Dear Mr. Henshaw (7 page)

Saturday, March 24

Mom said I had to invite Barry over to our house for supper because I have been going to his house after school so often. We had been working on a burglar alarm for his room which we finally got to work with some help from a library book.

I wasn't sure Barry would like to come to our house which is so small compared to his, but he accepted when I invited him.

Mom cooked a casserole full of good things like ground beef, chilies, tortillas, tomatoes and cheese. Barry said he really liked eating at our house because he got tired of eating with a bunch of little sisters waving spoons and drumsticks. That made me happy. It helps to have a friend.

Barry says his burglar alarm still works. The trouble is, his little sisters think it's fun to open his door to set it off. Then they giggle and hide.
This was driving his mother crazy, so he finally had to disconnect it. We all laughed about this. Barry and I felt good about making something that worked even if he can't use it.

Barry saw the sign on my door that said
KEEP OUT MOM THAT MEANS YOU
. He asked if my Mom really stays out of my room. I said, “Sure, if I keep things picked up.” Mom is not a snoop.

Barry said he wished he could have a room nobody ever went into. I was glad Barry didn't ask to use the bathroom. Maybe I'll start scrubbing off the mildew after all.

Sunday, March 25

I keep thinking about Dad and how lonely he sounded and wondering what happened to the pizza boy. I don't like to think about Dad being lonesome, but I don't like to think about the pizza boy cheering him up either.

Tonight at supper (beans and franks) I got up my courage to ask Mom if she thought Dad
would get married again. She thought awhile and then said, “I don't see how he could afford to. He has big payments to make on the truck, and the price of diesel oil goes up all the time, and when people can't afford to build houses or buy cars, he won't be hauling lumber or cars.”

I thought this over. I know that a license for a truck like his costs over a thousand dollars a year. “But he always sends my support payments,” I said, “even if he is late sometimes.”

“Yes, he does that,” agreed my mother. “Your father isn't a bad man by any means.”

Suddenly I was mad and disgusted with the whole thing. “Then why don't you two get married again?” I guess I wasn't very nice about the way I said it.

Mom looked me straight in the eye. “Because your father will never grow up,” she said. I knew that was all she would ever say about it.

Tomorrow they give out the Young Writers' Yearbook! Maybe I will be lucky and get to go have lunch with the Famous Author.

Monday, March 26

Today wasn't the greatest day of my life. When our class went to the library, I saw a stack of Yearbooks and could hardly wait for Miss Neely to hand them out. When I finally got mine and opened it to the first page, there was a monster story, and I saw I hadn't won first prize. I kept turning. I didn't win second prize which went to a poem, and I didn't win third or fourth prize, either. Then I turned another page and saw Honorable Mention and under it:

A DAY ON DAD'S RIG
by
LEIGH M. BOTTS

There was my title with my name under it in print, even if it was mimeographed print. I can't say I wasn't disappointed because I hadn't won a prize, I was. I was really disappointed about not getting to meet the mysterious Fa
mous Author, but I liked seeing my name in print.

Some kids were mad because they didn't win or even get something printed. They said they wouldn't ever try to write again which I think is pretty dumb. I have heard that real authors sometimes have their books turned down. I figure you win some, you lose some.

Then Miss Neely announced that the Famous Author the winners would get to have lunch with was Angela Badger. The girls were more excited than the boys because Angela Badger writes mostly about girls with problems like big feet or pimples or something. I would still like to meet her because she is, as they say, a real live author, and I've never met a real live author. I am glad Mr. Henshaw isn't the author because then I would
really
be disappointed that I didn't get to meet him.

Friday, March 30

Today turned out to be exciting. In the middle of second period Miss Neely called me out
of class and asked if I would like to go have lunch with Angela Badger. I said, “Sure, how come?”

Miss Neely explained that the teachers discovered that the winning poem had been copied out of a book and wasn't original so the girl who submitted it would not be allowed to go and would I like to go in her place? Would I!

