Dear Mr. Henshaw
Page 6
“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.
About the Author
BEVERLY CLEARY is one of America’s most popular authors. Born in McMinnville, Oregon, she lived on a farm in Yamhill until she was six and then moved to Portland. After college, she became the children’s librarian in Yakima, Washington. In 1940, she married Clarence T. Cleary, and they are the parents of twins, now grown.
Mrs. Cleary’s books have earned her many prestigious awards, including the American Library Association’s Laura Ingalls Wilder Award, presented in recognition of her lasting contribution to children’s literature. Her Dear Mr. Henshaw was awarded the 1984 John Newbery Medal, and her Ramona and Her Father and Ramona Quimby, Age 8 have been named Newbery Honor Books. In addition, her books have won more than thirty statewide awards based on the votes of her young readers. Her characters such as Henry Huggins, Ellen Tebbits, Otis Spofford, Beezus and Ramona Quimby, as well as Ribsy, Socks, and Ralph S. Mouse, have delighted children for more than a generation.
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Enjoy All of Beverly Cleary’s Books
BEEZUS AND RAMONA
DEAR MR. HENSHAW
ELLEN TEBBITS
EMILY’S RUNAWAY IMAGINATION
FIFTEEN
HENRY AND BEEZUS
HENRY AND RIBSY
HENRY AND THE CLUBHOUSE
HENRY AND THE PAPER ROUTE
HENRY HUGGINS
JEAN AND JOHNNY
THE LUCKIEST GIRL
MITCH AND AMY
THE MOUSE AND THE MOTORCYCLE
MUGGI
E MAGGIE
OTIS SPOFFORD
RALPH S. MOUSE
RAMONA AND HER FATHER
RAMONA AND HER MOTHER
RAMONA FOREVER
RAMONA QUIMBY, AGE 8
RAMONA THE BRAVE
RAMONA THE PEST
RAMONA’S WORLD
RIBSY
RUNAWAY RALPH
SISTER OF THE BRIDE
SOCKS
STRIDER
And Don’t Miss Beverly Cleary’s Autobiography
A GIRL FROM YAMHILL
MY OWN TWO FEET
Credits
Cover illustration by Paul O. Zelinsky
Hand lettering by Anthony Bloch
Copyright
DEAR MR. HENSHAW. Copyright © 1983 by Beverly Cleary. Interior illustrations by Paul O. Zelinsky. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub © Edition SEPTEMBER 2009 ISBN: 9780061972157
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