Patiently Alice
A
Summer
of
Surprises
for
Alice
It’s the summer after Alice’s freshman year, she’s survived her breakup with Patrick, and she and her friends are looking forward to their jobs as assistant camp counselors. Alice feels as if she’s finally gotten a handle on life.
But Alice soon learns that the only thing she can count on is change. Pamela’s mother is contemplating coming home, Lester is contemplating leaving home, and even Alice’s father’s romance with Miss Summers hits an unexpected snag. But most surprising of all are the shocking revelations about some of Alice’s closest friends. Can Alice keep up with all the changes around her?
Read more about Alice at
http://www.SimonandSchuster.com/Alice
Look inside for a complete list of Alice books.
SIMON PULSE
Simon & Schuster, New York
Cover photograph copyright © 2003 by Nick Vaccaro
Cover designed by Russell Gordon
1004
PHYLLIS REYNOLDS NAYLOR
is the author of more than one hundred books, but the Alice books are some of her most favorite to write. She lives in Bethesda, Maryland, with her husband, Rex, and they are the parents of two grown sons.
* * *
Patiently
Alice
Books by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
SHILOHBOOKS
Shiloh
Shiloh Season
Saving Shiloh
THE ALICE BOOKS
Starting with Alice
Alice in Blunderland
Lovingly Alice
The Agony of Alice
Alice in Rapture, Sort of
Reluctantly Alice
All But Alice
Alice in April
Alice In-Between
Alice the Brave
Alice in Lace
Outrageously Alice
Achingly Alice
Alice on the Outside
The Grooming of Alice
Alice Alone
Simply Alice
Patiently Alice
Including Alice
Alice on Her Way
THE BERNIE MAGRUDER BOOKS
Bernie Magruder and the Case of the Big Stink
Bernie Magruder and the Disappearing Bodies
Bernie Magruder and the Haunted Hotel
Bernie Magruder and the Drive-thru Funeral Parlor
Bernie Magruder and the Bus Station Blowup
Bernie Magruder and the Pirate’s Treasure
Bernie Magruder and the Parachute Peril
Bernie Magruder and the Bats in the Belfry
THE CAT PACK MYSTERIES
The Grand Escape
The Healing of Texas Jake
Carlotta’s Kittens
Polo’s Mother
THE WITCH BOOKS
Witch’s Sister
Witch Water
The Witch Herself
The Witch’s Eye
Witch Weed
The Witch Returns
THE YORK TRILOGY
Shadows on the Wall
Faces in the Water
Footprints at the Window
PICTURE BOOKS
King of the Playground
The Boy with the Helium Head
Old Sadie and the Christmas Bear
Keeping a Christmas Secret
Ducks Disappearing
I Can’t Take You Anywhere
Sweet Strawberries
Please DO Feed the Bears
BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS
Josie’s Troubles
How Lazy Can You Get?
All Because I’m Older
Maudie in the Middle
One of the Third Grade Thonkers
BOOKS FOR MIDDLE READERS
Walking Through the Dark
How I Came to Be a Writer
Eddie, Incorporated
The Solomon System
The Keeper
Beetles, Lightly Toasted
The Fear Place
Being Danny’s Dog
Danny’s Desert Rats
Walker’s Crossing
BOOKS FOR OLDER READERS
A String of Chances
Night Cry
The Dark of the Tunnel
The Year of the Gopher
Send No Blessings
Ice
Sang Spell
Jade Green
Blizzard’s Wake
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
First Simon Pulse edition October 2004
Copyright © 2003 by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
SIMON PULSE
An imprint of Simon & Schuster
Children’s Publishing Division
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
Also available in an Atheneum Books for Young Readers hardcover edition.
Designed by Sonia Chaghatzbanian
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds.
Patiently Alice / Phyllis Reynolds Naylor.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: The summer after ninth grade, Alice and her friends spend three weeks working as assistant counselors at a camp for disadvantaged children and cope with all kinds of changes.
ISBN-13: 978-0-689-82636-8 (hc.)
ISBN-10: 0-689-82636-2 (hc.)
[1. Camps—Fiction. 2. Poor—Fiction. 3. Friendship—Fiction. 4. Remarriage—Fiction. 5. Family life—Fiction. 6. Single parent families—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.N24 Pat 2003
[Fic]—dc21 2002012887
ISBN-13: 978-0-689-87073-6 (pbk.)
ISBN-13: 978-1-4391-1581-7 (eBook)
ISBN-10: 0-689-87073-6 (pbk.)
To my new Alice editor, Caitlyn Dlouhy.
Welcome.
Six: A Little Lesson in Growing Up
Eight: News from Silver Spring
Fourteen: The Big Announcement
Patiently
Alice
Leaving Home
The summer between ninth and tenth grades, I learned that life doesn’t always follow your agenda.
I had signed up to be an assistant counselor at a camp for disadvantaged kids. Somehow I had the idea that at the end of three weeks I could get the little girls in my cabin feeling like one big happy family. First, though, I had to talk myself into going.
I was sitting at the breakfast table watching Dad pour half-and-half in his coffee, and I decided that was a metaphor for my feelings. Half of me wanted to go to camp the following morning, and half of me wanted to stay home and be in on the excitement of Dad’s marriage to Sylvia two weeks after I got back.
I wanted
some
thing to happen. I wanted at least one thing to be resolved. Everything seemed up in
the air these days—Dad’s engagement to Sylvia, Pamela’s mother leaving the family, Elizabeth’s quarrels with her parents, Lester’s on-again off-again relationships with women, Patrick and I breaking up. My life in general, you might say.
“Are you eating that toast or just mauling it?” asked Lester, my twenty-something brother, who was leaving soon for his summer class at the U of Maryland. “That’s the last of the bread, and if you don’t want it, I do.”
I slid my plate toward him. “I can’t decide whether to go to camp or stay here and be helpful,” I said.
“Be helpful,” said Lester. “Go to camp.”
I turned toward Dad, hoping he might beg me to stay.
“I can’t think of a single reason why you shouldn’t go, Alice,” he said. “Sylvia’s got everything under control.”