With Warm Regards, Franny

by Ben Chambers

  It was so strange, because the more I watched Ian, the more I almost started to think it was my dad. He looked kind of similar. He had the same kind of belly, sticking out a little bit through his dark green knitted sweater. And he had the same kind of hair as my dad, too. Dark brown and kind of a little bit bald on top. But not too bald. It reminded me so much of him, the way he was talking about the printing press. It was just like when I was a kid and my dad was still alive.

  He was telling the group all about how the printing press worked. I can’t really remember what he said though. I’m not sure when, but I had started crying while he was talking. I wasn’t sobbing loudly or anything; there seemed to just be a lot of tears coming out of my eyes. I was just standing there silently crying a lot, but nobody even saw me. It’s probably because I was standing at the back of all the people. I kind of started thinking about my own life. I didn’t understand why I had to be so horrible to people all the time. Like not talking to my mum or sleeping in instead of answering my dad’s calls.

  The group all started walking away. I guess they got bored of the printing press. Ian saw everyone leaving, so he started going around the back of the machine again to shut it all down. I don’t think he noticed me, because I was behind the crowd of people that were leaving. It suddenly became very quiet, once all the people had left and he shut down the machine. He came around the front again and saw me standing there. I think maybe I scared him a little bit with all my crying, because he looked a bit worried when he saw me there.

  “Are you all right?” he said.

  But I was crying so much and all I said was, “I’m a good person, aren’t I?”

  Chapter Nineteen

  It was quite weird after that. I just stood around crying for quite a long time, and Ian didn’t really know what to do. I didn’t know what to do either. He tried to be nice and ask me if there was someone he could call to come and collect me, but I walked off eventually. I went outside to sit by myself for a while. After I stopped crying, I felt a little better.

  I figured it was probably time for me to go home. I probably needed to go see my mother. But I didn’t have any more money for the bus, and my house was quite far away. I thought about getting upset about it, but I realised I was pretty sick of buses anyway. It was very far to walk for me, but I decided I would just take it nice and slow. If I got tired, I would just stop and rest on the side of the road for a bit. I wasn’t in too much of a rush. I stated walking, but then almost right away, I felt like resting. I was quite exhausted.

  It was only about four o’clock, so I figured I had some time to spare. I was on a very nice and quiet street. It had all these pretty looking houses all along it. Lots of them had those white picket fences that you see all the time in movies. There was a line of trees going down each side of the street and some nice grass around them. I found this patch of grass that looked quite comfortable and lay down. I figured I could rest a bit there. I didn’t even mean to fall asleep. I just put my bag down to rest my head on, since I was worried I might get grass and stuff in my hair if I lay down right on the ground. But then very quickly, I must have fallen asleep, because I woke up quite suddenly, with a big fright. It was like what happens when I sometimes have a nightmare, although I couldn’t remember having one. I didn’t remember dreaming at all. But it was quite scary when I woke up, because it was dark all of a sudden. It had been quite sunny when I went to sleep, but it was night then. My side was kind of damp where I had been lying down. I guess the grass must have been a little bit wet. I didn’t notice it before. But it was dark, and I couldn’t hear any sounds around anywhere. Since I didn’t have any choice, I gathered up my bag and started walking towards my parents’ house.

  I wished I hadn’t had a nap then. It wasn’t so bad when I had to walk all that way in the daytime. But at night like that, it wasn’t so appealing. I was a little bit worried I might get murdered. I sometimes get scared like that when I’m alone in the dark. But I kept on walking anyway. I didn’t know what else I could do. Most of the time, I didn’t even see anyone. It was Sunday night, so I guess most people were inside with their families. Me and my parents used to sometimes have a nice Sunday night family dinner, but not too often. Mostly we would just watch TV or something.

  I sort of started wondering what would happen if I just walked into one of those houses. If I just picked a house at random and walked up to the front door and opened it. It might be locked, but maybe it wouldn’t be. And if I just walked straight inside and sat down at the dinner table with another family. I wondered if they would be very angry and yell at me to get out. Or if they would just be very curious or maybe even be worried about me. Maybe they would think I was just a poor little girl who needed some help. And then if I asked them, “Could you please pass the turkey?” if maybe they would just pass it to me. And then maybe they’d even give me a bowl of gravy too and some boiled beans with butter on them. And then they’d just tell me they were glad that I came in and that they would look after me from then on and make sure everything was okay. I wondered about that for a while.

