The Naked Mole-Rat Letters

by Mary Amato

  “Johnny,” I called out.

  He turned around and stared.

  I wanted to run the other way, but I forced myself to keep walking until I caught up with him. “Hey,” I said. “I was wondering if you could help me with something.”

  He didn’t say a word. He just stared at me like he couldn’t believe I was there. I couldn’t believe it, either. I almost panicked, and then I remembered this acting technique where you “mirror” the person standing in front of you. I mirrored Johnny—slouching a little and letting my face take on this “I don’t care” look, which made me relax and feel more confident. “I was wondering if you could teach me how to hack into my dad’s business e-mail so that I can read his messages.”

  He laughed.

  I guess he didn’t expect that.

  I waited a few seconds for him to say something. Anything. Desperately, I pulled out the wad of bills in my pocket (the money I had forgotten to give to the school librarian). “I can pay you.”

  Johnny nodded and took the bucks. “Come on.”

  He walked, and I followed. The sound of my shoes crunching on the gravel was embarrassingly loud, so I racked my brain for small talk to cover up the noise. “Mrs. Keating really got mad at you today.”

  Wow. What brilliant things would I think up next?

  He kicked a stone. He shrugged. What else is new?

  I confessed. “I was sleeping during class. I haven’t even started the report.”

  He smiled. “Well, well, well. The perfect Frankie Wallop is going bad.”

  “I’m not going bad. I’m just . . .” I didn’t know how to finish.

  He kicked another stone. “So how come you want to snoop around in your dad’s e-mail?”

  “I . . .” I was hoping that a colorful lie would descend like a hot-air balloon from the heavens onto the gray and deserted road of my mind. Nothing came. The noise of my shoes on the gravel was ridiculous. I sounded like a circus elephant. He was looking at me. I had to say something. Why couldn’t I think of what to say?

  “It don’t matter,” he said, and shrugged. “None of my business.”

  We turned the corner, and there was the trailer parked in a clearing. Beyond it, the road kept stretching out in the loneliest way. It shouldn’t be called Old School Road, it should be called Endangered Species Road, because nobody but Johnny lives on it.

  We got to the trailer door and I froze. In the back of my mind I remembered the rumor about how Johnny was taken away from his mother and father when he was really little because they beat him and didn’t feed him. Was I really going into Johnny Nye’s trailer?

  Just then a voice called out from behind the trailer, and an old woman walked out, ducking under T-shirts and towels hanging from a clothesline. Johnny’s grandma. She doesn’t go into town, so I don’t know much about her except that her name is Elsie Nye and that she looks like a weed that the world has let grow wild. She has tangled gray hair that reaches all the way to her waist. Today she was wearing an old yellow dress over a pair of brown slacks. She had on work boots, like the kind my dad’s friend Ozzie Filmore wears, and was carrying a bunch of vegetables in her arms.

  There are two kinds of people in Pepper Blossom. There are folks like my dad, who weren’t born here. They came here for college in Bloomington (which isn’t far away) and loved it so much they stayed, either in Bloomington or in small towns like Pepper Blossom. Then there are the old-timers—people who’ve been living in these parts for generations. They live just outside of town, in trailers or old falling-down houses. They have their own way of being and their own country way of talking, using their own words for certain things. For example, instead of “grandma,” it’s “mammaw.” Johnny’s grandma is one of these people. So is Johnny.

  “Hey, Mammaw,” Johnny said. “This is Frankie Wallop. I’m helping her with something on the computer.”

  “Well that’s sweet, Johnny.” She was trying to carry too much, and an eggplant fell.

  Johnny and I both bent to pick it up, and we almost bumped heads.

  “Aren’t they beauties?” she asked. “You like eggplant?”

  I must have made a face because she laughed.

  “How ’bout tomatoes? Everybody likes tomatoes. Ya’ll grow any at your place?”

  I shook my head.

  She handed me a huge red tomato and said, “Well go over to the patch and help yourself. Thanks to this warm spell, they’re still growing.”

