Johnny’s grandma didn’t send him over to deliver tomatoes. She probably doesn’t even remember that I was at the trailer today. So why did Johnny come? Did he come to ask my dad about the open mike? Or did he come for another reason?
How am I possibly going to fall asleep tonight?
To:
Robert Wallop
From:
Ayanna Bayo
Received:
Thursday, Oct. 23, 7:00 A.M.
Subject:
To Frankie
Good morning, Frankie:
Your dad called late last night. He told me the story about Skip spying on you and how you admitted that you had been e-mailing me with questions about naked mole-rats. Even though you just said it was about naked mole-rats, I think that’s a good start. He also said that you’re doing a report on naked mole-rats. Is that true? If so, how fun. Let me know if you have any questions. I’d love to see the report when you’re done.
Yours truly,
Ayanna
To:
Ayanna Bayo
From:
Robert Wallop
Sent:
Thursday, Oct. 23, 7:15 A.M.
Subject:
Re: To Frankie
Dear Ms. Bayo:
Skip does all sorts of bad things and never gets into any trouble. I wish my dad would send him off to a military boarding school congested with rats in Texas.
I have so much to do today. Just thinking about it makes me want to explode. How am I supposed to go to school, come home, write a report (yes, it’s true), do all the rest of my homework, and make a koala costume for Nutter when there is so much on my mind? So much is happening to me that I don’t even feel like me.
Frankie
To:
Robert Wallop
From:
Ayanna Bayo
Received:
Thursday, Oct. 23, 7:33 A.M.
Subject:
Re: To Frankie
Dear Frankie:
What an honest e-mail. I can really hear your frustration. Is there someone at school with whom you can share your feelings and concerns? A teacher or a guidance counselor?
Yours truly,
Ayanna
To:
Ayanna Bayo
From:
Robert Wallop
Sent:
Thursday, Oct. 23, 7:35 A.M.
Subject:
Re: To Frankie
Dear Ms. Bayo:
Ha! You have no idea how funny that is. The teachers in junior high school are not like the teachers in elementary school. They are machines, not people. The guidance counselor’s name is Doris Trolly, and she has the hots for my dad. She’d love it if I spilled my guts to her. Believe it or not, she came over last night, which was like a surprise blind date for my dad that our nosy neighbor, Mrs. Holmes, set up. She wants to make us her famous lasagna. It probably tastes like the muck that’s under Dead Man’s Creek.
Disgustedly yours,
Frankie
P.S. Gotta go. If I’m late for school, I’ll probably be expelled.
Thursday, October 23, 12:20 P.M.
Dear Diary:
I’m in the nurse’s office again with another headache.
The nurse almost didn’t let me stay. “Another headache, Frankie?” she asked when I first walked in. “Maybe you should talk about these ‘headaches’ with Ms. Trolly instead of coming here.”
At the mention of The Troll’s name, I must have turned green, because the nurse let me lie down. Why does everyone in the world want me to talk about my problems with The Troll?
Today is the worst day of my life. Upon arrival at school, Beth grabbed me and pulled me into the girls’ bathroom.
The whole next scene seemed to happen in slow motion.
“Everybody knows!” she whispered, her face full of panic.
“Knows what?”
“Knows about you and Johnny Nye! Frankie, it’s not true, is it?”
Melinda and Denise walked in. “Hey, it’s Johnny Nye’s girlfriend,” Melinda said, and Denise giggled. “What did you do with him after school yesterday, Frankie?”
I stood in the bathroom, listening to her words bounce off the walls. How did everybody find out? The Troll told Dad that she had seen us. Did she spread the rumor? I could see myself in the mirror. I looked very calm on the outside; but I was experiencing a major interior earthquake. The techtonic (techtonik? tectonic?) plates of my soul were pulling apart. Everything was buckling and shifting and cracking up inside me. I put a hand on the sink to steady myself.
The door opened. Who next? I thought. The Troll rolled in. “Girls, the bell has rung. Get to class now.”
Beth ran out. Melinda and Denise followed.
“Oh, good morning, Francine,” The Troll said when she saw that it was me still standing at the sink.
If it had been anybody else, I would have dropped to the floor and curled up in a ball and refused to come out. But I couldn’t fall apart in front of The Troll; it would only give her more excuses to talk to Dad.
I grabbed my backpack and walked to class without looking at anybody. I could feel Beth’s eyes on me as I passed her desk, and I could sense Johnny slumped in the back.
I got out my book, feeling the eyes of everybody drilling into me. People were whispering and laughing. I opened my book and stared at the numbers.
During Mr. Peter’s lesson Jerry Parks tapped me on the shoulder. A moment later a note landed on my desk. “It’s from Johnny,” Jerry whispered.
I stared at the note. How could Johnny pass me a note? Didn’t he know that passing me a note would make it worse? I tried to cover it with my hand before anybody noticed.
