Alice in Charge Read online

  We said we could. Phil and I and Tim Moss, the new sports editor (and Pamela’s old boyfriend), and Sam Mayer, the photography editor (and one of my old boyfriends), all wagged our woolly heads and said, yes, of course, no problem, we’re on it. All completely insane, of course.

  It will keep me from thinking so much about missing Patrick, I thought. But each day that passed brought me that much closer to D-day—decision time—and what I was going to do about college.

  It was through The Edge that I found out about Student Jury. Modeled after some counties where student juries meet in city hall, ours would be a lot simpler, according to Mr. Beck. He decided that if more decisions and penalties were handed down by students themselves—overseen, of course, by a faculty member—maybe Mr. Gephardt, our vice principal, could have more time for his other responsibilities, and maybe the offenders would feel that the penalties were more fair. Students guilty of some minor infraction would be referred to the jury and would be sentenced by their peers.

  The Edge agreed to run a front-page story on it, and I found out that I’d been recommended by the faculty to serve on the jury.

  “No way!” I told Gwen. I had assignments to do. Articles to write. If anyone should serve on it, she should.

  “So what have you got so far on your résumé?” was her answer.

  “For what? College?”

  “Well, not the Marines!” We were undressing for gym, and she pulled a pair of wrinkled gym shorts over her cotton underwear. “Extracurricular stuff, school activities, community service. You’ve got features editor of the paper, Drama Club, the Gay/ Straight Alliance, some volunteer hours, camp counselor … What else?”

  “I need more?”

  “It can’t hurt. You’ve got heavy competition.” Gwen slid a gray T-shirt down over her brown arms and dropped her shoes in the locker. “Student Jury—dealing with kids with problems—might look pretty impressive, especially if you’re going into counseling.”

  I gave a small whimper. “I told you the paper’s coming out weekly, didn’t I? I’m still working for Dad on Saturdays. I’ve got—”

  “And William and Mary is going to care?”

  Gwen’s impossibly practical. “You and Patrick would make a good couple,” I told her.

  “Yeah, but I’ve got Austin,” she said, and gave me a smug smile.

  Later I whimpered some more to Liz and Pamela, but they were on Gwen’s side.

  “I’ve heard you need to put anything you can think of on your résumé,” said Pamela. “I’m so glad you guys talked me into trying out for Guys and Dolls last spring. If I was sure I could get a part in the next production, I’d even jump the gun and include that.”

  They won. I told Mr. Gephardt I’d serve on Student Jury for at least one semester.

  “Glad to have you on board,” he said, as though we were sailing out to sea.

  Maybe, like Patrick, I was trying to “stay busy” too. Maybe it made a good defense against going out with other guys. But I did keep busy, and whenever I felt my mind drifting to Mark, out of sadness, or to Patrick, out of longing, or to college, out of panic, I wondered if I could somehow use my own musings as a springboard for a feature article: “When Life Dumps a Load,” “Long Distance Dating: Does It Work?” “Facing College: The Panic and the Pleasure”—something like that.

  Amy Sheldon had been transferred from special ed in our sophomore year and had struggled to go mainstream ever since. I’m not sure what grade she was in. I think she was repeating her junior year.

  It’s hard to describe Amy, because we’ve never quite decided what’s different about her. She walks with a slight tilt forward and is undersized for her age. Her facial features are nonsymmetrical, but it’s mostly her directness that stands out—a childlike stare when she talks with you about the first thing on her mind … and the way she speaks in non sequiturs, as though she’s never really a part of the conversation, and I suppose in some ways she never is. Somehow she has always managed to attach herself to me, and there have been times when I felt as though I had a puppy following along at my heels.

  The same day I said yes to Student Jury, Amy caught up with me after school. I had taken a couple of things from my locker, ready to go to the newsroom, when Amy appeared at my elbow.

  “I’ve got to wait till Mom comes for me at four because she had a dentist appointment and then I’m getting a new bra,” she said.