  “We got to work on the computer, Mammaw,” Johnny said, setting down a bucket for her to put the vegetables in. “Maybe you could pick her some.”

  I followed him up the steps to the trailer door, still holding that tomato like an idiot, not knowing what to do with it. Inside the trailer it was like a whole world crammed into a closet. On the right there was a small booth like in Mae’s restaurant. There was a bright pink tablecloth on the table, but you could hardly see it because the table was full of cups and boxes and tools. Above it, a collection of chickens—chicken figurines and chicken salt-and-pepper shakers—was displayed on a shelf.

  In the middle of the trailer were a tiny stove and refrigerator, stacked with pots and pans. Everything was very clean, and the whole place smelled like apple cider. It seemed old-fashioned—not like a place that would have a computer with Internet access.

  On the left were two small beds, neatly made with crocheted blankets. One was topped with piles and piles of clothes. The other was topped with something I hadn’t noticed right away—a very scratched-up old guitar.

  “Is that yours?” I asked.

  He picked it up. “I found it in the junkyard over at Gnawbone and fixed it up. Your dad helped me.”

  “Oh. Do you play?” Another brilliant question from yours truly.

  He could have very easily made fun of me by saying, No, I just keep it around because we have so much room in here. But he didn’t say anything. To my amazement he sat down on the bed and started to play. I didn’t know what to do, so I just stood there and stared at the tomato I was still holding.

  Slowly and steadily, he plucked out a song, a really pretty tune, like something you’d sing to a little kid who was scared. It filled the whole trailer. I could feel it coming up through the trailer floor and through the bottoms of my feet.

  I said something really stupid, like “Wow,” when he was done.

  He looked at me, surprised.

  I didn’t know what to say next, so I said, “I can’t stay very long because—”

  “Right. The e-mail.” He put down the guitar and pulled a laptop from under his bed. I wondered if he had stolen the computer, and then I felt guilty for wondering while he cleared a space on the table and plugged it into a phone jack.

  There was only one place for me to sit: next to him in the booth. I set the tomato on a stack of plates and squeezed in.

  I knew Dad’s business e-mail address (DULCIMERMAN@DMAN.COM). And I guessed that he used the same password at work as he did at home. So it only took Johnny about two minutes to show me how to get in. It was easier than I thought.

  Ayanna Bayo. Ayanna Bayo. Ayanna Bayo. There were about ten e-mails each day to and from Dad and Ratlady since Saturday. Ten e-mails each day!

  “Dang. These guys like to write,” Johnny said. “I don’t have a printer, or I’d print them out for you.”

  “That’s okay,” I said, as he scrolled through.

  “Where do you want to start? With today?”

  I should have stopped right there and said thank you and walked away. But I nodded, and Johnny opened a message that Dad had sent about an hour before.

  The words appeared on the screen in front of us. Johnny started reading out loud.

  “How can a string of words reach you across the way?

  Can this song find you and say all there is to say?

  Letters of love, fragile and thin,

  Sometimes get lost in the wind . . .”

  He stopped. “It’s a song,” he said.

  L
istening to a boy read a love song written by your dad has to be one of the most embarrassing scenes in human history. It reminded me of the time Beth saw Dad in his underwear. Only this was five thousand times worse because this was Johnny Nye, not Beth.

  “He sounds serious,” Johnny said. “Who is she?”

  “You can close it. I don’t need to see any more.” I got up so fast I pulled the tablecloth, and the dishes rattled. My face felt like a field that had caught fire. “Thanks a lot,” I said quickly. “See you.”

  I walked out the door. To my dismay, Johnny followed. I didn’t want to have to think of anything else to say. I just wanted to get out of there.

  His grandma was talking to two chickens over by a little shed I hadn’t noticed. She stood up and looked at me as if surprised. “Who’s this, Johnny?”

  Her question caught me off guard. My brain was already overloaded. How could she not remember me?

  Johnny stepped in. “It’s Frankie Wallop, Mammaw.” His voice was patient and soft. “I was showing her something on the computer.”

