Bingo Brown, Gypsy Lover

by Betsy Byars

  Bingo and his mom were good arguers and Bingo felt they could keep this one going for days, weeks even. Even a year from now, if she criticized him for something, he would answer, “Well, at least I don’t go around reading people’s private letters!”

  “Like the gypsy-lover letter?” she would answer, and they would be off.

  Now she rested one hand on her stomach and smiled. “The baby’s moving.”

  “You claim the baby’s moving every time you want to get out of something.”

  “The baby is moving.”

  She reached out, took Bingo’s hand, and laid it on her stomach. Something small and round pushed against his hand. A fist? A foot? He drew in his breath.

  “Did you feel it?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  He withdrew his hand and put it in his pocket as if he were depositing something he wanted to save. His mother’s smile softened.

  “When the baby moves like that—a strong move—it makes me happy. I relax. Sometimes a whole day goes by and the baby doesn’t move and I worry.”

  “Why? Is that something to worry about?”

  “Not really, but—Oh, maybe it’s because I wasn’t happy about the baby at first. Now I want it too much.”

  “I want it now too.”

  She said, “Will you forgive me about the letter if I tell you what the baby’s going to be?”

  “What letter?” he said. It was surprising how the small touch of a baby’s hand could push away something like his mother snooping in his mail.

  “Melissa’s.”

  “Oh, I forgive you, I guess,” he went on with unusual grace. “I have to admit that I do occasionally read secret things myself. Perhaps it’s an inherited quality.”

  “So, do you want to know about the baby?”

  “Yes, but you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. I mean, if you want the baby to be a surprise, I’ll understand.”

  “I want to tell you.”

  “And there’s one other thing. Dad and I have a pact—we shook hands on it—that if he found out he would tell me, and if I found out I would tell him.”

  “It’s a little boy, Bingo. His name’s going to be Jamie.”

  “Jamie.”

  Bingo’s heart closed on the word like a fist.

  “Yes, James Samuel Brown, for both of your grandfathers. We’re going to call him Jamie.”

  Bingo had a moment of such terrible jealousy that he would not have been surprised to look into a mirror and discover he had turned green, like in cartoons.

  He himself had been named by the doctor who had cried capriciously, “Bingo!” as he popped into the world. It was as if his mother had now decided to undo all the mistakes she had made with him. She would name the baby the way babies are supposed to be named—for beloved and dignified relatives.

  She would probably then continue and do all the wonderful, loving things that she had not done with him. He would be the imperfect, clumsy older brother, with gorilla arms, while Jamie—

  He bet when Jamie came in and said, “Mom, my arms are growing,” she wouldn’t say, “Oh, they are not.” She would leap into action. “I’m getting you to a doctor. We’re shortening those arms.”

  His dark thoughts continued.

  And when Jamie fell in love with a girl in Bixby, Oklahoma, she wouldn’t say, “Absolutely no more long-distance calls!” She would say, “You can call, but don’t talk any longer than two hours.”

  And when Jamie—

  “Oh, here comes your father,” his mother said. “Now, don’t tell him, Bingo. I want to do it myself.”

  “No, I won’t tell.”

  “But I want to wait till after supper, all right?”

  Bingo said, “Whenever…”

  One Misery, Extra Large, with Pepperoni

  BINGO’S FATHER SAID, “SO, Bingo, aren’t you going to eat any pizza?”

  “What? Oh, sure, Dad, sorry.”

  “After all, you picked the place.”

  “Right.” Bingo took an unwanted bite of pizza. “I’m not as hungry as I thought I was.”

  Bingo’s mom said, “Bingo’s worried because he hasn’t been able to come up with a Christmas present for Melissa.”

  “That’s one of the things I’m worried about,” Bingo admitted.

  “How much do you have to spend?”

  “Three dollars—and change.”

  “Send her a rose.”

  “A what?”

  “A rose. I always had great success with a single rose.”

  “Not with me,” his mother interrupted.

