Simply Alice by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

Author:Phyllis Reynolds Naylor [Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fiction, GR
ISBN: 9781439115916
Goodreads: 13546664
Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

9

Clearing the Air

I woke up the next morning smiling at the mementos I saw strewn about my room: the black T-shirt with FIDDLER on the back. A bunch of flowers. A program. A poster. A black balloon from the party. I wandered around in my pajamas pinning things to my bulletin board, taping the poster to the wall. When I went down to breakfast, Lester had gone to play volleyball with some of his buddies, and Dad was looking up painters in the yellow pages because he wanted to have the inside of the house done before Sylvia came back in June.

“Have a nice time at the cast party?” he asked.

“Yes! I’ve made a whole new bunch of friends,” I said. “A lot more people I can say hi to in the halls.”

“It’s nice to see you bloom, Al,” Dad said.

“Huh?”

“Bloom. Blossom. Spread your wings.”

Fathers are so strange sometimes. With Dad I’m either a flower or a bird.

“I’m going back to school today and help strike the set. I’ll take the city bus,” I told him.

“Okay, hon. It’s just you and me for dinner tonight. Les will be out. Why don’t we go somewhere? What appeals?”

“Let’s try something we’ve never had before,” I suggested.

“Okay. You pick the restaurant,” said Dad.

When I got to the high school, most of the crew were there, and it was like another party, but less rowdy. Mr. E. had brought pizza and Cokes for us, and while the guys dismantled the sets, the girls were packing up props, sorting out things from the school’s storeroom, boxing up the things we had borrowed from other people. Even Richard and Devon were more friendly toward me.

Mr. E. stayed until the backdrops were down and dismantled, and asked if we could finish on our own, which, of course, we could.

“Hey, Faith, missed you at the party,” Harry called over. “You should have come.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry I couldn’t make it,” Faith said, and sounded wistful.

“What could be more important than a cast party?” Molly called from the other side of the stage, where she was wrapping up electrical cord.

“Oh, Ron had other plans for us,” she said.

Molly and I exchanged glances.

We were just finishing the last of the pizza and were going to stack the scenery and take all the stuff to the storage room when we saw Ron walk in through a side door. He stood for a minute with his hands in his pockets, a toothpick between his lips. One of the guys had been teasing Faith, making her laugh, and Ron didn’t look too happy about that. He sauntered over, coming up behind Faith, and clapped one hand over her shoulder. “Hey, babe,” he said. “Let’s go.”

Faith had just picked up a piece of pizza and opened a Coke. She turned around. “We’ve still got a lot of stuff to do,” she said.

“Like what? Having a picnic? You said you’d be through by one.”

“I know, but there’s a lot of stuff that has to be packed up,” Faith told him.

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