Sharon Creech - Absolutely Normal Chaos

I wonder if my parents paid Carl Ray to do this.

He stood with us in line and bought his ticket, and stood in line with us while we bought popcorn, and the whole time I was sweating like crazy trying to think how in the world we could get rid of him and I couldn’t even say anything to Alex because Carl Ray was right there, the Shadow, the whole time.

I thought I was going to die.

He followed us to our seats and sat right next to me! I was in between Carl Ray and Alex. I gave Alex one of those I-don’t-believe-this-is-happening looks and then I gave him a how-in-the-world-are-we-going-to-ditch-him? look and he gave me one of those oh-well-what-can-we-do? looks and then the movie started.

I won’t go into all the details, like how Carl Ray watched every move Alex made and every time Alex moved his arm, Carl Ray turned and looked at his arm like it was a snake or something. I won’t go into that.

I will just say that I was a complete wreck and I couldn’t wait to get out of there.

But Alex and I must have both been thinking the same thing, because when it was finally over and we got outside and started walking to the car, Alex said, “Hey, Mary Lou, why don’t we walk home?”

I said, maybe a little too quickly, “Oh, great idea! It’s sooooo nice out.”

Alex said to Carl Ray, “Thanks a lot for the ride! You don’t mind if we walk home, do you?”

For the eternity of about five seconds, I thought Carl Ray was going to find some way to get us in his car, but all he did was give us this little sad look and say, “Naw. Go ahead.”

I almost felt sorry for him, but then I figured we were entitled to a little privacy, weren’t we? Do you think Carl Ray is lonely?

Alex and I had the greatest time walking home. We were both in such a good mood. The closer we got to my house, the slower we walked. Then I started getting a little nervous, thinking he might try and kiss me or something. I don’t know the first thing about it. I need some practice. But he didn’t do anything like that.

I wish this summer could go on and on and on, and I wish I could always be this happy. It seems that whenever you are sad or just normal, you’re always wishing you were happy, but when you’re happy, you start worrying about when all this happiness is going to end. At least that’s the way I am. Already, I’m worrying that I’m too happy, and I’m either going to have to pay for this or it’s all going to end real soon.

It reminds me of the wheel of fortune that Mrs. Zollar talked about. She said that Shakespeare and all his buddies believed in the wheel of fortune, that your luck kind of went round and round, and when you (or your luck) were at the top, everything would go right. But that it was inevitable that the wheel had to keep spinning, and sooner or later, you’d be at the bottom of the wheel, when everything would go badly. The only thing that kept people from jumping off cliffs when they were at the bottom of the wheel was knowing that sooner or later they would be at the top again.

I feel as if the gods are going to spin my wheel any minute. Oh, pleeease, let me stay where I am for a while!

I also wish everyone’s wheel was at the top at the same time. Beth Ann, for instance, is at the bottom of her wheel and she’s driving me crazy. She must have called me ten times today to tell me about Derek. First she said that he was a complete creep and she never wanted to see him again and she cried. Then she called back and said that she loved him sooooo much and maybe she should call him and tell him how much she missed him, and she cried. Then she called back and said she figured out why he was doing this: to make her jealous because he liked her so much, and she cried. Get the picture?

And, of course, she never once gave me a chance to say one word about Alex.

Alex, by the way, called at lunchtime (I don’t know how he was able to get through, what with Beth Ann calling all the time) to say he couldn’t come over today because he had to go to his grandmother’s house with his parents. It was his grandmother’s birthday and a whole bunch of relatives would be there.

Since I didn’t have too much to do today and since it was raining like crazy, I stayed home and read some more of the Odyssey . I think I’m getting to the good parts.

In Book Nine, Odysseus starts telling about all these great adventures he’s had. There were two I really liked.

One was about lotus-eaters, people who eat flowers. When Odysseus and his men visited them, his men ate a bunch of lotus flowers and it made them forget all about their home and their loved ones and they wanted to stay with the lotus-eaters forever. (I wonder if that’s what happened to ole Derek!!??) But Odysseus forces them back on their ship and he ties them to some benches and they leave. (They’re trying to get home after they’ve sacked all these cities.)

Then they come to the land of the Cyclopes, a weird group who live in caves and don’t have any laws. Odysseus and some of his men go up to the cave of this horrible one-eyed monster Cyclops, and pretty soon this Cyclops starts smashing a couple of the men on the ground and tears out their arms and legs and stuff and eats them. (Ugh.) That’s for supper. He does it again for breakfast. Finally, Odysseus (who, if you ask me, brags a little too much about his cleverness) comes up with this great plan. He tells the monster his name is “Noman,” and then he gets the monster drunk and pokes his eye out with this huge burning club. Homer really gets into all the gory details too, about the eye bubbling and hissing and all. It’s a little too much for me.

But the best part is when this monster’s friends all come and start calling to him, asking why he is screaming and stuff. And he says that “Noman” (no man, get it?) is killing him, and since his friends think that no man is killing him, they go away. Anyway, they all (or at least the ones who haven’t been eaten) finally do escape through Odysseus’s plan (he’s real proud of it) of tying them underneath some sheep and goats who are in the cave and will be let out in the morning. It’s a little hard to imagine.

The only thing I don’t like about Odysseus is that he brags so much about how clever he is and how many cities he sacked and how many people he killed. I think he’d be put in jail if he were alive today.

Another rainy, cloudy day.

Alex called, but he couldn’t come over because he’s got the flu. I bet he caught it at his grandmother’s birthday party. He said the party was a real bore except for the part when she opened the present from Alex’s grandfather (her husband). It was a black negligee!! Imagine.

Not a real exciting day here. Mom left us all a note today saying we had to wash all the windows in the whole entire house. We called her at work to tell her it was raining, but she said we had to do the insides anyway. The worst thing is, you can’t really SEE how much work we did, because the windows are still all dirty on the outside. I hope it’s still raining tomorrow. I don’t think I could take another day of smelling that vinegar and toiling my arm off.

I miss Alex Cheevey. Sigh.

Beth Ann is still calling a million times a day. She has written and torn up about fifty letters to Derek. Her latest plan is to make Derek jealous, but she doesn’t exactly know how she’s going to do it.

She also told me something that really surprised me. Christy (from school) called her. They’re not even friends or anything. Anyway, Christy was yakking away about a bunch of nonsense and she told Beth Ann some “secret” news that Beth Ann wasn’t supposed to tell anyone. Beth Ann told me though. This secret news is that Christy, Megan, and a bunch of other goony girls like them have formed a club called GGP and they can’t tell ANYONE what GGP stands for. And Christy told Beth Ann that Beth Ann was “under consideration” for membership in this stupid club.