Henry and the Paper Route

by Beverly Cleary

  When Henry and his father had delivered their last bundle to the school yard, and another member of the P.T.A. had relieved Mrs. Huggins of her yardstick, the Huggins family drove wearily home. “I hope our room won,” said Henry, without much spirit, “or at least beat old Scooter’s room.” He decided he was too tired to go back to school later in the afternoon to find out who had won. He could wait until Monday to find out. Right now he did not even want to think about paper.

  Monday evening at dinner, Henry, who had completely recovered from the paper drive, announced to his mother and father, “Well, our room won! I knew we would all the time. We get the six dollars to spend any way we want, except we can’t decide how to spend it. And you know what? We beat old Scooter’s room by over a thousand inches!”

  “And did you get to see the movie?” Mr. Huggins asked.

  “We sure did,” said Henry. “A cartoon and a nature movie. Of course the movie was pretty educational, but it was good just the same. There was a family of bears in it.”

  “I worked hard on the paper drive,” said Mrs. Huggins. “I would like to see a movie with a family of bears in it, too.”

  Suddenly Henry felt ashamed. Now that he stopped to think about it, his mother and father had worked hard on the paper drive—almost as hard as he had worked. “Thanks for helping,” he said, sorry that he had not thanked them sooner. “Even if you didn’t get in on the prize.” Poor Mom and Dad! They really got the worst of it.

  Henry decided that when the next paper drive came around—and that would not be for another year—he would not advertise. That had been too successful. If there happened to be some old papers lying around the house, he would tie them up and take them to school; but right now he felt that he had had enough of paper drives to last a long, long time and he was sure that his mother and father felt the same way. Anyway, next year he hoped somehow, someway, to be too busy doing something important to spend a lot of time going around the neighborhood with a wagon and Ramona clonking along behind.

  “I guess we’ll have to supply our own prize,” said Mr. Huggins. “What do you say we stack the dishes and go to the movies? I noticed there was a Western on at the Hollywood, and there might be a family of bears in it.”

  “Oh, boy!” exclaimed Henry. “Even if it’s a school night?”

  “Sure,” answered Mr. Huggins. “This is a special occasion. We won the paper drive, didn’t we?”

  5

  Henry’s New Neighbor

  Not long after the paper drive, a day arrived that Henry had been looking forward to for a long, long time. That day was Henry’s eleventh birthday. This year his birthday fell on Saturday, so it was extra special. Mrs. Huggins invited eight boys from Henry’s class for lunch, and Henry received three flashlights (it didn’t matter—a boy could always find a use for another flashlight), two packages of stamps to add to his collection, one model airplane kit, and two puzzles. After a lunch of tamales, milk, and a green salad because Mrs. Huggins thought boys should eat vegetables, and an orange ice-cream cake with eleven candles set in whipped cream frosting, the boys entertained themselves by practicing artificial respiration on one another. Then, after Mrs. Huggins had cleared off the table, she drove them to the neighborhood theater, where they saw seventeen Bugs Bunny cartoons, one right after the other.

  Henry enjoyed every minute of his birthday. He laughed when Bugs Bunny was Robin Hood, outwitting the Sheriff of Nottingham. He howled when Bugs Bunny escaped from the hunter who wanted to make him into rabbit stew. He shouted when Bugs Bunny switched places with a circus ringmaster who was trying to make him dive off a high diving board into a bucket of water. And all the time Henry was thinking, I am eleven years old now, old enough to have a paper route—if I could get one.

  The boys walked home from the movie, and when Henry and Robert, who lived near each other, came to the house the Pumphreys had lived in, they saw furniture being carried into the house from a moving van. Naturally they stopped to watch. Henry was a little disappointed because the furniture of the new neighbors was not more interesting. They owned the usual things—beds, chairs, a stove, a television set.

  “Hey, look!” exclaimed Robert, pointing. “A bike!”

  “A boy’s bike!” added Henry in excitement. “I wonder what grade he’s in.”

  “Maybe he’ll be in our room,” said Robert. “It was a regular-sized bike.”

