With Warm Regards, Franny

by Ben Chambers

  I knew it was everyone coming out to look for me. I had an even better idea then. I crouched down behind the pile of snow. I decided I would wait for the perfect sneak attack. Pretty soon, someone would come around the corner, and I’d get them with a very good snowball. I heard them keep yelling my name, but I played it very cool. I didn’t move a single muscle. I was just holding my position, waiting for the perfect time to strike. I was very young, I didn’t realise that hiding from them like that was a very bad thing to do.

  After a while, I didn’t really hear them anymore. I kept on waiting though, because I didn’t want to ruin my plan. But when I hadn’t heard them at all for quite a long time, I came out of my hiding spot. I went around the front of the building, but no one was there. They weren’t at their table inside the cafe, either. There was just nobody around anywhere. I started getting a bit worried then, because I thought I had done a bad thing. I thought my parents might be worried about me. Or maybe even angry. So I started walking back to the hotel.

  It got very cold on that walk. I was really shivering then. I think it was because I had been hiding by the snow for so long, not moving or anything. It had really cooled me down. Then I realised something very stupid. I had left my gloves back at the cafe! I took them off so that I could roll up the snowballs better, because it was too tough with the gloves on. I must have left them lying right there next to all my ammo. I didn’t even get to throw a single one of them, either.

  My hands started getting very cold. I decided to put them in my jacket pocket, to try warm them up. But when I did, I found some ice in there! There was ice in my pockets! That’s how cold it was. I couldn’t believe it. My hands felt even colder after that. And then even my ears started getting cold, too. It felt like such a long walk back to the hotel, and my ears were getting frozen on the way. It was just one big long road, so I figured I had to get there eventually. I tried to pull my beanie down over my ears, but it wasn’t big enough. It was this silly little beanie that only covered about half of my head. I don’t even know why I had it. It didn’t really keep me warm at all.

  I got very upset during that whole walk back. I was worried I might get frostbite, and my fingers and ears might fall off. But I eventually found my way to that stupid hotel. I don’t know why it had to be so far away. It was this big ugly red tower, and I went inside. Then I accidentally went to room 502 on the fifth floor, even though we were in room 402, on the fourth floor. I didn’t realise until I had already knocked on the door, and this old man answered it.

  “Where are my parents?” I said.

  “Who?”

  Then I saw the wrong number on the door, so I left. I went down the stairs and finally found my door. When I knocked though, my mother answered. It was just her alone in the room. She pulled me inside very quickly. The dream had been pretty normal up until then. But when I went inside, it started getting a bit freaky.

  “Where have you been?” she said. She sounded quite angry.

  “I was just playing.”

  “They’re all out looking for you, you know. You’ve ruined this whole trip.”

  I felt pretty bad then and kept trying to apologise. But she just walked around the room, looking back at me every now and again with this pretty evil stare. I tried to say that I was sorry, but she kept saying, “You’ve ruined everything,” and walking around the room. She stopped and said, “You know what I have to do, don’t you?” But I didn’t know what she meant. She went over to the bathroom door and opened it. Then something crazy happened. What came out of the bathroom was a pig. A giant pig. This huge, big, fat thing. The fattest I’ve ever seen.

  It started waddling into the living room, and my mum just started saying, “It’s all your fault. You’ve ruined everything.” The pig was walking right over to me, and I started getting pretty worried. It was even bigger than me. I started getting kind of trapped in the corner of the room, trying to back away from the pig. But it kept coming towards me, sort of grunting as it walked. I had my back right against the wall, and I started sliding down, so I was crouching on the floor. The pig was drooling all over the place, leaving a horrible trail along the floor, heading right for me. I was almost lying down then, with my feet out, to try to keep the pig away. It walked right up to me and then smacked against my legs with its head. I started trying to kick at it to keep it away from me. I don’t know why, but suddenly, I wasn’t wearing any shoes any more. The pig kept trying to get to me, and I was trying to kick it away. Then it started snapping at my feet, trying to bite me. It was trying to bite my toes off! I was just kicking at its head as hard as I could, but it kept trying to bite my toes off!

  Then I started saying, “Please, Mum! Help me!” But she was just staring at me with those very evil looking eyes from the other side of the room and saying something. I could see her mouth moving, but I couldn’t hear what she was saying, because the pig was squealing and screaming right next to me. I was so terrified that it was going to eat my toes and then maybe even eat my whole body. It was snapping at me, trying to get me. I was kicking and wriggling as hard as I could, and then I woke up with a pretty big fright.

  I looked at my watch and realised I was running a little late, so I had to rush a bit. I was very lucky that the bus was there right when I arrived at the bus stop.

