" I read on. And then it happens. On page 89. Mary is humiliated, and I know I have to step in. There she is, in an ill-fitting, wine-colored gown that doesn't do anything for her mousy complexion, gathering up her music, when I pass by, and spill my glass of punch right on her dress. I turn, and there is Kevin, dressed in a scarlet coat and all the rest of the uniform of a British Soldier, circa 1811. 'What are you doing here?' I ask. 'Well, this is the part I'm up to in the book.'"
The smart middle child in a blue-collar family identifies with Mary, the middle child in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. When Alice enters Mary's world and makes changes in both their lives, she learns that first impressions aren't always right.
" I read on. And then it happens. On page 89. Mary is humiliated, and I know I have to step in. There she is, in an ill-fitting, wine-colored gown that doesn't do anything for her mousy complexion, gathering up her music, when I pass by, and spill my glass of punch right on her dress. I turn, and there is Kevin, dressed in a scarlet coat and all the rest of the uniform of a British Soldier, circa 1811. 'What are you doing here?' I ask. 'Well, this is the part I'm up to in the book.'"
The smart middle child in a blue-collar family identifies with Mary, the middle child in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. When Alice enters Mary's world and makes changes in both their lives, she learns that first impressions aren't always right.
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Overview
" I read on. And then it happens. On page 89. Mary is humiliated, and I know I have to step in. There she is, in an ill-fitting, wine-colored gown that doesn't do anything for her mousy complexion, gathering up her music, when I pass by, and spill my glass of punch right on her dress. I turn, and there is Kevin, dressed in a scarlet coat and all the rest of the uniform of a British Soldier, circa 1811. 'What are you doing here?' I ask. 'Well, this is the part I'm up to in the book.'"
The smart middle child in a blue-collar family identifies with Mary, the middle child in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. When Alice enters Mary's world and makes changes in both their lives, she learns that first impressions aren't always right.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781466892927 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Roaring Brook Press |
| Publication date: | 03/31/2015 |
| Sold by: | Macmillan |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 128 |
| File size: | 194 KB |
| Age Range: | 10 - 14 Years |
About the Author
Marilyn Sachs, author of Lost in America, is also the author of more than 40 award-winning books, including A Pocket Full of Seeds, and the National Book Award finalist The Bear's House. She is a lifetime member of the Jane Austen Society and founder of its San Francisco branch.
Marilyn Sachs, author of Lost in America, is also the author of more than 40 award-winning books, including A Pocket Full of Seeds, and the National Book Award finalist The Bear's House. She is a lifetime member of the Jane Austen Society and founder of its San Francisco branch.
Read an Excerpt
First Impressions
By Marilyn Sachs
Roaring Brook Press
Copyright © 2006 Marilyn SachsAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4668-9292-7
CHAPTER 1
It was the C+ that brought about the magic.
* * *
"Calm down," said my teacher, Ms. Herran. "You aren't the first student to get a C+."
"But this is the first time for me. I've never gotten a grade below an A. Well, once in science back in middle school I got an A-."
Ms. Herran leaned forward. I noticed that she squinted even behind her glasses.
"I'm afraid you just didn't get it," she said gently. "Pride and Prejudice is one of the great comic novels. Jane Austen was a genius at irony, and you don't appear to realize that."
"Well, it seemed to me that Pride and Prejudice was really a tragedy that just got away from the author."
Ms. Herran shook her head, and squinted even more. "You're talking about a very great author, Alice. Most critics agree that part of her greatness was her control. It is certainly not a tragedy. And your paper ... well I was kind in giving you a C+. If I didn't consider you an excellent student, you might have even gotten a D or worse."
"It's a tragedy," I insisted. "Sure, Elizabeth and Jane get their guys, and Lydia makes an exciting, scandalous marriage, and the author hopes that Kitty will turn out okay, but Mary ... it's a tragedy for Mary."
"Oh, Alice, Mary is not really important. She's a minor character and a nerd. She provides comic relief."
"In the whole book, she's hardly mentioned. There are five sisters, and at the end, only poor Mary is left, stuck with her mother, the scorn of her father, and the disinterest of everybody else."
I began choking up, and Ms. Herran looked away, embarrassed. I had been reading classics ever since fourth grade — Oliver Twist, The Three Musketeers, the Odyssey, Jane Eyre, Ivanhoe — and I never found myself upset about any character, not even Rebecca in Ivanhoe. "It's just not fair to leave Mary like that."
