Read A Girl Called Al: The Al Series, Book One for Free Online

a snazzy place for dinner and then maybe to an art film.”
    â€œWhat’s an art film?” I asked.
    â€œWhere they speak in a foreign language and have little lines underneath that tell you in English what they’re saying.”
    â€œYou like art films?” I asked.
    â€œNot really.” She shrugged. “Anyway, this one’s name is Mr. Herbert Smith and he said, ‘Call me Herb,’ if you can feature such a thing. At least he didn’t say ‘Call me Uncle Herb.’ That’s the living end when they want you to call them ‘Uncle’ and they’re not your uncle. I can’t stand that. Anyway, he’s trying to buy me.” She made her eyes big and round like an owl’s.
    â€œWhat do you mean, trying to buy you?” I asked. “You’re no bargain.” I looked at her.
    â€œLike, he brings me things. He brought me a pair of slippers tonight. A pair of fuzzy slippers like a kid’s. He buys me something almost every time he comes to take my mother out. He thinks it makes me like him. And I want to tell you he is very much mistaken. Very much mistaken indeed.” Al paced back and forth with her hands behind her back.
    â€œWere they the right size?” I asked.
    She said, “What?”
    â€œThe slippers. Were they the right size?”
    She snorted. “I didn’t try them on. I just said ‘Thank you’ and put them back in the box.”
    â€œYour father buys you things and you don’t think he’s trying to get you to like him, do you?”
    â€œThat’s different. He’s my father.”
    My father hardly ever buys me things. He sends me a Valentine every year that he picks out, but outside of that, my mother does the buying.
    â€œDoes your mother like Herb better’n any of the others she goes out with?” I asked.
    Al hunched her shoulders. “I don’t know. All I know is, when he’s coming I have to comb my hair and put on a clean blouse and I have to smile until my face feels like it’s cracking. Then he tells me about how I remind him of his niece’s little girl and it turns out she’s about six and her teeth stick out and she has her own horse. If there’s anything I hate, it’s a kid who has her own horse. Are they ever stuck-up. They are such snobs when they own their own horse.”
    â€œLet’s have some pie for dessert,” Al said suddenly. She switches subjects very fast. It is interesting. You never get time to be bored.
    â€œWe have coconut cream,” she said from inside the freezer compartment.
    I felt like I had a giant ball of pizza and Coke inside me. “No, thanks,” I said. What I didn’t need was to add a little coconut cream.
    â€œI have to write my autobiography for English,” Al said. “I have to make it interesting and informative. I also need a picture of myself when I was little. Boy, was I ever a funny-looking kid.” She started to laugh.
    â€œSo was I,” I said. “My mother said she felt better when she saw her babies were funny-looking. She said the funnier-looking they are when they’re born, the better they turn out in the long run.”
    â€œNo kidding?” Al went and looked at herself in the mirror. “Is that right? If it is, I should be a winner.”
    We got down to our homework but it was sort of hard because Al was in a real chatty mood.
    â€œImagine if we were sisters,” she said. “And we lived in the same house and slept in the same room and did our homework together every night. I wonder if we’d fight. Do you think we would?”
    â€œYes,” I said.
    â€œHave you ever wanted a sister?” Al asked.
    â€œI’d trade Teddy in on a sister, if that’s what you mean,” I said.
    â€œHe’s better’n nothing,” Al said. Then she started doing her math. When she does her math she breathes hard, thumps around, and stares