Absolutely Normal Chaos

by Sharon Creech

  Alex came over at six thirty. We were going to walk to the movies. But first he had to come in and my parents had to do their how-very-nice-to-meet-you routine and check him out and all. They made such a fuss that it was embarrassing. You could tell that they thought he was an okay kind of guy, and I have to admit that if I was a parent, I would think so too. He just looks so clean and all. He didn’t talk much, just “hello” and “yes” and stuff, but I think they liked that about him.

  Anyway, there they were going on and on about how nice it was to meet Alex and where were we going and when would we be back, and in the middle of all this, there sits Carl Ray watching TV, and Maggie walks through in her curlers and bathrobe, and Dennis and Dougie are gaping over the stairway, and Tommy is putting his finger in his nose. Honestly. What is Alex going to think?

  I couldn’t wait to get out of there.

  But just as soon as we walked out the front door and I was about to breathe an enormous sigh of relief, who comes following us out but Carl Ray, the Shadow. He says, “Want a ride?”

  Alex was surprised because he’s not as used to Carl Ray sneaking up on people as I am, and I was surprised because I couldn’t believe Carl Ray was actually offering to do us a favor. But I figured he just wanted to show off his car and it would be nice to have a ride. So we said sure.

  It was kind of strange, Alex and I riding in the backseat and Carl Ray driving us like our chauffeur. Alex was sitting way over near his door, and I was way over near mine. Carl Ray kept looking at us in his rearview mirror.

  So we get to the movie theater and I’m wondering why Carl Ray is pulling around the back instead of dropping us in front, but I didn’t say anything. And I did think it was kind of funny when he pulled into a parking space. And I started to get a little uneasy when we got out and he got out too.

  Sure enough, ole Carl Ray drops the big bomb: “I think I’ll come too.”

  Alex gave me this horrified look and I gave Alex a horrified look. I said to Carl Ray, “You’ll come too?”

  And he said, “Yup. Might as well. Long as I’m here.”

  I wonder if my parents paid Carl Ray to do this.

  He stood with us in line and bought his ticket, and stood in line with us while we bought popcorn, and the whole time I was sweating like crazy trying to think how in the world we could get rid of him and I couldn’t even say anything to Alex because Carl Ray was right there, the Shadow, the whole time.

  I thought I was going to die.

  He followed us to our seats and sat right next to me! I was in between Carl Ray and Alex. I gave Alex one of those I-don’t-believe-this-is-happening looks and then I gave him a how-in-the-world-are-we-going-to-ditch-him? look and he gave me one of those oh-well-what-can-we-do? looks and then the movie started.

  I won’t go into all the details, like how Carl Ray watched every move Alex made and every time Alex moved his arm, Carl Ray turned and looked at his arm like it was a snake or something. I won’t go into that.

  I will just say that I was a complete wreck and I couldn’t wait to get out of there.

  But Alex and I must have both been thinking the same thing, because when it was finally over and we got outside and started walking to the car, Alex said, “Hey, Mary Lou, why don’t we walk home?”

  I said, maybe a little too quickly, “Oh, great idea! It’s sooooo nice out.”

  Alex said to Carl Ray, “Thanks a lot for the ride! You don’t mind if we walk home, do you?”

  For the eternity of about five seconds, I thought Carl Ray was going to find some way to get us in his car, but all he did was give us this little sad look and say, “Naw. Go ahead.”

  I almost felt sorry for him, but then I figured we were entitled to a little privacy, weren’t we? Do you think Carl Ray is lonely?

  Alex and I had the greatest time walking home. We were both in such a good mood. The closer we got to my house, the slower we walked. Then I started getting a little nervous, thinking he might try and kiss me or something. I don’t know the first thing about it. I need some practice. But he didn’t do anything like that.

  Sunday, July 15

  I wish this summer could go on and on and on, and I wish I could always be this happy. It seems that whenever you are sad or just normal, you’re always wishing you were happy, but when you’re happy, you start worrying about when all this happiness is going to end. At least that’s the way I am. Already, I’m worrying that I’m too happy, and I’m either going to have to pay for this or it’s all going to end real soon.