"I tell you what," Ms. Herran said. She patted my hand. "Don't take it so hard. Why don't you reread the book, and then write another paper? You'll have two weeks over Christmas, so if you would like to try again, and write a new paper, I'm sure you'll understand what I'm trying to explain. And I'll just change your grade."
"Okay," I told her. "I'll try."
CHAPTER 2It is a truth universally acknowledged that the third child in a family of five is never appreciated.
"Alice, come and set the table!" yelled my mom.
"I'm studying. Why don't you ask Jeremy or Joey?"
'They're out playing soccer."
"Well, I'm reading a book for school."
"Come on down. We're having dinner early because Rosie is getting together with her jazz band to rehearse."
"So why can't she do it?"
"Alice! "
I'm not the favorite of anybody in my family. Maybe that's why I'm so upset about Mary. My mom is crazy about Rosie, my older sister, who is eighteen and plays the trombone in her high school band. My dad coaches my twin brothers, Jeremy and Joey, in soccer. They're just eleven. My father is a sports nut. If he's not working as a cop, he's coaching my brothers or watching sports on TV.
My other sister, Olivia, seventeen, is stunning. Even I'm willing to admit that. Her blonde hair shimmers when she walks, her green eyes turn from blue to green to yellow, depending on what she wears or what kind of mood she's in — cranky most of the time. So, her eyes are generally yellow–green. Her complexion is creamy, her mouth a pouty pink, and every other part of her fits together like a jigsaw puzzle. When she walks down the street, people turn and look at her.
My parents are so proud of Olivia they're willing to spend any amount of money to help her buy clothes and take lessons in modeling. She and I share a room, but she's too busy looking at herself in the mirror or going on diets to bother talking to me.
And then there's me. Let's get it over with right away. I'm not pretty. I mean, my eyes are in the right place, and so are all the rest of my features. But it all adds up to ordinary. I'm short, overweight, with plain brown hair and plain hazel eyes, and wide feet. Nobody turns to look at me when I walk down the street. But I'm smart — and wasted here in this family. Mom, who barely made it through high school, says I take after my father's family.
"They all think they're better than anybody else."
But Dad defends himself by pointing out that except for his brother, Harry, who's an accountant, nobody else graduated from college.
* * *
Once in a while, somebody offers help.
"Let me try a little makeup on you," Olivia suggested one day.
She sat me down in front of the mirror. Her lovely face above my own was a study in contrasts.
"First, I'll try pulling your hair back from your face ... like this ... No, I guess we'd better not show too much. Okay, maybe some eye shadow, and mascara ... there." She worked on, murmuring encouraging words to herself. She slapped various smelly powders on my face and outlined my thin lips with lip liner to make them look fuller. "There!" she said finally.
There was me in the mirror, looking like me with makeup.
"Maybe a haircut," Olivia muttered, "or maybe if you grew out your bangs ..."
* * *
My dad suggested sports. "Soccer would keep you in shape," he said. "There's a girls' team at the Y."
"I don't like soccer," I told him.
"Well, what about basketball? You're not very tall, but if you're fast —"
"I'm not fast."
Finally, he suggested tennis, but after spending a couple of Saturdays with me at the tennis courts in the park, he gave up.
* * *
Mom tries to look brave when I show her my report card, which generally has all A's. If somebody congratulates her on the fact that I got into Lowell, the academic school in San Francisco, she says almost apologetically, "She studies a lot."
Once, she sat down next to me when I was reading and asked, "What book is that?"
"Oh, it's Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky."
"Who?"
"Dostoyevsky. He was Russian."
"It's a very big book."
"I don't mind."
Mom shook her head. "You need to get out more," she said. "You always have your nose in a book. Don't you have any friends who like to have a good time?"
"But I am having a good time. And most of my friends at school are like me."
* * *
No way was I going to put up with a C+ — it would affect my final grade. So, I had no choice but to accept Ms. Herran's offer and try to reread the stupid book with an open mind. But I kept looking for Mary. In the book, they go to a ball, and the two youngest sisters, Lydia and Kitty, dance every dance while Jane, the oldest and the most beautiful, dances with Mr. Bingley. And the two of them pretty much fall in love. Elizabeth is spurned by Mr. Darcy. And where is Mary? What is she feeling while, obviously, nobody is asking her to dance?
