Alice in Charge by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

Author:Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: GR, fiction
ISBN: 9781416975526
Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

13

CALL TO AUNT SALLY

November is one of the dreariest months. It hits you on the day you realize that all the leaves have fallen and everything is gray—the trees, the sky, the ground. Even people look gray. Which is why the seventh-period assembly the following week was so much fun.

There’s an organization that sponsors amateur actors—teens and college age—who emphasize responsible sexual behavior. They put on awareness-based shows at high schools, focusing on issues like abstinence, birth control, HIV, prenatal development. … Each show has a number of skits, and they’re just goofy enough to keep our attention.

The skit I liked best had a guy with a long curvy tail playing the part of a sperm, and a girl, sitting in a large cardboard oval, playing the egg. Emphasizing that it takes both to make a baby, the sperm darts carefree about the stage, chanting, “Sperm alone, no baby,” while the girl files her nails and chants, “Egg alone, no baby.” But when the sperm finds himself drawn into her orb, she wraps them both up in her blanket, and they emerge holding a doll between them.

Then, to show that both are responsible for bringing up this child if they make a baby, they do a frantic pantomime where he’s feeding the baby while she’s changing its diaper, then he does the diapering and she feeds the baby, at fast speed. A voice announces that condoms are free from Planned Parenthood, and the skit ends with the couple singing a parody of “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” renamed “Don’t Hurry, Use Condoms.” I guess you’d have to be there.

We’ve had assemblies like this before, and like this one, the actors are kids our own age, and the group’s purpose—“to inform, entertain, and educate”—is easy to swallow.

Some of the other skits were about eating disorders, body image, sexual abuse, suicide, rape, teen pregnancy—any personal thing that affects our lives.

Okay, so maybe most of us already knew the facts about this stuff—it wasn’t old hat. But Jill, sitting behind me with Justin, got on my nerves.

One of the actresses was stating the reasons she’d decided to be celibate until she married. Jill, in particular, was whispering and giggling, mimicking the girl. The actress wasn’t being preachy or anything—just saying that for her, abstinence seemed best. Jill obviously found it hilarious. It was especially annoying because I was trying to take notes so I could write up the program for the newspaper, and I missed some of the lines.

“Hey, Jill, knock it off, would you?” I whispered over my shoulder.

There were a few seconds of silence, then sputtering laughter from Jill.

“Quiet, everybody. Alice is learning something here,” she responded in a stage whisper, and got a few, but only a few, titters in response.

Later, when Jill began laughing again, I heard Justin say, “Shhhh,” and I wondered, for maybe the hundredth time, what—other than her absolutely gorgeous body—he saw in her.

Amy Sheldon liked the show, though. She must have been sitting near Jill too because afterward she said to me, “I don’t know why some people didn’t like it.

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