  It reminds me of the wheel of fortune that Mrs. Zollar talked about. She said that Shakespeare and all his buddies believed in the wheel of fortune, that your luck kind of went round and round, and when you (or your luck) were at the top, everything would go right. But that it was inevitable that the wheel had to keep spinning, and sooner or later, you’d be at the bottom of the wheel, when everything would go badly. The only thing that kept people from jumping off cliffs when they were at the bottom of the wheel was knowing that sooner or later they would be at the top again.

  I feel as if the gods are going to spin my wheel any minute. Oh, pleeease, let me stay where I am for a while!

  I also wish everyone’s wheel was at the top at the same time. Beth Ann, for instance, is at the bottom of her wheel and she’s driving me crazy. She must have called me ten times today to tell me about Derek. First she said that he was a complete creep and she never wanted to see him again and she cried. Then she called back and said that she loved him sooooo much and maybe she should call him and tell him how much she missed him, and she cried. Then she called back and said she figured out why he was doing this: to make her jealous because he liked her so much, and she cried. Get the picture?

  And, of course, she never once gave me a chance to say one word about Alex.

  Alex, by the way, called at lunchtime (I don’t know how he was able to get through, what with Beth Ann calling all the time) to say he couldn’t come over today because he had to go to his grandmother’s house with his parents. It was his grandmother’s birthday and a whole bunch of relatives would be there.

  Since I didn’t have too much to do today and since it was raining like crazy, I stayed home and read some more of the Odyssey. I think I’m getting to the good parts.

  Lotus-Eaters and Cyclopes

  In Book Nine, Odysseus starts telling about all these great adventures he’s had. There were two I really liked.

  One was about lotus-eaters, people who eat flowers. When Odysseus and his men visited them, his men ate a bunch of lotus flowers and it made them forget all about their home and their loved ones and they wanted to stay with the lotus-eaters forever. (I wonder if that’s what happened to ole Derek!!??) But Odysseus forces them back on their ship and he ties them to some benches and they leave. (They’re trying to get home after they’ve sacked all these cities.)

  Then they come to the land of the Cyclopes, a weird group who live in caves and don’t have any laws. Odysseus and some of his men go up to the cave of this horrible one-eyed monster Cyclops, and pretty soon this Cyclops starts smashing a couple of the men on the ground and tears out their arms and legs and stuff and eats them. (Ugh.) That’s for supper. He does it again for breakfast. Finally, Odysseus (who, if you ask me, brags a little too much about his cleverness) comes up with this great plan. He tells the monster his name is “Noman,” and then he gets the monster drunk and pokes his eye out with this huge burning club. Homer really gets into all the gory details too, about the eye bubbling and hissing and all. It’s a little too much for me.

  But the best part is when this monster’s friends all come and start calling to him, asking why he is screaming and stuff. And he says that “Noman” (no man, get it?) is killing him, and since his friends think that no man is killing him, they go away. Anyway, they all (or at least the ones who haven’t been eaten) finally do escape through Odysseus’s plan (he’s real proud of it) of tying them underneath some sheep and goats who are in the cave and
will be let out in the morning. It’s a little hard to imagine.

  The only thing I don’t like about Odysseus is that he brags so much about how clever he is and how many cities he sacked and how many people he killed. I think he’d be put in jail if he were alive today.

  Monday, July 16

  Another rainy, cloudy day.

  Alex called, but he couldn’t come over because he’s got the flu. I bet he caught it at his grandmother’s birthday party. He said the party was a real bore except for the part when she opened the present from Alex’s grandfather (her husband). It was a black negligee!! Imagine.

  Not a real exciting day here. Mom left us all a note today saying we had to wash all the windows in the whole entire house. We called her at work to tell her it was raining, but she said we had to do the insides anyway. The worst thing is, you can’t really SEE how much work we did, because the windows are still all dirty on the outside. I hope it’s still raining tomorrow. I don’t think I could take another day of smelling that vinegar and toiling my arm off.

  I miss Alex Cheevey. Sigh.

