Thoms Demijohn (Thomas Disch and John Sladek) - Black Alice

Chapter 1

Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by herself on the trunk, and of having nothing to do. This was the first day of vacationshe should be having fun, for heaven's sake! She looked up the asphalt road for the familiar grey dot that would become Miss Godwin's Saab, and sighed. She turned around and watched a fat, furry caterpillar crawl about furtively beneath a canopy of ivy leaves. The caterpillar was banded yellow and black; the ivy was a vivid, early-summer green; the bricks of the wall that girded St. Arnobia's were a dull red, brick-red. Alice didn't approve of so much colour. It was in poor taste. So, very carefully, she pried the caterpillar from the brick wall and let him crawl about on the pleats of her new dress.

But that was soon boring too, since the caterpillar showed no interest in conversation. Miss Godwin was forty-five minutes late! If only Alice had thought to leave out one book when she'd packed her trunk so that she would have had something to read now. If only the sky would clear, so she could start getting tanned. If only, if only, if only Miss Godwin would come.

She began to fidget.

You're fidgeting, she told herself. How many times must 1 tell you not to fidget?

Miss Godwin was so late that most of the other St. Arno-bians were already gone. Alice had had to sit and watch their departures and pretend not to be dying of impatience. The younger girls had screamed and jumped about like absolute wild Indians, and prattled on about every little thing that had happened since the Easter holiday, not even stopping their mad chatter to wave good-bye to Alice. By contrast the seventh and eighth graders were as composed as stone statues. They kissed their parents demurely or offered a white-gloved hand to be shaken. They sat up straight in the seats of their cars, conversing with the indolent grace of goddesses. Next year, Alice realised, with a sensation almost of swooning, those goddesses would be her classmates. They didn't know it yet, but Alice was going to. skip seventh grade. After Miss Godwin's summer tutoring, she would go straight from sixth grade to eighth grade. From the academic point of view, of course, she had nothing to worry about. She was better in arithmetic and reading and even in art than most of this year's eighth graders. But the idea that she would be an eighth grader herselfa creature of such flawless elegance, of such maturitythat was a really overwhelming idea. It was like finding yourself suddenly twelve years old instead of eleven.

While she waited, Alice had studied the older girls carefully, noting especially the way they climbed into a car. Instead of scrambling in headlong, they would first sit on the edge of the seat, then swivel around ninety degrees, drawing their legs into the car in one smooth motion. Elegant wasn't the word for it! No doubt they'd learned to do it in Miss Boyd's etiquette class, since they all did it so perfectly. Eighth graders had etiquette every day, but sixth graders only had one hour a week (unless you counted dancing classes) and that had been barely time to learn introductions. Still, practised or not, there was no reason why Alice couldn't get into Miss Godwin's Saab in a ladylike way. Miss Godwin had a sharp eye for such things.

A red, needle-thin dragonfly darted about in the grass by Alice's feet, and she lifted them up to the top of the trunk nervously. A fine mist of perspiration prickled her cheekbones and brow. The asphalt road was empty as far as one could see.

She sighed and checked her watch. Her father had given it to her on her eleventh birthday in March, a brand-new Lady Bulova with two small diamonds. Miss Godwin was one hour and five minutes late. The ominous thunder-heads that had been building up all afternoon covered the sky now from horizon to horizon. She did hope Miss Godwin would come soon, before the rain ruined her dress, which was linen in a retiring shade of beige. Bix box pleats came down from the yoke, and a matching belt fastened below the waist with a button. Alice adored the dress, but she worried, after seeing the other girls in their holiday dresses, whether it might not be too old for her, and wanted Miss Godwin's opinion. Miss Godwin, unlike some other governesses Alice could mention, had exquisite taste.

Governesses as a breed were awful creatures. Either they wore space shoes like fat old Mrs. Buckler or ugly straw hats with silly ribbons like Miss Stuck-Up from England (who had only lasted two weeks, because it turned out that she drank). But Miss Godwin was really wonderful. Really really. Good-looking, young, easy-temperedand talk about cultured!

Why, she'd taken her Bachelor's degree at the Sorbonne in Paris! She spoke much better French than even Mr. Limberley at St. Arnobia's, and she'd read all of Victor Hugo! Alice sometimes could wish that her parents were as cultured as her governess. Maybe if they had lived for a while in Europe, they'd have been more like Miss Godwinmore full of life, more happy, more real. Miss Godwin certainly was real.

'What can be keeping her?' Alice said aloud. Then, remembering that that was her worst habit, almost bit her tongue off as a punishment. Some years ago (two), in the dark days of Mrs. Buckler, Alice used to talk to herself all the time, but now she was supposed to be over it. Actually she'd never talked to herself; she'd talked to Dinah, who was sometimes her imaginary sister and sometimes a cat.

A moving speck appeared on the farthest hill crest, then vanished as the road dipped. In the hot, hazy air the distant stretch of asphalt seemed to ripple like a pool of water. A mirage. Alice knew all about mirages. Someday she would go to the Sahara and see one of the big desert miragesa whole city created out of the warm air. Someday, when she was grown, she would go everywhere. The prospect of being grownup hung tantalisingly before her, just out of reach, beckoning. A mirage.

The approaching car was not a Saab. It was just another old Cadillac. It pulled sedately in through the wrought-iron arch of the gate, and a stiff-looking couple emerged from the back seat. Becky Horner's parents, Alice guessed. Becky was in the Infirmary with poison ivy from the seventh grade's General Science field trip two weeks ago. Alice was sure that Becky was just putting on about how sick she was so that the other girls wouldn't be able to see her with calomine and bandages all over her legs. (Becky had sat in the poison ivy.)

The Horners passed within a dozen feet of Alice without even nodding to her. When they couldn't see her, Alice stuck her tongue out at them. Miss Godwin said it was childish to be a snob, but that didn't seem to stop an awful lot of adults from being snobby. Alice probably had more money in her trust fund that Mr. Horner would earn in his whole life, but from the way Becky turned up her nose at Alice you would have thought she was the janitor's daughter. Just because Alice's parents didn't belong to the same clubs that the Horners belonged to! When grown-ups could be so stupid, sometimes it seemed the course of wisdom to remain a child.

It was quite dark now for mid-afternoon. Thunder rumbled distantly. If it rains, Alice told herself, I shall cry.

It started to rain, but Alice had no chance to cry just then, for another car. appeared, a clunky, copper-coloured Buick. It slowed and stopped right in front of Alice, who was sitting on her trunk, chin in hand and elbows propped on her knees, looking into raindrop-speckled dirt at the shoulder of the road. Miserably she felt each rain drop that soaked into the crisp linen of her dress.

'Alice Raleigh?'

She looked up at the man leaning across the seat of the Buick. He was an older man, who wore a cheap black bow tie and an unconvincing smile. Not exactly what one would call a gentleman.