  “That’s why you hardly ever get roses anymore. Now I have to save up until I have enough for a dozen.” His father turned back to Bingo. “You could get one rose for fifty cents back then. I suppose they’re more now, and of course you’ll have to pay to have the florist deliver it. Where does the girl live?”

  “You know…Bixby, Oklahoma.”

  “Yes, that’ll cost you.”

  Bingo didn’t have the heart to tell his father a single rose might have been all right in olden days when girls pressed flowers in books and fainted at Elvis Presley concerts. Today, girls read Gypsy Lover and had given up fainting entirely.

  Yes, he was definitely on his own as far as Melissa’s present was concerned.

  Bingo’s dad took a bite of pizza and returned the slice to his plate. There was a long string of melted cheese from Bingo’s dad’s mouth to his plate, and his dad wound it around one finger and put it in his mouth.

  “So what are your other problems?” he said then, licking his finger. “Anything else I can help you with? I’m in the mood to solve problems.”

  “No…Nothing.” Bingo looked down at his own pizza. “It doesn’t matter.”

  His mom said, “He thinks his arms are growing.”

  “Mom! I don’t think, they are growing. I can feel them growing. If you’d bother to look, you could actually see them gro—”

  “Bingo!” His dad reached out and took Bingo by the shoulder.

  “What, Dad? What is it?”

  “I just remembered that when I was about your age, my ears did that.”

  “What?”

  “Grew! And the darn things did it overnight. One night I went to bed and my ears were normal, well, as normal as ears can be, and the next morning I got up and looked in the mirror and I was Dumbo. I had these huge ears, huge! And I had not had them the night before—I knew I hadn’t.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Well, the first thing I did was stagger back to bed. This in itself was a miracle because I had almost passed out in the bathroom from shock—and my mom came in. She said, ‘What is wrong with you this time?’ She always said, ‘this time,’ as if to imply that things happened often enough to become burdensome.

  “I couldn’t even answer. I just pointed to my ears. She saw the ears, of course, she had to, but she pretended to think I had a hearing defect. ‘WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU THIS TIME?’ she yelled.

  “I said, ‘Mom, Mom, my ears are growing.’ My mother—she doesn’t look strong now, but Bingo, back then she was as strong as a dockworker. She jerked me out of bed and made me get dressed. She used physical force. She could hardly get my sweatshirt over my head—that’s how big my ears were!

  “The day before, this exact same sweatshirt had slipped right over my head, but now it caught on these huge ears and my mother had to yank and yank and yank and still she pretended nothing was wrong.

  “Of course, maybe she was pretending not to notice in order to get me out of the house so she could pass out from shock herself, in private, but…still…still…” He trailed off.

  “So how did your ears get back to normal?”

  “They never did. These are them.” He turned his head from side to side.

  “I know how you guys feel,” his mother said, smiling. “I get the feeling my stomach’s growing.”

  “Mom.”

  Bingo gave her a withering look. He wished she woul
d learn that jokes are unwelcome in the middle of serious conversations.

  He turned back to his father, “But, Dad, arms are different from ears. You can measure their growth by your sleeves so there can’t be any mistake about how—”

  Bingo’s mom reached out and put her hand around his dad’s wrist, like a bracelet, causing him to look at her. “Oh, Sam,” she said with unusual gentleness, “I was going to save the news until after supper, but I just can’t. I’m too happy.”

  “What?”

  “I already told Bingo.”

  “Told him what?”

  She rested one hand on the curve of her stomach. “It’s a little boy.”

  “A boy?”

  “Yes.”

  “A boy!”

  Bingo thought his dad looked like a light bulb had gone on inside him.

  “A son.” His father breathed the word.

  “Like me,” Bingo said, looking from one parent to the other in amazement. “That’s what’s sitting at the table with you right now. A son. I am a son. The very thing that is now blissing you out is here! And has been here for over twelve years. Me! I am—”

  Now his mom encircled Bingo’s wrist tightly, silencing him.

