“Why should I talk when all you do is yell at me?”
“What’s this about e-mailing the woman from the zoo?”
“Nothing. I had some questions about her stupid naked mole-rats. That’s all. She sent her e-mail address with that book and said if I had any questions, I should e-mail her. Is that a crime?”
He was silent. With any luck, he’d believe me.
Nutter’s voice came through. “Is that naked rat lady coming here?”
“Nutter, I’m talking to Frankie now. Okay? Frankie, will you please open the door? This is ridiculous.”
Nutter wailed. “Nobody cares about me.”
I could hear in Dad’s voice that he was struggling to be patient. “That’s not true. Blow your nose, Nutter.”
There were some sounds of rustling and mumbling outside my door. I looked around my room. The tissue box full of The Miracle Worker pages was gone.
I pressed my ear against the door and heard the unmistakable sound of dead pages being pulled from a box. “Frankie.” Dad’s voice collapsed. “What in the world . . . Oh Frankie, how could you destroy a book like this?”
From the bottom of the stairs, Skip yelled, “She did it last night.”
I slammed my hand against the door. “Would you stop spying on me!”
Through the door I heard Dad send Skip and Nutter to their room.
I paced. The best thing to do would be to confess to the murder of the book and apologize. But I find it very hard to admit that I’m wrong. There’s something about Dad’s voice. When he’s disappointed or angry, his voice comes at me like warm mud and clogs up my brain.
“Frankie, I think I know the reason you don’t want to be in the play,” he went on. “Skip said that you practiced very hard for the leading role, and my guess is that you are disappointed that you didn’t get the part. I understand your disappointment, but I still think it would be good experience for you to be in the play. In elementary school you were a big fish in a little pond, Frankie. Now that you’re in junior high school, you’re a small fish in a big pond. Sometimes you have to settle for a small role. According to Ms. Young, you should feel lucky to get in at all. And getting a small part certainly doesn’t justify destroying a library book. Tomorrow I expect you to go to the library and pay for the book with your own money.”
“Fine! But you can’t make me be in the play.”
“Okay,” he said. “One last thing. I was thinking that maybe I’ve been putting too much pressure on you, expecting too much from you. I’m going to ask Mrs. Whitehead to come over after school for the next few weeks and help, just until my work eases.”
I groaned. “We don’t want anybody else in the house.”
“I think we need help. I think—”
I opened the door. “We don’t need help! I’m not doing the play anyway.”
Nutter came running down the hall and threw himself at Dad. “I’m sorry I ate the cake. Frankie shouldn’t get into trouble for that. She takes good care of me. Don’t ask Mrs. Whitehead. She has hairs coming out of her nose.”
Dad cracked up.
Skip slithered into the hall. “It’s true. We hate Mrs. Whitehead.”
“All right.” Dad gave in. “I won’t ask Mrs. Whitehead to come, but you guys have to each promise something. Nutter, you have to promise not to eat cake before dinner. . . .”
Nutter saluted like a soldier.
“Skip, you have to mind your own business. It’s okay to play at being a spy, but you shouldn’t really spy on people.”
Skip nodded, like that was going to stop him.
Dad turned to me.
“I know. I know,” I said. “I have to pay for the library book.”
“And . . .”
“And watch Nutter more closely after school.”
“And help me with my koala costume!” Nutter exclaimed.
Dad ruffled Nutter’s hair.
The phone rang, and Dad went to get it.
I grabbed Skip by his skinny little arm. “You dirty rotten pig. Spy on me e-mailing again, and I’ll tell everybody in your class that you wet your bed.”
“It’s not true. I don’t wet my bed.”
I let go and crossed my arms. “I’m a very good actress, Skip. Even your friends will believe me.”
That got him.
But I wasn’t done. I needed more info. “How much of my e-mails to Ratlady did you read?” I asked.
“Nothing. I just saw her name. You deleted them faster than I could read them. Why are you writing to her anyway? Why is this such a big deal?”
“She’s an enemy, Skip. She’s trying to get her claws into Dad. You have to know who your enemies are.” I slammed my door.
A minute later Dad knocked. “Hey, Frankie. Why is this door closed again? You can’t stay angry.”
“It’s not because I’m angry,” I lied. “I have a report to do. I work better in privacy.”
“Well, come out anyway. It’s Beth on the phone. She says she really wants to talk to you.”
“I’m not in the mood for Beth,” I said.
The last two things aren’t lies. I’m not in the mood to talk to Beth, and I do have a report to do.