  “You know what would be a good idea?” said Henry eagerly, as the two boys started toward home. “Maybe the three of us—you and me and this new fellow—could get a bunch of wire and stuff and rig up a telephone system. Of course, to connect it with his house, we would have to string the wires over some fences and through some trees, but I bet it would work.”

  “Hey, that’s a swell idea!” agreed Robert enthusiastically. “We could phone each other any time we wanted to.”

  “Sure,” said Henry. “It would be our own private line. I bet we can find some books at the library that would tell us how to do it.”

  “I wonder when we will get to meet him,” remarked Robert.

  “Soon, I hope,” answered Henry. “It’s going to be fun having a new boy around.”

  On Sunday Henry found several excuses to ride his bicycle past the new boy’s house, but he saw no one. Monday, after school, he noticed curtains at the windows, but still he did not see a boy. When Henry got home he had nothing special to do, so he tied a piece of cellophane to the end of a string and dragged it across the rug for Nosy to pounce on while he wondered what the new boy would be like. Nosy, as Mr. Huggins had predicted, was rapidly growing up to be a cat. Right now he was too big to be a kitten, but still not quite big enough to be a cat. Nosy crouched, lashed his tail, and pounced. With the cellophane in his claws, he rolled over on his back and kicked at his prey with his hind feet, while Ribsy lay watching the game.

  The telephone rang and Mrs. Huggins answered it. “Hello?” Henry heard his mother say. “Oh, hello, Eva.” Eva, Henry knew, was Scooter’s mother. Mrs. McCarthy and Mrs. Huggins often had long, boring conversations over the phone.

  “Oh, dear,” Henry heard his mother say. “That’s too bad.”

  What’s too bad? wondered Henry idly, as he took the cellophane away from Nosy and held it up for the little cat, or big kitten, to jump for.

  “I’m glad Henry has been through that already,” said Mrs. Huggins.

  Now what could I have been through, Henry asked himself, but he could not think of anything he had been through except kindergarten and the first four grades, and he did not think his mother and Mrs. McCarthy would be talking about anything like that.

  “I wouldn’t worry, Eva. It wasn’t too bad,” said Mrs. Huggins. “But then, of course, Scooter is older.”

  Maybe Scooter is older than I am, thought Henry, jerking the cellophane free from Nosy’s claws, but I am eleven years old now.

  “Oh, well, you know how boys are,” said Mrs. Huggins.

  Henry’s interest in the conversation increased. If his mother started talking about how boys were, she might say something he would like to hear. He stopped twirling the cellophane and sat down to listen.

  Mrs. Huggins laughed again. “I think that is too funny for words,” she said.

  Henry became impatient. He hoped it was not something he had done that was too funny for words. He didn’t want people laughing at him.

  Mrs. Huggins listened for a long time. Finally she said, “I don’t know, Eva. I think he’s a little young.”

  Who’s a little young for what? Henry was growing more and more impatient. If his mother was talking about his being too young for something, she was probably saying he could not do something he would like to do. Somehow, the things his parents thought he was not old enough to do were always the things he wanted to do most of all. On the chance that his mother was talking about him, Henry went into the kitchen and said in a loud whisper, “I am not too young.”

  Mrs. Huggins motioned him away and went on talking. “But
Eva, for one thing, they weigh so much on Sunday.”

  This baffled Henry. Why wouldn’t a thing weigh the same on Sunday as it did on weekdays? His mother’s conversation didn’t make sense. People certainly did not weigh more on Sunday, unless they ate a lot of apple pie or something. Hey, wait a minute, he thought suddenly. Newspapers! Newspapers weighed more on Sunday! Maybe—no, it couldn’t be—yes, it could! His mother must be talking about his delivering papers. No, that couldn’t be what she was talking about. Scooter was still mad at him, because of the paper drive.

  “Mom,” Henry whispered urgently.

  Mrs. Huggins put her hand over the mouthpiece of the telephone. “Henry,” she said, “I’m trying to carry on a conversation. Please stop interrupting.”

  “But Mom—”

  Mrs. Huggins gave Henry a look that told him she meant what she said.

  “Aw…” muttered Henry and went back into the living room, where he picked up Nosy and rubbed the fur on the sides of the kitten’s little black face, while he hung on every word his mother said.

