Беверли Клири - Dear Mr. Henshaw / Дорогой мистер Хеншоу. 7-8 классы

MOM: But not the right type. (Laughs.) I guess I’m really afraid I might find another man who’s in love with a truck.

ME: (I think about this and don’t answer. Is Dad in love with a truck? What does she mean?)

MOM: Why are you asking all these questions all of a sudden?

ME: I was thinking that if I had a father at home, maybe he could show me how to make a burglar alarm for my lunchbag.

MOM: (Laughing.) There must be an easier way than my getting married again.

End of conversation.

Dear Mr. Henshaw,

This is a real letter I am going to mail. Maybe I should explain that I have written you many letters that are really my diary which I keep because you said so and because Mom still won’t have the TV fixed. She wants my brain to be in good shape. She says that I will need my brain all my life.

Guess what? Today the school librarian stopped me in the hall and said she had something for me. She told me to come to the library. There she gave me your new book and said that I could be the first to read it. Probably I looked surprised. She said she knew how much I love your books since I borrow them so often. Now I know that Mr. Fridley isn’t the only one who notices me.

I am on page 14 of Beggar Bears . It is a good book. I just wanted you to know that I am the first person around here to read it.

Dear Mr. Henshaw,

I finished Beggar Bears in two nights. It is a really good book. At first I was surprised because it wasn’t funny like your other books, but then I started thinking (you said that authors should think) and decided a book doesn’t have to be funny to be good, but it often helps. This book did not need to be funny.

In the first chapter I thought it was going to be funny because of your other books and because the mother bear was teaching her twin cubs to beg from tourists in the national park. Then when the mother died because a stupid tourist fed her a muffin in a plastic bag and she ate the bag, too, I knew this was going to be a sad book. Winter was coming, tourists were leaving the park and the little bears didn’t know how to find food for themselves. When they went to sleep and then woke up in the middle of winter because they had eaten all the wrong things and didn’t have enough fat, I almost cried. I surely was happy when the nice ranger and his boy found the young bears and fed them and the next summer taught them to hunt for the right things to eat.

I wonder what happens to the fathers of bears. Do they just go away?

Sometimes I lie awake listening to the gas station pinging, and I worry because something can happen to Mom. She is so little compared to most moms, and she works so hard. I don’t think Dad is very much interested in me. He didn’t phone when he promised.

I hope your book wins a million awards.

Dear Mr. Henshaw,

Thank you for sending me the postcard with the picture of the lake and mountains and all that snow. Yes, I will continue to write in my diary even if I have to pretend I am writing to you. You know something? I think I feel better when I write in my diary.

My teacher says my writing skills are better now. Maybe I really will be a famous author someday. She said that our school together with some other schools is going to print a book of works of young authors, and I should write a story for it. The writers of the best work will win a prize – a lunch with a Famous Author and with winners from other schools. I hope the Famous Author is you.

I don’t often get mail, but today I got two postcards, one from you and one from Dad in Kansas. His card showed a picture of a truck. He said he would phone me sometime next week. I wish someday he would have to drive a load of something to Wyoming and would take me along so I could meet you.

That’s all for now. I am going to try to think up a story. Don’t worry. I won’t send it to you to read. I know you are busy and I don’t want to be a nuisance.

Dear Mr. Pretend Henshaw,

Every time I try to think up a story, it is like something someone else has written, usually you. I want to do what you said in your tips and write like me , not like somebody else. I’ll keep trying because I want to be a Young Author with my story printed. Maybe I can’t think of a story because I am waiting for Dad to call. I get so lonely when I am alone at night when Mom is at her nursing class.

Yesterday somebody stole a piece of cake from my lunchbag. Mr. Fridley noticed that I was sad again and asked, “The lunchbag thief again?”

I said, “Yeah, and my Dad didn’t phone me.”

He said, “Don’t think you are the only boy around here with a father who forgets.”

I wonder if this is true. Mr. Fridley notices everything around school, so he probably knows.

I wish I had a grandfather like Mr. Fridley. He is so nice, big and comfortable.

Dear Mr. Pretend Henshaw,

Dad still hasn’t phoned, and he promised he would. Mom keeps telling me I shouldn’t be so hopeful, because Dad sometimes forgets. I don’t think he should forget what he wrote on a postcard. I feel terrible.

Dear Mr. Pretend Henshaw,

I looked in my book of highway maps and understood that Dad should be back here by now, but he still hasn’t phoned. Mom says that I shouldn’t be too hard on him, because a trucker’s life isn’t easy. Truckers sometimes lose some of their hearing in their left ear from the wind blowing past the driver’s window. Truckers also get out of shape from sitting such long hours without exercise and from eating too much fatty food. Sometimes truckers hurry so much that they even get stomach aches. Time is money for a trucker. I think she is just trying to make me feel good, but I don’t. I feel terrible.