So am I writing my report? No, I am writing the saga of this evening. Although I’m feeling somewhat better now, I’m still mad at Skip. Perhaps I should sell him on eBay. I’m certainly never talking to him again. Now that Dad knows that I e-mailed Ratlady, he might find out what I’ve been e-mailing her about, and it will be all Skip’s fault.
I’m starved, but I’m not coming out of this room . . . at least not until Dad is working on his stupid dulcimer in the basement. Then I’m going to sneak out and go on-line. I have one absolutely last lie, which will absolutely convince Ratlady. Since Ratlady doesn’t listen to me, I am going to write her a message and say it’s from Dad. It’s a dramatic, drastic idea, but these are dramatic, drastic times.
To:
Ayanna Bayo
From:
Robert Wallop
Sent:
Tuesday, Oct. 21, 9:45 P.M.
Subject:
Confession
Dear Ayanna:
This is Robert. I have something to confess. I will be getting married soon. I should have told you this right away. But I’m taking some medicine that confuses my mind. I hope that you will understand. It would be best for me and my family if you would stop communicating with me. If I call or write, it is because I am confused. Please ignore me.
Thank you,
Robert
To:
Robert Wallop
From:
Ayanna Bayo
Received:
Tuesday, Oct. 21, 10:00 P.M.
Subject:
Re: Confession
Dear Frankie:
I can tell that you wrote the message. I am worried about you. Signing someone else’s name to a message is serious. Here’s what I think is happening: I think you feel threatened by the idea of your dad becoming romantically involved with me. You probably miss your mom a lot and worry about someone taking her place. This is understandable. It’s called being “territorial.”
Lots of animals are territorial for good reason: It helps them survive. Take naked mole-rats, for example. They live in very separate colonies, which are really big families. In the wild, if one mole-rat accidentally burrows into the tunnel system of another colony, the soldier mole-rats don’t bother getting acquainted with the new mole-rat. They attack immediately. This behavior is ingrained in them. Biologists call it a survival instinct. The idea is that in order to survive, a colony must defend its territory (that means its food supply) from others—even other mole-rats.
You’re thinking of clever ways to try to dissuade me from having any further communication with your father. What you need to do is talk to him about all of this. Please, turn off the computer and tell your father how you feel.
Honestly and hop
efully yours,
Ayanna
To:
Ayanna Bayo
From:
Robert Wallop
Sent:
Tuesday, Oct. 21, 10:05 P.M.
Subject:
FYI
Dear Ms. Bayo:
I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t “sign” my dad’s name to an e-mail message. I have been in my room writing in my diary.
I’ll tell you one thing, though. It makes a lot of sense to me that one colony of naked mole-rats wouldn’t want a rat from another colony barging in.
Frankie
To:
Robert Wallop
From:
Ayanna Bayo
Received:
Tuesday, Oct. 21, 10:08 P.M.
Subject:
Re: FYI
Dear Frankie:
It does make a lot of sense for mole-rats to defend their colonies: An outsider threatens the food supply.
What about human relationships? New relationships do threaten to change old dynamics. But if we close ourselves to the possibility of new friendships, how do we ever grow?
I met your father because he came barging into the small mammal house to get out of the rain and accidentally bumped into me. If I immediately became angry and hostile toward him, then I wouldn’t have gotten to know him. And that would have been a loss.
I have enjoyed getting to know him, hearing him talk about you and your brothers, and learning about dulcimers. A little over a week ago, I didn’t know that the Wallop family or Pepper Blossom existed; now, I can picture you all in my mind. I didn’t realize, until your dad barged in, just how boring my tunnel system had become.
Accidentally yours,
Ayanna
To:
Ayanna Bayo
From:
Robert Wallop
Sent:
Tuesday, Oct. 21, 10:10 P.M.
Subject:
Re: FYI
Ms. Bayo:
I’m sorry for your boring life. My life is never boring. But if I were you, I wouldn’t go falling in love with strangers. You never know about strangers. They might look nice on the outside and be nasty on the inside.
—F.
To:
Robert Wallop
From:
Ayanna Bayo
Received:
Tuesday, Oct. 21, 10:13 P.M.
Subject:
Re: FYI
F.:
You are absolutely right. It’s wise to be cautious.
—A.
P.S. I know that I promised not to tell your dad about our correspondence, but I’m not sure if I should keep that promise now. Your dad needs to know how you’re feeling. I won’t tell him, but only if you agree to talk to him.
To:
Ayanna Bayo
From:
Robert Wallop
Sent:
Tuesday, Oct. 21, 10:15 P.M.
Subject:
Re: FYI
Fine.