  “All right, Eva,” said Mrs. Huggins at last. “He’s been dying to for weeks.” But Mrs. Huggins did not hang up. “And by the way, Eva,” she went on, “I am in charge of the refreshment committee of the P.T.A. this year and I wondered if you knew of a bakery…”

  Henry groaned loud enough for his mother to hear, but she paid no attention. “…that makes a good inexpensive cake. I thought if we bought a big flat cake and had it iced and decorated with a few rosebuds—oh, no, not a rosebud for every member of the P.T.A.; that would be too expensive—but just enough rosebuds to make it look pretty until we cut it—”

  Rosebuds for the P.T.A.! At a time like this! Henry drove his fist into a cushion to work off some of his impatience. When Mrs. Huggins at last ended the conversation, Henry dropped Nosy and sprang to his feet. “What did she want, Mom? What did she want?”

  “Henry, when I am talking on the telephone I don’t like to be interrupted,” said Mrs. Huggins.

  “OK, Mom,” agreed Henry hastily. “But what did she want?”

  “Scooter has come down with the chicken pox,” began Mrs. Huggins.

  “Old Scoot has the chicken pox?” exclaimed Henry, as if he could not believe it. “In the seventh grade? Why, I had that when I was a little kid!” Well, what do you know, thought Henry. For once he was ahead of Scooter on something.

  “Yes, he has the chicken pox,” Mrs. Huggins went on, “and he wants you to take his route until he can go back to school.”

  “Scooter wants me to take his route?” This was too much for Henry to believe. If his mother had said Mrs. McCarthy had wanted him to take the route, he could believe it—but not Scooter.

  “Yes. It seems that he was embarrassed to ask you himself, because of some sort of disagreement you two had.” Mrs. Huggins looked amused as she spoke. “And so he asked his mother to phone me about it. He wants you to take his route, because he knows you can do it, but he is afraid you are mad at him.”

  Maybe Henry had been mad at Scooter, but now that Scooter was sure Henry could do a good job delivering papers, the whole quarrel suddenly seemed unimportant. Just a silly argument a long time ago. “Me? Mad at Scooter?” Henry said, as if he had never heard of such a thing. “When do I start?”

  “Today,” said his mother. “You’d better go over to Scooter’s house and get the route book right now.”

  Henry had his hand on the doorknob before his mother had finished speaking. “Say, Mom, how long does chicken pox last?” he asked.

  “About two weeks, at Scooter’s age,” answered Mrs. Huggins.

  Two weeks! Two whole weeks of delivering papers. And he was eleven years old besides! Henry did not take time to walk down the front steps. He jumped.

  The other boys had already begun to fold papers by the time Henry had picked up Scooter’s route book and canvas bag and joined them. “Hi,” said Henry briefly. “Mr. Capper, I’m taking Scooter’s route while he has the chicken pox.” Henry found the bundle of papers and began to count them.

  “We haven’t seen you around for a long time,” said Mr. Capper. “Think you can handle it all right?”

  “I’m sure I can,” answered Henry, and hesitated. “Uh…Mr. Capper, I am eleven years old now.” Mr. Capper grinned.

  “No kidding?” asked Chuck, one of the carriers who went to high school. “Are you really eleven?”

  “Sure,” boasted Henry. “You didn’t think I was going to stay ten all my life, did you?”

  “If he’s eleven,” said Chuck to Mr. Capper, “maybe he could take over my route.”

  Henry paused in his paper folding long enough to look questioningly at the older boy. “What for?” he asked, suspecting a joke.

  “I want to go out for basketball practice in a couple of weeks,” explained Chuck.

  Satisfied that Chuck was not teasing him, Henry looked expectantly at Mr. Capper, who only smiled and said, “We’ll see.”

  Mr. Capper hadn’t made any promises, thought Henry, as he stuffed the last Journal into the bag, but he did not think he had anything to worry about. He knew he could handle the route and that Mr. Capper knew he wanted it. Feeling that this time there was nothing to stand in his way, Henry set off to deliver the papers with a light heart.

