Sharon Creech - Absolutely Normal Chaos

But back to Carl Ray. We all just about keeled over when we heard about Mr. Biggers telling Carl Ray someone wanted to give him some money. It was chaos in our house because everybody started asking Carl Ray a million questions.

MAGGIE:Gosh, Carl Ray, who could the person be?

DENNIS:How much? How much did you get?

ME:Who is the person??

DOUGIE:Is it a lot of money?

TOMMY:No jail?

MAGGIE:Who do you think it could be?

ME:Yeah, who is it?

DENNIS:How much money is he giving you?

DOUGIE:Is he a millionaire?

TOMMY:No jail?

And on and on. Ole Carl Ray hardly had a chance to get a word in, and finally Dad yelled, “QUIET! WILL YOU ALL JUST BE QUIET?”

And when we finally all shut up, Dad said, “Carl Ray does not know who the person is. We’ve been through this already. He asked Mr. Biggers to tell him the name, but Mr. Biggers can’t do that. Apparently whoever is giving Carl Ray this money wants to remain anonymous.”

Mom said, “That’s very curious, isn’t it, Sam?”

Dad just nodded.

“Boy,” Dennis said, “how lucky can a guy get? I wish this person would give me some money.”

And Dougie said, “How much, Carl Ray?”

And Dad said, “Carl Ray, you don’t have to tell them if you don’t want to. It’s none of their business.”

Boy, here we are providing a hotel for the ole prince and Dad doesn’t think it’s any of our business?

But Carl Ray just shrugged and said, “I don’t care if they know.”

And Dennis said, “How much?”

And Carl Ray said to Dad, “You tell ’em. I forget.” He for gets ? Lord.

DAD:He gets five thousand dollars right now…

DENNIS:God!

MOM:Don’t say “God!”

DOUGIE:GEEZ!!

MAGGIE:Wow.

ME:Lord.

TOMMY:No jail?

DAD:…and the rest of the money…

DOUGIE:There’s more ?

DENNIS:God!

MOM:Don’t say “God!”

DAD:The rest of the money is being put in a trust fund to provide for Carl Ray’s college education.

DENNIS:What college?

DOUGIE:What college?

MAGGIE:I didn’t know you wanted to go to college, Carl Ray.

( I have to admit I was thinking “What college?” myself .)

MOM:Oh, be quiet all of you. Give Carl Ray a chance to think, will you?

ME:Well, did you want to go to college, Carl Ray?

( Carl Ray just shrugged .)

DENNIS:What if he doesn’t want to go to college?

DOUGIE:Yeah, can he use that money for something else? Like a television or something?

DAD:No. It’s only for college. That’s a condition on the rest of the money. If Carl Ray doesn’t want to go to college, the money goes somewhere else, I guess.

DENNIS:Where does it go?

DOUGIE:Could I have it?

DAD:I don’t know where it goes. No, you can’t have it. It’s all rather mysterious, if you ask me. All I know is what Mr. Biggers told us, and I don’t want ANY of you repeating this to anyone. It is NO ONE’s business but Carl Ray’s, and Mr. Biggers asked that we keep this within the family.

Well, everyone was so excited. All of us kids spent the whole rest of the evening deciding what we would do if we got five thousand dollars and also we kept trying to guess who gave Carl Ray the money. We decided it was either some weird old lady who got Carl Ray mixed up with someone else, or maybe it was some long-lost uncle who had so much money he didn’t know what to do with it. Or maybe it was some strange old convict who Carl Ray met just once and maybe Carl Ray gave him some bread or something. You just never know about these things.

Carl Ray doesn’t seem too excited, but he does seem worried. I can’t imagine why, unless he thinks maybe it’s a mistake and tomorrow Mr. Biggers will call and say the person changed his mind or got the wrong Carl Ray or something.

Book Six of the Odyssey is all about some ladies doing their laundry and Odysseus coming naked out of the sea and since he’s been twenty days thrashing about in the water, he looks pretty awful, but he’s real polite and coherent and asks them to move away while he washes because he’s ashamed of being naked. Then, with a little help and anointing from Athene, he emerges looking terrific, like a god and all. As usual, even though he’s a total stranger, they all welcome him and give him clothes and everything.

Everyone’s still asking Carl Ray a million questions about the money and wondering who gave it to him, and he’s still walking around looking shocked, although I did see him looking through the Sears catalogue. Maybe he’s trying to decide what to buy first.

Mom got real mad at all of us today. She sent Dennis and Dougie to their room (she hardly ever does that) because they kept badgering Carl Ray, telling him they sure did wish they could have a new bicycle (that was Dougie) and a little television (Dennis) and all kinds of other stuff: toys, baseball bats, ice skates, roller skates, stilts, water skis (we don’t even have a boat) and on and on.

Mom got mad at Maggie because she just happened to mention to Carl Ray that there was a beee-yooo-teee-ful coat at the May Company that she was absolutely in love with. She got mad at Tommy because he badgered her all day about Carl Ray going to jail. She got mad at me because I wrote “Mary Lou’s favorite wish” on a picture of a desk and taped it on the wall outside Carl Ray’s bedroom. Mom said, “You can be very insensitive, Mary Lou.”

Me? Insensitive?

I just don’t even know where to start. Maybe at the pool. I went to the pool today (after Carl Ray the Prince finally got out of bed so I could clean up that room—I still have to vacuum in there, which does not seem fair since Carl Ray’s only chore so far is to make up his stupid bed). Alex asked me if I wanted to go swimming today, remember? Sure enough, Alex was there.

It was all cloudy and cool though, so after about an hour we decided (it was Alex’s idea) to go somewhere else. It sure seemed like something was bothering him, and I thought, Well, maybe he was sorry he asked me to meet him there, and maybe he was trying to think of a way to get rid of me. We went to this little park near the pool and sat on a picnic table. For a while we just read all the names carved into the table, and I was about to say that I had to go home (just in case he did want to get rid of me, I thought I’d better make it sound like I was ready to go anyway), when he said, “I got the strangest phone message the other day.”

“What message?”

“Some girl called and said to my mother, ‘Tell Alex I love him.’” Then he looked at me as if he was waiting for me to confess.

Boy was I mad . I was mad because, first of all, it wasn’t ME who called, but Alex thought it was, and second of all, I was wondering who in the heck DID call. Grrrr. But before I could say anything, Alex looks up because this girl is walking toward us. She’s smiling and waving her arm like crazy, and when she gets pretty close, she says, “Hiiiiiii! Hiiiiiii there!”