by Betsy Byars
The poodle had an unsettling way of sniffing a certain spot on Bingo’s leg. Bingo couldn’t stand it—the touch of that little tiny cold nose, the brush of those whiskers …
Bingo was going home this morning and spraying his legs with insect repellent.
While he was there, he would call Melissa. At last he had a good reason to do that—to let her know that he was at Billy Wentworth’s. “I was afraid you might have tried to call me—to tell me something about Dawn—and you would worry when you didn’t get an answer,” he would say.
As it turned out, he didn’t even need a reason. She said, “Oh, I’m so glad to hear your voice, Bingo.”
“You are? I called because I was afraid you might have tried to call me—”
“I did. I called and called. I saw her.”
“You saw Dawn.”
“Yes. At Pizza Inn. She was having a small pepperoni with double cheese. She and a girlfriend were sharing.”
“Oh.”
“I went over and she didn’t know me at first. I had on a headband so I said that I was Melissa and I was in Mr. Markham’s room. I said, ‘Remember I talked to you when he went in the Winn Dixie for hotdogs?’”
“What did she say?”
“She said, ‘Oh, him,’ like that. I said, ‘Aren’t you his girlfriend anymore?’ She had told me she wasn’t, but I pretended I had forgotten. She said, ‘I never was his girlfriend. Never! He might say I was his girlfriend, but I wasn’t and I never will be.’ I said, ‘Do you ever see him anymore?’ She said, ‘Not if I can help it. I hear his motorcycle and I hide. I get down behind the sofa. He scares me.’ I didn’t know what to say so finally I said, ‘Did you get our letters? Our whole class wrote you letters.’”
“Maybe she wouldn’t take them.”
“She said, ‘Oh, those letters. They really upset me. Imagine him talking about me in front of the class. What did he tell you? Did he say he couldn’t go on living without me? Because I hate him saying that.’”
Bingo loved it when she did Dawn’s voice. Even though he had never heard Dawn, he knew exactly how she sounded.
“I must have looked hurt because, Bingo, I worked hard on my letter, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“So she saw that and said, ‘Oh, they were wonderful letters.’ She jumped up and hugged me. ‘I loved the letters, but I’m the kind of person that if I don’t like somebody, then I just plain don’t like them and all the letters in the world won’t change my mind. If I got a letter from the President of the United States, it wouldn’t change one thing. Plus I’m dating a guy named Randy now.’”
Bingo waited.
“Then I didn’t know what to say, would you have?”
“No.”
“Bingo, I always feel so much better when I talk to you. You always say just the right thing.”
“Oh, well …”
“So then we heard a motorcycle turning into the parking lot. Dawn thought it was Mr. Mark and said, ‘Oh, where can I hide? Should I get under the table or have I got time to make it to the restroom?’”
Bingo settled back in his chair for a long chat.
“And I said, ‘That’s not Mr. Mark’s bike. His is …’”
The Letters
BINGO OPENED HIS NEW journal and smoothed the first page. He wrote, This book is dedicated to the new, improved Bingo Brown.
Ever since his parents had returned home safely, he had felt like a new person. He even acted that way. He had not made any mention of his own weekend discomforts. He had been genuinely interested in what they had done.
“Oh, Bingo,” his mom had said, “it was so much fun. I laughed so hard I almost couldn’t play the trumpet.”
“That’s good. How was your handstand, Dad?”
“We didn’t do the handstands. We did a pyramid. They were a little wobbly.”
“A little wobbly! They were hilarious. I laughed till I cried.”
“They weren’t that funny.”
“You didn’t see them from the rear.” She laughed and turned to Bingo. “Oh, Bingo, I hope you’re going to go to Catawba. It’s so much fun.”
“I do want to learn something,” Bingo answered.
“But having a good time is important too. College is the last free time in your life. I want you to promise me something, Bingo.”
“What?”
“I want you to promise that when you go to college, you’re not going to be one of those boys who spends his life in the library and jumps like a scared rabbit every time a girl looks at him.”
Bingo was too stunned to speak. He jump when a girl spoke to him! He, who had been in love three times in one day and had already had four mixed-sex conversations!
“Get out paper and pencils, gang,” Mr. Markham said. “I want you to do something special today.”
“I thought we were going to write in our journals,” Bingo said.
Mr. Markham shook his head. “I’ve got something I really need for you to do.”
Billy Wentworth turned and gave Bingo a knowing look.
“Now, gang, this is really important. I’m going to have you write letters, and this is probably the most challenging assignment I’ll ever give you.”
Bingo closed his journal reluctantly.
“Now does everybody have paper? Pencils? Nobody needs to sharpen?”
He glanced at Bingo. Bingo shook his head.
“Good.”
Mr. Markham moved around his desk and stood with his hand on the imaginary beard. He looked up at them with eyes that were fever-bright.
“Suppose, gang,” he said, “that one of your friends—and this doesn’t have to be a friend your own age. It could be someone older, but it should be someone you admire, someone you care about. Let’s say it could be someone in high school, maybe a Little League coach, but it’s a friend you care about.”
