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

third.”
    â€œSo sing the second and third and act like you’re enjoying yourself,” Dad told me. “They’ll take their cues from you. If you’re embarrassed, they’ll stare and whisper. But if you look like you’re enjoying it, they’ll lose interest.”
    I didn’t for a moment believe it. We ate in silence, and finally Lester said, “Dad, do you remember the junior high band I played in back in Chicago?”
    â€œYes?”
    â€œRemember how on Wednesdays a bus picked up band members from all the area schools and took us to a high school auditorium where we practiced together in one group?”
    â€œYes, I remember.”
    â€œWell, what I never told you was that every so often one of the guys lost his pants.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œA guy would get his pants pulled off and thrown out the window of the bus. It was sort of a tradition. We’d get to where we were going, and there would be one kid who, if he couldn’t fight the older guys off, would be in his underpants for the rehearsal. The bus driver never caught on, the band director never caught on—there were too many of us. Whichever kid was chosen, his friends would sort of crowd around him to shield him from view, so the adults never found out. Or if they did, they never did anything about it.”
    â€œWhy didn’t someone report it?”
    â€œThat’s the part I always wondered,” Lester said. “But nobody did. We probably figured if we told, we’d really get it. I suppose it happened maybe five or six times during the whole school year, and I don’t know what those five or six kids told their parents about their pants.”
    Dad studied Lester over his coffee. “How come you never told me?”
    â€œI don’t know. I’ve thought about that, too. I guess I figured there was nothing you could do—it was just something I had to deal with myself. But for a whole year Idreaded Wednesdays. I used to lie awake half of Tuesday night worrying about it, and I quit band the next year. But I never said why.”
    I sat there looking at my brother, imagining him back in seventh grade worrying about losing his pants in front of all the other kids. I’d never thought Lester would be embarrassed about anything, but now I knew. Which was worse, I wondered—having to sing in front of fifty kids when you can’t carry a tune, or having to go to band practice in your underpants? I wasn’t sure.
    â€œWhen is this Seventh-Grade Sing Day going to be?” Lester asked.
    â€œThat’s the worst part. Nobody knows. Soon. Monday, probably. I’m not so worried about before or after school, because there’s just enough time to get from the bus to the building and back again. It’s the lunch period that scares me. You have to eat and then either go outside or to the library. You can’t stay in the cafeteria the whole period. And I hear the eighth and ninth graders guard the library so you can’t get in.”
    â€œWell, Al, the worst that can happen is that they’ll embarrass you. But you’ll still be alive the next day,” Dad said, as though that was any comfort.
    SGSD didn’t happen on Monday, but the rumors wentaround like wildfire. Everywhere I went I heard the whispers: “Tomorrow . . . tomorrow . . . tomorrow . . .”
    I really had a stomachache that night. I think I ate one french fry and two bites of hamburger.
    â€œEverybody says it will be tomorrow,” I told Dad. “ Please can’t I stay home?”
    â€œYou going to run away, Al, when the going gets tough?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œGoing to let Denise and her gang know they can scare you off?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œSo they’ll be even bolder when they try something else?”
    I thought about that a moment. “No,” I said finally, and the next day I went to school.
    All three of us—Pamela,