  The house I was babysitting at was kind of near my parents’ house, where I grew up from a very young child. The bus went past a lot of places that I used to go when I was living at home. We went past this one street where I used to go for a lot of walks. It was very odd though, because I would quite frequently find birds on that street during my walks—birds that had been injured and couldn’t fly anymore or young birds that had lost their parents. I’ve found maybe ten there in my whole life. Some people I know haven’t even found one bird before. The birds would always be sitting around on that street, waiting for me. And I would find them and start crying because I was so sad that they were hurt and probably scared. I was still very young at the time, which is why I cried so much. But my dad taught me a fantastic trick. He taught me to take my hat off and use it to scoop the bird up into for safety. I would always wear a hat outside, because I didn’t want to catch cancer from all the sun, and also, I could use that hat to collect the birds in. I would very carefully pick them up in my hat, so that it was like a nice little nest for them. Then I’d take them home, and my mum and dad would help me look after them. We would feed them bread and milk and keep them warm until they were better and could fly away. Sometimes, they didn’t get better though. Sometimes, they just died instead.

  I got to Charlie’s house at almost exactly 6:00 pm. I knocked on the front door, and Debbie opened it almost as I was still knocking.

  “Oh, Franny!” she said very loudly and with a huge sigh. “It’s great to see you.” Debbie always talked very loud, as if she were performing for an audience or something. She would always hold her chin up high and use these huge sweeping hand gestures. She also kind of stuck her chest out very far. She had very large breasts. “I still remember how worried I was when I called you earlier today and I couldn’t get a hold of you. But that’s all ancient history now. Charlie’s just been an angel today; he’s hardly made a peep. I’m sure you’ll have no trouble at all.”

  I just stood there smiling at her. I learned a long time ago that she loves to talk a whole lot, and it’s best to just sit quietly and nod when she’s talking to you.

  “How are you? How’s university going? Oh, exam time must be a complete nightmare. I just remember how overwhelming it all was when I was younger.”

  I just nodded but then realised I should probably say something to calm her down. She gets quite excited. “It’s all okay,” I said.

  “That’s good, darling. Charlie’s ravenous today; he’ll probably be asking you to cook him dinner the second we leave. Come in, come in.” Debbie was quite a large woman. Fat, I mean. But I know it’s not polite to say that. So I just say large, instead. She took up most of the doorwa
y. She kind of pulled me inside the house, but she had to turn at the same time, because she was blocking most of the entrance. We did this little spinning dance around each other and swapped positions, so now I was in the doorway and she was standing outside. She leaned right over my head and yelled for her husband to hurry up. I told you about how she was quite loud. He came to the doorway. He’s this kind of small man and quite skinny too. People at school used to make very mean jokes that he was the woman and she was the man, since she was so big, and he was so small. They both taught at the high school I used to go to, and she was always bossing him around and calling for him to hurry up when they were leaving together at the end of the day. But I think they’re both very nice people.

  “How are you, Franny?” he said as he was passing me in the doorway.

  “I’m good.” He really is a very nice man. He always asks me how I am.

  “All right, we have to rush off,” Debbie said. “Sorry the house is a mess, we’ve just bought some new furniture, and we’re still re-arranging.” She ushered her husband down the driveway. “Goodbye,” she called back at me. “See you at ten.”

  I waved at them, but they weren’t looking in my direction. I closed the front door and went to look for Charlie.

  Chapter Nine

  Charlie was in his room, drawing in some colouring books. He was quite a young child. Probably only six. I don’t really know exactly how old he was, actually. I could see he was wearing these very cool socks. They were pulled about half way up his shins, and they were completely covered in hot dogs. They were some kind of hot dog patterned socks. I thought they were probably the coolest socks I’ve ever seen. I was almost about to ask him if I could borrow them some time, just so I could wear them too. But then I realised they would have been too small for me, and I wouldn’t have fit them anyway. It was funny; I seemed to be seeing quite a few young children wearing socks lately. He turned around and saw me standing in his room.

  “Hey, Franny,” he said, and turned back to colouring. He had this small little voice. “Did my parents go?”

  “Yep, they just went out.”

  “Are you making me dinner?”

  I almost always made him dinner on Saturday night. Occasionally, I’d come over for babysitting, all mentally prepared to make him dinner, only to find that he was extra hungry that day and so already ate dinner a bit early. I normally don’t mind when that happens though, because then I can just relax a bit more without worrying about cooking. I’m not as familiar with the oven and pots and things at their house, so sometimes I have to focus to not burn anything.

  “Yeah, of course,” I said. “What do you want me to make you?”

  “Boiled eggs and soldiers.” He turned around and sat up now. I think he was quite excited for boiled eggs and soldiers. It’s this dinner that I’m particularly talented at making. It’s one of my specialties. It’s just a couple of boiled eggs and toast, but you cut the toast into strips, and sit them side by side, sort of like soldiers. I guess that’s why it’s called that. Then you put the boiled egg in an egg cup and cut the top off. That way you can dip the soldiers into the egg yolk and eat it right like that. The secret is to not cut the soldiers too thin, otherwise they have no strength, and will get soggy and fall over when you try to dip it into the egg. But if you cut it too thick, they won’t even fit into the egg at all. That’s the worst. But I haven’t made that mistake in a long time now.

  “Would you like it now?” I said. Debbie had told me he was quite hungry already.

