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their shoes too tight down there, Madeline ’s business prospects may be limited, but, hey, it ’s personal freedom not hundred-dollar bills that lights the soul’s cigar, and I hope they’re teaching you that in kindergarten.
    “There ’s a lot more to say, Gracie, but we ’ll be boarding any minute and I’ve got a pint of Redhook to finish. Obviously, I won’t be escorting you to Redhook’s brewery tomorrow. Truth is, pumpkin, I’m unsure if I’ll ever see you again. Whatever happens, I want you to know…”
    Click. Whom-hom-hom-hom. Silence. Apparently, the voicemail recorder had reached its limit. There were no other messages.
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    Gracie backed away and began to wander around the empty house.
    In the kitchen, she was turning in circles, like a dog looking for a soft place to lie down. Her tummy felt like a washer set on Spin Dry. Her heart felt like a balloon from which the air was leaking. Her brain felt like her gums feel after a visit to the dentist.
    She was too hurt to stamp her feet or throw things, too angry to weep. She knew she had to do something , though, or else she would just curl up in a knot and die.
    Eventually, she found herself standing at the refrigerator.
    Yanking open the door, Gracie suddenly was face to face with a beverage shelf fully stocked with Pepsi cola and beer. She reached in and pulled out a can. She stared at it. She popped its tab. It wasn’t Pepsi.
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    Through the lips and over the gums
    Look out belly here it comes.
    G lug glug glug. The golden liquid was so cold it gave Gracie ’s teeth a sleigh ride. Glug glug glug. It was so bitter it made skunky hair sprout on her tonsils. Glug glug glug… buurrp! It was so bubbly it caused her to belch like a Puget Sound ferryboat on a foggy morning. Glug glug.
    Kids! Listen up! Don’t try this at home. It will upset your parents, upset your tummy, and take your brain to places that, guaranteed, will not be as interesting as the places it was eventually to take the brain of Gracie Perkel. For better or for worse, Gracie ’s experience was a special case. You will see for yourself. But first…
    After practically chug-a-lugging the entire can of brew, the six-year-old just stood there in front of the refrigerator, as if guarding its ice cubes from roving gangs of international ice cube thieves. For some reason, her spirits seemed rather rapidly to be improving. In fact, a sense of delicious mischief overtook her, enveloped her to the degree that she suddenly snatched another can of beer out of the refrigerator and, with 57
     
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    a whoop, hurled it at her birthday cake, giggling as chocolate frosting splattered from one end to the other of the dining room table.
    Borrowing a couple of CDs from her parents’ collection (which was strictly against the rules), she carried the discs upstairs to her room, where she shoved one of them, an Aretha Franklin album as it turned out, into her player. Soon she was jumping up and down on the bed (also against the rules), using her hairbrush as a microphone, belting out duets with Aretha.
    When the bed began to protest too loudly, to appear on the brink of collapse, she hopped down and commenced to prance, skip, and spin about in what Uncle Moe once called “Gracie ’s monkey dance of life.”
    Unfortunately, when the album ended and she paused to rest, she discovered that everything around her was still spinning.
    The bed, the dresser, and the desk were doing their own monkey dance of life and the walls were lurching and whirling in circles like some kind of theme park ride. The next thing Gracie knew, she was on her hands and knees, throwing up on the Hello Kitty polyester rug: she hadn’t even been able to make it to the bathroom.
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    In a pitifully weak voice, she cried out for her mommy, but Mrs. Perkel was still gabbing in the yard, and anyway, would have been as angry as a chain saw when she discovered the