Miss Neely telephoned Mom at work for permission and I gave my lunch to Barry because my lunches are better than his. The other winners were all dressed up, but I didn't care. I have noticed that authors like Mr. Henshaw usually wear old plaid shirts in the pictures on the back of their books. My shirt is just as old as his, so I knew it was OK.

Miss Neely drove us in her own car to the Holiday Inn, where some other librarians and their winners were waiting in the lobby. Then Angela Badger arrived with Mr. Badger, and we were all led into the dining room which was pretty crowded. One of the librarians who was a sort of Super Librarian told the winners to sit
at a long table with a sign that said Reserved. Angela Badger sat in the middle and some of the girls pushed to sit beside her. I sat across from her. Super Librarian explained that we could choose our lunch from the salad bar. Then all the librarians went off and sat at a table with Mr. Badger.

There I was face to face with a real live author who seemed like a nice lady, plump with wild hair, and I couldn't think of a thing to say because I hadn't read her books. Some girls told her how much they loved her books, but some of the boys and girls were too shy to say anything. Nothing seemed to happen until Mrs. Badger said, “Why don't we all go help ourselves to lunch at the salad bar?”

What a mess! Some people didn't understand about salad bars, but Mrs. Badger led the way and we helped ourselves to lettuce and bean salad and potato salad and all the usual stuff they lay out on salad bars. A few of the younger kids were too short to reach anything but the bowls on the first rows. They weren't
doing too well until Mrs. Badger helped them out. Getting lunch took a long time, longer than in a school cafeteria, and when we carried our plates back to our table, people at other tables ducked and dodged as if they expected us to dump our lunches on their heads. All one boy had on his plate was a piece of lettuce and a slice of tomato because he thought he was going to get to go back for roast beef and fried chicken. We had to straighten him out and explain that all we got was salad. He turned red and went back for more salad.

I was still trying to think of something interesting to say to Mrs. Badger while I chased garbanzo beans around my plate with a fork. A couple of girls did all the talking, telling Mrs. Badger how they wanted to write books exactly like hers. The other librarians were busy talking and laughing with Mr. Badger who seemed to be a lot of fun.

Mrs. Badger tried to get some of the shy people to say something without much luck, and I still couldn't think of anything to say to
a lady who wrote books about girls with big feet or pimples. Finally Mrs. Badger looked straight at me and asked, “What did you write for the Yearbook?”

I felt myself turn red and answered, “Just something about a ride on a truck.”

“Oh!” said Mrs. Badger. “So you're the author of
A Day on Dad's Rig
!”

Everyone was quiet. None of us had known the real live author would have read what we
had written, but she had and she remembered my title.

“I just got honorable mention,” I said, but I was thinking, She called me an author.
A real live author called me an author
.

“What difference does that make?” asked Mrs. Badger. “Judges never agree. I happened to like
A Day on Dad's Rig
because it was written by a boy who wrote honestly about something he knew and had strong feelings about. You made me feel what it was like to ride down a steep grade with tons of grapes behind me.”

“But I couldn't make it into a story,” I said, feeling a whole lot braver.

“Who cares?” said Mrs. Badger with a wave of her hand. She's the kind of person who wears rings on her forefingers. “What do you expect? The ability to write stories comes later, when you have lived longer and have more understanding.
A Day on Dad's Rig
was splendid work for a boy your age. You wrote like
you
, and you did not try to imitate someone
else. This is one mark of a good writer. Keep it up.”

I noticed a couple of girls who had been saying they wanted to write books exactly like Angela Badger exchange embarrassed looks.

“Gee, thanks,” was all I could say. The waitress began to plunk down dishes of ice cream. Everyone got over being shy and began to ask Mrs. Badger if she wrote in pencil or on the typewriter and did she ever have books rejected and were her characters real people and did she ever have pimples when she was a girl like the girl in her book and what did it feel like to be a famous author?

