by Betsy Byars
“Well, if you can’t concentrate,” Wentworth said, “I’ll give you a hint. Burp-burp burp burp sat-is-fac-tion. Get it?”
“I got it.”
“Turn left.”
They made the corner.
“Weezie lives on this street—I don’t know the exact number. Melissa said, ‘I’m staying with my cousin until my dad … er, works things out.’ And Weezie—who, incidentally, had not taken her eyes off me—that girl’s got taste—says, ‘I live on Duquesne.’ Like she would not be unhappy if I made my way to Duquesne—” He broke off.
“This has got to be it,” Bingo said.
“Why?”
“Because there’s Weezie.”
“Where?”
“On the steps.”
“That’s not Weezie. Weezie doesn’t go around with doohickeys on her head.”
“She’s getting a home perm. That’s what they bought in the grocery store. When she gets through her hair will be curly, like Melissa’s.”
“Man, I’m sorry I saw that.”
“Well, you wait here. I’ll go the rest of the way by myself.”
“No, I can take it. She must want to see me bad to come outside with those doohickeys on her head.”
Bingo and Wentworth walked their bikes up the sidewalk to where Weezie sat on the steps. She was flipping through a magazine and didn’t look up.
“Hi,” Bingo said.
Now she noticed them. “Oh, hi.”
Bingo filled in the silence with a loud swallow and then blurted out, “I saw you and Melissa in the grocery store.”
The cousin came back with, “I saw you see us.”
Bingo did not care for mixed-sex conversations that started like this, but he had no choice but to continue.
“That was Melissa, then?”
“It was Melissa.”
“So where is she now?”
“Inside.”
“Is she coming out?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“There’s no reason for her to come out.”
There was another silence. Bingo sensed that Weezie had intended this as an insult, but he forced himself to say, “Would you ask her to come out?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Look, Weez,” Wentworth said, interrupting impatiently. “I don’t want to break up this exciting conversation here, but Bingo came over to see Melissa. And I came over to make sure he sees Melissa. And if you don’t get Melissa out here, it’s going to be a long afternoon, because we ain’t leaving until he sees Melissa, and Bingo and me got better things to do.”
Bingo was grateful to Billy Wentworth. Sometimes a forceful manner was necessary, and Bingo obviously wasn’t up to force of any kind.
“Me-liiissa!” she called.
“That’s more, like it,” Wentworth said. He tugged down his camouflage T-shirt in a satisfied manner.
“What do you want?” Melissa called back.
Her voice was so close at hand that Bingo thought she must have been standing by the window all along. He glanced quickly at the window and thought he saw the curtain move. He wished he hadn’t come.
“Somebody wants to see-eee you!” Weezie called over her shoulder.
“Who?”
“Bingo Bro-own.”
“Tell him I’ll be out in a minute.”
“She’ll be out in a minute.”
“We ain’t deaf,” Wentworth said.
“Let’s go,” Bingo said.
Wentworth ignored him. “I want to get something straight here, Zelda Louise.”
“How do you know my name?”
“I got my sources.”
“Who?”
“I never reveal a source.”
“I hate to be called Zelda Louise. Now, you call me Weezie or I’m going in the house and I’m never coming out.”
Wentworth waved an imaginary white flag. “Weezie,” he said. “Weezie, here’s what I want to get straight. Are we talking a regular minute, sixty seconds, or one of those minutes that takes about an hour and a half? Because me and Bingo do not have an hour and a half to waste.”
“Let’s go!” Bingo said.
Bingo didn’t think he could stand this any longer. The confusion, the anxiety, were beginning to take their toll. He needed to sink down on his Ninja Turtle sheets and stay there, Rip Van Bingo-like, for at least forty years.
Also he hadn’t had any lunch, and his stomach was getting ready to start growling.
“No, hold on,” Wentworth said. “She said one minute. So, we’ll give her one minute. I figure fifteen seconds of the minute is gone already, so we now wait forty-five seconds.”