There, over there, in the shadows, Mary sits. Jane Austen has forgotten all about her, but I find her on page 8, just at the point where the book says, "Mr. Bingley had soon made himself acquainted with all the principal people in the room; he was lively and unreserved, danced every dance ..." but not with Mary.
She's probably wearing a high-necked dress of a dull color, and she's trying to look indifferent. But she's suffering. I can feel her suffering from in between those sentences that leave her out.
I slammed the book shut.
* * *
"Alice," my mother shouted, "can you run out to the store and pick up some apple juice? I'm all out, and you know Joey won't drink anything else lately."
"So, tell him to go."
"He's not home."
"Well, why don't you ask Rosie?"
"Alice, I'm asking you!"
* * *
It was raining, and I walked to the store muttering to myself about how unfair life was for Mary and me. There was only one other customer in the store — a woman in a hooded raincoat.
"Yes?" said the man behind the counter, smiling his customer smile. "What can I do for you?"
"Uh, where is the apple juice?" I asked.
"In the back of the store, with all the other juices." I noticed that he didn't seem to be paying any attention to the woman in the raincoat.
At first, I couldn't find the apple juice. There was orange, grapefruit, even mango, but the apple juice wasn't in sight. I wondered what Mary drank, and somebody said, "Tea."
"What?"
The woman in the raincoat was standing a short distance away.
"It's down at the bottom of the shelf," she said in a strange accent, and sure enough, there it was.
I picked up a bottle and brought it to the counter. The clerk put my apple juice into a bag, smiled, and wished me a good day.
The woman in the raincoat was still there but he didn't notice her.
And that's when the magic began.
CHAPTER 3It is never possible to ignore Christmas. Buying the right tree, decorating it, putting up lights, baking cookies, and planning for the big day, I was somewhat distracted from reading. There was also the question of presents.
Buying presents for the various members of my family always presented a problem. Last year, I bought a book for each of them. It was not a very successful choice. Only Joey seemed to open his. It was a book about baseball, and I know he at least looked at it, because I found it opened to the section with the photographs. The other books pretty much remained under the tree during the holidays, until Mom finally scooped them up and put them on the shelf in the kitchen along with her cookbooks. Around Easter they ended up in the pantry, where she keeps the soaps, Brillo pads, and ant traps.
This year, I decided to go shopping on the third day of the vacation. Get it over with, and then I could return to Pride and Prejudice later in the day. As usual, it was raining.
"Mom," I asked. "Can you give me a ride to the mall?"
"Now?"
"I want to do my Christmas shopping."
"Oh, well, okay then. I'm making crusts for the pecan and lemon pies, but I guess I can drop you. Take the bus back."
"Do you have any idea what I should get for Dad?"
"I bought him a sweater. You could get him ... let me see ... how about socks?"
"Mom, that's not much of a present for Christmas. It's so hard to buy for men."
Mom put her raincoat on. "Take an umbrella," she said. "And don't spend too much."
"I only have forty-four dollars. I can't spend too much."
"Here!" Mom put two ten-dollar bills into my hand.
"But, Mom, you don't have to," I protested weakly. Every year, Mom subsidized me, as I knew she subsidized every other kid in the family.
The mall was crowded with huge numbers of shoppers. A large, brilliant Christmas tree stood in the center court, with gleaming red, white, green, and blue balls. Silver and gold Christmas garlands hung on all the walls. Santa Claus was seated on a throne and smiling or weeping children waited to take photos with him.
People scurried everywhere — children laughed, babies cried, and grown-ups carried piles of clothing and toys in their arms. I wandered around, stopping in a variety of stores, but ending up finally in dependable old Macy's. In the junior department, I fingered a slinky black, see-through dress over a satin slip. I even carried it over to a mirror and held it tightly in front of me. Quickly, I put it back on the rack and began to focus on my shopping.
What to get? I had sixty-four dollars, thanks to my mom, to spend on six people.
"Hi, Alice," somebody said behind me.
"Oh, hi, Kevin. What are you doing here?"
"Trying to figure out what to get for my parents and my sister." He made a face. "I've been wandering around for maybe an hour, and I can't make up my mind."
I'd known Kevin Tanner since kindergarten. He was one of those boys you could feel perfectly comfortable with. Others, I had to admit, often made me feel uneasy, especially lately. Made me feel as if I wished they noticed me or maybe not noticed me, or maybe both at the same time. But Kevin was like an old glove that just fit comfortably.
