Outrageously Alice Read Free

tapped for attention, but I whispered, “I think it just means that almost everywhere is interesting—that we’re not limited. Whatever, I want to see what it’s like.”
    “We’re all doing different things this year!” Elizabeth complained. “Not a single one of us has signed up for the same activity.”
    “Miss Price, if you please!” said Mr. Everett.
    Elizabeth blushed and faced forward, and Mr. Everett began the class.
    I was surprised, frankly, that that could even happen. Elizabeth’s usually on the edge of her seat waiting for Mr. Everett to enter the room. She’s had a crush on him since the first day of school. Our health teacher is six foot five and looks like Brad Pitts’s kid brother. Brad Pitt’s son! Elizabeth told us once that she loves him so much, it hurts. Hurts, I suppose, because she can’t have him. I can understand that. I’ve felt that way about Mom. Which is why I want so much for Dad to marry Miss Summers. ButLester says that’s not reason enough for people to marry, and I suppose he’s right.
    It turned out that the Camera Club met every two weeks, and wouldn’t be meeting again until Tuesday of the week after next, but the Explorers’ Club was that same day after school. So I told Elizabeth and Pamela to go home without me and I’d catch a city bus later.
    I should have known, I guess, when I discovered that the Explorers’ Club met in my old world studies classroom, that it was going to be a glorified geography lesson. That there were only six kids there should have been Clue Number Two. The faculty sponsor sat at the back of the room grading papers, as though she couldn’t care less.
    As soon as I’d been introduced, the guy in charge said that when they’d met last time, they’d decided that this week each would tell the most interesting place they’d ever visited and any problems they’d encountered. That was when I should have slipped out. Because the farthest west I’ve ever been is Chicago, and the farthest east is Ocean City, and after listening to the other kids tell about a trip to India with an aunt, or Antarctica with their dad, all I had to report was a visit to Aunt Sally on Amtrak.
    “Well,” somebody said charitably, “what was the most interesting thing that happened on that trip, then?”
    I was about to tell them how a man had made a pass at Pamela, but then I realized that was her story to tell, not mine. Here I was again, living my life through other people. So instead of telling them about that trip, I told them about the very first time I’d gone to Chicago on the train, and when I’d tried to get up in the middle of the night to use the john, the bed came down on my head.
    There was silence so long and profound that when someone laughed at last, I knew it was only to put me out of my misery. I decided to walk home through the leaves instead of taking the bus, and realized just how disappointed I was. I’d thought we might go prowling around Washington and Maryland or something—explore the tunnels under the Lincoln Memorial, or hike along the C&O Canal. No, someone had told me, it was more like a travel club. So much for the Explorers’ Club.
    I thought about myself and where exactly I was headed. It wasn’t that I was unhappy. But the more I examined my life, the more it seemed to consist of getting up, going to school, seeing my friends, going to bed, getting up, going to school, and—on Saturdays—working half-days at the Melody Inn. That was it.
    All the things that could happen—like Dad eloping with Miss Summers and taking me on their honeymoonwith them, or the Publishers Clearing House Prize Patrol descending on our porch, or my getting chosen most popular girl in eighth grade—nothing like that ever happened. In my thirteen years of life, in fact, when had anything happened to me that could be called remotely outrageous? Embarrassing, yes. Outrageous, no. Just once in my thirteen years, I decided, I would like something truly