Mr. Markham paused thoughtfully. “Now you have come to suspect—no, let’s make it stronger than that. You don’t suspect, you know that this person is thinking about committing suicide. You don’t want to tell anybody, because you don’t have any proof. You could be wrong—you aren’t sure, but your gut feeling tells you that this person is going to commit suicide. So you decide to write this friend a letter and talk him out of it. So this is the most important letter you will ever write because a life depends on your words.”
Mr. Markham leaned back on the desk and looked at them. “Have you got any questions before you get started? Yes, Mamie Lou?”
“Are we supposed to use the name of a real person or do we make up somebody?”
“I don’t want a real name. Let’s see. How about Dear Friend?”
He looked around the room. “No more questions? All right, then, get started.” Mr. Markham walked around his desk. Before he sat down he said, “I’m going to give you as much time as you need on this, gang. I want these letters to be as good as you can make them.”
Bingo had been prepared to write in his journal and he couldn’t get his mind on his letter. He wrote Dear Friend, and then he looked around the room.
Nobody else was doing any better than he was. Not one single person was writing.
Finally Harriet raised her hand.
“Yes, Harriet?”
“I’m not having much luck.”
“How do you mean?”
“I can’t get started.”
There were a few mutters of, “Me either.”
Mr. Markham got up. “How many are in trouble?”
Every hand went up.
“All right, let’s talk about this for a little bit. Dear Friend. You’ve gotten that far, I assume. I know that you are thinking about suicide.”
There was a flurry of activity as everyone copied the first line. Then they looked up.
Mr. Markham sighed. “Gang, this is not a lesson in dictation. All right, I’ll give you one more line and then you’re on your own. I don’t care how many pitiful looks you give me.” He glanced up at the ceiling. “Dear F
riend, I know that you have been thinking of suicide. Please do not take your life because—” He stopped.
He said, “Now, that’s all the help I’m going to give you. These are your letters. It’s your friend in trouble. Maybe,” he went on more slowly, “it’s the word friend that’s bothering you. Maybe it’s not specific enough. Suppose it’s the boy down the street who plays catch with you every afternoon after school. So you think selfishly at first. You don’t want this boy to kill himself because then you won’t have anybody to play catch with. Put that down. It’s all right to be selfish. But then you start thinking.”
Mr. Markham moved around to the front of his desk.
“You start thinking. The boy down the street who plays catch with you—and you probably aren’t that much fun to play catch with—so this boy down the street is being nice, generous—what else? Kind, giving … So if this boy commits suicide then not only does he go out of the world but so does his kindness and goodness and generosity. And gang, the world can’t afford to lose any more of that stuff. There’s not enough of it as it is.”
He stepped away from his desk, closer to the class.
“And gang, it’s not the mean, rotten gangsters that commit suicide—well, okay, they do it but like Hitler did, to keep from being captured. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about people that never hurt anybody in their lives. I’m talking about poets and short-order cooks and soft-spoken uncles and janitors. I’m talking about teachers.”
He paused. He rubbed his hands together as if he were soaping them.
“Why wouldn’t you want me to commit suicide? Think selfishly. Because you’d get a substitute teacher. Take it from there. Why wouldn’t you want Aunt Gertie to commit suicide? Because every Christmas she sends you a twenty-dollar bill. Take it from there.”
He looked at them for a long time. It was Mamie Lou who picked up her pencil first and began to write. Then Harriet. Then Bingo.
With a sigh Mr. Markham went back to his chair and sat down.
The All-New Improved Bingo
THERE WAS A NOTE on Bingo’s desk. He stood for a moment staring at it. He had never gotten a note before. He picked it up and turned it over, looking at it as if he didn’t know what to do with it.
His name was on the front and there was a heart where the postage stamp would have been. In the heart was a face that looked like Melissa.
At that moment, Billy Wentworth turned around in his seat. “What was going on yesterday?”
“Yesterday?”
“Yeah, with you and Harriet.”
“Oh, that.” The incident with Harriet had been a disturbing one. Bingo had been going home when all of a sudden he heard someone say, “Bingo.”
He glanced around so fast his neck popped.
“Over here.”
“Harriet, what are you doing behind the tree?”
“I don’t want him to see me.”
“Him?”
“Billy! So would you do me a favor?”
“If I can …”
“Would you pretend to be talking to me?”
“I am talking to you.”
“I mean, if I come out from behind the tree, would you talk to me.”
Bingo was getting uneasy. “I guess so.”
She stepped out. “And walk with me! Come on! Walk!”
Bingo walked, but it felt like a forced march. He didn’t like it.
“Say something!”
“What?”
“Anything!”
Forced walking and now forced talking. How had he ever thought he loved this woman? Even if she did dedicate a concert to him, he wouldn’t listen. He would put his fingers in his ears.
“Say something!”
“What?”
“Bingo—” She was speaking through her teeth now. “Billy saw me hide behind that tree so he probably thinks I was hiding there to watch his house. He’s looking out the window right now. If he sees me with you, he’ll think I was there to meet you. So say something!”
At last Bingo had something to say.