“Frankie,” Mr. Peter’s voice boomed. “Bring that up here.”
If you get caught passing a note in Mr. Peter’s class, you have to read it out loud, which is why nobody passes notes in his class.
“I didn’t write it,” I protested.
“I don’t care. I saw it on your desk.”
He leaned against his desk and crossed his arms, waiting.
I opened it.
Dear Frankie:
I love you. I want to kiss you. Will you meet me after school in my trailer?
Your boyfriend,
Johnny
I couldn’t possibly read it out loud. Reading it out loud would mean instant death. I wanted to glare at Johnny, to burn a hole through his skull with my eyes; but if I did, everybody would know that the note was from him. I’ve never hated anybody so much in my life. How could he do this to me?
Mr. Peter took the note from me and read it silently, his battery-operated face turning into a surprised human face.
Please don’t say anything. Please don’t say anything.
He handed the note back to me and looked at Johnny. “Mr. Nye, you can spend the rest of the period talking to Ms. Trolly.”
The class went crazy.
Johnny exploded. “What did I do?”
Jerry Parks whispered something to Johnny, and Johnny shoved Jerry out of his desk. “That’s enough!” Mr. Peter shouted. “Get out, Johnny.”
Johnny stormed out of the room.
Jerry poked me and whispered, “Now your boyfriend is in trouble.”
All morning the teasing continued like a steady rain.
At lunch I tried to talk to Beth, but we ended up getting into a big fight.
“Frankie, I heard you went to his trailer after school yesterday and kissed him,” she whispered.
“That isn’t true! I did go to his trailer. But we didn’t do anything. He was teaching me something on the computer.”
“You lied to me, Frankie. You told me you were going to Heartstrings, and you hung out with Johnny Nye? I wouldn’t go to Johnny Nye’s trailer if you paid me.”
“You don’t understand, Beth.”
“No,
you don’t understand, Frankie. Your whole reputation is going down the drain. You ditched school. You forged a note. You lied to me. If you hang out with Johnny Nye, nobody is going to want to hang out with you. I’m telling you this because you’re my friend.”
“Some friend,” I said.
She looked like she was going to cry. I should have said something, but she picked up her tray and walked away.
I didn’t know what to do. I pretended that I didn’t mind sitting all by myself in the cafeteria. I pretended that I really wanted to eat my apple. And then I threw away my lunch and walked to the nurse’s office.
The nurse has just gone to the teachers’ lounge to heat up her lunch, which is why I’m able to write.
12:40 P.M.
As Ms. Young always used to say, wonders never cease. A minute ago the back door to the nurse’s office opened, the one that opens into the dead-end hallway by the art room, and Johnny slipped in.
I almost threw my notebook at him. “Leave me alone,” I whispered. “I hate you. If you ever write me another note, I’ll—”
He was looking at me, his eyes burning up whatever I was going to say. Then he gave me something and slipped out the door.
It all happened in a few seconds, and I was staring at a note that had landed in my hands like a wild bird.
Dear Frankie:
I didn’t write that note. Jerry wrote it and signed my name. I’d never do anything to get you into trouble.
Trolly told me to stay away from you. She said that kids like me are poison. She’s probably right. I’m not like the guys who are in the school plays and on student council.
I’m sorry this is happening. You probably hate me and don’t want to see me again. I won’t talk to you, if that’s what you want. I’ll pretend that I hate you, if you want me to.
But yesterday was the best day of my life. If I were Mr. Haxer, I’d give every part in every play to you. If I were Mr. Peter, I’d never give you any homework. If I were a farmer, I’d give away ten thousand tons of tomatoes just to see you smile.
Johnny
To:
Ayanna Bayo
From:
Robert Wallop
Sent:
Thursday, Oct. 23, 3:46 P.M.
Subject:
Stuff
Dear Ayanna:
You’re right. Letters should be private. And I think it’s wrong for somebody to write a fake letter and sign someone else’s name to it.
There’s a boy at school named Johnny Nye who likes me. Somebody wrote a nasty letter to me and signed his name. For a while I believed it.
Everybody thinks he’s a no-good troublemaker, but they don’t see the real Johnny Nye. He wrote me a real letter today. I’ve never received anything like it before. It was like a poem. I imagined what it would feel like if somebody at school got hold of it and read it, and the thought of that makes me sick.
Johnny showed me how to hack into my dad’s business e-mail so that I could read your messages. (It was my idea, not his.) I was going to do it after school today, but now I’m not. It just doesn’t seem right.
