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

at the ceiling and sighs. Finally I said, “Would you please shut up? I can’t think.”
    It was time for me to go. “I’ve got to be back by eight-thirty or my mother will never let me come again on a school night.”
    â€œI’ll walk you down the hall,” she said.
    â€œYou don’t have to do that,” I said.
    â€œI know I don’t,” she said. She turned on the television.
    â€œWhat’d you do that for?” I said as we went out the door.
    â€œIt’s nice to come back and hear voices,” she said. “It’s sort of like coming in to a party or a whole bunch of people. You know?”
    â€œSure,” I said. “Thanks for the pizza.”

Chapter Twelve
    Al has always been a little on the fat side, but lately I’ve noticed she is starting to bulge. I don’t mean she is starting to get a figure. I mean she bulges at her waist and she has a couple of chins. She’s even got creases in her neck, like a baby, but on a baby it looks O.K.
    â€œWhat’s up?” I finally asked her. “You pack away candy bars and junk like there was no tomorrow. Where do you get all the dough? You inherit a million dollars or something?”
    â€œI have more money than I know what to do with,” Al said, pulling back the wrapper from her latest purchase. “My mother gives me an allowance, right? Which I either put in the bank, where it stagnates, or else I blow it. On myself. My father sends me checks. He sent me ten dollars last week. For nothing. Not a birthday, not anything. So you see.”
    Al pushed her glasses back up on her nose. They slide down lots of times.
    â€œWant me to treat you?”
    I was tempted, to be sure. My mother and father would give you the shirt off their back, but they would just as soon not give you any extra money, on account of they do not have any. That and they think their kids ought to work for what they get. My father says this is an old-fashioned idea but he is an old-fashioned man.
    I am almost always broke. I am used to it by now.
    â€œNo, thanks,” I said. “My mother got the dentist bill last week and she is really cracking down. She says she is going to make Teddy and me pay our own bills if we don’t stop eating candy and chewing gum.”
    â€œIf I know your mother,” Al said, “when she says it, she will do it. She is a tough cookie, your mother. No offense. I mean it in a nice way. I like your mother. She is a good egg.”
    We walked down the hall to our lockers.
    â€œMy mother took me to the doctor so he could put me on a diet,” Al said. “She says I am getting so gross she can hardly stand it. She gets very upset when people get fat. She says there is absolutely no excuse for it. Being in Better Dresses, as she is, she sees quite a lot of fat women who would give their eyeteeth to get into a size ten. She says if you are fat you might as well forget about looking good in clothes. She thinks a lot about clothes,” Al said, “being in the business and all.”
    As we went down the front steps Martha Moseley was standing there at the bottom, with a bunch of kids all around. Martha is a pain. Her sister is a cheerleader at the high school and Martha is always jumping around and showing off, twirling a baton and practicing cheerleading.
    â€œTub a butter, tub a lard, hit ’em again and hit ’em hard,” Martha yelled. I didn’t notice the first time because, as I say, she is always hollering about something. But when I saw the kids snickering behind their hands, I listened.
    â€œTub a butter, tub a lard, hit ’em again and hit ’em hard,” Martha yelled once more. I looked at Al. Her face was practically the color of a beet, which is one vegetable I really hate.
    â€œI think I will sock her in the nose,” Isaid. “She is really a brat. Ever since the first grade she has been a brat and people get more so as they