  Then on the other side of the street, I saw this lady walking her dog. It was quite a small dog, but the excellent thing was that it had on this little jacket. It was a little jacket made especially for dogs, and it fit perfectly. It was a little bit windy outside, so I thought that the dog probably liked that jacket very much. It gave it some protection from the cold wind. That made me feel very happy. I thought it was so great to see a little dog wearing a little jacket like that. I especially love when you drive through the countryside, and you see big horses wearing big jackets. Even bigger than I wear. So that the horses are protected from the rain with their waterproof jackets. That’s my favourite.

  It took quite a long time to get to my house. Maybe two hours, I wasn’t too sure. I didn’t need to stop for any more rests though, since I had such a long nap before, which was good. I knew straight away it was my house when I got there, because I had all the colours of our house memorised. It was all white, except for the door and window frames. The door frame was red, and the window frames were green. It kind of reminded me of a Christmas house or something. I really liked the colours. Even though it was dark, and I couldn’t even see the colours just then. It all just looked like greys and dark greys. But I knew what they were.

  I was just about to go up to the door and knock, when suddenly, I didn’t feel like it any more. I just didn’t even feel like visiting my mother any more. I’m not sure why. What I really felt like doing instead was visiting our dog, Casey. We have this beautiful Labrador named Casey. She always sleeps in the dog house around the side of our house.

  I didn’t want to be detected by my mother, so I had to be very sneaky. I sort of crouched down, like you’re meant to do when you want to be stealthy and not be seen by anyone. I sneaked around the side of our house and towards Casey’s dog house. I could already see her curled up into a ball in there. It was nice to see her. I felt quite happy as soon as I saw her fluffy fur. She was curled up with her butt facing me, which I thought was quite funny. When I got close enough, I reached out to give her a pat on the butt. But when I touched her, she jumped a million miles into the air. She was absolutely terrified when I did that. I must have given her a huge fright. She went all crazy for a split second and spun around and then calmed down straight away when she recognised me. Then she started getting very excited and trying to jump all around in her little house and lick me all over. She was actually starting to make a lot of noise, thumping all around on the wooden floor.

  “Shh,” I whispered. “Keep quiet; you’ll get me in trouble.” I didn’t want anyone to hear her making all that racket. She didn’t really listen to me though; she was too excited to see me. Sometimes she doesn’t listen to me at all when she’s very excited. She’ll just do whatever she wants. But she was licking me all over and sort of spinning around inside her little dog house. I was still crouching outside the door, reaching in and giving her a lot of p
ats and tummy rubs. “Good girl,” I kept saying. It was so nice to see her. I hadn’t seen her in about a month. “Move your butt. I’m coming in.” I tried to get her to move over to one side. She just kept licking my hand though, so I just started climbing in. I used to climb in that little house with her all the time when I was a kid, but I hadn’t done it in ages. It was quite cramped now that I was bigger. Casey must have been very confused when I was getting in, because she kind of started backing into the corner and looked like she had no idea what the heck was going on. It was really funny. She had such a silly look on her face. But then when I got all the way in, she started trying to climb all over me. She actually did climb on top of me too, and sort of squished me down on to the floor and started licking my face. I was all cramped in there, with my legs folded up, but it was quite nice. It was very warm and cosy with this big fury dog on top of me and snuggling up to me. I gave her lots of belly scratches then. I wasn’t really sure what I had planned to do that night. I don’t even think I’d thought about it. But I just ended up feeling quite sleepy in that little house with Casey. It was very cramped, which wasn’t too comfortable, but it was still very nice in there with her. I ended up lying with my whole legs out the entrance, and my top half in the dog house. And Casey was lying sort of next to me and sort of on top of me. Overall, it was pretty good.

  I was starting to fall asleep when I saw this thing crawling around up above me. It was a big spider. If I hadn’t been so sleepy, I probably would have been very frightened. I don’t like spiders. But I felt quite safe with Casey around me. She’d probably just eat the spider if it came near me. Dogs don’t seem to care about spiders too much. But then I thought about her sleeping out there every night, with all those cobwebs and things around her. And it being very dark and sometimes very cold. I thought it mustn’t be very nice. She might even get lonely, too. I know I certainly wouldn’t like to sleep out there by myself every night, and so Casey probably wouldn’t like it very much either. It made me quite sad. I know dogs don’t care much about that kind of stuff, but it made me quite sad anyway. I decided that if I ever came back to stay at home, I would sneak Casey into bed with me every night. I think she’d like that a lot better. I thought about that stuff and then fell asleep.

