"Listen," she said, beckoning to me. I joined her at the window. "Do you hear that?" she asked. but I heard nothing. "Don't they sing beautifully? You can wave, but don't say anything. Go on, just a wave," she said. She waved, and then, even though I felt very silly. I waved, too. "Poor dears. They are so in love with us. Shall we eat our dinner?"
She complimented me on my salad. The spaghetti with the tomato soup didn't taste terrible. Afterward, she leaped up to get the ice cream. When we were finished. I cleared off the table and started to wash the dishes. I thought she would just return to the living room and her television shows, but she took out a dish towel and began to wipe and put away the plates, bowls and silverware.
"Look at what a wonderful team we are, she said. "I'm sure Emma would be proud of you."
Afterward, she surprised me by taking a carton of photo albums out of a closet and showing them to me in the living room. There were pictures of her parents, of her and Grandmother Emma when they were little girls and older, and pictures of Grandfather Blake. Some had been taken on holidays and some had been taken at the homes of other relatives I had never been told about. Great-aunt Frances explained them all, the cousins, her father and mother's brothers and sisters and even her grandparents and their brothers and sisters. We spent nearly two hours looking at it all.
Although Grandmother Emma had allowed me to see some of her photographic albums, she'd never spent time explaining everyone to me and to Ian. It was almost as if we'd been looking at illustrations in a history book. This was more interesting because it was about our family, and for the first time. really. I felt I had an extended family, a history that was mine and not just Grandmother Emma's.
Afterward. I put away the carton. and Greataunt Frances began to watch something on television. As before. she grew groggy, sleepy and eventually closed her eyes. I looked at the clock and saw it was nearly eight. Alanis would be going into the basement with her girlfriends soon.
I tiptoed out and went to the basement door. Part of me felt terribly guilty about doing all this right under Great-aunt Frances's nose. It was sneaky, and if and when she did find out. I was sure she would be very disappointed in me. but I was also intrigued with what the older girls would do and say, and there was that boy they invited. Would he be there? After all. I had never gone to a party with so many older girls. For that matter. I had hardly gone to any parties after we had moved in with Grandmother Emma. It seemed harder to turn the basement doorknob, because half my hand was trying to stop me from doing so.
It opened. and I flipped on the light switch and started down. Before I even reached the bottom of the rickety stairway. I heard the sound of their laughter. And then I heard the music, too. I opened the second door slowly and peered in at what Alanis was now calling her private club. The girls were dancing.
"There she is!" she cried as soon as she saw me. "The guest of honor."
Nikki and Raspberry stopped dancing, then Stuart Gavin stepped out of the shadows and looked at me. He was wearing a short-sleeve blue shirt and a pair of jeans. I hadn't really looked at him in the mall, but now I saw he was taller than the girls and wideshouldered. In fact, he looked more like a man than a boy. His dark brown hair was cut short.
"Well?" Alanis asked him, tilting her hat back. "What do you think of her?"
He stepped toward me into the light. I didn't think he was ugly, but he wasn't terribly good-looking either, because he had a long, pointed nose and the corners of his mouth turned downward sharply. He had a cleft chin, and his jaw was more square than round.
"I wouldn't have been fooled," he said. "You didn't have to tell me nothing."
"I'm sorry. Jordan, but we told Stuart the truth about you," Alanis said.
"The truth?"
"How you started kindergarten late because you were sickly as a baby, and then how you were left back and then lost another year moving."
She winked at me. I looked at Nikki and Raspberry. They were both smiling.
"It's all right," Stuart said. "I was left back once."
"But..."
Alanis moved quickly to stand between me and Stuart.
"We have the rum alcopop," she told me. "The one you liked the most, remember?"
"What?"'
Nikki and Raspberry gave Stuart one and started to talk to him. Alanis moved closer.
"Keep your mouth zipped and go along with it," she told me in a raspy whisper. "Otherwise, he'll head for the hills.'
She threaded her arm through mine.
"Don't worry." she continued. "I'll be right beside you. I'm your new minder, remember, sister dear?"
"But I told you," I protested. "I don't like to lie."
"Take it easy. Not telling boys the truth isn't lying. Jordan. It's self-defense," she said and handed me the bottle of rum alcopop. "Take a sip," she said. "You're about to grow up overnight,"
8 Another First Day at School
. I didn't mind the taste of this as much as I had the burning whiskey she had given me the night before. Stuart, showing off, drank his bottle in one long gulp, his Adam's apple bobbing like a frog. Nikki and Raspberry clapped and squealed as he reached the end and pulled the bottle out of his mouth.