  Beth Ann is still calling a million times a day. She has written and torn up about fifty letters to Derek. Her latest plan is to make Derek jealous, but she doesn’t exactly know how she’s going to do it.

  She also told me something that really surprised me. Christy (from school) called her. They’re not even friends or anything. Anyway, Christy was yakking away about a bunch of nonsense and she told Beth Ann some “secret” news that Beth Ann wasn’t supposed to tell anyone. Beth Ann told me though. This secret news is that Christy, Megan, and a bunch of other goony girls like them have formed a club called GGP and they can’t tell ANYONE what GGP stands for. And Christy told Beth Ann that Beth Ann was “under consideration” for membership in this stupid club.

  That really made me mad.

  First of all, why Beth Ann? Why not me? Not that I would join their stupid GGP anyway. They know Beth Ann and I are best friends. What are they trying to do, anyway? Beth Ann thinks they will probably call me too, but I can’t believe it. I told Beth Ann that I didn’t want to join their stupid GGP, and I asked Beth Ann if she was going to join if they asked her to, and she said she didn’t know. As if maybe she might. I said, “Without me?” And she said, “Oh, I don’t know!”

  Mrs. Furtz came over after dinner tonight to ask my dad if he would kill a spider in her kitchen. I thought my dad would laugh at her, but he said, “Why, of course,” and off he went and she waited here and when Dad came back, she started crying and saying how she was so pathetic and helpless and didn’t think she could go on. Mom and Dad talked with her for about three hours in the kitchen, and they sent Maggie over to put her kids to bed. It was pretty sad. She looks horrible. You’d think the gods might have taken into account how much Mr. Furtz was needed at home.

  Mom keeps asking Carl Ray when he is going to let his parents know about the money and the college education. Carl Ray has been saying, “Pretty soon,” but tonight he said he thought he would surprise them. He wants to take a week off work and drive home to show them his new car. He hasn’t asked his boss (the old Mr. Furtz’s brother) yet, though.

  I’ve decided not to read the Odyssey at night anymore. I had such awful dreams last night. Someone was chasing me with this enormous pointed stick, trying to poke my eye out, and I was almost trampled to death by a herd of goats. So I read some Robert Frost poems tonight. I won’t write in red ink because I don’t understand poetry very well.

  Robert Frost doesn’t seem to have a very big vocabulary. I bet he didn’t do very well in English. But once you get used to his poems, they’re okay. I’ve always liked that one about stopping by the woods on a snowy night. We’ve had to read it (and memorize it) just about every year in English. I swear, it’s every English teacher’s favorite poem.

  Last year in English class we had a big fight over it, because Mrs. Zollar was talking about the symbolism in it and asking people what they thought the road and the woods symbolized. People were saying some pretty strange things. I could see how the woods could be death, but why would he think they were so beautiful? Then someone said, Well maybe the woods symbolized “fun”—like he wants to go have fun, but he can’t because he has so many more miles to go. Well, that was stretching it, I thought, but it was possible. Then people got carried away and started saying maybe the woods represented ice cream or surfing and someone even said they symbolized sex and it was all getting out of control and finally Bonnie Argentini said that the whole thing was ridiculous and maybe Robert Frost just meant for the woods to be woods and it made her sick how everyone was always trying to say what the author meant when no one could possibly know. Then Billy Kroger told her to shut up, that she was too dense to see the “hidden meaning,” and it all went to pot after that, with people shouting and stuff, and you could tell Mrs. Zollar was sorry she ever brought it up.

  Mr. Furtz is in the woods, but I have miles to go before I sleep.

  Tuesday, July 17

  Oh groannn. Can’t write. Have the flu.

  Wednesday, July 18

  Still feel lousy but at least have stopped throwing up. Talked to Alex. He’s all better.

  Thursday, July 19

  I’ve recovered. Now Dennis and Dougie are sick.

  I finally saw Alex again today, but I couldn’t go anywhere with him because I had to help Maggie take care of Dennis and Dougie, who are throwing up all over the place. It’s disgusting.