  “It’s nice to meet you, Frankie.” She smiled, and the empty look in her eyes made me feel so sad, I had to look away. She really didn’t remember meeting me. Was this Alzheimer’s?

  The whole picture: Johnny and his grandma on this lonely road with the trailer and the chickens . . . I was seeing it, but I couldn’t imagine living it.

  “I’m gonna walk Frankie home,” Johnny said.

  I didn’t even have a chance to digest that statement because what he did next blew me away. Tough Johnny Nye, the kid who gets into trouble for ditching school and cussing teachers and setting off cherry bombs, walked over and gave his grandma a kiss on the cheek.

  I didn’t know what to say, so I just started walking.

  “See if your girlfriend wants any tomatoes, Johnny,” his grandma called.

  I’m sure she meant girl friend and not girlfriend, but I was too embarrassed to look at Johnny. I kept walking. He caught up to me with two tomatoes in his hands and an embarrassed look on his face.

  “Sorry about that girlfriend thing,” he mumbled. “She didn’t know what she was saying.”

  “That’s okay,” I said. I wanted to ask him about his grandma’s memory and how bad it was and how long she’d been that way. And I wanted to tell him how sweet he was with her. But I kept my mouth shut.

  We walked in silence. After a while he looked at me and said, “I thought that was pretty cool.”

  “What?”

  “Your dad writing that song.”

  I was too shocked to say a word.

  “I like writing songs,” he said, and I wondered if he had written the song he had played. “How come you don’t like her?” he asked.

  “Ratlady? Because I don’t want my dad to get involved with anybody.”

  “Where does she live?”

  “Washington, D.C.”

  He whistled. We kept walking.

  “How’d they meet?” he asked.

  “At a conference.”

  “Love at first sight, huh?”

  I shrugged.

  “Do you believe in it?” he asked.

  “In what?”

  “Love at first sight.”

  A hot-air balloon from Mars could have landed in front of us and I wouldn’t have been any more surprised than I was by the way this conversation was going. When I finally found my voice, I stammered, “I—I th-think that it’s wise to be cautious. I think you have to get to know somebody first.”

  How stupid.

  He didn’t say anything, and we walked a ways without talking. Then he turned to me. His eyes were as blue as the sky, and he was smiling, as if he were telling himself a joke. He held up a tomato. “You think it’s like this?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “Maybe you think love is like a tomato. It has to grow.”

  On the outside I probably looked like a normal girl walking along a gravel road. But inside I was screaming: Johnny Nye is talking to me about love being like tomatoes! I was screaming at myself so loud that I forgot he had asked me a question.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I don’t know why I asked you that. You’re all red.”

  I looked at him. “Your face is red, too.”

  He smiled. “We’re a couple of walking tomatoes.”

  We both laughed, and I felt myself turn even redder. I couldn’t possibly think of what to say next, and I knew that he couldn’t think of what to say, either. We just kept looking at those two big red tomatoes, and it was like he was holding our embarrassment in his hands.

  And then Johnny did this funny thing. He stopped and threw one of the tomatoes at a tree. He just let it fly, and it hit the trunk with a satisfying splat!

  “Your turn,” he said, and handed me the other tomato.

  I pitched it . . . splat!

  He laughed. “Frankie Wallop, you got a pretty good arm.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Were you pretending to aim at that Ratlady’s face?”

  I laughed.

  Whatever felt awkward between the two of us had flown out and splattered like those tomatoes. We walked for a while and talked about teachers and school. I asked if he was going to the Fall Festival, and without thinking I blurted out, “You should sign up for the open mike.”

  He looked at me as if I’d just told him to go visit the president. “You mean you think I should play?”

  “If you want to. I mean, anybody can sign up. You should sign up. If you want to.”

  He stuck his hands into his pockets. “I’ve seen you play with the Red Beet Ramblers, and I saw you in that school show last year. You’re good.”

  I almost fell down dead. When I performed I didn’t really think about who was in the audience, other than Dad and Grandma. It was unbelievably strange to think that Johnny Nye watched me sing onstage and had an opinion about me.

