The Grooming of Alice by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

Author:Phyllis Reynolds Naylor [Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fiction, GR
ISBN: 9780689826337
Goodreads: 2041641
Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

9

GROUNDED

DAD AND I WERE SPEAKING AGAIN, BUT I was still grounded. As he said, Pamela wasn’t his responsibility, but I was, and sometimes loyalty to a friend can get in the way of common sense.

The news of my grounding spread fast. I began to realize that almost nothing makes you more popular than to be grounded. Everybody started calling, and I could tell by Dad’s reaction that he wished he’d nixed phone calls, too.

“You can’t have anyone over?” Jill asked when she called. “Not even Patrick?”

“Especially Patrick,” I said, and felt really sorry for myself about that.

“What you need is e-mail,” said Karen. “I can’t believe you don’t have a computer, Alice.”

“Lester has one,” I told her, not wanting anyone to think we’re behind the times, even though we usually get something about a decade after everyone else has it.

“Then you should have your own private e-mail! We could send you all kinds of messages. Ask your brother to set one up for you.”

I would, but this didn’t exactly seem the right time for it. I was supposed to suffer.

Gwen, though, didn’t think it was such a bad punishment. When we rode the bus together Monday, she said if she ever lied to her dad, she’d probably be grounded for a month. “The one thing he won’t sit still for,” she said. “That and sass talk.”

“How many in your family?” I asked.

“Five. Two brothers. Dad’s even stricter with them.”

“What about your mom?”

“She and Dad must have gone to the same school. They agree all the way down the line,” said Gwen.

The week before, I had been on flower and mail delivery at the hospital, and Gwen had been assigned to physical therapy. Now we were switched, and I helped out in the physical therapy room, changing the paper sheets on the tables where patients were examined and taught their exercises, or helping patients from one exercise machine to another, wiping off the equipment and stuff.

One of the patients was a tall woman with red hair who had had a stroke. She walked with a cane because one of her legs didn’t move right, and her arm looked stiff on that side of her body. Even one side of her face looked stiff. I had the strange feeling when I walked her back to the front desk that it was my mom I was helping, and I told Gwen about it later when we ate lunch in the cafeteria.

“Don’t you remember anything about your mom except that she was tall and had red hair?” Gwen asked, after she’d listened.

“She wore slacks a lot and she liked to sing, Lester told me once. And she always made Dad a pineapple upside-down cake for his birthday. And she was a good swimmer. All I’ve got are bits and pieces, and those all come from somebody else. I mean, I had her for five years, Gwen, and yet I hardly remember any of them.”

“My aunt says you don’t remember anything that happens to you before the age of four,” Gwen said.

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