I didn't think answers to those questions were very important, but I did have one question I wanted to ask which I finally managed to get in at the last minute when Mrs. Badger was autographing some books people had brought.

“Mrs. Badger,” I said, “did you ever meet Boyd Henshaw?”

“Why, yes,” she said, scribbling away in someone's book. “I once met him at a meeting
of librarians where we were on the same program.”

“What's he like?” I asked over the head of a girl crowding up with her book.

“He's a very nice young man with a wicked twinkle in his eye,” she answered. I think I have known that since the time he answered my questions when Miss Martinez made us write to an author.

On the ride home everybody was chattering about Mrs. Badger this, and Mrs. Badger that. I didn't want to talk. I just wanted to think. A real live author had called
me
an author. A real live author had told me to keep it up. Mom was proud of me when I told her.

The gas station stopped pinging a long time ago, but I wanted to write all this down while I remembered. I'm glad tomorrow is Saturday. If I had to go to school I would yawn. I wish Dad was here so I could tell him all about today.

March 31

Dear Mr. Henshaw,

I'll keep this short to save you time reading it. I had to tell you something. You were right. I wasn't ready to write an imaginary story. But guess what! I wrote a true story which won Honorable Mention in the Yearbook. Maybe next year I'll write something that will win first or second place. Maybe by then I will be able to write an imaginary story.

I just thought you would like to know. Thank you for your help. If it hadn't been for you, I might have handed in that dumb story about the melting wax trucker.

Your friend, the author,
Leigh Botts

P.S. I still write in the diary you started me on.

Saturday, March 31

This morning the sun was shining, so Barry and I mailed my letter to Mr. Henshaw and then walked over to see if there were still any butterflies in the grove. We only saw three or four, so I guess most of them have gone north for the summer. Then we walked down to the little park at Lovers Point and sat on a rock watching sailboats on the bay for a while. When clouds began to blow in we walked back to my house.

A tractor without a trailer attached was parked in front. Dad's! I began to run, and Dad and Bandit got out of the cab.

“So long, I gotta go,” yelled Barry who has
heard a lot about Dad and Bandit and who understands about parents and divorce.

Dad and I just stood there looking at one another until I said, “Hi, Dad. Seen any shoes on the highway lately?”

“Lots of them.” Dad grinned half a grin, not
like his old self. “Boots, sneakers, all kinds.”

Bandit came over to me, wagging his tail and looking happy. He was wearing a new red bandanna around his neck.

“How're you doing, kid?” asked Dad. “I brought your dog back.”

“Gee, thanks,” I said, hugging Bandit. Dad's stomach hung over his belt, and he wasn't as tall as I remembered him.

“You've grown,” he said which is what grownups always say when they don't know what else to say to kids.

Did Dad expect me to stop growing just because he hadn't been around? “How did you find Bandit?” I asked.

“By asking every day over my CB,” he said. “I finally got an answer from a trucker who said he had picked up a lost dog in a snowstorm in the Sierra, a dog that was still riding with him. Last week we turned up in the same line at a weigh scale.”

“I'm sure glad you got him back,” I said, and after trying to think of something else to say, I asked, “How come you're not hauling anything?” I think I hoped he would say he had driven all the way from Bakersfield just to bring Bandit back to me.

“I'm waiting for a reefer to be loaded with broccoli in Salinas,” he told me. “Since it
wasn't far, I thought I'd take a run over here before I take off for Ohio.”

So Dad had come to see me just because of broccoli. After all these months when I had longed to see him, it took a load of broccoli to get him here. I felt let down and my feelings hurt. They hurt so much I couldn't think of anything to say.

Just then Mom drove up and got out of her old car which looked little and shabby beside Dad's big rig.

“Hello, Bill,” she said.

“Hello, Bonnie,” he said.

We all just stood there with Bandit waving his tail, until Dad said, “Aren't you going to ask me in?”

“Sure, come on in,” said Mom. Bandit followed us down the walk past the duplex to our little house and came inside with us. “How about a cup of coffee?” Mom asked Dad.

