The Glass Cafe (4 page)
CHAPTER SEVEN
M
s. Providge would call this part the “epilogue,” which kind of means the part that comes after the main part but I think it's more like a way to tell people how the character arc goes after the story is done and they want to know how everybody turns out.
Al is still Al. Except that she doesn't dance any longer. The lawyer who got maced turned out to be a little pit bullâor at least that's what Al called himâand he threatened to sue everybody in the court system for himself and for us and in the end it turned out that Mrs. Preston and the cop had exceeded their authority when they came to visit us in the first place, not by visiting us but by assuming that Al was bad without checking first and the system, although I never did find out exactly who that was, offered to settle with us for enough money so that Al could stop dancing and go after her doctorate which is of course going to be on Dickens. Charles Dickens the writer. She says she discovered that he used the idea of dance and the Glass Café concept when he wrote or at least when he lectured and gave performances, to keep people reading his work, and she's going to study that for her thesis and works hard at it except when she goes on a date to see a Shakespeare play with Miles.
I haven't been able to talk Al into letting me have my share of the money yet. She says I'm saving it for college and I say
she's
saving it for my college which isn't the same thing and that might mean that she's Exceeding her Authority as a Parent because she's not taking into account my feelings and what if I go bad and start trying to break the record on stealing bicycles or something and she says she's taking into account the better good for my life and that I'd better watch it or she'll give me so much better good I'll have trouble sitting for a week. So I don't expect that I'll get my hands on it but like Ms. Providge says, we dwell in possibilities and I always have hope.
The same holds true with Melissa. I thought that because we became famous for what Al calls “our fifteen minutes” maybe I would have an easier time of it but she says she's not attracted to me for my fame and left it at that which I think means she
is
attracted to me at least a little so the same as the money: We dwell in possibilities and I always have hope.
Waylon and I still go to the beach and fool around outside and he says he found a way to market some new kind of Rollerblade on the Internet and hopes to be rich by the time he's fifteen or sixteen which I think he just might do.
Carlyle is still with us. He seems to sleep and eat most of the time but comes to be petted and get his ears ruffled and is quiet enough so that the super even saw him and didn't say anything so maybe I have a dog for real. I don't think he's much of a watchdog though because I have a distinct memory of him running for the bathroom when the war broke out in our apartment and not coming out until the smell of Mace was completely gone, which might just mean that he's a really smart dog.
Oh, the biker is still trying to light his barbecue with strange chemicals. Last week he tried it with paint remover and blew part of a chicken leg completely through the wall and then screamed “Incoming!” and hid under an old couch on his back porch for nearly half a day. At least he didn't have much hair to lose since it hasn't grown back yet from the last time he tried to light the barbecue.
As for me, well, I'm studying art more and Ms. Klein says I'm getting better and I think I am except that I read an article about how math, pure math, might be an art and so I started to look at it that way instead of something just to get through alive and I must admit that it has interest for me because I always thought that math was silly unless you could apply it some way to life and if I can make it an art that will break down the barriers and allow me True Math Freedom.
But I still haven't forgotten about the Corvette.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Gary Paulsen is the distinguished author of many critically acclaimed books for young people, including three Newbery Honor books:
The
Winter Room, Hatchet and Dogsong. Among his newest Random House books are
How Angel
Peterson Got His Name: And Other Outrageous
Tales About Extreme Sports; Caught by the Sea:
My Life on Boats; Guts: The True Stories Behind
Hatchet
and the Brian Books; The Beet Fields:
Memories of a Sixteenth Summer; Brian's Return
and Brian's Winter (companions to Hatchet) and five books about Francis Tucket's adventures in the Old West. Gary Paulsen has also published fiction and nonfiction for adults, as well as picture books illustrated by his wife, the painter Ruth Wright Paulsen. Their most recent book is
Canoe Days
. The Paulsens live in New Mexico and on the Pacific Ocean.
ALSO BY GARY PAULSEN
Alida's Song
The Beet Fields: Memories of a Sixteenth Summer
The Boy Who Owned the School
The Brian Books:
The River, Brian's Winter, Brian's
Return
and
Brian's Hunt
Canyons
The Car
Caught by the Sea: My Life on Boats
The Cookcamp
The Crossing
Dogsong
Father Water, Mother Woods: Essays on Fishing and
Hunting in the North Woods
Guts: The True Stories Behind
Hatchet
and the
Brian Books
Harris and Me
Hatchet
The Haymeadow
How Angel Peterson Got His Name: And Other
Outrageous Tales About Extreme Sports
The Island
Molly McGinty Has a Really Good Day
The Monument
My Life in Dog Years
Nightjohn
The Night the White Deer Died
Puppies, Dogs, and Blue Northers
The Quilt
The Rifle
Sarny: A Life Remembered
The Schernoff Discoveries
Soldier's Heart
The Transall Saga
The Tucket Adventures, Books One through Five
The Voyage of the
Frog
The White Fox Chronicles
The Winter Room
Picture books, illustrated by Ruth Wright Paulsen:
Canoe Days
and
Dogteam
Published by
Dell Laurel-Leaf
an imprint of
Random House Children's Books
a division of Random House, Inc.
New York
Copyright © 2003 by Gary Paulsen
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced
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including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except
where permitted by law. For information address Wendy Lamb Books.
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Random House, Inc.
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RL: 5.8
First Dell Laurel-Leaf Edition November 2004
eISBN: 978-0-307-43390-9
v3.0