  But Alex and I did get to be alone for about ten whole minutes. Sighhhhh. Here’s what happened. We were sitting on the front porch, and he said, “I like it when you wear that pink shirt.” (I was wearing a pink T-shirt.) I never thought boys noticed what girls wore. I thought I could wear a trash bag and no boy would ever know the difference. And then Alex reached over and touched the sleeve of my shirt, as if he was checking out its pinkness or something. Well, when he touched that sleeve, I thought, Oh boy, this is it, he’s going to kiss me now. I could just feel it coming. I was dissolving into a blithering idiot.

  But then Tommy started banging on the door behind us, and Alex moved his hand (alas, alas!), and Maggie said I had to go in, and I looked at Alex and he looked at me, and I said, “I like it when you wear that blue shirt” (he was wearing his blue T-shirt), and he smiled.

  Ohhhhh. Is this disgusting or what? What’s the matter with me? Do you think he was going to kiss me? I wish there was a manual for this sort of thing, something that would tell you about holding hands and kissing. When should this happen? How many days should you hold hands before you kiss? Sometimes I just can’t wait for that kiss, but sometimes I think, Ugh! Please don’t! I wish I’d make up my mind. I wonder if Alex thinks the same things. Do boys actually think about this mushy stuff? Or do they just automatically know what to do?

  We’re going to the movies again tomorrow. Only this time we will INSIST on walking and NOT TELL Carl Ray where we are going!

  Beth Ann has finally decided to take some action in her battle against Derek (who is now referred to as “that jerk”). She has read to me three drafts of the letter she is sending tomorrow. It’s all about how she loved him and trusted him and how he betrayed her and he could at least have the common decency to give her an explanation. She asked me if I thought she should send it and I said that I thought she should just forget him and NOT send it, but she decided to send it anyway. So much for my good advice.

  The other thing she is thinking of doing is REVOLTING and shows you just how much this whole thing with Derek has affected her brain. She wanted to know, get this, if I thought CARL RAY liked her and if he maybe would ask her out if I suggested it!!!!!! I thought she was kidding, but she sure wasn’t. I said, “What for???” He’s four years older than Beth Ann, though I guess he doesn’t act it.

  And she said, “Well, he’s kind of cute.”

  And I said, “Carl Ray?” I really could not believe it. Carl Ray, cute? The same Carl Ray who sneaks around here and never makes up his stup
id bed? That Carl Ray???

  I told her I didn’t want any part of it, but she said that she only wanted to make Derek jealous, and if Carl Ray would ask her out, she would get him to take her to all the places she and Derek used to go so that maybe she would run into him and his new girlfriend, and that maybe if Derek saw her with someone else he would realize how much he missed her, and on and on.

  Now, that’s a desperate mind at work, if you ask me.

  I didn’t agree to anything yet. I said I had to think about it.

  Honestly.

  Friday, July 20

  I have about a million things to say, but my brain is too mushy from being with Alex, so they will all have to wait for tomorrow. I do love Alex Cheevey!!!!

  Saturday, July 21

  Saw Alex again, so cannot think.

  A lot is happening, though, so I promise to catch up tomorrow.

  Sunday, July 22

  There are wicked thunderstorms outside right now. The wind is bashing the trees around and the trash cans are rolling down the driveway.

  Mrs. Zollar said that Shakespeare and his buddies thought that if there was a storm, it was because the universe was out of whack somewhere. And the Greeks believed storms were caused by gods who were mad at someone. Actually, I think it’s just a storm.

  Didn’t see Alex today (he had to go to his grandmother’s again), so I can at least think tonight. I’ll wait and tell about Alex at the end so I don’t start getting all mushy before I remember everything else.

  The most disgusting news is that Beth Ann went out with Carl Ray.

  She called me on Friday morning to say that she had finally mailed a letter to “the jerk” (alias Derek-the-Divine). Beth Ann wrote this very gushy letter (she read a copy of it to me—she kept a copy!) to Derek all about how much she loved him and how maybe they should both see other people, because that way they would be able to know for sure if their hearts were telling the truth (how can hearts tell the truth?).