Read Online Outrageously Alice by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor - Free Book Online

of his car, closed the door, and came around to the other side. Without a word, he started the engine and drove off, just as a second bus beeped at him.
    “Since when did I get a private chauffeur?” I asked.
    “Since you proved you couldn’t be trusted,” said Les, and he sounded different. Serious.
    I glanced over at him. “Dad called you, right?”
    “Right.”
    “At the U? He had you paged out of class just for this?”
    “I only have morning classes today. He called me at home.”
    ‘’And told you to wait for me after school and see whether or not I’d washed the stuff out of my hair?”
    “Brilliant deduction.”
    “So what’s the big deal ? I didn’t shave my head, did I? I didn’t pierce my nose or do anything permanent!”
    “You disobeyed Dad, and that’s enough.”
    “And you never did, I suppose?”
    “Of course. I just didn’t have a brother to come get me.”
    I banged my books down on the coffee table when we got inside and clamped up to my room, slamming my door so hard that the walls rattled. I think I even heard a small chunk of plaster tumble down inside the walls.
    How could Dad do that to me? In front of all my friends, have Lester cart me off as though I were three years old? And why would Lester agree to do it? I heard once that people who were wildest as kids often turn out to be the strictest parents. Lester must be getting in some practice. I whirled around, clutching my dresser top to vow an oath of revenge, then gawked at the sight in the mirror before me. Four of the five green spikes had fallen over, some to the left, one to the right, so that my head looked like a pineapple. I must have been resting my head in my hands a lot that day, because the green gel had slid down one whole side of my face. The eye shadow had moved on overto my cheeks, and with the dark smudge of mascara, I looked like a raccoon.
    Well, so what! I thought angrily. It was just a joke. Just for fun. I didn’t say I was going to go all week like that, did I?
    I went in the bathroom and took a shower, washing my hair and face, and had to use Ponds cold cream to get all the mascara off. By the time Dad came home, I was doing my algebra at the dining room table. I didn’t say anything and neither did he. It was like we were living in a monastery and had taken a vow of silence.
    I was hoping that when we sat down to dinner, Dad and Lester would keep the conversation going and I could show how mad I was by not joining in, but even Lester had vowed eternal silence. He reached for the peas and onions, helped himself, then put the dish back down again. Nothing.
    At first I decided I could hold out as long as they could. I could go the rest of my life not talking, if that’s the way Dad wanted it. I could graduate, move away and marry, and I still wouldn’t open my mouth. But by the time Dad put some carrot cake on the table, my favorite, I said, “You had no right to send Lester to school to pick me up.”
    “Oh?” said Dad. “I thought I was the parent here.”
    “Parent, not dictator! Since when can’t I fix my hair the way I want? You never said anything about it before.”
    “You never looked like something out of Night of the Living Dead before,” Lester put in.
    “So I wanted a new look! I just wanted to try it. It was only for a day.” I turned to Dad. “You really overreacted, you know? If you send Lester to drag me home just because I mousse my hair, what are you going to do if I smoke a cigarette? Cut my hand off? If I have sex with a guy, will you burn me at the stake?” I was shaking, I was so angry. “You have no idea how you embarrassed me in front of my friends by having Lester come for me at school.”
    “Then perhaps you have no idea how you embarrassed me by going to school looking as you did,” Dad replied.
    “ How? You weren’t even there!”
    “Someone I happen to care about is in that school, and it embarrasses me to think she might have seen you, that’s why.”
    He