Why Did She Do It?

Question:

i dont know if u remember me but its sofia chase i am 9 yrs old and i am almost ten i just love your alice books. can i ask u something in alice in april is so sad that denise got hit by a train when i told my dad about it i could see tears in his eyes! but why did she do that? i also wanted to know do u right these books about your  life when u were younger or do u just com up with a story

Phyllis replied:

I know it’s sad, and I think that your dad was reacting not so much to the story, perhaps, as to your sadness in telling about it.  Sometimes, for some people, life seems to be going so badly for them that they can only think about getting away from it NOW.  And perhaps, in Denise’s situation, she felt that her mother could only miss her and love her after she was gone, and she liked thinking about how her mom might miss her then.  It really was sad, because there really are people who can help in most situations if they only knew about it, and if Alice had known what Denise was planning to do, she might have been able to alert a school counselor or a minister or teacher or grown-up who could help work out some of the problems in Denise’s family.  Despite her sadness, Alice will always know that Denise did consider her a friend.  Most of the things I write about in the Alice book are things I just make up from stories I read about in the paper or that happen to my friends.  Sometimes I write about something funny that happened to me as a child.  But I never had a close friend who took her own life.