“This is my house, Harriet. Good-bye.”
That was the whole unfortunate incident, and now Billy Wentworth wanted to hear about it. Bingo glanced across the room. Harriet was watching them with slitted eyes.
Billy said again, “What were you and Harriet doing in front of my house, Worm Brain?”
Bingo said, “Nothing. We weren’t doing anything. We just walked past.”
“It didn’t look like you were just walking past to me. It looked like she was hiding behind a tree and then you came along and she jumped out. I don’t like people doing stuff like that in front of my house.”
“Well, that is pretty much what happened,” Bingo said. “I mean the part about her hiding behind the tree and jumping out at me.” Bingo turned his head so that Harriet couldn’t read his lips. “I think she likes you.”
“Likes me?” Billy Wentworth said. It was so loud even Mr. Markham looked up. “She better not like me! I didn’t tell her she could like me.”
Harriet turned her head away and looked out the window. The back of her neck started getting red.
“Er, gang,” said Mr. Markham, “may I remind you that you are supposed to be writing in your journals. If you have a message for a member of the class that cannot wait until recess, you may come up, give me the message, and I will relay it to the proper person.” Mr. Markham said things like this a lot, but no one ever took him up on it.
This time Billy Wentworth got up out of his seat. He pulled down his Rambo t-shirt. He went to Mr. Markham’s desk.
“I take it, Billy, you have a message for someone,” he said.
“That’s right.”
Everyone in the class stopped writing.
Mr. Markham said, “So, who is the message for? Perhaps you could whisper it so as not to disturb the rest of the class.”
Billy Wentworth was not a good whisperer. “Harriet!”
“Perhaps you might like to write the message down. Here’s a notepad. The rest of you get back to work.”
Billy’s message appeared to be two words in length. When he finished writing he underlined the words twice and then went back to his desk.
Mr. Markham put his fingers up to his head as if he had a headache. He said, “If I judge that your message should not be passed on, then I will destroy it. If you see me destroy your message, that means I do not deem it worthy of being passed on.”
Mr. Markham took the top sheet of the notepad and tore it into small pieces. Then he noticed that Billy had borne down so hard the message was on the next four sheets. He tore those up too.
In the silence that followed, Bingo opened his note. It said, “Meet me at the flagpole after school. M.”
Bingo looked across the room. He nodded.
Mr. Markham said, “Bingo, is there something wrong with your neck?”
“No.”
“Then why are you nodding like one of those dogs on car dashboards?”
“I was nodding because I thought something was wrong with my neck. Then after I nodded, I discovered nothing was wrong with my neck.”
“That’s the first good news I’ve had all week.”
When the bell rang, Bingo was out of his seat like a shot. He had to avoid Harriet and Billy Wentworth and get to the flagpole. He was waiting there when Melissa came down the steps.
“Oh, you went out of the room so fast, I thought you weren’t going to wait.”
“No, I wanted to wait.” Bingo put his hands over his back pocket where the note was.
“Well, it wasn’t really important—just that I found out where Dawn works.”
“You did?”
“In the Nautilus. That health club. She teaches aerobics.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“My sister’s boyfriend is a member there.”
“I didn’t know that either.”
Bingo couldn’t really enjoy this mixed-sex conversation because he had to watch ou
t for Harriet and Billy Wentworth.
There she was, coming down the steps, heading right for him. Her face was purple.
Bingo said, “I’ve got to go. I’ll call you later.”
As he ran down the street, he was amazed at how casual he had become, at how easily he had come up with that. I’ll call you later.
Am I a man at last?
He glanced over his shoulder. Harriet was gaining on him. He ducked his head and ran for his life.
Calls for Bingo
THE PHONE RANG.
“I’ll get that,” Bingo called cheerfully. “Hell-o!”
He had started singing out the word. He loved the telephone. In some ways mixed-sex conversations were better by phone. You didn’t have to worry about your expressions.
A voice said, “It’s me—Harriet.”
Bingo fumbled the phone as if it had suddenly gotten too hot to handle.
“Oh?”
“I want you to do something for me.”
“I’m not very good at doing things for people,” he reminded her.
“You’re the only person that can do this.”
“What is it?”
“Go over to Billy Wentworth’s and tell him I don’t like him.”
“I can’t do that. I—”
“You’ve got to!”
“Why me?”
“Because you’re the one that told him I did like him.” She lowered her voice but unfortunately he could still hear her. “See, Bingo, I really do like him and the only way I can get him to like me is to make him think I don’t like him.”
“Harriet, I’m sorry. My mom’s calling me to supper.”
“It’s only four o’clock.”
“We eat early.”
Bingo hung up the phone and went into the living room. “If I get any more phone calls, I’m not here.”
His mom said, “Oh?”
“If I tried to tell you what had happened to my life, you would say it was my fault.”
“No, I wouldn’t.”
“Yes, you say I create crisis, and, Mom, I don’t create crisis, but I’m always standing right next to it. It’s like I’m living my life in the middle of all these little tornadoes and I get swept into them and it’s not my fault. I’m helpless.”