"Gloves!" I said. "Get them gloves. As a matter of fact, that's what I'm going to do too. Thanks for giving me the idea."
"What idea?" Kevin's face assumed its usual perplexed expression. He was one of those people who seemed to approach most of the world as if he were surprised or confused. Which was one of the reasons he made me feel so comfortable.
Both of us bought gloves — bright green ones for my brothers, pretty pink-and-white ones for all our sisters, dark red ones for our mothers, and navy blue ones for our fathers. It took about fifteen minutes for the two of us to make our selections.
While we waited in the line at the gift-wrap counter, Kevin asked, "Have you got any special plans for the holidays?"
I made a face. "I have to reread Pride and Prejudice."
"Why would you want to do that?" Kevin looked even more perplexed.
"Because Ms. Herran gave me a C+ on my paper. I've never gotten a C+ ever before in my life. What did you get?"
Kevin avoided looking at me. "I got an A-."
"You mean you liked it?"
"Well, to tell you the truth, I didn't really read it. My sister, Eleanor, helped me write the paper. She's an English major at Berkeley, and she loves Jane Austen."
"I don't. I hate the book, but I hate getting a C+ even more. Ms. Herran said if I reread the book and wrote another paper, she might change my grade."
"I could ask my sister," Kevin said. "She's been in a good mood lately because she has a new boyfriend. She purposely wrote the paper kind of simple for me so Ms. Herran wouldn't be suspicious. But for you —"
"What for me?"
"Well, I mean, you're so smart, she wouldn't have to write it simple."
Kevin turned away his head, but I could see that suddenly he was uncomfortable. Kevin Tanner, uncomfortable with me! That was the first magic. Because I suddenly realized that he's a boy. And not a bad-looking one. And that he admired me. Me! I was even making him uncomfortable. I could not think of a single other boy who had ever noticed me long enough to become uncomfortable.
The line grew a little shorter. A woman whose present had just been wrapped passed us carrying a box laden with silver and gold bows, with red berries scattered all over it. I couldn't see her face, but she was wearing the same hooded raincoat she had worn in the grocery store.
My mind blurred. Things ran together — Kevin, the mysterious lady in the raincoat, the shortening line, the sounds of people in the store, the tearing of the wrapping paper, and the need to reply properly to Kevin.
"Uh, what kind of wrapping paper are you going to pick? Do you think that striped red and green would be good for our fathers and my brothers?"
Kevin's puzzled face began to make me feel I had handled matters correctly.
"See? Up there. And then we could pick the bright green paper with the red holly for our sisters. And ... how about the shiny red paper with white bows for our mothers?"
Kevin no longer had a puzzled look on his face. It was definitely admiring. "You sure make your mind up fast," he said.
* * *
It took another half hour to get our presents wrapped.
"I just hate going home," I said. "I hate being stuck with that book for the rest of the afternoon." I stuffed my wrapped presents into a large shopping bag and reached out for —
"My umbrella! I lost my umbrella. Maybe I left it in the glove department. Did you notice my umbrella? It was a blue one."
"No, I didn't," Kevin said. "But if you want to go and look for it, leave your stuff here with me. I'll just wait for you to get back."
I hurried down to the glove department. No umbrella. None of the saleswomen had seen a lost umbrella. Maybe I hadn't even taken it from home. Maybe I had left it in Mom's car.
"I couldn't find it," I told Kevin. He was sitting on a bench near the phones. "I don't have enough money to buy one. I'm not so worried about me getting wet, but I'd hate to ruin all the pretty wrappings."
"My sister is picking me up," Kevin mumbled. "I just called her. We could drop you off. She said it was okay."
I looked down at Kevin. "That's really very nice of her — I mean, of you too."
"It's nothing." Kevin waved his hand.
"I live on —"
"I know where you live," Kevin said, looking down at the stuff we'd bought. "It's 745 Cleveland. It's just a few blocks from my house."
I looked down at the packages too. He knew my address, and he thought I was smart. Kevin had even asked his sister to give me a ride, before I had asked for one. Now I was uncomfortable too.
"She should be here in fifteen minutes or so. We could go downstairs and wait inside the front of the store," Kevin said.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from First Impressions by Marilyn Sachs. Copyright © 2006 Marilyn Sachs. Excerpted by permission of Roaring Brook Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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