What's Alice going to do?
When twelve-year-old Aliceâs dad moves out, leaving her with her troubled mother, Alice does the only thing that feels right: She retreats to her familyâs old Renaissance fair tent in the backyard, determined to live there until her dad comes home. In an attempt
to keep at least one part of her summer from changing, Alice focuses on her quest to get her name on her swim teamâs record board. But summers contain multitudes, and soon Alice meets an odd new friend, Harriet, whose obsession with the
schoolâs science fair is equal only to her conviction that Aliceâs best stroke is backstroke, not freestyle. Most unexpected of all is an unusual babysitting charge, Piper, who is mostly deaf and entirely muteâuntil Alice hears her speak a word.
Funny and devastatingly honest, this sharply observed depiction of family, friendship, and Aliceâs determination to prove herselfâas a babysitter, as a friend, as a daughter, as a personârings loud and true.