Description: Little Bigfoot, Big City AS MUCH AS SHE HATED school, Alice Mayfair had always hated school vacations even more. At least while she was at school, there was always hope, a glimmer of a chance that some kid might like her or some teacher would befriend her, a tiny bit of hope that her life could turn around. Time with her parents offered no such possibility. They didn''t like her. Worse, they were ashamed of her. And nothing Alice could do or say would change it. Mark and Felicia Mayfair had arranged her life so that they saw as little of her as possible. When she wasn''t away at one of the eight different schools she''d attended, she was at camp. When she wasn''t at camp, she was spending a week with her beloved granny in Cape Cod, the only place she''d ever felt happy. It was only for the handful of days that she wasn''t in one of those three places that she stayed with Mark and Felicia, whom she''d learned, long ago, not to call Mom and Dad. Her mother was elegant and slender, always in a dress or a skirt and high heels, her hair sleek and glossy, her mouth always painted red. Her father was handsome in his suits and polished shoes, with a newspaper or an iPad tucked under his arm and a look on his face that let the world know he was important. Then there was Alice, tall and broad, her hair a tangly mess, all stained clothes and clumsy hands and big feet; Alice, who resembled neither of her parents; Alice, who didn''t fit. Now that she had learned the truth about herself--that she wasn''t human and that her parents weren''t really her parents and that her home was not really her home--for the first time, Alice didn''t feel ashamed or like she wanted to make herself smaller. Alice felt free. She''d left her boarding school, the Experimental Center for Love and Learning, on a chilly morning in December, to start her winter break. It was early afternoon when Lee, her parents'' driver, dropped her off at her apartment building on New York City''s Upper East Side. Alice waved at the doorman, took the elevator to the penthouse, and found her parents waiting for her at the door. She hugged her mother, flinging her strong arms around Felicia''s narrow shoulders, feeling Felicia''s body stiffen, seeing the startled look on her face. "Look at you!" said Mark, and instead of slumping or slouching or trying to rearrange the curls that had escaped from her braids, Alice stood up straight and met his eyes. And did her father flinch a little when she looked at him? Was Felicia looking a little sneaky and strange as she stroked Alice''s hair with a fragile hand? It didn''t matter. They weren''t her parents. She didn''t belong with them, and that knowledge, a secret tucked up and hidden, like a butterscotch in her cheek, let her smile and say, "I thought I''d make us dinner." Her parents exchanged a surprised glance. "You can cook?" asked Mark. "She took a cooking class at school," Felicia said, letting Alice know that at least one of her so-called parents had glanced at the "narrative assessment" the Experimental Center for Love and Learning sent home instead of report cards. "I''ll go grocery shopping," Alice announced before her parents could object. "We''ll eat at seven." After a moment of startled silence, her parents agreed and handed over a credit card. Alice found her apron in her suitcase and went to the apartment''s airy, immaculate, rarely used kitchen to get started on the meal she''d imagined, and planned on serving at the small table in the kitchen instead of the enormous one in the dining room, where they typically ate on the rare occasions when all three of them dined together. They tested your blood, and it isn''t human. That was what Jeremy Bigelow, the so-called Bigfoot hunter who''d been hot on her friend Millie''s trail, had told her that morning. At first Alice had been shocked and scared--Was she a space alien? Some kind of mutant?--but almost immediately she realized what this could mean. If she wasn''t human, she might be Yare--what humans called Bigfoot. She might be part of the same tribe as Millie, her best friend. Which would, of course, be wonderful. Maybe that was why being Yare was the only possibility she''d considered, the only thing that she thought might be true. Also, as far as she knew, being Yare was the only possibility. During one of their early conversations right after Alice had learned the truth about her friend, she''d asked Millie whether, if Bigfoots were real, then other things might be real too. "What other things?" Millie had asked. Alice felt uncomfortable. She''d caught the way Millie''s voice had gotten a little louder when she''d said "things," as if Alice had implied or meant to suggest that the Yare were in a different, less-important category than humans. "I don''t know . . . vampires? Hobbits? The abominable snowman?" Millie had thought, then shaken her head. "I am not hearing of those ones," she said. "Probably they are stories that the No-Furs tell their littlies, to keep them behaving. Like the Bad Red-Suit No-Fur, which is, of course, Santa Claus." Alice had smiled, remembering how Millie had told her the Yare legend of a No-Fur in a red suit who snuck down Yare chimneys each December and stole the toys of bad Yare boys and girls and gave them to the No-Furs, and how Alice had explained how the Yare had twisted the story of Santa. "How about the Loch Ness Monster?" Alice asked. "Oh, she is real," Millie said immediately. "But very shy. Also, she does not like to be called ''Monster.''?" Alice''s mouth had dropped open, and Millie had giggled, and Alice, knowing that Millie was teasing her, but not in a mean way, started laughing too. Alice probably had real parents, Yare parents, out there, somewhere, who were looking for her and who would love her when they found her. Being Yare would explain all the ways that she was different: bigger and taller than other girls her age, with big hands and big feet and a wild tangle of unruly hair that she called the Mane. She would find her parents, and she would find her people, and everything would make sense, and, most of all, she wouldn''t be lonely anymore. Alice opened the refrigerator. There was a quart of almond milk that she recognized from her last visit home, two sad-looking apples, a container of bean sprouts and another of tofu, a tub of fat-free Greek yogurt, and a jug of maple syrup that, Alice knew, had never been poured onto pancakes but had instead been mixed with lemon juice and cayenne pepper when her mother did a cleanse. Felicia was hovering, practically wringing her hands. "I''m sorry," she said. "If I''d known you were going to cook, I would have had some staples on hand." "It''s all right," said Alice, who was feeling generous. She''d planned a dish that Kate, the school cook and Alice''s instructor, had served in the dining hall: butternut squash baked with honey and maple syrup, stuffed with a mixture of rice, black beans, and goat cheese. Any kind of squash is okay, Kate had told her, and you can put anything you''ve got into the stuffing. It''s a very forgiving recipe. Of course, Kate hadn''t told her what to do when you had nothing. Kate had probably never even imagined a kitchen as bare as this one. Alice walked to the grocery store on the corner. There, she took her time, picking out the firmest squash, the sweetest-smelling onion, the biggest head of garlic. She bought nutmeg and cinnamon, selected a cylinder of goat cheese, and scooped rice into a paper bag. At home she washed her hands and located a knife and the cutting board, as well as a pot for the rice and a baking dish for the squash, both of which looked brand-new. For a while Felicia watched from the doorway, balanced lightly on her high heels, slim as a blade of grass in her skirt and blouse, asking Alice if she needed help turning on the oven, telling her to be careful with the knife. Alice shook her head. "I''m fine," she said. She was thinking of the sweater that was draped neatly over Felicia''s shoulders. The sweater, Alice knew, would never dream of slipping, and the skirt''s hem would never be crooked, and not a strand of her mother''s long, straightened hair would dare to fall out of place. Alice settled the squash on the cutting board and used a knife almost as long as her arm to slice it open with one strong, exact stroke. "Look at you go!" said Felicia. If her mother was slim as grass, then Alice was sturdy as an oak tree. She was strong and fast. She could run for miles, she could leap over fallen logs, she could swim across a lake and tow another girl to safety. She had saved Millie, and saved the entire Yare Tribe, and now, finally, Alice knew the truth about herself, and now, finally, she was going to find out where--and to whom--she really belonged. Felicia was still watching. She watched while Alice smashed cloves of garlic and diced an onion, while she cooked the rice and toasted the spices and crumbled a fistful of cheese. Eventually, Felicia drifted over to the breakfast bar, where no one had ever eaten breakfast, and sat on one of the stools, which had never held anything but a newspaper or a purse or a stack of fashion magazines. Alice drained the golden raisins that she''d plumped in a mixture of cider and vinegar.

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