I said, “If a trucker’s life is so hard, then why is Dad in love with his truck?”

Mom said, “It’s not really his truck he is in love with. He loves the feel of power when he is sitting high in his cab controlling a huge machine. He loves the joy of never knowing where his next trip will take him. He loves the mountains and the desert sunrises and the sight of orange trees with oranges and the smell of new asphalt. I know, because I rode with him before you were born.”

I still feel terrible. If Dad loves all those things so much, why can’t he love me? And maybe if I hadn’t been born, Mom would still be riding with Dad. Maybe I’m to blame for everything.

Dear Mr. Pretend Henshaw,

Dad still hasn’t phoned. A promise is a promise, especially when it is in writing. When the phone rings, it is always a call from one of the women who Mom works with. I am so mad! I am mad at Mom for divorcing Dad. As she says, it takes two people to get a divorce, so I am mad at two people. I wish Bandit was here to keep me company. Bandit and I didn’t get a divorce. They did.

Dear Mr. Pretend Henshaw,

I am writing this sitting in my room because Mom invited some of her women friends. They sit around drinking coffee or tea and talking about their problems which are mostly men, money and kids. Some of them make quilts while they talk. They hope to sell them for extra money. It is better to stay in here than go out and say, “Hello, sure, I like school fine, yes, I guess I have grown,” and all that.

Mom is right about Dad and his truck. I remember how fun it was to ride with him and listen to calls on his CB radio. Dad showed me hawks sitting on telephone wires waiting for little animals to be run over. Dad was hauling a load of tomatoes that day, and he said that some tomatoes are grown especially strong for hauling. They may not taste good, but they don’t squash.

That day we stopped at a weighing scale and then had lunch at the truck stop. Everybody knew Dad. The waitresses all said, “Well, look who is here! Our old friend, Wild Bill,” and things like that. Wild Bill is the name Dad uses on his CB radio.

When Dad said, “Meet my kid,” I stood up as tall as I could so they would think I was going to grow up as big as Dad. The waitresses all laughed a lot around Dad. For lunch we had chicken, potatoes, peas, and apple pie with ice cream. Our waitress gave me extra ice cream to help me grow big like Dad. Most truckers ate really fast and left, but Dad stayed around and played the video games. Dad always wins.

Mom’s friends are leaving, so I guess I can go to bed now.

Dear Mr. Pretend Henshaw,

I hate my father.

Mom is usually home on Sunday, but this week there was a big event, and she worked a lot. Mom never worries about paying the rent when there is a big order.

I was all alone in the house, it was raining and I didn’t have anything to read. I had to clean the bathroom, but I didn’t because I was mad at Mom for divorcing Dad. I feel that way sometimes which makes me feel awful because I know how hard she has to work and try to go to school, too.

I was looking at the telephone until I couldn’t wait any longer. I picked up the receiver and called Dad’s number in Bakersfield. All I wanted was to hear the phone ringing in Dad’s trailer which wouldn’t cost Mom anything because nobody would answer.

But Dad answered. I almost hung up. He wasn’t away in some other state. He was in his trailer, and he hadn’t phoned me. I thought I had to talk to him. “You promised to phone me this week and you didn’t,” I said.

“Easy, kid,” he said. “I just didn’t have the time to do it. I was going to call this evening. It’s not the end of the week yet.”

I thought about this.

“Some trouble?” he asked.

I didn’t know what to say, so I said, “My lunch. Somebody steals the good stuff out of my lunch.”

“Find him and punch him in the nose,” said Dad. I could tell he didn’t think that my lunch was important.

“I hoped you would call,” I said. “I waited and waited.” Then I was sorry I said it. I still have some pride left.

“There was heavy snow in the mountains,” he said. “I had to put chains on wheels and lost some time.”

I know about putting chains on trucks. When the snow is heavy, truckers have to put chains on the drive wheels – all eight of them. Putting chains on eight big wheels in the snow is no fun. I felt a little better. “How’s Bandit?” I asked.

There was a strange pause. For a minute I thought that we were disconnected. Then I knew something must have happened to my dog. “How’s Bandit?” I asked again louder, remembering that Dad might have lost some of the hearing in his left ear from all that wind.

“Well, kid – ” he began.

“My name is Leigh!” I almost shouted. “I’m not just some kid you met on the street.”

“Easy, Leigh,” he said. “When I had to stop to put on chains, I let Bandit out of the cab. I thought that he would get right back in because it was snowing hard, but after I chained up, he wasn’t in the cab.”

“Did you leave the door open for him?” I asked.