Bingo Brown and the Language of Love

by Betsy Byars

  His dad was in even better spirits. It was as if becoming a house husband and a writer had been his lifelong ambitions. He had two chapters done on Bustin’ Lewis now. So far, Bingo had not had a chance to step in with editorial advice, but he was ready to do so at any time. “Yes, Bingo noticed, his parents were acting like high school teenagers going to a prom. He alone was acting in a restrained manner. It seemed to him that his new manliness should be especially obvious in the midst of the childish actions of his parents. Still, no one had commented on it so far.

  Bingo waited until his mother left the doorway before he opened the letter. Even with his new manliness, he had not reached the point where he could read letters without making facial expressions. Sometimes his mouth dropped open, sometimes his eyes popped, sometimes he had to put his hand over his heart.

  Until he conquered his facial muscles, it was best to read in private.

  Bingo opened the letter, but before he could unfold it, he noticed a picture fluttering to the floor—just as his own picture had fluttered from Cici’s letter.

  Burning questions flared like fireworks.

  Was Melissa returning his picture? Wasn’t it good enough? Had he used too much mousse? Too little? What was the trouble?

  Bingo picked up the picture and held it to the light.

  Melissa”.

  It was a picture of Melissa.

  And she was looking right at him. It was as if the camera were a device that allowed people hundreds of miles apart to have eye contact with each other.

  Bingo was so dazzled that he closed his eyes and rested the picture against his ribs. When he was almost under control, he looked at it again.

  He marveled at it.

  Just two months in Bixby, Oklahoma, had done this to Melissa! Two months in Bixby, Oklahoma, had turned her into the most beautiful person in the entire world!

  Her hair had always been jazzy, but now, Bingo thought, in Bixby, Oklahoma, it had thrived. It was longer, curlier, shinier. It was—this was the first time Bingo had ever used the word—luxurious. Her hair was luxurious enough to be in a mousse ad!

  Bingo knew that from now on, every time he heard the word luxurious, he would think of Melissa’s hair. When he was ninety-two, if someone said, “Isn’t the foliage luxurious this summer?” he would nod, but his brain would soar with the thought of Melissa’s hair.

  He broke off to marvel at her smile.

  Melissa’s smile had always made his heart beat faster. It, too, was jazzy. But now it had gotten so beautiful that it made his stomach—He was pretty sure it had been his stomach that had attempted a flip on Melissa’s porch that rainy afternoon, because now it was attempting another one.

  Bingo put his hand over his stomach and patted it in a calming way. It could not possibly be good for a stomach to be jumping out of place. Bingo would just as soon it didn’t do that.

  Anyway, it was back in place now, so Bingo had reason to hope that no permanent damage had been done.

  He bent over the picture.

  Had her teeth always been that white? And they weren’t big horse teeth like some girls had; they were small and squarish except for two, one on each side, that were small and pointed. Bingo never had cared for long teeth.

  Her eyes … She was squinting a little with one eye because of the sun, and Bingo had never seen her squint before. He hadn’t known how beautiful her squint would be.

  His stomach attempted another flip, and Bingo thought he better stop looking at this picture for a minute.

  He lay back on his bed with the picture propped against his chest.

  When his body was working normally again, Bingo reached under the bed for his summer journal. He tore out seven sheets of paper. Bingo had a lot to say.

  “Dear Melissa,” he began. The words poured from him.

  I am going to be a brother. At first, Melissa, I was not happy about this; after all, I will be 24 when the child is my age, but with the unresponsible way my parents have been acting lately—my mother went home to her mother for a while, and my father is going to become my mother—well, it seems to me this child may need an older brother, one into maturity. I feel now that it may be up to me to help this child reach the mainstream of life, as I have only recently done myself.

  If I can do this, sparing him—or her—some of the difficult experiences I have undergone in attaining that mainstream, then big brotherhood will not be, as they say, in vain.

  In addition to this challenge, I am preparing to help my father with his comic/crime novel, Bustin’ Lewis, if that becomes necessary, and I am continuing to help Wentworth, who knows nothing of the language of love (which you and I put to such good use on your porch when we said good-bye).

  It is true that Cici has been over at my house too much. However, seeing her has only made me realize how much better it would be to see you. Just yesterday Cici was standing there, blinking her eyes, thinking (I suppose), and I remembered how thrilling it was to watch you think.

  Melissa, when you think, you sort of lift your head, and when you lift your head like that—I know you don’t do this on purpose; if you did it on purpose it wouldn’t be nearly as thrilling—when you lift your head, and I hope you won’t think I am a low-minded opportunist, but when you lift your head, I …

  Bingo stopped.

  Melissa’s letter! He had forgotten the letter. He hadn’t even read it.

  He unfolded the letter and spread it flat on his knees. It was on pale blue paper, the same color as the T-shirt she had worn so effectively last year. He found he had missed that shirt.

  He read.

  “Dear Bingo,”

  Bingo leaned closer. He looked. He drew in a deep breath.

  Melissa had underlined the word “Dear”! Then she had erased the underline, but Bingo could still see it! He was practically positive she had underlined “Dear.” And an underlined “Dear” was the same as a “Dearest.”

