“Well,” I said, “I guess I am probably keeping you up, so I had better go.”
“No,” Ellen said. “I waited on purpose. There are still a few things you haven’t said. I can tell.”
“About the creek?” I said.
“About Brenda Sue Byrd,” Ellen said. And then she laughed. “And I don’t expect they will be said now, either. Rodney, you may have fooled the others, but you haven’t fooled me. Tell me—” and she laughed again, the old teasing sort of laugh I knew so well, only now I wondered if all along it wasn’t a laugh that had always been meant for us both, and not just for me—“are we still good friends?”
I thought about it and I knew she was teasing me, all right, but I finally thought of the right answer, one she might even think was smart, coming from me. “Like we are brothers,” I said.
And then, feeling that that might have sounded smarter than I meant it, I reached out in the dark and found her hand and squeezed it and she squeezed mine back and I knew it was all right. Then we sat there and laughed. And soon after that we said good night and I went home.
What I did for the next few days was to finally teach Jack how to work my Star Roamer set. I would never have thought that I would actually lose my interest in it, but I did. I would tune in Radio Free Cuba and they would be just as mad at the U.S.A. as they had been the last time I listened to them, but I could not convince myself that what I was listening to was the inside facts or even the most important things about Cuba. And it was the same with most other countries. I just stopped believing that I was really listening to the world. Except maybe for shrimp-boat captains. Listening to them, I could still get hooked. But to Jack, once he learned how to work the set, it was a whole new world at his finger tips. He would sit there, half tuned in on England, just sweating with excitement. He even tried talking like an Englishman. It was awful, but at least it was different.
It was Wednesday when the letter came from Brenda Sue. It was longer than I would have expected. What she wrote was this:
Dear Rodney, Thank you for the letter and the picture. You do not look skinny. You look nice. I am sorry about the other four boys. I have enclosed a picture, too. The house in back is our house, and the little dog is dead. Or lost, but I think dead, because I know he would have come back to me if he could have. His name was Scamp and I loved him. I guess you should not say you love an animal, but I did. Anyhow, the picture is not of Scamp, but of me. It was taken some time ago, too, like yours, and I have grown since. The dress is that same old blue one, though. I have never met a boy like you before and your letter was not a stupid letter at all and I hope you will come back. I am sorry it rained like it did after you left. I am not sorry that it rained though. You will have to read between my lines, too, as I am probably the worst letter writer in the world. But I will write back if you do. Your letter was the nicest letter I have ever got. I wish I could tell you how nice it was. I hope I will hear from you soon. In the meantime, I will keep my eye out for that skiff you lost. It is bound to be around here somewhere. I will sign the same as you. And I mean it, too.
It was signed, Love, and then her name, just Brenda Sue.
I spent the rest of the afternoon after Brenda Sue’s letter came trying to answer it. I could never seem to say just what it was I meant to say. But I tried. Jack, jumping around behind me at the Star Roamer set, trying hard for China, didn’t make it any easier.
As far as I am concerned, and as that set is concerned, Jack can have it.
Even as far as the whole world is concerned; for all I care, Jack can have that, too.
Who needs the whole world?
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Copyright © 1969 by Donald Wetzel
978-1-5040-1584-4
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The Lost Skiff Page 21