  Chapter Twenty

  It was quite chilly when I woke up. It was still very early in the morning. The sky had that weird sort of pale blue colour like when the day is only just starting. I couldn’t even hear any cars driving past, so it must have been quite early. Casey was still asleep, but when I gave her a pat on the head, I saw her eyebrows twitch. Dogs have funny eyebrows. She opened her eyes and looked at me. Then she closed them again and sort of rolled lazily onto her side, poking her belly out at me, like dogs do. She wanted some more tummy rubs. That’s all dogs ever seem to need to be happy. It’s quite nice.

  I realised that my back was feeling pretty sore, so I wriggled out of the dog house. I tried to stretch, but I was feeling quite stiff and couldn’t really stretch out properly. There was this dog leash hanging on a hook next to the dog house. The hook was screwed right into the wall of our house. I remembered the day I watched my dad put it in. It was a red leash. Casey’s collar was red, too. I picked them both out when we first got her.

  Normally, when I pick up the leash, Casey will know right away that she’s about to go for a walk. She even knows the sound of it coming off the hook. And she’ll go crazy. She’ll start sprinting and jumping all over the place, so excited to go for a walk. But I’d never taken her for a walk that early in the morning. And when I picked up the leash, I could see her ears pricked up, and she looked out at me, but she didn’t seem too enthusiastic. I can’t blame her though. I wouldn’t like to be woken up for a walk while I was sleeping. But I really felt like going for a walk, and I thought it would be quite nice to take her with me. I kept saying, “Come on, Casey,” a few times, and eventually, she started to get up. She seemed quite sleepy, but she was still pretty happy to go for a walk, I think. She slowly got up and out of the dog house, with her tail wagging. I attached the leash to her collar and led her out of the driveway.

  It was very nice and early in the morning. There wasn’t a single person or car moving anywhere around me. It was just nice and quiet, and I even started to hear a few birds. I was coming up to the part of the street that had the old retirement home on it. I used to think quite a lot about the old people that lived there. I used to think that, especially on rainy days, when everyone was alone in their room, it must be pretty awful to be old. It must be quite sad when all of your friends and parents and things are dead. I used to think a lot about those people in there, and it got me feeling pretty low sometimes. But then on sunny days, when I saw some of them walking around in the garden, looking at all the flowers, it didn’t seem too bad.

  Then suddenly, I saw this cat walking up the road. For just a split second, I thought it was Vincent. But it wasn’t. It was black, with a white chest and little white paws. But there was something very strange. I didn’t really understand for a moment until it got quite close to me. The thing that was strange was that Casey wasn’t trying to chase it. Casey hated cats. She would go crazy any time she saw one. She would bark and sprint after them. If I was holding on to her leash, she could even drag me down the street chasing after a cat. She was that strong. But she was just sitting there, staring at it, just like I was. I’ve never seen Casey be nice to any cat before, except Vincent, that is. Probably since her and Vincent had grown up together since they were only a puppy and a kitten. They used to get along pretty well. They weren’t best friends or anything, but they would never fight. And sometimes Vincent would even sleep in Casey’s dog house with her. It was very cute whenever I saw that. But Casey didn’t even bark at the cat or anything. She just watched it. The cat walked right up to me and started rubbing itself on my leg. It kind of rubbed against Casey, too. And all Casey did was bend over and sort of sniff the cat’s butt a little. It was quite funny. I gave the kitty a rub along its back. It was quite small, for a cat. I bent down and picked it up and kind of cradled it in one arm. It didn’t seem to mind at all. It seemed pretty happy to see me. Then I saw something I couldn’t believe. I just about couldn’t even believe it. I almost thought I might be dreaming. The cat had a little notch in its ear, just like Vincent used to! It was even in his left ear, just like Vincent! I couldn’t believe it. I was just staring at it, trying to figure it out. Me and Casey and that cat, all together on that quiet street. But I suddenly knew exactly what that cat was. I knew for sure. It was sent by my dad. Just like when he got Vincent for me. I just knew it. I was so happy all of a sudden. It was incredible. I almost thought I would start crying I was so happy. I knew then that everything was going to be okay. I was going to go back home and have a big chat with my mother. It would be nice to talk to her again. Then I’d go to university and finish my essay. I knew then that I could do it. I was feeling very happy. And lucky, too. I bent down and gave Casey a pat on the head.

  “Good dog,” I said.

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