  Bingo decided he would underline his, too, only he would not erase his. In his new manliness, he might even underline his twice, making it a “Dear Dearest”! Bingo felt he was just now beginning to understand the subtleties of his new language.

  He glanced at Melissa’s letter to him, then at his to her. He had so much to read, so much to write, he hardly knew where to begin.

  And there were Triumphs to list! Real Triumphs! All in all, it had been a triumphant summer.

  He had fallen out of love with Melissa, suffered, then discovered his suffering was in vain. He loved her more than ever.

  He had been deserted by his mother, learned he was to become a brother and that his father was to become his mother. He had not fallen apart, as some people would, at discoveries of this nature.

  He had received five letters from Melissa, had been caught in the kitchen and in the living room with Cici, and had handled the ensuing misunderstandings with considerable dignity.

  Most important of all, he had learned to dog-paddle in the mainstream of life. And, make no mistake about it, Bingo thought with a shudder of pleasure, that is exactly what this was.

  With a smile, Bingo bent to read Melissa’s letter.

  A Biography of Betsy Byars

  Betsy Byars (b. 1928) is an award-winning author of more than sixty books for children and young adults, including The Summer of the Swans (1970), which earned the prestigious Newbery Medal. Byars also received the National Book Award for The Night Swimmers (1980) and an Edgar Award for Wanted . . . Mud Blossom (1991), among many other accolades. Her books have been translated into nineteen languages and she has fans all over the world.

  Byars was born Betsy Cromer in Charlotte, North Carolina. Her father, George, was a manager at a cotton mill and her mother, Nan, was a homemaker. As a child, Betsy showed no strong interest in writing but had a deep love of animals and sense of adventure. She and her friends ran a backyard zoo that starred “trained cicadas,” box turtles, leeches, and other animals they found in nearby woods. She also claims to have ridden the world�
�s first skateboard, after neighborhood kids took the wheels off a roller skate and nailed them to a plank of wood.

  After high school, Byars began studying mathematics at Furman University, but she soon switched to English and transferred to Queens College in Charlotte, where she began writing. She also met Edward Ford Byars, an engineering graduate student from Clemson University, whom she would marry after she graduated in 1950.

  Between 1951 and 1956 Byars had three daughters—Laurie, Betsy, and Nan. While raising her family, Byars began submitting stories to magazines, including the Saturday Evening Post and Look. Her success in publishing warm, funny stories in national magazines led her to consider writing a book. Her son, Guy, was born in 1959, the same year she finished her first manuscript. After several rejections, Clementine (1962), a children’s story about a dragon made out of a sock, was published.

  Following Clementine, Byars released a string of popular children’s and young adult titles including The Summer of the Swans, which earned her the Newbery Medal. She continued to build on her early success through the following decades with award-winning titles such as The Eighteenth Emergency (1973), The Night Swimmers, the popular Bingo Brown series, and the Blossom Family series. Many of Byars’s stories describe children and young adults with quirky families who are trying to find their own way in the world. Others address problems young people have with school, bullies, romance, or the loss of close family members. Byars has also collaborated with daughters Betsy and Laurie on children’s titles such as My Dog, My Hero (2000).

  Aside from writing, Byars continues to live adventurously. Her husband, Ed, has been a pilot since his student days, and Byars obtained her own pilot’s license in 1983. The couple lives on an airstrip in Seneca, South Carolina. Their home is built over a hangar and the two pilots can taxi out and take off almost from their front yard.

  Byars (bottom left) at age five, with her mother and her older sister, Nancy.

  A teenage Byars (left) and her sister, Nancy, on the dock of their father’s boat, which he named NanaBet for Betsy and Nancy.

  Byars at age twenty, hanging out with friends at Queens College in 1948.

  Byars and her new husband, Ed, coming up the aisle on their wedding day in June 1950.

  Byars and Ed with their daughters Laurie and Betsy in 1955. The family lived for two years in one of these barracks apartments while Ed got a degree at the University of Illinois and Byars started writing.

  Byars with her children Nan and Guy, circa 1958.

  Byars with Ed and their four children in Marfa, Texas, in July 1968. The whole family gathered to cheer for Ed, who was flying in a ten-day national contest.

  Byars at the Newbery Award dinner in 1971, where she won the Newbery Medal for The Summer of the Swans.

  Byars with Laurie, Betsy, Nan, Guy, and Ed at her daughter Betsy’s wedding on December 17, 1977.

  Byars in 1983 in South Carolina with her Yellow Bird, the plane in which she got her pilot’s license.

  Byars and her husband in their J-3 Cub, which they flew from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific coast in March 1987, just like the characters in Byars’s novel Coast to Coast.

  Byars speaking at Waterstone’s Booksellers in Newcastle, England, in the late 1990s.

  Byars and Ed in front of their house in Seneca, South Carolina, where they have lived since the mid-1990s.

  Turn the page to continue reading from the Bingo Brown Series

  Shopper’s Block

  BINGO BROWN HAD BEEN shopping for a Christmas present for Melissa for four hours, and nothing he had seen was worthy of her. Also, Bingo only had three dollars and thirty-nine cents.