  “I think I’d be too nervous to sing in front of lots of people,” he said.

  “It’s not so bad once you get going.”

  “You made it for the play this semester, didn’t you?”

  “I made it. But I didn’t get the part I wanted.”

  “Haxer’s an idiot,” he said.

  I laughed, and he smiled.

  “Who got the part you wanted?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Melinda Bixby.”

  “Bixby? Next to you, she’s a cow!”

  We both laughed.

  We got to my street, and I stopped. The last thing I needed was to be seen with Johnny Nye. My reputation was in trouble right now. If I were seen with Johnny, it would go right down the drain.

  “Well, thanks again,” I said.

  A look came into his eyes like he could read my mind. He reached into his pocket and took out the money. He gave it back, his fingers brushing my hand.

  “But—”

  “I don’t want it,” he said. “I’ll help you for nothing. If you want, I can . . .”

  Did he want to get together again? Was he offering more help? Did he like me? It was all too confusing. I said good-bye and hurried home.

  I was dying to shut myself in my room and write about everything that had happened.

  Unfortunately, I didn’t have time because Beth pounced on me the minute I walked through the door. “Come and listen to this. It is so amazing.” She pulled me into the dining room. Skip and Nutter were sitting at the table with Skip’s spy recorder.

  Skip grinned at me. “We were playing outside, and I overheard Mrs. Holmes talking on the phone on her back patio, so I taped her. Listen . . .”

  I looked at Beth. “I’m not talking to Skip, Beth. He is a traitor as well as a spy.”

  “You’re going to want to hear this, Frankie,” he said while he rewound the tape.

  “I don’t want to hear it again,” Nutter complained. “I want you guys to help me make my koala costume.”

  “I don’t want to hear it, either,” I said. “You promised you were going to stop spying on p
eople.”

  “You’ve got to hear it,” Beth said. “We’ve already listened to it three times.”

  Skip pushed the button, and Mrs. Holmes’s voice started in midsentence: “. . . is falling apart. . . . I agree. . . . Yes, and I heard that Robert is having a nervous breakdown. . . . It’s true. . . . Well, yes. . . . I think there’s only one thing that would truly help. We need to fix him up with somebody, Susan. They need a woman in that house, don’t you know it?”

  “Oh great!” I exclaimed. “Now Mrs. Holmes is going to try to fix Dad up with somebody.”

  “What does ‘fix up’ mean?” Nutter asked. “I don’t get it.”

  Beth explained, “It means finding him a girlfriend to marry.”

  Nutter’s eyes grew large. “Dads can’t have girlfriends, can they?”

  Skip looked suitably horrified. Maybe now he would understand what I meant by knowing our enemies.

  “We do not need a woman in the house,” I said. “If everybody would just leave us alone—”

  “Shhh!” Beth said. “Listen to what comes next.”

  Mrs. Holmes’s voice continued on tape: “. . . Yes, I do have someone in mind. . . .”

  I stared at Beth. Her eyes were wide and crazy-looking, like she didn’t know whether to laugh or scream.

  “Who?” I asked.

  “Shhh! It’s coming. . . .”

  “I think the perfect match,” Mrs. Holmes said, “would be Doris Trolly.”

  I could have dropped dead.

  Mrs. Holmes rambled on. “She’s single. She can cook for an army. Did you taste her lasagna at the potluck? And she’s a guidance counselor, Susan. Why, she could help him with his problems. And I think she’s as cute as a button, in her way.”

  Beth laughed.

  “It’s not funny, Beth!”

  “I’m not laughing at the situation,” Beth said. “I’m laughing because she said ‘cute as a button.’”

  “What does she look like?” Nutter asked.

  “Like a troll,” Beth said.

  “Or an army tank with fangs,” I said, and Beth laughed again.

  Skip turned off his recorder, grinning with spy satisfaction. I could tell he thought that he had made up for spying on me last night.

  I groaned.

  “What are you going to do?” Beth asked.