I don’t know what to do about Johnny. He says that he’ll pretend to hate me, if that’s what I want, to keep people from talking. That would be the easiest. Things could go back to normal. But there are two problems: The first is that I don’t know what normal is for me anymore. The second is that I don’t hate him. Johnny is about the only person I know right now who seems real. All the other kids at school are like robots; they behave a certain way because they’re supposed to. They make automatic decisions about other people without even bothering to get to know them. They tease other people without even bothering to wonder how it feels.
Sadly yours,
Frankie
To:
Robert Wallop
From:
Ayanna Bayo
Received:
Thursday, Oct. 23, 4:10 P.M.
Subject:
Re: Stuff
Dear Frankie:
I’m glad I checked my e-mail. Sounds like you had a very rough day. School can be a difficult place, and kids can be cruel to each other. There’s an old African proverb: Before you poke a baby bird with a pointed stick, you should try it on yourself first to feel how it hurts. The world would be a better place if everybody remembered that.
You said it would be easier if you and Johnny pretended to hate each other. I’m not so sure about that. Lies are hard to keep up. They have a way of backfiring, or of eating you from the inside out.
Be true to your heart, Frankie. In the long run, it’s much easier.
Love,
Ayanna
P.S. I’m glad that you realized the importance of privacy, although it sounds like you learned the lesson the hard way. If you have any questions about my relationship with your dad, you should ask your dad directly. The two of you really need to talk about all this. Have I said that enough?
To:
Ayanna Bayo
From:
Robert Wallop
Sent:
Thursday, Oct. 23, 4:15 P.M.
Subject:
Re: Stuff
Dear Ayanna:
It sounds easy to be true to your heart, but you don’t live in Pepper Blossom. Sometimes I hate this place. Everybody sticks their noses into everybody’s business. There’s no room to just be. I feel like I’m stuck in a tunnel, and I can’t get out.
—F.
To:
Robert Wallop
From:
Ayanna Bayo
Received:
Thursday, Oct. 23, 4:17 P.M.
Subject:
Re: Stuff
Dear Frankie:
What you said about being stuck in a tunnel reminds me of something. Once when I was doing research on naked mole-rats in graduate school, I saw the queen of a colony pick on one mole-rat and shove her around a lot more than the others. I never figured out why the queen singled her out. After being repeatedly shoved and pushed by the queen, this female began to withdraw from the colony’s activity. Then, a few other mole-rats in the colony began to follow the queen’s example and treat the mole-rat roughly. Pretty soon all the mole-rats in the colony were “going along with the crowd” and persecuting her. After a while, the poor female sat by herself in the toilet chamber. She stopped eating and didn’t go back to the nest to sleep. Eventually, she died. It was the saddest thing. I wanted that little naked mole-rat to stand up for herself, or to dig a new tunnel and establish a new home. But it doesn’t work that way among mole-rats. Naked mole-rats can’t exist by themselves.
—A.
To:
Ayanna Bayo
From:
Robert Wallop
Sent:
Thursday, Oct. 23, 4:19 P.M.
Subject:
Re: Stuff
Dear Ayanna:
The kids at my school are naked mole-rats. They were bad enough when it was just a rumor about Johnny and me. I can’t imagine how they’d act if we started openly hanging out together.
I can’t possibly go to school tomorrow or next week.
I wish I could catch a disease so that I could spend a month in a hospital, watch TV all day, and have my food brought to me on trays. I wish I had a little gardener’s cottage like Helen Keller that I could fix up and live in all by myself.
I’m not going to the Fall Festival next weekend, either.
—F.
To:
Robert Wallop
From:
Ayanna Bayo
Received:
Thursday, Oct. 23, 4:23 P.M.
Subject:
Re: Stuff
Dear Frankie:
I don’t know much about the Fall Festival, but your father made it sound like a big deal. Are you sure you want to miss it
? Tell me what it’s like.
—A.
To:
Ayanna Bayo
From:
Robert Wallop
Sent:
Thursday, Oct. 23, 4:25 P.M.
Subject:
Re: Stuff
Dear A.:
I don’t want to miss the Fall Festival. It’s sort of like the town’s reason for being alive. The whole town comes together (along with some tourists) for a whole day full of traditions that we have to do exactly the same way every year because that’s the way it is.
Before the sun rises, about one hundred people from Pepper Blossom meet in Maple County State Park at the top of Chestnut Hill for what’s called the Sunrise Hum. My grandma Jenny always drives down from Michigan.
We all stand facing east in a huge huddle because it’s always cold before the sun rises. All the trees around us are dark and sleepy. Then a sliver of gold begins to glow on the horizon, and that’s when somebody starts the Hum. It’s sort of a low “um” sound. Dad says it’s like what the monks in Tibet do. Pretty soon everybody joins in, and the Hum gets louder and louder and higher and higher as more of the sun peeks out. And when the whole sun is visible in the sky, the Hum turns into what is called the Humdinger, which is like a big cheer. After that, we huddle around the grills and make pancakes and hot chocolate.