  He paused in Belk’s fine jewelry department to admire the watches.

  “Can I help you?” the clerk asked.

  “I wish you could,” he answered sadly.

  He stumbled on through Scarves and Belts, Hosiery, Cosmetics, staring at the bright merchandise with unseeing eyes.

  He was beginning to have a hopeless feeling, as if he were doomed to continue walking through stores for the rest of his life. It was sort of like writer’s block, he decided. Writer’s block was a mental thing that happened to all writers sooner or later. Writers got to the point where they could not write, not even a word. Bingo had had writer’s block twice, so he knew what he was talking about.

  Now it seemed to him that he had shopper’s block. He could not buy anything, anything! Even if he found the perfect gift—although this did not seem likely—he would not be able to buy it.

  He went out into the mall and stood watching little children have their pictures taken with Santa. He briefly considered sending Melissa a photograph of himself on Santa’s knee, as a sort of comic present …

  This idea told Bingo how low he had fallen. Shaking his head, he made his way toward Sears.

  Only this morning, he remembered, he had been a happy person.

  A letter from Melissa had come in the mail and, as usual, he got a warm feeling just holding the envelope. If she had just sent the envelope, Bingo had thought, he would be happy.

  Actually, after he opened it, he wished she had just sent the envelope. The first sentence chilled his bones.

  He had been in his room. He always liked to open Melissa’s letters in private, because sometimes her letters made his heart pound like a hammer.

  Also his face reflected emotions the way a pond ripples at the slightest breeze.

  He had closed the door, opened the letter, and read.

  He felt his usual thrill when he saw “Dear Bingo.” He loved letters that started that way. Dear Bingo. Whoever had thought that up deserved a medal. Dear Bingo.

  Then came the worst sentence he had ever read in his entire life.

  “I finished your Christmas present today, and I KNOW you’re going to love it.”

  Bingo threw open the door and stumbled back into the living room. The letter was clutched over his heart.

  “Mom!”

  “If you are coming in here to ask about the baby—”

  “No, no, I’m not.”

  Bingo’s mom was seven and three-thirtieths months pregnant, and she knew whether the baby was a boy or a girl, but she wouldn’t tell Bingo or his dad. She wouldn’t even give them a hint except, “It’s either going to be a boy or a girl.”

  He and his father had a pact. “If I find out, I’ll tell you, and if you find out, you tell me,” his dad had said.

  Then they had shaken hands like men.

  “Mom, a terrible thing has happened.”

  His mom had her shoes off and her feet up. She was looking through a catalog of baby furniture. “What?”

  “You remember Melissa? Out in Bixby, Oklahoma?”

  “Yes, I remember Melissa.”

  “I just found out a terrible, terrible thing—she’s giving me something for Christmas.”

  “How’d you find that out?”

  “She told me. Here it is in black and white. ‘I finished your Christmas present today and I KNOW—’ know is in capital letters which means, unfortunately, that it’s something nice—‘I KNOW you’re going to love it.’ I’m not just going to like it, Mom, I’m going to love it. Love’s not underlined but it might as well be.”

  “So?”

  “Mom, this means I have to give her something and it has to be something she will love.”

  “Only if you want to.”

  “No, Mom, I have to!”

  “Send her a Christmas card.”

  “Mom!” Bingo said, genuinely shocked.

  His mom leaned back thoughtfully. “She says she just finished it. That means it’s something she made herself.”

  “Yes, yes. Go on.”

  His mom sat up. “Oh, Bingo, do you suppose it could be homemade fudge?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Bingo, lately I have just been craving homemade fudge, the kind with real butter. Have you gotten my Christmas present yet?”

  “No.”

  “Well, make me s
ome fudge with real butter.”

  “I’ll make your fudge as soon as I’ve figured out what to do about Melissa.”

  “I’m sorry, Bingo. I got diverted. Sit down and read the letter. Maybe there’s another clue.”

  He sank down onto the sofa.

  “ ‘I bought your Christmas present today and I KNOW you’re going to love it. Don’t feel that you have to give me anything’—”

  “See, don’t feel you have to give her anything. She says that herself, so don’t give her anything. Your problem is solved.”

  “You didn’t let me finish. ‘Don’t feel that you have to give me anything unless you really want to.’ ”

  “Well, you don’t really want to.”

  “Oh, Mom!” Bingo scanned the letter, looking for clues. He muttered to himself, “Let’s see …. She’s joined a club—the Rangerettes …. She’s got a new cat—Buffo …. She and her best friend are reading a book called Gypsy Lover, and every time they get to a good part, she thinks of—” Bingo broke off.

  “Well, don’t leave me in suspense. Who does she think of when she and her friend get to the good parts of Gypsy Lover?”

  “No one. It’s no one you know.”

  “Try me. I know a lot of people.”

  Bingo folded the letter up and put it back in the envelope in a businesslike way.

  “Anyway, there are no hints about the gift, none at all. I’ll go to my room now.”

  He walked, head held high, through the door, but as he got to the privacy of his room, he staggered slightly, as if a heavy load had fallen on him, as it had.

  He took out the letter and, with a sinking heart, began to read it to himself.