The Summer We Lost Alice Read Online Free PDF Page A

though we'd followed it with shampoo.
    Alice checks the calendar in the kitchen. Uncle Billy sent her to see what phase the moon is in, to see if it's a good night to go fishing.
    "First quarter!" she calls to the living room.
    "That's good!" Uncle Billy calls back. "We'll get those quarter-moon fish out at the lake."
    Aunt Flo shushes them both. She's on the phone.
    "No," Aunt Flo says into the telephone, "I haven't seen her all day. Hold on." She cups her hand over the mouthpiece and calls to Catherine and Alice. She asks if either of them saw Perla Ingram this afternoon, and they say they didn't. "I'm sorry," Aunt Flo says. "Of course I'll call if I hear anything."
    She hangs up the phone but leaves her hand on the receiver. She's staring at something very close, like the twigs that float in your eyes, or something very far away.
    "That was Dorrie Ingram," she says. She isn't looking at him, but I guess she's talking to Uncle Billy who's sitting in his recliner, reading a newspaper. Alice and I sit on the floor and play Uncle Wiggily. It's an old version that doesn't look like the one we have at home. The animals look strange and scary, not happy like my game in Wichita. It's a baby game but we're playing it anyway.
    " Perla didn't come home after her Girl Scout meeting," Aunt Flo says.
    Billy says, "She'll turn up. Dorrie'll find her." Billy winks over at us and says in a mock whisper, "Dorrie Ingram's got a nose like a bloodhound. Kinda looks like one, too." We giggle.
    "Are you through with the phone?" Catherine says. She is already dialing a number she knows by heart.
    "It isn't like Perla not to call her mother," Aunt Flo says. "She's so responsible. Some girls I know could take a lesson from Perla Ingram."
    Alice doesn't look her mother in the eyes. If she did, she would be turned to stone. She's still in trouble for letting Boo dig in the garden. Aunt Flo's anger is not easily extinguished. Uncle Billy says that getting Aunt Flo over a "mad" is like trying to spit out a tire fire.
    "She'll turn up," Uncle Billy says again. He squints down his glasses at the newspaper. "Says here it might rain tonight. Maybe we better not go fishing after all."
    "No!" Alice says. Then she sees the grin on Uncle Billy's face. "Let me see that paper!"
    She's up onto Uncle Billy's lap in an instant and they play keep-away with the newspaper. Alice is laughing and Uncle Billy is saying, "Paper? What paper? Oh, this paper? What do you want this paper for?" Then the tickling starts and Alice squeals and Boo leaps to his feet and starts to bark his big, booming bark and Catherine yells out that she's on the phone if nobody noticed. That's how it goes for almost a minute, squealing and barking and laughing, until Aunt Flo comes in and tells them to break it up, dinner's ready.
    * * *
    "Take off your thumb," Alice says.
    We're at White Deer Lake, fishing with Uncle Billy. We'd set off right after dinner in Uncle Billy's pickup truck with the spotlight on the side. We'd driven out of town and into a patch of trees where a spot was waiting for us. Boo wanted to come in the worst way, but I could see already that it was a good idea to leave him at home. He'd probably be splashing in the water and scaring all the fish.
    It's dark like no dark I've ever seen. Even the stars are different from what they are in Wichita. The sky seems overflowing with them, like they could spill out and rain sparkles on your head. There's a broad swathe of stars that I know is the Milky Way, which, in Wichita, is just a candy bar.
    Uncle Billy bait ed my hook with one of the worms Alice dug out of the garden. He showed me how to put on the weight and bobber. He knelt behind me and helped me cast. I was horrible at it, of course.
    "You'll catch on," Uncle Billy said. Once our lines were in the water we sat back and waited . That's when Alice told Uncle Billy to take off his thumb.
    "You ever see somebody take off his thumb?" Uncle Billy asks me. I shake my head no. He