  “I’m going to name him James Samuel, for our fathers,” she said. “We’re going to call him Jamie.”

  Gyps

  “REMEMBER THIS?”

  Bingo’s mother was decorating the Christmas tree. She held up a Santa Claus Bingo had made in nursery school.

  Santa’s body was wrapped in red yarn, but beneath the yarn was obviously the cardboard from a roll of toilet paper. The cotton beard had always been skimpy—Bingo had been absent when the cotton was passed out and had had to depend on donations from fellow classmates. Now the cotton was gray and was coming unglued. The cotton eyebrows were missing entirely.

  “Oh, Mom, throw that thing away.”

  “It’s my favorite ornament.”

  “Then you have very poor taste.”

  He started to head for his room and his mother said casually, “Oh, by the by.”

  Bingo stopped.

  His mother always said, “Oh, by the by,” in that casual way when she was getting ready to pull the rug out from under him. His shoulders tightened as if to steel himself for the blow.

  “What?”

  “A girl called while you were out.”

  Bingo couldn’t help himself. He whirled. “Was it long-distance?”

  “No, sorry, Gyps, just a local call.”

  Bingo stopped breathing. He froze like ice. The only sign that he was still living was that his eyes narrowed.

  “What did you call me?”

  “Oh, nothing,” his mother said with a smile. She went back to trimming the tree. “Oh, here’s another of my favorites.”

  She held up the pinecone reindeer he had made in kindergarten. The left pipe-cleaner antler was missing, and the reindeer dangled, tilting drunkenly to the right.

  Bingo was not diverted. “Oh, yes, you did. You called me ‘Gyps.’ Don’t deny it. I heard you.”

  His mother hung the reindeer on a branch. She regarded it critically, and then tried to center the lone antler. “Now we have a unicorn reindeer. Maybe there’s a song in that. Rudolph, the unicorn reindeer—”

  “Don’t try to change the subject, because it won’t work. You distinctly called me ‘Gyps.’ ”

  “Well, if I did do it, I did it for a joke, Bingo.”

  “I do not find it funny.”

  “I was teasing.”

  “I do not like to be teased.”

  “Well, I won’t do it anymore.”

  “It’s bad enough that you read my mail—”

  His father called from the bedroom, “That’s enough, Bingo.”

  “Dad, she deliberately read my mail, which was privileged information, and now she is using it against me!”

  “That—is—enough.”

  “Well, she started it by calling me ‘Gyps.’ ”

  “And I’m finishing it.”

  “Just because she’s getting a new child,” he muttered as he went to his room, “that does not give her the right to be cruel to the old one.”

  “Bingo—”

  “What do you want?”

  “Come here a minute.”

  Bingo went and stood in the doorway to his parents’ room. His dad was at the typewriter, his long freckled fingers resting on the keys.

  “What is it, Dad?”

  “I want you to be more considerate of your mother.”

  “Well, I want her to be more considerate of me.”

  They looked at each other. Bingo felt as if he were being taken apart and put back together and his father had found a few parts defective.

  Bingo sighed. “I’ll try,” he said.

  “That’s all I’m asking.”

  “Can I go now?”

  “Go…Stay…Do whatever you want.”

  Bingo went to his room and shut the door firmly behind him. The letter he had started to Melissa was face-up on his desk. His mother had probably read that too. So far, all there was to read was ‘Dear Melissa,’ but he still didn’t want her seeing it. Somehow, some way she would taunt him with it.

  Did all pregnant women taunt their children? he wondered. Was it a trait of pregnancy, like wanting certain foods? If so, it was surprising that pregnancies were still tolerated in the civilized world.

  Bingo wadded up the letter and threw it into the trash can.

  There was a knock at his window. “I’m not here, Wentworth,” Bingo called.

  “You may not be all there, Worm Brain, but I need to talk to you. I got a problem.”

  “Join the club.”

  The knock came again, louder. Tiredly Bingo went to the window. He raised the window about two inches.

