Alice in April by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

Author:Phyllis Reynolds Naylor [Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fiction, GR
ISBN: 9781439132241
Goodreads: 13546707
Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

12

HOUSE GUEST

I SPENT TWO HOURS THAT EVENING TRYING to mend the clothes from Dad’s and Lester’s closets, and only got two things done. Wednesday, just as I was leaving for school, I heard Dad banging around his bedroom.

“Son of a gun!” he bellowed, which is about as bad a thing as he’ll ever say.

I went to the bottom of the stairs. “Something wrong?”

“Where in blazes is my shirt with the gray stripes?” he thundered.

Something clicked in my head and I ran upstairs to see if it was in my mending pile.

“It’s in my room, Dad. I was going to sew a button on the cuff.”

Dad let out a sigh. “Al, if you take something of mine, will you please tell me? I’ve got on gray slacks, gray socks, and the only shirt in my closet is brown-checked.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I appreciate your learning to sew, but you’ve cost me fifteen minutes of searching the clothes dryer, the hamper, and everywhere else I could think to look. I wanted to be at the store early too.”

I apologized again and had to run to make the bus. But when school was out, I’d only been home five minutes before Lester came crashing in the front door.

“Who’s the idiot who sewed my pocket closed?” he yelped.

I swallowed. “What pocket?”

Lester turned around and showed me how stitching on the hole I had sewn up went all the way through to the back, and he couldn’t get his hand inside.

“Oh, that pocket,” I said. “You could always use the other one, Les.”

“Al, I keep my wallet in my right hip pocket. Three times today I felt around for my wallet and flipped because I thought it had been stolen.”

“I was only trying to help.”

“So what’s a little hole in a pocket? Did I ask you to mend it? Did you hear me complain?”

I sank down in the beanbag chair in one corner. “Okay, so I won’t mend your clothes. Go without buttons! Go with holes in your jeans! Go with seams ripped open and the linings hanging out. What do I care?”

“Thank you very much,” said Lester, and he went upstairs.

This was a family? I don’t know how wives and mothers stood it. If this was all the thanks the Woman of the House got, Aunt Sally could take this job and lump it. I almost called her long distance to say so.

All three of us were pretty grumpy at dinner. We were eating the leftover macaroni, ground beef, and tomato, for one thing. To disguise it, I’d added a can of corn, but it didn’t fool Dad for a minute.

“This the stuff we had the other night?”

“Sort of,” I said curtly.

He chewed some more. “The spices taste a little strange to you?”

It did taste odd, come to think of it. I guess the longer things sit, the stronger they taste. Actually, the spices were okay—the chili powder and garlic and fennel and stuff. I guess I should have stopped there and not added vanilla too. Sometimes I get carried away.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.