Dear Mr. Henshaw / Дорогой мистер Хеншоу. 7-8 классы
Шрифт:
Mom works part-time for “Catering by Katy” which is owned by a really nice lady whom Mom knew when she was growing up in Taft, California. Katy says that all women who grew up in Taft had to be good cooks because they went to so many potluck suppers. Mom and Katy and some other ladies make fancy food for weddings and parties. They also bake cheesecakes and apple pies for restaurants. Mom is a good cook. I just wish she would do it more at home, like the mother in Moose on Toast. Almost every day Katy gives Mom something good to put in my school lunch.
Mom also takes a couple of courses at the college. She wants to be a licensed nurse. They help real nurses except they don’t stick needles in people. She is almost always home when I get home from school.
Mr. Henshaw:
Here we go again.
4. Where do you live?
After the divorce Mom and I moved from Bakersfield to Pacific Grove which is in California, about twenty miles from the sugar refinery where Dad had hauled sugar beets before he went cross-country. Mom said that all the time she was growing up she wished for a few ocean breezes, and now we’ve got them. We’ve got a lot of fog too, especially in the morning. There aren’t any crops around here, just golf courses for rich people.
We live in a little house, a really little house. It was somebody’s summer cottage a long time ago before they built a two-story house in front of it. Now it is a garden cottage and it is falling apart, but it is all we have money for. Mom says that at least we have a roof over our heads, and it can’t be hauled away on a truck. I have my own room, but Mom sleeps on a couch in the living room. She decorated the place really nicely with things from the thrift shop down the street.
Next door is a gas station that goes ping-ping, ping-ping every time a car drives in. They turn off the pinger at 10:00 P.M., but mostly I am asleep by then. On our street, besides the thrift shop, there is a pet shop, a sewing machine shop, an electric shop, a couple of antique shops, plus a restaurant and an ice cream place.
Sometimes when the gas station isn’t pinging, I can hear the ocean and the sea lions barking. They sound like dogs, and I think of Bandit.
To be continued unless we get the TV fixed.
Mr. Henshaw:
If our TV was fixed I would be watching “Highway Patrol,” but it isn’t, so here are some more answers from my stupid brain. (Ha-ha.)
5. Do you have any pets?
I do not have any pets. (My teacher says always answer questions in full sentences.) When Mom and Dad got divorced and Mom got me, Dad took Bandit because Mom said that she couldn’t work and look after a dog, and Dad said that he likes to take Bandit in his truck because it helps him to stay awake on long hauls if he has his dog to talk to. I really miss Bandit, but I guess he’s happier with Dad. Like the father said in Ways to Amuse a Dog, dogs get bored if they stay in the house all day. That is what Bandit would do with Mom and me.
Bandit likes to ride. That’s how we got him. He just jumped into Dad’s cab at a truck stop in Nevada and sat there. He had a red bandanna around his neck instead of a collar, so we called him Bandit.
Sometimes I lie awake at night listening to the gas station ping-pinging and thinking about Dad and Bandit hauling tomatoes or cotton on Interstate 5, and I am glad that Bandit is there to keep Dad awake. Have you ever seen Interstate 5? It is straight and boring with nothing much but fields. It is so boring that the cattle in the fields don’t even moo. They just stand there.
My hand is tired from all this writing again. I’ll get to No. 6 next time. Mom says not to worry about the postage, so I can’t use that as an excuse for not answering.
Mr. Henshaw:
Here we go again. I’ll never write another list of questions for an author to answer, no matter what the teacher says.
6. Do you like school?
School is OK, I guess. That’s where the kids are. The best thing about sixth grade in my new school is that if I do my best, I’ll finish it.
7. Who are your friends?
I don’t have many friends in my new school. Mom says that maybe I’m a loner, but I don’t know. A new boy in school has to be careful until he knows who’s who. Maybe I’m just a medium boy whom nobody pays much attention to. The only time anybody paid much attention to me was in my last school when I gave the book report on Ways to Amuse a Dog. After my report some people went to the library to get the book. The kids here pay more attention to my lunch than to me. They really want to see what I have in my lunch because Katy gives me such good things.
I wish somebody would invite me to their place sometime. After school I spend time kicking a soccer ball with some of the other kids so they won’t think I am a snob or anything, but nobody invites me anyway.
8. Who is your favorite teacher?
I don’t have a favorite teacher, but I really like Mr. Fridley. He’s the custodian. He’s always fair about who gets the milk first at lunchtime, and once when he had to clean after someone who got sick in the hall, he didn’t even look cross. He just said, “It looks like somebody’s made a mess,” and started putting sawdust around it. Mom got mad at Dad for making a mess too, but she didn’t mean throwing up. She meant that he stayed too long at that truck stop outside of town.
Two more questions to go. Maybe I won’t answer them. Ha-ha.
Mr. Henshaw:
OK, you win, because Mom is still nagging me, and I don’t have anything else to do. I’ll answer your last two questions even if I stay up all night.
9. What bothers you?
What bothers me about what? I don’t know what you mean. I guess I’m bothered by a lot of things. I am bothered when someone steals something out of my lunch bag. I don’t know enough about the people in the school to know who it can be. I am bothered about little kids with runny noses. I don’t mean I am fussy or anything like that. I don’t know why. I am just bothered.