The Grooming of Alice

by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor; Mark Elliott

• ISBN13: 9780689826337
• ISBN10: 0689826338
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-05-01
• Publisher: Atheneum

Summary

The first day of the summer vacation between eighth and ninth grades, Alice, Pamela, and Elizabeth decide they have to get in shape. "However you look when you start ninth grade, that's how people will think of you for the next four years," says Pamela. And they all begin jogging three miles every morning."It's going to be the most exciting summer of our lives," Pamela says. And Alice hopes it will be. But things keep happening that no one counted on. Alice knows that she is going to be a volunteer -- with her friend Gwen -- at the hospital; but she doesn't know that along with the satisfaction of doing something useful she can also find an unexpected sorrow. And she certainly doesn't know that trying to decide alone how to handle a Pamela-emergency can be a big mistake. Pamela doesn't know that she will be spending the summer dealing with the results of her parents' separation. And Elizabeth does not know that trying to be thin -- and trying to be what everyone wants her to be -- can almost lead to disaster.Mixed with the problems and the complications the summer brings are moments of fun, moments of learning that variety is the way of nature -- beauty comes in more than one form -- and moments when all three girls see the future in whole new ways. There are also moments of stress and change for Lester, Alice's brother, and for her father. Though nothing works out quite as planned, the end of summer does find everyone in better shape -- mentally if not physically.

Author Biography

Phyllis Reynolds Naylor has been writing the Alice books since 1985 when The Agony of Alice was published. The reason these books are so hard -- and so easy -- to write, she says, so entertaining and embarrassing both, is because she sees herself not only in Alice, but in Pamela and Elizabeth, too. There were times in her growing-up years when she did incredibly stupid things, times she took chances and was proud of herself, and times she wished the day could be erased forever from memory.

She writes for both children and adults, and is the author of over one hundred books, including 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, and Alice on the Outside. Her book Shiloh was awarded the Newbery Medal in 1992.

Table of Contents

The Program	1	(14)
The Long Good-bye	15	(16)
Volunteer	31	(14)
Quiz	45	(12)
Saving Lester	57	(16)
Hiding Pamela	73	(15)
Blowup	88	(13)
A Heated Discussion	101	(14)
Grounded	115	(15)
Blue Monday	130	(21)
For Girls Only	151	(21)
The Next Good-bye	172	(14)
Marilyn	186	(17)
The Traveler Returns	203

Excerpts

From Chapter One: The Program

"It's going to be one of the most exciting summers of our lives," Pamela used to tell Elizabeth and me whenever we thought about the summer between eighth and ninth grades. "All the stupid things we've ever done will be behind us, and all thewonderfulstuff will be waiting to happen."

But now, on the first day of vacation, as the three of us stood in our bathing suits in front of the full-length mirror in Elizabeth's bedroom, we realized that the same bodies were going into high school along with us, the same faults, the same personalities, some of the same problems we'd had before.

Elizabeth, with her long dark hair and lashes, her gorgeous skin, broke the silence first. "I'mfat!" she said in dismay."Lookat me!"

We looked. She was the same beautiful Elizabeth she'd always been, except that her face and arms were slightly rounder, but she was pointing to her thighs, which puffed out just a little below her suit.

"Saddlebags! I have saddlebag thighs!" she cried. "My legs look like jodhpurs!"

They didn't, of course, but before I could say a word, I heard murmurs on the other side of me coming from Pamela. Pamela is pretty, too, though not as drop-dead beautiful as Elizabeth. She's naturally blond, and wears her hair in a short feather-cut, like Peter Pan. It always seemed to me as though Pamela Jones had the perfect figure, but it didn't seem that way to Pamela.

"I have absolutely no definition," she observed.

"Huh?" I said. Were these girls nuts?

"My arms and legs are like pudding! One part looks the same as the rest."

"Pamela,anyonecan tell your arm from your leg," I told her.

"But you can't tell what's fat and what's muscle!"

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "People just want to look at you, Pamela. They don't want todissectyou!"

Pamela, however, meant business. "Well, I certainly need to do some toning," she said.

"AndIwant to lose this fat," said Elizabeth. "What doyouwant to change, Alice?"

Friends,I thought. But I just took a good, long look at myself in the mirror and thought about it. I've got the same color hair as my mom had, they tell me -- strawberry blond. Mom died when I was small, and I don't remember much about her, but they say she was tall and liked to sing. I'm more on the short side, and can't even carry a tune. I'm not fat, but I'm not thin. I'm more plain than I am pretty, but I'm not ugly. Miss Average, that's me.

"I don't know," I said finally. "What do you guys think I should change?"

You should never ask anyone that. You're just begging for worries you never had before.

"Well, if you want an honest opinion, your waist is a little thick, Alice," said Elizabeth. One thing about Elizabeth, she's loyal to a fault. You ask her to tell you something, she tells.

"And your legs are too straight," said Pamela. "I mean, you don't have to be ashamed of them or anything, but your calves hardly have any curve."

"Your breasts could be a little fuller," said Elizabeth. "Of course, they're bigger than mine...."

"And your arms have no definition at all," Pamela finished.

It's really weird, you know? Five minutes before, I had put on my bathing suit, ready to go over to Mark Stedmeister's pool with the gang, feeling really good about myself and my friends, and suddenly I was disintegrating before my very eyes! I had this new royal blue bathing suit that looked great with my hair, and now nothing looked right.

"There's only one solution," said Pamela. "We've got to start an exercise program. We've got exactly two and a half months to get ourselves in shape before school begins. Because how ever you look when you start ninth grade, that's how people will think of you for the next four years."

Nowthatwas a sobering thought. I don't know where Pamela comes up with stuff like this, but she's got a cousin in New Jersey who knows all about what they think in New York, so we learn a lot from her. What we don't get from Pamela's cousin, I get from my cousin Carol in Chicago, who's two years older than Lester, my brother, and used to be married to a sailor.

I'd never seen Pamela quite so gung ho as she was now.

"If we get up at seven each morning for the next ten weeks...," she began.

"Seven!" I wailed.

"Well, eight, maybe. And we jog for three miles..."

"In public?" Elizabeth gasped.

We stared. One reason we like Elizabeth is that her whole world sort of spins on a different axis.

"I suppose wecouldjog nine hundred times around your room, if you'd prefer," Pamela said dryly. "But if we spend the next ten weeks jogging every morning with ankle weights, and do push-ups, we might look reasonably good by the time we start high school. And no ice cream. No chips. No Oreos or anything like that."

I looked first at Pamela and then at Elizabeth. No ice cream, no chips, and jogging three miles with ankle weights? This was asummer?

Elizabeth shook her head. "I don't want anyone to see me sweat," she declared.

"If you jog, you're going to sweat, Elizabeth!" Pamela told her. "You have to sweat! You'resupposedto sweat! If you don't sweat, the fat will stay right there, and you'll keep those saddlebag thighs forever."

I looked at Elizabeth's face and wished Pamela hadn't said that. It's one thing to talk about saddlebags yourself, but something else to hear your friends say it.

Copyright © 2000 by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

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Excerpted from The Grooming of Alice by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.