  “What do you want? Get on with it. Cold air’s coming in.”

  “You remember that girl—Cici?”

  “Yes, I remember Cici,” Bingo said.

  Billy Wentworth had fallen in love with Cici one day in Bingo’s backyard. He had introduced himself handsomely with the words, “My name is Willy Wentworth,” but the love remained unrequited. Bingo had a lot of respect for that word—“unrequited”—because as soon as you saw it or heard it, even if you didn’t know what it meant, you knew you didn’t want it to happen to you.

  Billy Wentworth was saying, “Well, I need to know if she’s giving me something for Christmas.”

  “Probably not.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “She can’t stand the sight of you, Wentworth. Why would she give you a Christmas present?”

  “How do you know she can’t stand the sight of me? Just because she, well, avoids me, doesn’t mean she can’t stand the sight of me. She could be playing hard to get, couldn’t she?”

  Bingo shook his head.

  “Why not?”

  “Wentworth, she’s not playing hard to get, she’s playing impossible to get.”

  Wentworth continued thoughtfully, “So maybe the thing to do is to get her something and then if she gives me something, I can give her the something that I got for her.”

  “Good thinking.”

  “Just one more thing.” He paused. “What could I get?”

  “Good-bye, Wentworth.”

  It was hard to slam a window shut when it was only open two inches, but Bingo managed it nicely.

  A Brother’s Heart

  “BINGO!”

  Bingo was in his bedroom, standing in the middle of the room. There was a package in his hand. The postmark read Bixby, OK. This package contained Bingo’s present from Melissa.

  Fifteen minutes ago, Bingo had been in the kitchen, happily reading the recipe for old-timey fudge. He had his apron on, the bowl was out. The measuring spoons clinked pleasantly as he jiggled them in one hand.

  Then the doorbell rang. “Coming!” Bingo called cheerfully. He went to the door, the postman said, “Package,” and put this box in Bingo’s hand.

/>   That had happened fifteen minutes ago, and for fifteen minutes Bingo had been frozen in time, unable go forward or backward. He could not bring himself to open the present, and yet he couldn’t reverse time and say to the postman, as he should have, “I’m sorry, but there is no one by the name of Bingo at this address.”

  Now he was stuck with this package the way people in fairy tales are stuck with curses. If only he had sent something days ago—even the rose. Because as soon as he saw what was in this package, then his choices would narrow. If Melissa had sent him a sweater—and it could be a sweater because girls did knit sweaters—then he would have to send something as good as a sweater.

  What was as good as a sweater? A blouse? Didn’t blouses come in sizes and didn’t girls get offended if you sent something too big?

  If only it could be cookies, then he could double the recipe and send fudge. Fudge was like cookies, wasn’t it? But would Melissa be ashamed to say, “My boyfriend made me some fudge for Christmas”?

  Anyway, it wasn’t cookies, because it didn’t rattle. It was some sort of garment. He bent the package, testing it. Some sort of—

  “Bingo! Bingo, where are you?”

  His mother appeared in the doorway.

  “Bingo, I got it!”

  “What?”

  If he had not been frozen in time, he would have hidden the package behind his back or thrown it under the bed, out of the range of his mother’s scorn. Now she would pounce on the package like a dog on a bone, and she wouldn’t stop until she had seen the gift with her own—

  “The fetal stethoscope! I got it!”

  She waved the stethoscope in the air, and it jiggled as if it had come alive. Bingo remembered how at the beach she had once pulled up a huge crab and waved it in the same carefree way.

  “Come on! Bingo, you can hear Jamie’s heart! I stopped by Mom’s on the way home and she listened and said it sounded like an old Maytag washer she used to have. Come on! Tell me what you think.”

  She went into the living room. “Aren’t you coming?” she called over her shoulder.

  “Yes, but first I have to do something with this—this thing I got in the mail today.”

  “That can wait. I have to have the stethoscope back by six.”