Wentworth checked his watch. “Forty-one … thirty-eight … thirty … twenty-two … nineteen … thirteen … eight … three … two … one and a half …”
Bingo waited without hope.
And when Billy Wentworth said, “One and one-quarter,” Bingo heard the front door open.
He looked up so fast his neck popped.
There, in the doorway, wearing her Declaration of Independence T-shirt, stood Melissa.
Melissa, at Last
“SO, WEEZ!” BILLY WENTWORTH said.
Now that Melissa had put in an appearance, Wentworth turned his full attention to Weezie.
“When are you going to get them doohickeys off your head?”
Weezie checked her bare wrist and circled it with her other hand. “I keep forgetting my watch is broken,” she said. “I have to wait about ten more minutes. It’s already been neutralized.”
“Man, if I had them doohickeys on my head, I wouldn’t wait to be nooo-tralized. I bet them things hurt, don’t they?”
“A little bit,” she admitted.
“I figured.”
“These on my neck are rolled real tight.”
Neither Bingo nor Melissa had spoken—Bingo because he couldn’t, Melissa because she wouldn’t. She was still standing just outside the front door, turned sideways.
Bingo had been looking at her ever since she came outside, but she had continued to look down at her shoes.
Bingo glanced at her shoes himself to see what was so fascinating. They weren’t her old shoes. They were new and, as he had expected, larger in size.
Then he looked up so quickly he caught her looking at him. But at once she looked away, and he did, too. He had an uneasy, guilty feeling, as if he were back in Puritan times, when even a look was illegal.
“Wait till you see me tomorrow,” Weezie said to Wentworth in a flirtatious manner. “You’ll think it was worth it.”
“Nothing’s worth putting them doohickeys on your head for. I wouldn’t put them things on my head if it would make me look like Arnold Schwarzenegger.”
Weezie laughed through her nose. Bingo’s mother had been right. She did snort.
Bingo slowly raised his eyes to Melissa’s face. She, too, had just raised her eyes to Bingo’s face, but again she looked away. This time Bingo fixed his eyes on her face in a manly manner. He would not look away, no matter what.
“Boys do get home perms these days,” Weezie told Wentworth.
“Well, that’s so fascinating I’ll write that down in my diary tonight.”
“They do!”
“Not me!”
“You could.”
“No way!”
“Why not? You’d be cute with curly hair.”
“I ain’t denying that.”
“You buy the home perm and I’ll give you one. I’ve got the curlers.”
“No way.”
“Please.”
“No! Now, I’m not getting no home permanent, no matter how much you beg.”
Bingo couldn’t believe what was happening. Here he was—the master of mixed-sex conversations—unable to speak a word. And here was Wentworth sounding like he had invented mixed-sex conversations.
A small silence followed, and Bingo heard Melissa exhale.
When Bingo heard that, he knew
that she had been holding her breath. He had been doing the exact same thing.
This gave him courage. Now was the time to speak. He moistened his dry lips.
His stomach rumbled like a volcano.
It could not possibly have happened at a worse moment. This stomach growl could only make Melissa think he was hungry. Then she would remember his love letter for eternity in which he had written so eloquently of the hunger of love. And she would not linger over the poignant closing—“Hungrily yours.” She would go directly on to remember that she had received the Xerox of that letter.
Then she would go in the house.
So he had to speak. Otherwise, he had made this long, tortuous, burp-ridden trip for nothing. He would say something simple and truthful.
“I was surprised to see you in Health Supplies yesterday.”
“Oh, hi, Bingo.”
Encouraged, Bingo went up two steps. “Hi. I was getting ready to write you a letter.”
“Were you?”
“Yes. Only then I saw you and I knew I didn’t need to write. I could just tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
Bingo felt as if he were talking to a stranger. “Things.”
“Like what?”
“Well, for one thing, remember the last letter I wrote?”
