Middle School Girls
Middle school is the weirdest of all the school levels in the U.S. The difference between a first-grader and a fifth-grader is huge, but that’s understandable. Same deal between freshmen and sophomores in high school. But in middle school, an entire world can shift not just between sixth and eighth grade, but during seventh and this is doubly true for girls, as Alice comes to literally see for herself:
“Seventh-grade girls used their towels like aluminum foil, encircling their bodies and sealing the seams, but some of the older girls stepped out of the showers, their towels around their hair instead, with their entire bodies on view for the rest of us, the seventh graders in particular.”
Breasts
Those eight-grade girls walking around without towels turn out to be every bit as fascinating for Alice as they would be for sixth-grade boys. Of course, the fascination is a different reason. One which Alice puts into hilariously metaphorical form:
“I mean, compared to the breasts I saw in P.E., Pamela, Elizabeth, and I hadn’t even sprouted yet. We were still buds on a tree, moths in a cocoon, tadpoles in a pond, mosquitos in eggs.”
A Mack Truck, to be Precise
Alice’s nemesis, Denise Whitlock, has earned a nickname courtesy of Alice’s brother: Mack-Truck Whitlock. She is a threat, to be sure, especially since she is usually joined by a cadre of like-minded bullies. As bullies usually are, of course. The one thing you don’t want to see if you are Alice is Denise and the gang headed for you with no clear way out:
“It was sort of like standing out in the middle of the road watching a truck bear down on you.”
Character Description
Metaphor is used perhaps most expressively for character description in the story. Since the bulk of the story takes place inside the school or Alice’s home, not a lot of opportunity arises to use it for describing the setting:
“This time Janice Sherman seemed to have undergone a personality change. She must have decided that she wasn’t going to get anywhere being quiet and sad, so she was sparkly and funny instead, sort of like soda water.”
Boys and Girls Together
The books are spread out over an extensive period of time, meaning that certain characters come and go and ten sometimes come back before going off again. This is especially true of various boyfriends and girlfriends, the re-entry of which sometimes packs quite a wallop:
“When Les saw Crystal he came to a dead stop. Like the trunk of a tree, he stood rooted to the floor, but the top of him swayed slightly.”
