Absolutely Normal Chaos Read online

  He sure had a lot of sum and substance in there. Alpha and Omega! About twenty packs of gum, a bunch of pennies and nickels, three can openers, two pocketknives, some horse chestnuts (???), three pairs of ratty old socks, pens, pencils, packs of matches, glue, a can of tuna fish (unopened), and a can of sardines (also unopened), a DIARY (!!!!), and something wrapped up in tissue paper.

  I stared at the diary and the thing wrapped up in tissue paper for a few minutes. I didn’t want anyone to catch me, but I sure wanted to open that diary and that little package. But I was starting to feel guilty. I decided to open only one thing. I figured that it would be worse to open the diary, so I opened up the tissue paper.

  How peculiar.

  Inside was a gold ring with a large black stone. There was also a card that said: “Carl Ray, I want you to have this. I’ll explain later. C.F.” I figured it must be from his father (Carl Joe Finney), but I never knew that Uncle Carl Joe could afford anything as fancy as that ring. If he could, why wouldn’t he put a bathroom in his house?

  I was going to look inside the ring to see if it had an inscription, but Dennis came upstairs then and he caught me sticking it back and asked what I was snooping at and I told him I was just cleaning, for Deity’s sake.

  The Dead

  Book Eleven of the Odyssey is deadly boring. Ha. That’s a pun, because this part is all about Odysseus’s visit to the dead. It wasn’t as exciting as I expected it to be. He meets some old friends who weren’t as lucky as he (they’re dead, after all) and also he meets a prophet who tells him what’s going to happen to him in the future. He warns him about all the dangers ahead and tells him that he will kill all of his wife’s suitors. I didn’t think Homer should give away the ending like that. Also, this prophet tells Odysseus how he will die!!! He’s going to die at sea, but a sort of peaceful death.

  Imagine. Would you want someone to tell you what was going to happen to you and how you were going to die? What if you were told you were going to die at sea? Wouldn’t you stay about as far away from the sea as possible? But the way this prophet tells Odysseus, it’s as if there isn’t a darn thing he can do about it. It’s all planned out. Would you want to know what was on your path of life and all? I wouldn’t. No way. But I wouldn’t mind visiting dead people. I’d check on how Mr. Furtz was doing.

  Wednesday, July 25

  I’ve just been with Alexxxxxx. Sigh. But I’ll wait and tell about him at the end.

  First, Beth Ann. She called today and jabbered on for hours about that wonnnnderful Carl Ray. That cabbageheaded ole Carl Ray sent her a dozen red roses!!! I asked her if she was absolutely sure they were from him, and she seemed a little offended. She said that there was a card with the flowers and it said, “To Cleo from Tony.”

  “Huh?” I said. “Cleo? Tony?”

  She giggled. “Our nicknames. I’m Cleopatra, he’s Antony.”

  Oh, Alpha and Omega! It took me about ten minutes to quit gagging. I could not imagine Carl Ray standing in some florist shop writing out this card that says, “To Cleo from Tony.” I mean, what would the storekeeper think? King of Kings! Supreme Being! What happens to people?

  But then I started wondering why Alex and I hadn’t given each other nicknames, and then I started wondering if maybe he didn’t like me as much as Carl Ray likes Beth Ann, and then I started wondering why Alex hadn’t sent me roses.

  Anyway. Beth Ann still has not heard from “the jerk.” If you ask me, she’s too busy drooling over Carl Ray to care very much anymore. She sure forgot Derek-the-Divine quickly.

  Oh, and Beth Ann, my devoted best friend, has definitely decided to go to the GGP pajama party on Saturday night when I am off in West Virginia suffering through a week of Carl Ray. Some friend.

  So now Alex. Ah, Alex. Tonight I met him halfway between his house and my house, and then we walked back to his house. The Big Moment: I was going to meet his parents. All the way there, he told me about them. He said his dad would be very quiet and serious and that his mother would be a little weird. When I asked him what he meant by weird, he said she changes moods quickly and dresses strangely sometimes and never sits still, but that she was real nice anyway.

  Mrs. Cheevey was standing in the driveway aiming a bow and arrow at the garage when we walked up. She was wearing a black cocktail dress, pearls, and a pair of tennis shoes. On her head was a baseball cap. She shot a bow and arrow at the garage door. It landed right between two of the windows. “Bull’s-eye!” she shouted.

