Henry and the Paper Route

by Beverly Cleary

  While folding Scooter’s papers, Henry got to know the other Journal carriers. Of course he still was not one of the gang, but he was getting closer. “When I get a route of my own,” he now had the courage to say, “I’m going to save up and buy a real sleeping bag,” or “When I get my route I bet I can have all the papers delivered by five-thirty.” He talked about getting a route at home, too, and to his friends at school.

  One Tuesday morning, several weeks after Henry had been regularly folding papers on Scooter’s swimming day, Scooter spoke to him at the bicycle rack before school. “Say, Huggins,” he said, “how would you like to deliver my papers for me after school today?”

  Henry looked at Scooter to see if he really meant it. Quite plainly he did. A chance to really deliver papers instead of just folding them and then watching the other boys start off on their routes! Here was his chance to impress Mr. Capper! But Henry did not want to appear too eager. “How come?” he asked casually, as he snapped his bicycle padlock.

  “If I can get someone to take my route I can stay at the Y. and swim for two sessions instead of one,” Scooter explained.

  Henry pretended to think it over. “Yes, I guess I can find time,” he agreed after a moment.

  “Swell,” said Scooter. “Here’s my route book.” He pulled a grubby notebook out of his pocket. “All the names and addresses of my subscribers are written down, besides stuff like where they want the paper delivered. Like some people want it on the porch and some want it on the driveway. You know—stuff like that.”

  “Oh, sure,” said Henry, “I know.” He flipped through the notebook and then stuffed it into his hip pocket.

  “You have to get all the papers delivered by six o’clock,” Scooter cautioned him. “If you don’t, people will phone and complain, and that counts against me. If I don’t get any complaints for a whole month, I get a couple of free movie tickets.”

  “I’ll get them delivered,” Henry promised. That day was a long one for Henry. Spelling, arithmetic, social studies—he thought they would never end.

  Even recesses and lunch period seemed to drag. Every few minutes Henry put his hand on his hip pocket to make sure the precious route book was still there.

  And then that afternoon, just before the last bell rang, Henry’s teacher, Miss Pringle, put down her chalk and turned to the class. “Boys and girls, I have an announcement to make,” she said.

  Probably we’re supposed to remind our mothers to come to P.T.A., thought Henry, wishing the last bell would hurry up and ring.

  “Glenwood School is going to have a paper drive to raise money to buy a new curtain for the stage in the school auditorium,” Miss Pringle continued. “A week from Saturday all the boys and girls are to bring bundles of newspapers and magazines to the playground. Members of the P.T.A. will be there to measure the bundles, and everyone who brings enough papers to make a stack thirty inches high will win a prize. And besides that, the room that brings in the most papers will win a prize. But remember—all the papers and magazines must be tied in bundles.”

  Robert, who sat across the aisle from Henry, promptly waved his hand. “What are the prizes?” he asked.

  “Everyone who brings in a stack of papers thirty inches high will get to see a movie in the school auditorium.” Miss Pringle paused as if she were about to say something very important. “The movie will be shown during school hours.”

  The whole class gasped at this news. A movie during school hours!

  Robert waved his hand again. “If our room brought in more papers than any other room, what would we win?”

  Miss Pringle smiled. “We would win six dollars to spend any way we pleased.”

  Everyone agreed that there were lots of things they could buy with six dollars. Miss Pringle suggested plants for the windowsills. Someone else thought a big bowl of goldfish would be nice. One of the boys suggested a couple of extra baseballs, to use during recess, but the girls did not like this idea. Trying to decide what to do with the money if they won made the contest more interesting.

  Henry hoped his room would win, but his next thought was that he did not want to go around ringing doorbells asking for old papers—not after ringing doorbells to get rid of kittens. Everyone in the neighborhood would remember him as the boy with the cellophane-covered box of kittens and even if they did not laugh at him, they would look as if they wanted to. Maybe tomorrow he could think of some way to get a lot of old papers. Today he was going to be too busy folding and delivering Journals to do anything about a paper drive.

  When the last bell had finally rung and Henry had started home on his bicycle, his friend Robert caught up with him and rode along beside him. “Going to work on the paper drive?” Robert asked.