  “Hey! Big time!” I said. “What color are you going to get?”

  She smiled in anticipation. “I wanted red or black, but Mom said ‘I don’t think so.’ She said I could have white or blue or pink.”

  “Well, those are pretty too,” I told her. I realized I’d closed my locker without taking out my jacket and opened it again.

  “I went from a thirty-two A to a thirty-two B, and a year ago I didn’t wear any bra at all. I hate panty hose. Do you ever wear panty hose?”

  “Not if I can help it,” I said.

  “I wouldn’t want to wear a rubber bath mat around me,” Amy said.

  I blinked. “What?”

  “Grandma Roth—she’s my mother’s mother—used to wear a Playtex girdle when she was my age. She said it was like wrapping a rubber bath mat around her. She even had to wear it when it was hot. I hate summer, do you? Am I asking too many questions?”

  I tried to dismiss her comment with a quick smile but saw how eagerly she waited for an answer. “Well, sometimes you do ask a lot.”

  “My dad says if you don’t ask questions, how do you learn anything? You know why I like to ask questions?”

  “Um … why?” It seemed she was going to follow me all the way down the hall.

  “Because people talk to me then. Most of the time, anyway. Most people don’t come up to me and start a conversation, so I have to start one, and Dad says the best way to start a conversation is to ask a question. And you know what?”

  If I felt lonely just thinking about college, I imagined how it must feel to be Amy, to be lonely most of the time. “What?” I asked, slowing a little to give her my full concentration.

  “If somebody just answers and walks away, or doesn’t answer at all, you know what I say? ‘Have a nice day!’”

  I could barely look at her. “That’s the perfect response, Amy,” I said. “You just keep asking all the questions you want.”

  I was deep in thought, my eyes on the window, as Phil went over our next issue. We could give free copies to all the stores surrounding the school, he said, just to be part of the community and maybe help persuade them to buy ads; the art department had suggested we use sketches occasionally, drawn by our art students, to illustrate some of our articles; and we still needed one more roving reporter in order to have an equal number for each class. A few reporters from last year had graduated, and some had dropped out for another activity.

  I suddenly came to life. “I’d like to suggest Amy Sheldon,” I said, and the sound of it surprised even me.

  There was total silence, except for one girl’s shocked “Amy?” Then, embarrassed, she said, “Are you sure she can handle it?”

  “I don’t know,” I said honestly. “But I’d like to give her a try. She’s good at asking questions.”

  There was a low murmur of laughter. “Boy, is she! Remember when she went around asking other girls if they’d started their periods?” someone said.

  “Now, there’s a good opener,” said Tim. More laughter.

  “Everybody likes to be asked questions about themselves, and if she bombs, we don’t have to print it.”

  Silence. Then Phil said, “Can you offer her a temporary assignment—so she won’t get her hopes up?”

  “Sure, I could do that.” I waited. The lack of enthusiasm was overwhelming.

  I watched Phil. I’d met him last year when I joined the Gay/ Straight Alliance in support of my friends Lori and Leslie. He’d been a tall, gangly roving reporter before, but now that we were seniors, he was head honcho and looked the part. It was we
ird, in a way, that all the people who had run the paper before us were in college, and now we were the ones making the decisions.

  “Okay,” Phil said at last. “We’ll give it a try. But have a practice session with her first, huh?”

  “Of course,” I said, and realized I’d added still one more thing to my to-do list.

  “In the same spirit,” Miss Ames said, “I’d like to suggest an article now and then by Daniel Bul Dau.” When a lot of us looked blank, she added, “He’s here from Sudan—you may have seen him around school. He’s eighteen, and his family is being sponsored by a local charity. I think he could write some short pieces—or longer ones, if he likes—on how he’s adapting to American life, his take on American culture, what you have to overcome in being a refugee … whatever he wants to write about. He’s quite fluent in English.”

  We were all okay with that. More than okay.

  “Feature article, right?” Phil said, looking at me, meaning this was my contact to make.