  Then she heard us coming and turned around. “Oh hi, hi, hi,” she said, walking up to us. She was real pretty, with curly blond hair and a sweet round face.

  She put her hand out to me. “Mary Lou, Mary Lou, Mary Lou!” she said. “That’s right, isn’t it?” She was smiling all over the place. She held out the bow and arrow. “Just practicing,” she said. “Want to try?”

  I said, “Maybe later,” but I smiled a lot too.

  “Well, come in, come in, come in,” she said. So we followed her inside. Alex lives in this enormous house on Lindale Street. The living room is about as big as our whole downstairs, and it looks, at first, as if it should be a picture in a magazine. But then, if you look more closely, you notice some strange things. Each set of windows has a different color of curtains, for example: red, gold, purple, black, peach, blue. On one side of the room, the furniture is all antique-looking: a huge ornate couch in green velvety material, a gigantic wooden cupboard, four of those dainty little chairs that you would expect little princesses to be sitting on, and lots of those little round tables with curved legs. Then on the other side of the room, everything is modern: a long white couch, two leather-and-metal chairs that each look like an enormous S, and a long black coffee table with metal legs and a wavy top that looks like a great big noodle.

  Then the walls. On the antique side is this orange-and-green-patterned wallpaper, and on the modern side the walls are shiny yellow. One side of the room (guess which side!) has six huge portraits of very stern-looking grandmothers and grandfathers (I guess).

  The other side had all kinds of interesting things on it: one of those paintings that looks like someone just stood back and flicked paint off a spoon; a stuffed pig’s head; a white plaster sculpture of an arm and hand coming right straight out of a piece of tin; a pair of red cloth lips, about two feet in diameter, with a stick of gum emerging from the center; and a long shelf (maybe six feet long) with hundreds and hundreds of little pebbles on it.

  Mrs. Cheevey said, “Sit down, sit down, sit down,” and she motioned us to the antique side of the room. We sat down. “Oh,” she said, “I just love it, love it, love it, when Alex brings someone home!” Then she started calling for her husband, “Oh, Ralph, Ralph, Ralph.”

  Pretty soon Ralph came in. Wow! He is about seven feet tall, about as tall and skinny as anyone I have ever met. First I saw his feet coming down the stairs, and they were e-nor-mous. He wore gigantic leather sandals. Then I saw his legs coming down the stairs. He wore blue jeans, and his legs just kept coming and coming. I didn’t think there was a body attached. Then I saw hands and arms hanging down; these long, swinging things in a red plaid shirt. Pretty soon a long neck and then, surprisingly, a rather small head. I was glad that it was a small head, because I was beginning to think a giant was coming down the steps. His face is pale and freckled and he has brown hair.

  He stepped into the room. “Oh, Ralph, Ralph, Ralph,” Mrs. Cheevey said, “this is Mary Lou!!” He nodded, but before he moved any farther, he motioned to the other side of the room with his hand. Alex and Mrs. Cheevey automatically got up, so I did too, and then we all went and sat on the other side of the room.

  But as soon as we sat down, Mrs. Cheevey jumped back up and left the room. Mr. Cheevey said, “Son,” (I liked that, the way he said “son,” so formal and all), “do you and Mary Lou have plans for this evening?”

  Alex said, “Yuh.”

  Then Mrs. Cheevey came rushing back in the room with a plate of oysters! Ugh. I
’d never eaten oysters, and I didn’t really feel like starting today, but it didn’t look like I had any choice. She balanced the plate of oysters on two of the waves of the noodlelike table and went rushing out again. Then she came back in with some purple napkins (cloth) and handed us each one and sat down. Then she got back up and passed the plate of oysters around.

  We had each swallowed one oyster when Mrs. Cheevey jumped up again and said, “Oh! Ralph, Ralph, Ralph! The time. It’s so late, late, late.” She was already up and halfway out of the room.

  Alex said, “Well, I’m glad you got to meet—”

  Mr. Cheevey stood up. “Mary Lou Finney,” he said, and put out his hand, and I quickly wiped off the oyster juice on my purple napkin and put my hand out and he gently crushed all my fingers in his enormous hand.