  “Not tonight. I haven’t time. I’m taking Scooter’s route,” Henry said importantly.

  “No kidding?” Robert sounded impressed.

  “Yup,” said Henry. “Maybe I can work on the paper drive tomorrow. I wish there was some way we could get a bunch of papers without going around ringing doorbells and asking.”

  “You could advertise,” said Robert jokingly.

  “Aw, that wouldn’t work, and besides, it would cost a lot of money,” answered Henry, taking Robert’s suggestion half-seriously. He couldn’t afford to have an advertisement printed in the classified section of the newspaper, but there ought to be some way…“Hey!” exclaimed Henry suddenly. “I know what!”

  “What?” asked Robert.

  “I’m going to advertise,” exclaimed Henry.

  “But you just said—” Robert began.

  “Never mind,” interrupted Henry. “You just wait and see. Now I’ve got to hurry. See you later.” He stood up on the pedals of his bicycle and rode home as fast as he could. After drinking a glass of milk and sharing two wienies with Ribsy and Nosy, he sat down at the typewriter, which was on the desk in the living room. In a drawer he found typing paper and carbon paper, which he stacked carefully: first a sheet of white paper, then a sheet of carbon paper, then another sheet of typing paper, until he had used five sheets of typing paper and four sheets of carbon paper. Then he rolled the stack into the typewriter.

  Click, thump, click, click, ping! went the typewriter. Henry enjoyed the sound. It made him feel grown-up and businesslike. Thump, click, click, click. He could not type very fast, because he had to stop and hunt around for each letter. Henry finished what he was writing and stopped to look it over. It read:

  wWanted? oLd mewspapers and nagazimes for the gLemwood SChool paper drive. i Will come and get them and tie them in bundels. pPhome hHenry hUggins. At. 7-4139.

  Henry had known there would be some mistakes, but he had not expected so many. He mixed up m’s and n’s and he never could remember to hit the thing that made capital letters at the right time. However, anyone reading his advertisement could tell what he meant, and he was sure he could do better next time.

  Briskly Henry thumped, clicked, and pinged. He glanced at the clock and realized he would have to hurry if he was going to finish typing a page of advertisements and get to Mr. Capper’s garage in time to fold papers. By the time he reached the bottom of the paper, Henry had produced an advertisement with only four mistakes. He pulled the paper and the carbons out of the typewriter, slipped the carbons from between the sheets of white paper, found a pair of scissors, and hastily slashed through all five sheets of paper at once. When he had separated all his ads, he stuffed them into his pocket.

  Ribsy started to follow Henry out of the front door, but Henry shoved him back. “You stay home,” he ordered. “I can’t have you getting into fights along the route.”

  This time, when he reached Mr. Capper’s garage, Henry did not feel like an outsider. “Hi,” he said to the other boys in a brief and businesslike way, as he dropped his bicycle on the driveway and found the bundle of Journals with Scooter’s route number on it. “Hello, Mr. Capper. I’m taking Scooter’s route today so he can swim two sessions at the Y.” Henry quickly counted
the papers in the bundle to make sure it contained fifty-three papers before he took a Journal from the bundle, laid one of his advertisements on it, and rolled it up.

  “What’s this?” asked Mr. Capper, looking down over Henry’s shoulder as Henry rolled an advertisement inside a second paper. He picked up one of the slips of paper and read it.

  Henry felt uncomfortable. His typing was not very good, he knew, but he hoped Mr. Capper would not laugh. Maybe his advertisement was a silly idea after all. Maybe people would just look at it and laugh.

  Mr. Capper grinned and said, “Quite an advertising man, aren’t you?”

  The other boys looked at Henry’s slips of paper. “You mean you’re going to put these in Scooter’s papers?” asked Joe, one of the eighth-grade carriers. “I’ll bet he isn’t going to like that!”

  “But I’m delivering the papers,” protested Henry.

  “Yeah, but it’s Scooter’s route,” the older boy pointed out.

  “Well, now,” said Mr. Capper. “I don’t think Scooter can say a word. If he’s willing to let Henry do his work for him, he shouldn’t object to Henry’s putting ads in his papers.”