“I don’t remember. It’s been so long. I haven’t gotten a letter in three months.”
“Me either.”
“Oh, I do remember. It was Xeroxed.”
“Yes, but—”
“Because it was the first Xeroxed letter I ever got.”
“I can explain that.”
“And you don’t forget Xeroxed letters.”
“Apparently not.”
“They’re like—so impersonal—like, I don’t know—form letters.”
“Zelda Lou-iiiise!” a voice called from inside the house.
Weezie made a face. “What, Claudine Shirley?” she called back.
“You wanted me to let you know when it was eleven-thirty, Zelda Louise. Well, it’s eleven-thirty.”
“Thanks.” Weezie got to her feet. “I’ve got to go in and”—she laughed out of her nose—“get these doohickeys out of my hair.”
“It’s about time.”
“Come on, Melissa, help me,” Weezie said.
Weezie crossed to the front door. Melissa was standing there, looking once again at her shoes.
Weezie looked over her shoulder. “Come back tomorrow,” she told Wentworth, “and see my curls.”
“Maybe I will. Maybe I won’t,” Wentworth said. “I don’t make no promises.”
“I bet you come.”
Weezie went into the house with a sassy wave of her hand to Wentworth. Melissa followed without any signal at all.
Bingo stood without moving. They—the all-time champions of mixed-sex conversations—had lost their title. The words “form letter” had hurt him. He was as tired as if he’d been pumping iron.
Wentworth got on his bicycle and Bingo, robotlike, did, too.
“So what’s wrong?” Wentworth asked. “You wanted to see Melissa, you got to see her.”
“Right.”
“So what’s wrong?”
“I didn’t find out anything, Wentworth. I don’t know any more than I did. I don’t know if Melissa’s here for a visit or here to stay or what.”
“You should have asked,” Wentworth said. “You want to know something, Worm Brain, you ask. Remember that from now on.”
“I’ll try.”
“How’d you ever get in the gifted program in school?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
“What do you do in there, anyway?”
“Read.”
“That’s it?”
“Pretty much. Read and talk about what we read.”
“I tell you one thing—I sure am glad I ain’t gifted.” Wentworth leaned back on his bicycle seat. “Here’s my rule about grades. You could learn from this. The only grade I want is C+. B is wimpy. D gets me grief at home. If you get an A, you’ve been wasting your time. And if I get a C, and it ain’t got a plus after it, I put one.”
They continued to pedal toward home.
Wentworth said, “You want to go back over to Weezie’s tomorrow?”
Bingo said, “No.”
“I don’t either, but I figure you got to.”
“Why?”
“Look, you bombed out. That was obvious. And when you bomb out, Worm Brain, you have to try again real quick or you’ll end up bonkers.”
Bingo pedaled faster.
“Don’t worry,” Wentworth said, pulling up beside him, “I’ll see that you come and I’ll give you my personal guarantee not to let you look stupid no matter how stupid you look.”
Bingo said, “Thanks a lot.”
“This’ll cheer you up. Burp burp burp-burp-burp. You gotta get this song.” He glanced at Bingo and said, “It’s your song, Worm Brain. Burp burp burp-burp-burp, and Bingo was his name-o!”
Bingo Brown and the Brownettes
Problem #6. Saturday Inertia.
Suppose you wake up one Saturday morning and you do not feel exhilarated, as you usually do on Saturday mornings. Indeed, you don’t even want to watch cartoons. Can this be due to love?
Bingo’s Answer: Definitely. This is known as unrequited love, and it is one of the least fortunate types of love. It is better to have no love than unrequited—
“OH, BINGO, COME HERE a minute.” Bingo put down his pencil.
“Hurry, Bingo, I’ve got something I want to show you.”
Dutifully, Bingo got up and went down the hall. He stood in the doorway to his mother’s room, leaning against the sill.
“What?”
His mother was sitting on the edge of the bed. Beyond her lay his father with his eyes closed, his freckled hands folded at his waist. He was still trying to absorb his disappointment.
