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Authors: Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

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Patiently Alice

BOOK: Patiently Alice
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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

www.simonandschuster.com

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.

Contents

One: Leaving Home

Two: Into the Wilds

Three: Around the Campfire

Four: Wet

Five: Gerald

Six: A Little Lesson in Growing Up

Seven: Night Out

Eight: News from Silver Spring

Nine: Going Coed

Ten: The Great Kelpie Hunt

Eleven: Girl Talk

Twelve: Home

Thirteen: Viva la Difference

Fourteen: The Big Announcement

Fifteen: The Go-Between

Sixteen: Confession

Seventeen: Celebration

Patiently
Alice

1
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.”

BOOK: Patiently Alice
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