  “It probably won’t work, anyway,” said Joe.

  All at once Henry’s hopes were dashed. Joe was probably right. After all, he was in the eighth grade and knew about a lot of things. Probably people wouldn’t bother with his ad. Or if they did take the trouble to read it, they would probably laugh at him, the way they laughed when he tried to find good homes for the kittens. That Henry Huggins, they would say. I wonder where he gets so many dumb ideas. Well, it was too late now. He couldn’t take time to unroll the papers and remove the advertisements.

  Quickly and neatly Henry packed the papers into the canvas bag and lifted it over his shoulders. The bag was heavier than he had expected and made it awkward for him to mount his bicycle, but Henry did not care. He was off to deliver a whole paper route all by himself!

  “Good luck, Henry,” called Mr. Capper, as Henry rode away.

  Henry’s answer was a grin thrown over his shoulder as his bicycle wobbled down the driveway. Mr. Capper, the district manager of the Journal, had wished him luck! Henry felt so good that he whacked at a tree with a rolled-up paper just to hear the noise.

  On the way to Klickitat Street, the beginning of Scooter’s route, Henry had to pass Beezus’s house. Beezus and Ramona were out on the sidewalk, where Beezus was trying to teach her little sister to jump rope. Ramona swung the rope over her head as hard as she could and when it hit the sidewalk, she stepped carefully over it.

  “No, no, Ramona,” cried Beezus. “Jump! You’re supposed to jump over it.”

  “Hi there,” Henry called, as he sat up straight under his load of Journals.

  “Henry!” squealed Beezus. “Are you delivering papers?”

  “Yup,” answered Henry modestly. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Ramona staring at him with her mouth open, the jumping rope limp in her hands. Henry supposed he did look pretty grown-up and important to someone her age. He hoped he would meet a lot of people he knew.

  Delivering papers on Klickitat Street was easy, because Henry, who had often seen Scooter cover the route, was already familiar with the customers. He pulled a paper out of the bag and hurled it onto a lawn. Then he rode across the street and tossed a paper onto Mrs. Green’s porch. Everyone knew Mrs. Green was particular about having the paper left on her porch, and Henry wasn’t going to have Scooter getting any complaints. He zigzagged down the street, throwing papers to the right and to the left. This was the life!

  As Henry delivered the papers, the canvas bag on his shoulders became lighter and lighter. So did his spirits. It was with special pleasure that he threw a paper onto the steps of Scooter’s own house. Henry hoped that Scooter would be the one to pick it up and carry it into the house when he came home from the Y.

  When Henry finished delivering the papers, it was a quarter to six and the street-lights were coming on. Perhaps he had been a little slow, but he still had fifteen minutes to spare. Not bad. Not bad at all, he thought, as he pedaled happily homeward. The canvas bag on his shoulders seemed wonderfully light, and Henry whistled through his teeth. This ought to show Mr. Capper who could deliver papers.

  “Hi, Mom,” said Henry, as he went into the kitchen. “Something sure smells good.” He stooped to pet Nosy, who was sitting beside the refrigerator.

  “It’s time to get washed for dinner,” answered Mrs. Huggins. “And by the way, Henry, a Mrs. Jones and a Mrs. Ostwald called and left their addresses. They said they had some papers for the Glenwood School paper drive.”

  “They did?” exclaimed Henry in astonishment. He had been thinking so hard about the paper route that he had completely forgotten about his advertisements. And now his typewritten slips were getting results, even if they did have some mistakes! Well, what do you know, thought Henry, as he considered this piece of good news.

  Henry discovered that he was unusually hungry. “Dad, serve me an extra-thick hunk of meat loaf, please,” he requested, as the family sat down to the table.

  “Not hunk, Henry,” corrected Mrs. Huggins. “Slice.”

  “OK, slice,” agreed Henry cheerfully. He had a feeling, now that he had actually delivered papers, that the day when he would have his own route was not far off. And his eleventh birthday was getting closer every day, too. In the meantime, there was the paper drive. From the way things looked, his advertisement was going to keep him busy.