  “Yes, please.” He was so nice and polite. He put his colouring book down and headed for the kitchen. When he walked past me, he grabbed my hand to hold it and started leading me there. I thought that was so nice. It’s nice when little kids hold your hand. They have such little fingers, too. He walked very funny, with his stomach sticking out. He wasn’t fat or anything, his stomach just kind of poked out all the time, like little kids’ tummies do sometimes. I thought it was very cute.

  We went to the kitchen and I started to make him some boiled eggs and soldiers. Their house was quite nice, and they had this big fridge. Their fridge was always the most full fridge I had ever seen in my life. It was one of those big ones, with two doors that open up on each side. It had about eight different shelves, with even more shelves on the doors. And all of them were completely full of food. There were lots of different types of containers with all sorts of stuff them. I couldn’t even begin to see all of the food there. Sometimes it was a little bit gross in there, though. They might have food that was mouldy or rotten just sitting in containers next to the fresh food. And often, there were spills of liquids on the shelves or just random bits of food left there. Sometimes I didn’t really like going into their fridge, because I was scared of what I might find. I didn’t know why they didn’t just clean it. But I guess if your fridge is that big, it probably takes a very long time to clean. Maybe they just didn’t have enough time. I wasn’t sure, but I never asked them about it.

  I found some eggs. I always thought it was interesting, because at my house we never kept eggs in the fridge. We just kept them in the cupboard. But they always kept them cold in the fridge. When I first saw that, when I was first babysitting, it made me wonder if I’d been doing it wrong my whole life. So I went around asking all the people I knew if they kept their eggs in the fridge or cupboard. It made for quite an interesting discussion sometimes. About half of them did the fridge, and the other half did the cupboard. So I never found out which one was the right way.

  I made Charlie three eggs instead of two like I normally do, because he said he was very hungry. I cut up the toast perfectly and set the eggs in little egg holders. I gave it to him on the kitchen table, and he sat there and ate it all nice and quietly. He only ended up eating two of the eggs, though. I was just watching him while he ate and cleaning up the dishes a little bit. He asked me if I wanted to eat the last one, but I didn’t want to. I realised that I hadn’t eaten anything yet that day, but I wasn’t feeling hungry.

  Then when he was all done, he said, “Do you want to see my new animal book?”

  I told him I’d very much like to see his new animal book. I told him all about how I love animals quite a lot. We went back to his room and he showed me it. His parents bought him quite a lot of books and presents all the time. A few years ago, I came over to babysit, and his parents had just bought him this brand-new remote-control racing car. I thought it was very cool. We played with it together the whole night. We raced it all across the house and even outside. We set up all sorts of obstacle courses for it to go through, with toys and things that it had to try to avoid. We even set up this ramp, so it could jump over a bowl of water. We thought that would be an awesome trick. But at the last minute, when Charlie was about to jump it, I took it away. I thought his parents would probably be angry at me if I broke the car and spilled water everywhere. That car was quite hard to control, and I kept crashing it into the walls. Luckily, it was very strong, and it didn’t break at all. Charlie was very good at it, though. Even better than me, and he was only about five.

  Then the next week, I came over very excited to play with it again, but we didn’t even play with it at all. It was because his parents already bought him another new present, and Charlie was very excited to play with that new one instead. It was some other stupid thing, I can’t remember what. But I was so sad that Charlie had already forgotten about the remote-control car and that it was just packed away under his bed. I think if my parents had bought me that car, I would have played with it for about fifty years.

  His new animal book was filled with all sorts of animal facts. They had facts about elephants and fish and all sorts of other interesting creatures. When we turned to the page about cats, I told him I knew a very interesting fact about cats that even the book didn’t know about. And so I told him. “Did you know that cats have very bad close up eye sight? They can see things far away very good, but if it’s right up close, right by their face, they can ha
rdly see it at all.” I knew that very interesting fact from a different book about cats that I have in my room. He didn’t seem too interested though; he was just looking at all the pictures of the animals. Then we got to the back of the book, and it had this quiz section. It had a whole lot of quiz questions from all the information in the book. It was supposed to test you, to make sure you even read the book, and didn’t just look at the pictures like a lot of people do.

  I wanted to be the quiz master. I like doing that sort of thing and asking people all the questions. And only I can see the answers. It makes me feel very intelligent. Sometimes I think that maybe I could be very intelligent in general knowledge, if I wanted to. If I felt like it, I could start reading lots of books about geography and history and all sorts of other interesting topics. I could sit in my room for maybe three years and just read every book possible. I could even make it so I would never have to leave the house while I was studying all the knowledge of the human race. I could ask someone to go to the library for me to pick up about twenty books on animal biology, and then I would stay up all night reading all of them. I would have lots of cups of coffee on my desk and just my reading lamp and a whole stack of books. Then the very next morning, I would ask the same person to go get me some new books on stars and planets and moons. Then they would say, “What about the books I got you yesterday?” And I would say that I already finished them, and they would be incredibly amazed that I could read and memorise all those books in only one night.