  “Give me his name and homeroom, and I’ll take care of it,” I offered, and wondered if there would be any time left in my schedule for sleep.

  Daniel Bul Dau had skin as dark as a chestnut, wide-spaced eyes that were full of either wonder or amusement or both, and a tall, slim build with unusually long legs. On Tuesday he smiled all the while I was talking with him about the newspaper and the article we wanted him to write.

  “What am I to say?” he asked.

  “Anything you want. I think kids would be especially interested in what you like about the United States and what you don’t. Your experiences, frustrations. Tell us about life in Sudan and what you miss. Whatever you’d like us to know. I’ll give you my cell phone number if you have any questions.”

  “I will write it for you,” he said, and his wide smile never changed.

  Gwen and Pam and Liz and I were talking about teachers over lunch. Specifically male teachers. Who was hot, who was not, who was married, who was not. We were trying to figure out Dennis Granger, who was subbing for an English teacher on maternity leave.

  “Married,” Pamela guessed. “I wouldn’t say he’s hot, but he’s sort of handsome.”

  “Not as good-looking as Stedman in physics,” said Gwen.

  “I caught him looking at my breasts last week,” said Liz.

  “Stedman?”

  “No, Granger.”

  “Kincaid looks at butts,” said Pamela.

  “Kincaid? He’s as nearsighted as a person can be!” I said.

  “That’s why he has to really study you from every angle,” said Pamela just as Dennis Granger approached our table and looked at us quizzically as we tried to hide our smiles. I think he deduced we were talking about guys and jokingly ambled around our table as though trying to eavesdrop on the conversation. He leaned way over us, pretending to mooch a chip or a pickle from somebody’s tray, his arm sliding across one of our shoulders. We broke into laughter the moment he was gone.

  “The best teacher I ever had was Mr. Everett in eighth grade,” Liz said when we recovered. “I wish there were more like him.”

  Pamela gave her a look. “Yeah, you were in love with him, remember?”

  “Crushing, maybe,” said Liz.

  “One of the best teachers I ever had was Sylvia,” I told them.

  “And then your dad goes and marries her,” said Liz.

  “Well, she couldn’t be my teacher forever. I liked Mr. Everett, too. But I totally loved Mrs. Plotkin. Remember sixth grade? I was so awful to her at first and did everything I could to be expelled from her class. She just really cared about her students.”

  “That’s why I want to be a teacher,” said Liz.

  “You’ll make a great one,” I told her.

  “And you’ll make a great counselor,” said Liz.

  Pamela rolled her eyes. “While you two are saving the world, I’ll be working for a top ad agency in New York, and you can come up on weekends.”

  “With or without boyfriends?” asked Liz.

  “Depends on the boyfriends,” said Pamela.

  “I thought you were going to a theater arts school,” said Gwen.

  Pamela gave an anguished sigh. “I just don’t know what to do. I used to think I’d like fashion designing, but I’ve pretty much given that up. So it’s between theater and advertising. I’m thinking maybe I’ll try a theater arts school for a year to see if they think I have talent. If I don’t measure up, I’ll leave and go for a business degree somewhere. Of course, then I’d be a year behind everyone else.”

  “Pamela, in college that doesn’t matter,” said Gwen. “Go for it.”

  Liz looked wistfully around the group. “You’ll be off doing medical research, of course,” she said to Gwen. “Remember how we used to think we’d all go to the same college, sleep in the same dorm, get married the same summer, maybe? Help raise each other’s kids?”

  “I’m not having kids,” said Pamela.

  Gwen chuckled. “Hold that thought,” she said. “We’ll check in with each other five years from now and see what’s happening.”

  2

  MARSHALING THE TROOPS

  I caught up with Amy after seventh period when I recognized her somewhat lopsided walk at the end of the hall. I sped up. From outside, I could hear the buses arriving.

  “Amy?”

  She looked around, then stopped and turned. Her face lit up like a Pepsi sign. “Alice!”

  “Your hair looks nice,” I told her, and it did. “How are things going?”