“Sure,” agreed Dad, looking around. “So this is where you two live.” Then he sat down on the couch.

“This is where we live as long as we can pay the rent,” said Mom in a flat voice. “And it can never be towed away.” Mom really hated that mobile home we used to live in.

Dad looked tired and sad in a way I had never seen him look before. While Mom fussed around making coffee, I showed him the burglar alarm I had made for my lunchbox. He worked it a couple of times and said, “I always knew I had a smart kid.”

Mom was taking such a long time making coffee I felt I had to entertain Dad so I showed him my Yearbook and what I had written. He read it and said, “Funny, but I still think about that day every time I haul grapes to a winery. I'm glad you remember it, too.” That made me feel good. He looked at me awhile as if he expected to see…I don't know what. Then he rumpled my hair and said, “You're smarter than your old man.”

That embarrassed me. I didn't know how to answer.

Finally Mom brought in two mugs of coffee. She gave one to Dad and carried hers over to a chair. They just sat there looking at one another over the rims of their mugs. I wanted to yell, Do something! Say something! Don't just sit there!

Finally Dad said, “I miss you, Bonnie.”

I had a feeling I didn't want to hear this conversation, but I didn't know how to get out of there so I got down on the floor and hugged Bandit who rolled over on his back to have his stomach scratched just as if he had never been away.

“I'm sorry,” said Mom. I think she meant she was sorry Dad missed her. Or maybe she was sorry about everything. I don't know.

“Have you found someone else?” asked Dad.

“No,” said Mom.

“I think about you a lot on the long hauls,” said Dad, “especially at night.”

“I haven't forgotten you,” said Mom.

“Bonnie, is there any chance—” Dad began.

“No,” said Mom in a sad, soft voice. “There isn't a chance.”

“Why not?” asked Dad.

“Too many lonely days and nights not knowing where you were, too much waiting for phone calls you forgot to make because you were whooping it up at some truck stop,” said Mom. “Too many boring Saturday nights in some noisy tavern. Too many broken promises. Things like that.”

“Well…” said Dad and set his mug down. “That's what I came to find out, so I might as well be going.” He hadn't even finished his coffee. He stood up and so did I. Then he gave me a big hug, and for a minute I wanted to hang on to him and never let him go.

“So long, son,” he said. “I'll try to get over to see you more often.”

“Sure, Dad,” I said. I had learned by now that I couldn't count on anything he said.

Mom came to the door. Suddenly Dad hugged her, and to my surprise, she hugged
him back. Then he turned and ran down the steps. When he reached his rig, he called back, “Take good care of Bandit.”

I thought of Dad hauling a forty-foot refrigerated trailer full of broccoli over the Sierra and the Rockies and across the plains and all those places in my book of road maps until he got to Ohio. Personally I would be happy to see all the broccoli in California trucked to Ohio because it's not my favorite vegetable, but I didn't like to think of Dad alone on that long haul driving all day and most of the night, except when he snatched a few hours' sleep in his bunk, and thinking of Mom.

“Dad, wait!” I yelled and ran out to him. “Dad, you keep Bandit. You need him more than I do.” Dad hesitated until I said, “Please take him. I don't have any way to amuse him.”

Dad smiled at that, and whistled, and Bandit jumped into the cab as if that was what he really wanted to do all along.

“So long, Leigh,” Dad said and started the motor. Then he leaned out and said, “You're a
good kid, Leigh. I'm proud of you, and I'll try not to let you down.” Then as he drove off, he yelled, “See you around!” and sounded more the way I had remembered him.

When I went inside, Mom was sipping her coffee and sort of staring into space. I went into my room, shut the door and sat listening to the gas station go ping-ping, ping-ping. Maybe it was broccoli that brought Dad to Salinas, but he had come the rest of the way because he really wanted to see us. He had really missed us. I felt sad and a whole lot better at the same time.