  Already Mrs. Cheevey was back, carrying a green parka, which she put over her shoulders. She was still wearing the black cocktail dress, pearls, baseball hat, and tennis shoes. Mr. Cheevey was still wearing his jeans and plaid shirt and sandals. They left. Dressed like that, they left.

  Alex said, “They’re really nice, honest, once you get to know them.”

  “Wow,” I said.

  Alex and I were alone in his house. I started examining all the things on the walls—the pig’s head and the shelf with all the pebbles on it and the big pair of red lips with the gum sticking out the center. Can you imagine practicing kissing on those huge lips?!! I think Alex was more nervous than I was, because he was shuffling all around. We did try sitting on the long, white couch, but we felt pretty silly sitting there on that huge couch in the middle of that enormous room, so finally Alex suggested we go to the Tast-ee Freeze. It was a relief, to tell you the truth. And then, just to show you that it must be true about the quiet, romantic places not being all that they are cracked up to be, wouldn’t you know it, when we got out on the street and were passing Artie’s Automotive, that’s when he put his arm on my shoulder again!

  Here is something for my manual: When the guy puts his arm around the girl while walking along, the girl might find it more comfortable to also put her arm around him at this time. She can put it sort of across his back. It is a little difficult to walk this way, and you won’t want to walk very far like this, but it’s a neat thing to do. The girl will find it difficult to think of things to say during this time, but the boy will carry on about something or other (basketball, for example), and the girl can get by with saying, “Mmm” or “Ah” or “Oh?” This way she can concentrate primarily on not tripping.

  When other people do these things, it looks so easy. Don’t let that fool you.

  Enough!

  I leave for West Virginia with Carl Ray the day after tomorrow. Groannnn.

  Temptations and Choices

  Book Twelve of the Odyssey: Wow! What an action-packed chapter. First, Odysseus and his men pass by the Sirens, who bewitch everyone who comes near them with their singing. Clever Odysseus blocks up his men’s ears with wax. He wants to listen, though, so he has his men tie him up to the mast and orders them not to untie him, no matter how hard he might beg.

  If this is a metaphor, I think that the Sirens represent sexy women who tempt men (like Eve with Adam?). I don’t think I am a Siren yet. I can hardly speak when I am with Alex, let alone sing!

  Then Odysseus’s ship has to go between these two dangerous obstacles: One is Scylla, a horrible monster with twelve feet and six necks and six heads and three rows of teeth in each head, and she eats men from ships. The other obstacle is Charybdis, a whirlpool that sucks up whole ships. Odysseus can’t get through without going close to one, but finally he decides to risk Scylla. Scylla snatches up about six of Odysseus’s men and eats them up. I think that maybe Scylla and Charybdis represent two difficult choices, and that you have to take the choice that offers least harm. Maybe? Does that sound right?

  Thursday, July 26

  Ohhhhh, I have to leave tomorrow to go with beefbrained ole besotted Carl Ray.

  And Beth Ann has been calling here all day, going on and on about how she can’t bear to be apart from him and how I should remind him every day about, her and on and on and on.

  And Alex and I spent about four hours together at the park. We played tennis. It sure is a lot more fun playing tennis with Alex than with Beth Ann.

  Alex pays attention and says things like “Great shot!” (about my shot, not his; Beth Ann would say it about her own) and “Whoa!” (if I zing one past him, which I can occasionally do), and he generally gives the impression that he is having a terrific time. We laugh if one of us “whiffs” the ball (that’s what Alex calls it when you swing and miss), whereas with Beth Ann you have to pretend not to notice when she misses—and if you miss, she puts on this phony frown as if she feels so enormously sorry for you.

  We were too sweaty to hold hands or anything afterward, but on the way home he said he would think about me a lot while he was gone and I said (yes, I actually got some mushy words out) that I would think about him a lot while I was gone. Oh sighhhh.

  Is there such a thing as being too happy? It makes me feel a little guilty, especially when there are people like Mrs. Furtz who are feeling so awful. Speaking of Mrs. Furtz, the strangest thing happened tonight. Right after dinner, before Alex arrived, Mrs. Furtz came over. Mom and Dad were sitting at the kitchen table, I was washing the dishes, and Carl Ray was rummaging around in the refrigerator.