  And it did, too. That evening Henry received half a dozen telephone calls from people who had old papers and magazines they wanted hauled away. On the way to school the next morning, Henry tried to figure out how he could handle the old papers and magazines. The thing to do, he decided, was to borrow a wagon—his own had been given to a rummage sale long ago—and pile the papers in his garage. Then he could tie them in bundles later. Beezus and her sister Ramona had a wagon that he was sure he could borrow, and Beezus would probably be glad to help. After all, they were in the same room at school, and Beezus was a sensible girl.

  Henry was parking his bicycle in the rack when Scooter arrived. “Hi,” said Henry. “I got your papers delivered OK.”

  “What’s the big idea, anyway?” demanded Scooter. “Putting those crummy ads in my papers?”

  “But I was delivering the papers,” protested Henry.

  “But it’s my route.” Scooter raised his voice.

  “But Mr. Capper said I could,” Henry pointed out, certain that he was right, but at the same time not wanting Scooter to be angry with him.

  “I don’t care what Mr. Capper said,” yelled Scooter. “It was cheating, that’s what it was!”

  By now the boys and girls on the school grounds were beginning to take enough interest in the argument to gather around the bicycle racks to listen.

  “It was not cheating!” said Henry heatedly. Scooter couldn’t call him a cheater. “You didn’t want to deliver your papers last night, and Mr. Capper said it was all right for me to put the ad in. If you had delivered the papers you could have put the ad in yourself—if you had thought of it!”

  The suggestion that he might not have thought of advertising made Scooter even more angry. “Ha!” he scoffed. “Anyway, it was a dumb ad and I bet it won’t work.”

  “It will too work.” Henry could not resist bragging. “It worked already. Eight people have phoned, and I bet a whole bunch more call today!” There! That ought to settle Scooter.

  It didn’t. It only made Scooter madder. “All right for you, Henry Huggins!” he shouted. “You don’t need to hang around my paper route anymore, wanting to fold papers!”

  This stopped Henry. To have Scooter come right out and accuse him of hanging around startled him. Hanging around! He did not like the sound of the words at all. “Don’t worry,” he said hotly. “I wouldn’t fold your old papers for a million dollars!”

  “Not much you wouldn’t!” retorted Scooter.

  “And you can find s
omebody else to do your work for you!” answered Henry.

  “I think Henry’s right,” someone said.

  “I don’t,” said someone else. “I think Scooter is right.”

  Suddenly everyone was arguing with everyone else. Beezus pushed her way through the crowd. “Scooter McCarthy!” she said fiercely. “I think you’re mean! Just because you were too lazy to deliver your own papers, you have to go and pick on Henry. You ought to thank him, that’s what!”

  Henry’s feelings were mixed. He was glad to have support from Beezus, and at the same time he wished she would keep out of the quarrel. He did not want the whole school teasing him about a girl.

  “So there!” said Beezus, and stamped her foot at Scooter.

  Plainly Scooter did not like being picked on by a girl. “Just the same,” he said, “Henry better—” The bell rang, and Scooter stopped. The crowd broke up and the boys and girls began to make their way into the school building.

  “Just the same,” muttered Henry, “we’ll see whose room wins the old paper drive.” He was not sure whether Scooter had heard him or not, but he hoped he had.

  “Beezus likes Henry,” someone chanted. “Beezus likes Henry!”

  Hanging around. The unpleasant sound of the words still rang in Henry’s ears. They made him feel like someone who was in the way, a nuisance. That was the last thing he wanted to be. He only wanted a chance to show Mr. Capper that he was a good businessman. Well, that chance was gone now. Even if Scooter got over being mad, Henry knew that he would never go back to Mr. Capper’s garage again.

  Aw, I didn’t want an old route, anyway, Henry tried to persuade himself. But he could not make himself believe it.

  4

  The Paper Drive

  Immediately after school Henry and Beezus, who was eager to lend the wagon and help collect papers, hurried to the Hugginses’ house, where they stopped long enough to tell Mrs. Huggins what they were going to do and to pick up some more addresses of people who had telephoned in answer to the advertisement. Accompanied by Ribsy and Nosy, who was a brave kitten when Ribsy went along to protect him, they continued to Beezus’s house, where they ate some bread and cheese and drank some milk before they went out the back door to get the wagon out of the garage.