Beatrice Sparks - Go Ask Alice

Oh, I hope I did the right thing. I probably shouldn’t have called her parents, but I really couldn’t get her out of there and I surely couldn’t have left her with the baby. I can just imagine what it’s going to be like in school tomorrow when this gets around. Bahm! Nobody’s even going to listen to my side. And besides, dopers don’t understand things like hurting babies. They don’t understand anything.

Mom and Dad said I did exactly as I should have last night and they were sorry they had not been available to help me. But what could they have done besides call Jan’s parents? Actually it might have been even worse if they’d been there. Who knows? Gotta go now.

P.M.

Jan passed me in the hall today and there was bitterness and hostility in her face like I have never seen before. “I’ll get even with you, you fucking Miss Polly Pure,” she said and she practically screamed it out in front of everyone. I tried to explain but she turned and walked away as though I didn’t even exist.

Later I went to the library. Joel knew something was wrong, so finally I told him I’m coming down with a cold and feel miserable. (The feeling miserable part is true.) He said I should take some aspirin and get some rest. Life is so simple for straight people.

I don’t know what Jan has told all the kids, but she really must be starting some ugly rumors because now I get sneers and giggles which is worse than being lonely and ignored. I wish I could talk to Joel, but I’m not even going to the library to study I’m so uptight. I’ll just take some books home and work in my room. (My room will be my whole universe.)

Joel just called from the library because he was worried about me. He had talked to Dad’s secretary who didn’t know anything. I’m so glad he called, but I told him I was sick and wouldn’t be going to the library this week. (Oh, I am sick, I’m sick of the screwed up potheads and acid-heads and all the other dopey dopers who are persecuting me.) Anyway, Joel asked if I’d mind if he called me every night, and I didn’t tell him that I’d be waiting by the phone but I will be! But you knew that didn’t you?

During the night Gran got quite sick. I think she just doesn’t care to go on without Gramps. She didn’t come out of her room for breakfast. I took her a tray, but she just played around with the food. Tonight I must go in and visit with her instead of going to the library like I’d finally decided to do. Joel will understand.

Bye now.

I am so boxed in I don’t know what to do. Jan sidled up to me as I was walking down the ramp and whispered, “You better tell your little tail-wagging sister not to accept candy from strangers or even from friends, especially your friends.” But Jan wouldn’t do that! She couldn’t! No matter what she thinks of me she surely wouldn’t take it out on Alexandria, would she? Would she? I wish I could make her understand, but I simply don’t know how.

Oh, I would like to talk to Mom or Dad or Joel or Tim about this, but everything I do seems to make things worse. I guess I’ll just have to work it into a dinner conversation some way about vindictive kids who put acid on candy and gum, etc., and pass them out. Maybe if I tell them that a teacher was talking about a kid in Detroit who died that way, they’ll be careful. They’ve got to be careful!

I was walking home from the store and a carload of kids pulled up beside me and began shouting things like:

“Well, if it isn’t easy lay, Mary Pure.”

“No, it’s Miss Fink Mouth.”

“Miss Super Fink Mouth. Miss Double Triple Fink Mouth.”

“I wonder what would happen if we stashed some shit in her old man’s car?”

“Wouldn’t that be great having her father, the professor, picked up?”

Then they called me every rotten name in the book and roared off laughing hysterically, leaving me emotionally crushed and battered and beaten. I think they’re just threatening me, trying to drive me crazy. But who knows? Last summer I read about some stoned kids who put a cat in a washing machine and turned it on just to see what would happen. Maybe they really would like to know how Dad would react. They’re such a bunch of lousy crazy bastards I wouldn’t put it past them. But I don’t think they’ll go that far. Maybe if I just sort of ignore them they will eventually give up.

For the first time I feel absolutely certain that even if I were locked in a room full of acid, Speed, and every other upper in the world I would only be disgusted, for I see what it does to kids who used to be my friends. Surely they wouldn’t pick on me so unmercifully if it weren’t for drugs. Would they?

Today someone put a burning roach in my locker and when the principal called me out of my room even he knew I wouldn’t do anything that stupid. My new jacket has a big hole in it and some loose papers had caught on fire and smoked everything all up. He asked me to name anyone I thought might have done it, and although I suspect Jan, I wouldn’t dare tell on her, and I certainly don’t want to name all the dopers at school. I’d be a fine one to point fingers. Besides they’d probably kill me. I’m really afraid.

I’m so grateful school will be out soon and next year maybe I can go to school in Seattle and live with Aunt Jeannie and Uncle Arthur. I do wish Gran hadn’t sold her house, but sick as she is I guess I couldn’t have lived there either.

PS. I went to the library at the university and Joel and I sat out on the lawn for a while, but things just aren’t the same. Everyday everything seems to get a little worse. I wish Joel could have been Dad’s son, and that I might never have been born.

Tonight is the dance, but naturally I won’t go. Even George, who used to take me out, now looks at me with disdain or passes me by without even seeing me. Apparently the rumors are growing. I just can’t even imagine what they are saying or how to stop them.

I think the old grass gang is trying to drive me completely insane, and they are almost succeeding. Today Mom and I were in the market and we met Marcie and her mom. While they stopped to talk Marcie turned to me and said, with a beautiful smile on her face, “Tonight we’re having a party and this is your last chance.”

I said “no thank you” as calmly as I could, but I thought I was going to choke. Her mother was standing about two inches away from her! Then she smiled just as sweetly and said, “You might as well come because we’re going to get you anyway.” Can you believe it? A fifteen year old girl from an educated, respected family couldn’t be threatening another girl in public, not in the nice, precise vegetable department. I thought I was going to lose my mind; that right then and there my mind was going to fall out on the floor and dissolve.

On the way home, Mom commented about my being so quiet. Then she asked me why I didn’t get nice Marcie Green to fix me up every now and then. Nice Marcie Green, ha! Maybe I am losing my mind. Maybe these things really aren’t happening.

Gran died in her sleep last night. I tried to tell myself that she’s gone to Gramps, but I’m so depressed all I can think about is worms eating her body. Empty eye sockets with whole colonies of writhing maggots. I can no longer eat. The whole house is crazy with everyone worrying about the funeral. Poor Mom, two parents in two months! How can she stand it? I think I’d die if I lost my parents right now. I’ve been trying to help her and to make things easier, but I’m so exhausted I have to force myself to take every step.