  Mrs. Furtz looks terrible lately. I bet she hasn’t combed her hair in a week, and she was wearing this old sweatshirt and a pair of baggy pants and crummy old shoes. You could tell she’d been crying. She sat down at the table with my parents and started sniffling.

  Carl Ray stood there staring at Mrs. Furtz with this really sorrowful look on his face and then all of a sudden he left the room, and about two minutes later, he came downstairs with a tissue-wrapped package in his hand. He went right up to Mrs. Furtz and handed it to her. She looked at him strangely, and Carl Ray said, “For you,” and then he went outside and got in his car and drove away!

  Mom and Dad looked so surprised and Mrs. Furtz kept staring at the tissue and I was wondering what in the world had happened to Carl Ray’s mind. Finally, Mrs. Furtz opened it. Sure enough, it was the ring from Carl Ray’s drawer. I leaned over and said, “Where’s the card?” and they all looked at me. Carl Ray had taken the card out. “Oh,” I said, “I just thought there’d be a card.”

  Then Mrs. Furtz started sobbing and Mom started patting her on the back and Dad went to get a box of Kleenex, and that’s when Alex came to the door.

  Now what would make Carl Ray do something like that? Why would he give Mrs. Furtz his father’s ring? He’s just full of surprises.

  When I got home tonight, Dad was talking to Carl Ray and asking him if maybe he didn’t want to reconsider and take the ring back, that it was a very nice gesture and that Mrs. Furtz was so overwhelmed she couldn’t speak, but Carl Ray might regret his impulse, and if so, everybody would understand and Dad was sure that Mrs. Furtz would give the ring back.

  When Dad was done with his little speech, Carl Ray just said, “Nope,” and went to bed.

  Oh, Alpha and Omega!

  Friday, July 27

  Oh, Deity! I’m here at Aunt Radene’s in West Virginia and there is no light in the bedroom and I’m trying to write by the moonlight. I feel like Abraham Lincoln. I can’t see hardly anything. I’ll have to write tomorrow in the daytime. Oh, I miss home and Alex!!!

  Saturday, July 28

  Oh, King of Kings, what a day yesterday was and what a day today is turning out to be.

  Right now, I’m sitting on Aunt Radene’s and Uncle Carl Joe’s front porch on this great red wooden swing that’s screwed into the ceiling of the porch. Down in front of me is a hill and on it is the graveyard. Spooooky.

  I’ll start with yesterday.

  Carl Ray and I left home about noon. I was in charge of the map and he was in charge of the driving. Boy, Carl Ray drives like a maniac!! I was fearing
for my life the whole time. He speeds along at about ninety miles an hour and swerves around cars to pass them and never uses his turn signals and he hates to stop. I had to beg him, after about four hours, to please stop so I could go to the bathroom.

  We didn’t talk hardly at all, thank goodness. I brought along the Odyssey and pretended to be engrossed in that. Every now and then he would ask me what part I was on, and when I told him he would say, “Oh, yeah, I liked that part,” or “Oh, that’s a good part.” He really knows that book. I think he must have memorized it or something.

  Anyway, we only got lost once, and we finally arrived at Aunt Radene’s at nine o’clock. Aunt Radene and all of Carl Ray’s brothers and sisters (Arvie Joe, John Roy, Lee Bob, Sue Ann, Sally Lynn, and Brenda Mae—everybody has two names, like me) were waiting on the porch and started jumping up and down and waving and acting like lunatics. The only one who wasn’t there was Uncle Carl Joe. At first I thought it was kind of nice, such a great reception and all, but then when we got out of the car, everyone jumped all over Carl Ray and started hugging him and messing his hair, and I realized they weren’t at all excited to see me.

  After about an hour of that, Aunt Radene finally noticed me standing there looking like an idiot, and she came over and hugged me and then everyone else did too, so it was about another half hour of people messing up my hair. They’re sure a happy bunch.

  Then we had to go in and eat dinner. Aunt Radene said, “Gosh, we’re starving to death. We usually eat up at five, but we were waitin’ on you all. Gosh, I’m as happy as a pumpkin in a patch to see you.” That’s just the way she talks, honest, I’m not making it up.