Alice At The Home Front Read online

  That’s funny, Alice thought as she approached the house. Someone from inside had opened the front door for Mother and Gramp, and the living room was ablaze with light. Who was in there? Before she could climb the steps, Jimmy, Bill, Moses, and Cameron bounced down to meet her. They made a kind of a basket—Jimmy and Bill joined hands on one side, Moses and Cameron on the other—and hoisted her up in the air. Before Alice could say anything, they carried her into the house like a princess—or more like a football hero.

  “… jolly good fellow, for she’s a jolly good fellow,” they were singing, along with everyone inside the house—Mr. and Mrs. Parker, Mrs. Brownell (without her hat), Mr. Horton (who didn’t want to be left out), and, of all things, most of her classmates who began showering her with red, white, and blue confetti. They let her down in front of the kitchen where Elsie appeared with a huge pan of her own fudge. In the corner, Gladys was holding up a sign she had made by herself out of a T-shirt. In big strokes of a red crayon, it read: “HOORAY FR THE SPOTTER OF THE YERE.”

  Drinks were poured and fudge was passed around, but the lights had to be dimmed even for a party. Then, to her surprise, Jody Rickenbarker came up to her and pulled her over into the corner.

  “Alice, do you think if I got some of those cards, I could learn to spot planes too? Sylvia and I were thinking … we’re getting tired of those artsy cards.”

  “Sure, Jody. I can get some for you.”

  “Swell! Then maybe the boys’ll pay attention to us like they do to you.”

  Alice smirked as they turned away. “Once a dumbbell, always a dumbbell.”

  Of course, the party was for Jimmy too, even though his friends had already given him parties. But he wouldn’t take any of the honors and was figuring out how to fasten Alice’s armband properly, while Bagheera was curled up on the top of the landing ready to pounce.

  Most of the guests had wandered outside for a breath of fresh air. In the corner, a pile of 78 records on the Victrola played “Mairzey Doats,” “Ya Gotta Accentuate the Positive” (probably requested by Mother), and “Don’t Sit under the Apple Tree.” When that record came on, they all joined in, even the Brownells and the Parkers: “Don’t sit under the apple tree with anybody else but me till I come marching home.”

  And Alice, who was looking around for an apple tree she could sit under with Jimmy, sang the loudest of them all.