  “I curl my hair on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Oh, and on Sundays,” she said.

  “Are you taking a bus home?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, I have a favor to ask, and I could drive you. We can talk about it in the car,” I said.

  She stared at me in delight, like a kid being offered a marshmallow cookie. “Sure! Anytime! You just name it and I’ll do it! Except sometimes I’m slow on account of I’m slow, but that doesn’t mean I can’t do something. I have to stop by my locker.”

  “Okay. Why don’t I meet you at the statue in about five minutes,” I suggested.

  “If I’m not there in five minutes, I’ll be there in six minutes, maybe, on account of I’m slow,” she said.

  “I’ll wait, don’t worry.”

  “Because if you don’t wait for me and I miss the bus, I can’t get home. Then I have to call my dad, and he has to leave an important meeting or something to come get me and he says, ‘Amy, I am not pleased.’”

  “I’ll be there, Amy. The statue near the entrance.”

  “Yeah. The man on the toilet.”

  I laughed. “That’s The Thinker, Amy. By Rodin.”

  She laughed too. “I knew that, but he still looks like he’s on the toilet.”

  Amy’s a small girl with a nice figure. Tiny waist. She sat in the passenger seat with her knees together, shoulders straight, a bit like a soldier at attention.

  “Is this your own car?” she asked as I turned the key in the ignition.

  “No, it’s Dad’s. Sometimes I drive him to work, and Sylvia picks him up and brings him home.”

  “If you ever asked me to drive this car, I couldn’t,” Amy said.

  I smiled. “I wasn’t going to ask you that. I wanted to talk to you about—”

  “… because I’d get the brake and the gas pedals mixed up, Dad says.”

  “Don’t worry. I can’t let anyone else—”

  “… Or maybe the windshield wipers and the lights.”

  This is a huge mistake, I thought, but I took the plunge. “I have a question to ask you.”

  She grew quiet.

  “You read The Edge, don’t you?”

  “Of course! I’m up to seventh level now, and Mrs. Bailey says I’m doing great.”

  “Good! So here’s the thing. We’re missing a roving reporter for the issue after next and wondered if you’d like to try out.”

  Amy turned sideways and stared at me. Then she faced f
orward again. “No,” she said.

  “Really?” I glanced over. “Why not?”

  “Tryouts make people laugh,” she answered. No non sequiturs there.

  “What I meant was, we’ll give you a question to ask, and then you ask it to maybe five or six people and write down their answers. We’ll choose the best ones and help edit them. And if we use yours in the newspaper, we’ll print your name, as reporter.”

  Amy shook her head. “I don’t have a car. I can’t drive anywhere, and when I’m twenty-one, I probably still won’t have a car.”

  “You don’t need one, Amy.” I turned off East-West Highway and looked for her street. “You just ask kids at school. You can choose anyone you like, and you won’t have to leave the building.”

  “And you’ll help me?”

  “Absolutely. I won’t go around with you to ask the question, though. You’ll have to do that on your own, but we’ll need to practice first. We could do it before or after school.”

  Amy sat motionless for a few seconds when I stopped at her house. Then she opened the door. “Maybe,” she said. “I’ll talk to Dad.”

  She called me that night, excited to the point of giddy. I almost told her the deal was off, but I couldn’t back out now.

  “Dad will drive me in tomorrow, Alice, and I’ll be there at seven o’clock and you just tell me where, because if I don’t write it down, I’ll probably forget….”

  She was waiting for me when I got to the newsroom the next morning at six fifty-five.

  “I’m here, Alice!” she said, her notebook and pen at the ready.

  “Great!”

  We sat down across from each other at one of the long tables.

  “We’re going to do a feature article on sleep,” I told her. “One of our senior reporters is going to write the main story about how students don’t get all the sleep they need. We want you to ask five students how many hours of sleep they get at night. Write down exactly what they say and be sure to get their names—spell them correctly too—and what class they’re in: freshman, sophomore, junior, or senior.”