“I just wrote something in Jamie’s baby book,” his mother said with what sounded like false cheer. “Want to hear it?”
“I guess.”
“This is under ‘Firsts’—you know, like first step, first tooth—which, incidentally, I’m still waiting for, Gummy.”
This was directed to Jamie. She lifted him in the air, and he drooled with delight.
“You need teeth, because teeth dam up the drool, yes, they do!”
Bingo continued to wait in the doorway until she turned back to him.
“Anyway, this is a first—of sorts. Here’s what I wrote, Bingo. ‘First time going wrong way on a one-way street. Occasion: Chasing brother’s girlfriend …’ ”
“Oh, Mom.”
“Wait, Bingo, there’s more. It gets funnier.”
But Bingo had had all the humor he could stand. He started for his room.
“Oh, by the by,” his mother called after him. “Did you see Melissa?”
“Yes.”
“What did she have to say?”
“Not much.”
“When you grow up, Gummy,” she said, dismissing Bingo, “I hope you’re going to have a better sense of humor than your big brother!”
Bingo went into his room and lay down on his bed. He closed his eyes.
He was asleep in seconds, and he was in luck. His favorite dream began at once.
In the dream Bingo was on a stage. It was obviously him onstage, and yet it was a more mature, handsome version of himself. It was Bingo Brown at, oh, age twenty, and Bingo was very pleased at the way his form and features had shaped up.
He needed a dream like this.
He was a famous singer, and his backup group was the Brownettes. Bingo Brown and the Brownettes. The dream was so pleasant and full of promise that Bingo came partially awake, but he forced himself to go back to sleep.
The audience was calling for him. “Bin-go! Bin-go! Bin-go!-Bin-go!”
It made him love his name and everything else about himself.
Then, without warning, the dream fast-forwarded and became a nigh
tmare. He was onstage, but the Brownettes had turned against him.
Me-lissa’s back and Bingo doesn’t have her.
Nyah nyah, nyah nyah, nyah-nyah-nyah, nyah.
Bingo groaned in his sleep. A hand gripped his shoulder. Now his mother was in the dream, saying, “Can I ask a big favor?”
“Get off the stage, Mom, before the audience sees you. It’s—”
“Bingo!”
“What? What?”
He struggled back to consciousness.
“Bingo, your dad and I want to get out of the house. Will you watch Jamie, please?”
“How long have I been asleep?”
“I don’t know—two or three minutes. Will you watch Jamie?”
“Mom, I’ve got to read The Red Badge of Courage for English. I haven’t even gotten to the war yet.”
She made a worried face and turned her eyes back toward the bedroom where his father still lay. “Your dad is really depressed,” she whispered. “I’ve got to get him out of the house. So will you watch Jamie?”
She lowered her voice again; Bingo could barely hear her himself now.
“Please, Bingo, I’m worried about your father.” She sank down on the edge of Bingo’s bed. “You know what the rejection letter said?”
Bingo shook his head. “No.”
“It was just one sentence, Bingo. One sentence! ‘We have read your manuscript and regret that it does not meet the needs of our list.’ What does that mean, Bingo—‘meet the needs of our list’?”
“I don’t know.”
“All those hours and hours of work and it doesn’t meet the needs of their list.”
Her shoulders sagged.
Bingo cleared his throat. She looked at him with quick hope, so Bingo said, “Maybe he should send it off again. There are other—lists.”
“I couldn’t suggest it.”
“Mom, if you bomb out, you have to try again quickly or you’ll go bonkers.” Now Bingo was quoting Wentworth.
“Bingo, he just lies there like he’s in his coffin, with his hands folded like this.”
She folded her hands pitifully at her waist.
Bingo sighed. “How long will you be gone?” he said because it seemed to him his mother was sinking into depression, too. Then the whole family would be depressed—except for Jamie.
“Two hours. Is that too long? Can you watch him for two hours?”
