part in Sally's problems,” Dad said. “But you shouldn't go just to tell her that or to be mean to her. I don't think she has any idea how she acted. She would just say she was trying to teach us how to be responsible.”

“
I'll
come along and tell her,” Carolyn offered.

Sarah laughed. Dad said, “It doesn't have to be a big deal. She'd like to meet you. I don't want to cut her off the way she cut us off. That's why I'm even entertaining the idea of giving you the choice of whether or not to see her. She asked to see you. It's up to you.”

Suddenly it didn't seem so clear. I had a chance to meet a grandmother, but she might have a tantrum like my sewing teacher's and say awful things about me — or, even worse, about Sally or Dad.

Back in my room, Sarah closed the door and said, “You have to take a tape recorder.”

“Hey! I don't even know if I should go at all!” I protested.

“You have to go! It's your grandmother,” Sarah insisted, which helped me feel less crazy. You're supposed to want to meet your family, right? Sarah went on, “So what if she isn't nice? Treat her like an animal at the zoo. That's how I thought of the woman I interviewed for Mr. Chapelle's class. Your grandmother sounds so mean, I bet no one's ever dared to record her voice. It would be like capturing the call of the great auk.”

Sarah confused me sometimes, and this was a perfect example. “What's that?” I asked.

“It's an extinct bird. Its call is lost forever. You could take a tape recorder and capture the call of the poison-tongued Grandmother. You're not afraid of her, are you? You have nothing to lose.”

I went back into the room where Dad, Phyllis, and Carolyn had barely shifted position. “Let's get it over with before I lose my nerve,” I said.

Dad paused, looking surprised. Then he got up from his chair and headed for the phone. “Let's get it over with before we
both
lose our nerve.”

I want to thank all the kids who have shown up at my concerts and said hello, with an extra thanks to Peter Swanson, Will Berger, Lillie Bea Scheer, Juliet Swanson, Tommy Farley, Jimmy Farley, and Joe Berger (and their parents), and to Louise and Marilyn MacDonald. Thanks also to my parents and to all my friends who remember what it's like to be eleven years old and who provided insights for this book, Nerissa Nields, Katryna Nields, Patty Romanoff, Melinda Adamz, Patty Smythe, Kate Bennis, Lisa Wittner, Lisa Seelinger, Curry Rose Mills-Hoskey, Anne Weiss, and, of course, my husband, Michael Robinson.

Constant thanks to my manager, Ron Fierstein, and to Lisa Arzt.

And most of all, thanks to my editor, David Levithan, who understands and believes in kids of every age (including mine), and who patiently helped me tell a better story than I thought I could. Thanks to Randi Reisfeld and everyone at Scholastic for their help, too, and to the security staff at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in New York City for not kicking me out as I wrote in various empty chapels.