The Grooming of Alice

The first day of the summer vacation between eighth and ninth grades, Alice, Pamela, and Elizabeth decide they have to get in shape. "However you look when you start ninth grade, that's how people will think of you for the next four years," says Pamela. And they all begin jogging three miles every morning. "It's going to be the most exciting summer of our lives," Pamela says. And Alice hopes it will be. But things keep happening that no one counted on. Alice knows that she is going to be a volunteer -- with her friend Gwen -- at the hospital; but she doesn't know that along with the satisfaction of doing something useful she can also find an unexpected sorrow. And she certainly doesn't know that trying to decide alone how to handle a Pamela-emergency can be a big mistake.