  Henry finished the route by five-thirty and decided to go home by way of the Pumphrey house. He might catch a glimpse of the new boy. Sure enough, on the driveway beside the house a strange boy was unpacking a carton that was filled with coils of wire, batteries, and what looked like radio tubes. He was about Henry’s age, or maybe a year older—a tall, thin boy, slightly stooped, who wore glasses.

  Henry rode partway up the driveway. “Hi,” he said, eager to be friendly. “You the new boy?”

  “Yup,” answered the boy.

  Henry felt this did not tell him much. He studied the new boy a moment and decided that he probably was not much of a ballplayer. That did not matter; there were plenty of boys in the neighborhood who did play ball. “My name is Henry Huggins,” Henry said. “I live on the other side of the block, on Klickitat Street.”

  The boy was so busy untangling some copper wire that he did not bother to answer. Henry felt the conversation was getting no place. This was not the way he had pictured making friends with his new neighbor. Then an old fat dog wandered out of the backyard. He looked something like a fox terrier, only bigger and tougher, as if he might be part bulldog. Henry brightened. Boys always liked to talk about their dogs. “What’s your dog’s name?” he asked.

  “Tiger,” answered the boy briefly, as the tired-looking dog flopped down beside him.

  “Tiger!” exclaimed Henry. “You can’t call a dog Tiger. That’s a name for cats.”

  For the first time the boy put down his wire and looked at Henry through his glasses. “Why?” he asked.

  Henry was taken aback. Making friends with this boy was not going to be easy. “Well, I suppose you can,” he admitted, because the boy obviously did call his dog Tiger. “What I mean is…Well, people usually call dogs Major or Guard or Spot or something like that. What’s your name?” Henry asked, both to change the subject and because he wanted to know.

  “Byron Murphy,” answered the boy. “Call me Murph.”

  “OK, Murph,” agreed Henry, pleased to have made this much progress in the conversation. He looked at the jumble of wires in Murph’s carton and concluded that the new boy must be interested in electricity. And any boy interested in electricity should be glad to help rig up a private telephone line. “Say, Murph,” Henry began enthusiastically, “I’ve got a swell idea. Why don’t we get together with my friend Robert, and the three of us rig up our own private telephone line between our houses. We can do it by stringing wires over the fences and through the trees. Then we could talk to each other any time we wanted. We’d have a lot of fun.” He looked expectantly at Murph.

  Murph went on untangling his wire. “Why couldn’t we just telephone each other?” he a
sked.

  Henry stared at Murph as if he could not believe what he had heard. “You—you mean on the regular telephone? The one that belongs to the telephone company?”

  “Sure,” said Murph.

  Henry felt like a balloon with the air let out. “Well, I guess we could,” he admitted. Murph was probably right. It would be foolish to buy parts and go to a lot of work and build a telephone system that probably wouldn’t work very well, when they already had telephones that did work. But couldn’t Murph see that a private telephone system would be fun? What kind of a fellow was this Murph?

  “Anyway,” said Murph, “I’m pretty busy building my robot.”

  There was one thing about Murph—almost everything he said was a surprise. “You mean you are building a mechanical man?” Henry asked incredulously. By now he was completely bewildered by Murph. Well, he might have expected something like this. A boy who would name a dog Tiger would do most anything.

  “Sure,” said Murph and pulled a five-gallon oilcan out of the carton. On top of the can was an old tomato sauce can, which supported a larger tin can, which Henry could see was supposed to be the robot’s head.

  “If you put a funnel upside down on his head, he would look like the Tin Woodman in The Wizard of Oz,” offered Henry helpfully. He was beginning to think that this boy had interesting possibilities, even if he was a little peculiar.

  “This isn’t any Tin Woodman.” Murph sounded annoyed. “This is a robot.”

  Henry felt that Murph thought he wasn’t very bright, because he had compared his robot to a character in a fairy tale. “You—you mean you really expect it to work?” he asked cautiously.

  “Sure,” said Murph. “I’ve got it all figured out, with batteries and magnets and stuff. I may even put a phonograph inside, so he’ll talk.”

  This was too much for Henry. Murph must be practically a genius. A mechanical man that could talk! There was going to be a lot of excitement in the neighborhood when this news got around. Henry stared at the new boy and his invention until he summoned enough courage to speak again. “What’s that hole in his back for?” he asked.