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

get older, my mother says.”
    Al said, “I have gained five pounds in the last two weeks.”
    â€œI thought you said the doctor put you on a diet,” I said.
    â€œHe did. He put me on a rigid diet.”
    I waited.
    â€œI am supposed to eat yoghurt and cottage cheese and lean meat and vegetables without butter. And grapefruit. I eat grapefruit until it comes out my ears. Then I’m so hungry I sneak a couple of peanut-butter sandwiches and a banana or two.”
    Al stopped walking suddenly.
    â€œTell me something. Do you think how a person looks is the most important thing about the person? How about what they’re like inside. For instance, take Mr. Richards. He is a lovely man, the best. He looks a little old and beat-up and maybe not like an actor or anything, but inside he is a good man. If he was good-looking on the outside and mean and stingy on the inside, that would be terrible. Right?”
    â€œYes,” I said. “That is true. But people do sort of judge you by how you look, at least until they really get to know you, and it is sort of nice to look good. You know, to feel you look as good as you can. Like the way you look when your hair isn’t braided and you have that blue sweater on.”
    â€œHah!” Al said. “That blue sweater wouldn’t button around me in a million years. As a matter of fact, I can hardly fit into any of my clothes. She is having a fit, as you can well imagine. She says she will not buy me anything new until I lose some weight.
    â€œAnd you know something? I don’t care! I don’t care a darn!” Al shouted. “If she has to buy me Chubbies, then she has to buy me Chubbies!”
    â€œWhat are Chubbies?” I asked.
    â€œThey are dresses that people who are fat have to wear. They are quite disgusting-looking, and frankly, I think my mother, being in Better Dresses, would be humiliated if she had to buy me a Chubby.”
    She smiled at me with her mouth.
    I did not know what to say.

Chapter Thirteen
    â€œYou two young ladies are getting very grown up,” Mr. Richards said. “I swear, in a couple of months I won’t know you. You’ll grow up tall and good-looking and you’ll have so many young fellas at your doorstep you won’t know what to do with ’em all.”
    Al and I looked at each other. We have both decided that we will probably never get married and will share an apartment and have a cat or two and a dog or two and never do any wash except when we want to. We will only change the sheets when we want and we will also only eat and sleep when we want.
    My father says the best of all possible worlds does not exist, but I think this would be close to it.
    â€œWe’re never going to get married,” Al said. Mr. Richards listened like he always does, and he skated around the floor a few times while she finished telling him about our plan.
    â€œWell, now,” he said, “I don’t think that’s such a hot idea. Like I say, when these young fellas start courting you two, you’ll learn to pick and choose. You lose a little of that baby fat,” he said, looking at Al, “and you’ll be a real looker. Yes, sir, a stunner.”
    â€œAnd you”—he turned to me—“when you grow into your bones and learn not to stoop over but to stand up proud and tall, you might even be a model.”
    Secretly, I have planned all along on being a model. I have never told this to anyone except once to Al when I was sleeping over at her house. I looked at her to see if she looked guilty, if she had told him. Instead, she looked like she was about to explode.
    â€œBaby fat!” she hollered. “I’m so gross my mother has to buy me Chubbies. Why, I bet I weigh more than you do.”
    Mr. Richards said, “I wouldn’t put it past you,” and all of a sudden we were all laughing. We laughed so long and so hard that my stomach ached, and tears