Just Plain Al: The Al Series, Book Five by Constance C. Greene Page A

spend Saturday morning talking to a bunch of old fogies.
    â€œHarmonica’s great, too. Fortunes are always good.” I had the feeling if one of us said we could pick pockets, Mr. Keogh would say, “Great! Picking pockets is always good for a laugh.”
    â€œIt’s purely an experiment, don’t forget,” Mr. Keogh said. Then the bell rang and we breathed a sigh of relief. It had been a short but stressful interview. We said all right, we’d go. Mr. Keogh said he’d pick us up Saturday morning outside our apartment at ten sharp.
    â€œThanks, girls.” He shook hands. “You won’t regret this, I promise you. You’re doing a good deed, and maybe both of you will benefit from it, just as my father and the rest of them will benefit from having you there.”
    â€œI’m not hot on this deal,” I said, as Al and I hurried back to our home room. “I don’t know what to say to them.”
    â€œNeither do I. But I’ll say this.” Al’s eyes glittered. “This is our chance to make something of ourselves, to do something selfless. We’re getting points in heaven for this one, baby.”
    â€œI’m not out to get points in heaven,” I told her.
    â€œI don’t know why not.” Al’s eyebrows did their disappearing act. “You need all the points you can get.”
    How does she know I need points?
    She has some nerve.
    When I told my mother about Al and me going to the old people’s home to cheer them up, she flipped. I mean, you would’ve thought I’d said I was going to become Florence Nightingale.
    â€œMarvelous!” she exclaimed, giving me a bear hug and an approving look. She frequently gives me bear hugs. Approving looks are in shorter supply. While I basked in my mother’s approval, a dismaying thought crept into my head.
    Suppose they’re deaf? Lots of old people were, I knew. Suppose they couldn’t hear when I played my harmonica? Well, I was so bad at it, it might be a good thing if they were deaf. Still, knocking myself out on the harmonica for a bunch of deaf oldsters has got to be straight out of a Fellini movie. Fellini is an Italian movie director who deals in the existential absurdities of life.
    Maybe Martha Moseley could come with us and give a lecture on pierced ears and fourteen-karat-gold earrings. That oughta get her points in heaven, too. Which, I figure, she needs a heck of a lot more than I do.
    When I went down the hall to Al’s to discuss our plans for the oldsters, she was deep in her math homework. If Fellini had ever observed Al doing her math homework, he would’ve signed her to a ten-year contract on the spot. Math is Al’s worst subject. She sweats bullets over it.
    â€œI’ll come back when you’re done,” I said.
    â€œNo! Stay. I’m almost finished.” I read a fashion magazine and listened to her breathing. When I heard her slam her book closed, I knew she was through.
    â€œI wish I hadn’t said I’d go,” I said. “I won’t know what to say, what to do. I don’t know anything about how to treat old people.”
    Al looked surprised. “How about your grandfather?” she asked.
    â€œHe’s not old old, he’s just old,” I said.
    â€œNo offense, but to some people he might be considered old old.” Al hadn’t brought up the subject of her mother and my grandfather’s date again. Neither had I.
    â€œI guess we just play it by ear,” I said. “Just act natural.”
    â€œListen.” Al held up a finger and waved it under my nose. “I read the Diary of Anne Frank last night.”
    â€œAgain?” We’ve read that diary about a hundred times, each of us.
    â€œShe was only our age when she said, ‘I felt lonely, but hardly ever in despair!’ That’s when she was shut up in that room, hiding from the Nazis. How do you like that? She said