Still Tuesday, 10:20 P.M.
Ratlady wants me to open up to Dad. How can I open up to someone who is keeping secrets from me?
I keep thinking about that letter that Dad wrote to her. Your e-mails to Heartstrings haven’t been distracting me from my work; they’ve been inspiring me. What have they been writing to each other?
She agreed with me that it’s wise to be cautious, but how far has her “friendship” with Dad gone?
I wish there would be a naked mole-rat emergency at her zoo that would take up all her attention. A hole in the plastic tunnel! Naked mole-rats escaping! If I lived in Washington, D.C., I’d sneak over to the zoo and create a diversion.
I’d like to talk to someone about all this, but who? I can’t talk to Beth. She doesn’t get it. I feel like I’m the last of my species alive on the face of the earth.
I’m crawling into bed. Good night.
Wednesday, October 22, 12:30 P.M.
Dear Diary,
I’m writing this in the girl’s bathroom. That’s the only place I can get a little privacy around here.
I can’t believe how this day is going so far. It all started with math. I forgot we were having a test.
I have never been unprepared for a test in my life. Normally when I get a test, I know what to do and calmly do it. Today when Mr. Peter handed out the tests, I thought my eyeballs were going to explode. I stared at the first page, but I couldn’t make sense of it. Meanwhile everybody around me started scribbling right away. I felt the way Helen Keller must have felt when she could feel people’s lips moving but couldn’t understand what they were saying. I felt like I was drowning.
Beth was already done with the first three problems. If I slumped in my seat and leaned a little to my left and squinted, I could see her answers floating on the page like life preservers.
In my moment of need, I did what I had never done before—I cheated. Halfway through, Beth glanced back at me a few times, as if she could feel my eyes grabbing on to her work.
At the end of the period, I was exhausted. It’s very tiring to cheat. It takes a lot of concentration. Not only do you have to get the answers down right, but also you have to keep the guilt from melting your conscience into a puddle.
I fell asleep during science and woke up to the sound of Mrs. Keating yelling. I jumped up, sure she was yelling at me. But she was bawling out Johnny Nye for sneaking onto the Internet and playing a computer game when he was supposed to be doing research for the big report that’s due on Friday.
While Mrs. Keating yelled at him, his eyes took on this familiar faraway look. Johnny has developed this way of disappearing inside himself, leaving only a blank look in his eyes and a half-smile on his lips that drive teachers crazy. His face has this movie-star handsome quality, except that he doesn’t seem to be aware of it.
I don’t know why Pepper Blossom hasn’t shipped Johnny off to prison already. He gets into trouble every week. He got busted in kindergarten for stealing candy from Mae’s, had to repeat second grade because he ditched school so often, and got suspended in the fourth grade for setting off a cherry bomb in the boys’ bathroom. The thing about Johnny is that he knows a lot about some things—computers, for instance.
As Mrs. Keating yelled at him, it occurred to me that I was behaving just as badly. I wasn’t doing my report either, but Mrs. Keating didn’t suspect it. She assumed I was working because I’m Frankie Wallop. Straight-A student. So what was happening to me? Was I turning into a criminal?
Johnny must have felt me staring at him because he looked up and smiled. A thought crossed my mind, a bad thought, a criminal thought: I could ask Johnny Nye how to hack into Dad’s business e-mail so that I could read any messages to and from Ratlady. Of all people, Johnny Nye would know how to do it.
The thought—or maybe the way Johnny was smiling at me—made me blush. Quickly I glanced at Beth, who was busy sharpening a colored pencil. From the looks of it, she was already finished with the report and was adding colorful accents to the cover. Goody-Goody Girl in action.
Should I ask Johnny Nye for help after school? Would he give it? It wouldn’t be right to read Dad’s business e-mail. But I deserved to know what was happening, didn’t I?
During lunch, I decided to ask Goody-Goody Girl for a favor.
“Let me guess,” she said. “You want to copy my science report or cheat on another test?” She raised her eyebrows.
I gave her my old Frankie smile. “I wasn’t cheating, Beth. I was just checking to see if we had the same answers.”
She shrugged.
“Come on, Beth. I really need a favor.”
“Why should I do a favor for you? I’ve called you three times in the past four days, and you haven’t wanted to talk.”
How could I explain that I didn’t want to talk to her because s
he doesn’t understand what I’m going through? “I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “I’ve been really crabby lately.”
“No kidding.”
“This thing with my dad and that Ratlady is driving me nuts.”
She perked up at the topic. “Are they falling in love?”
I wanted to scream. The way she said it really bothered me. But I needed her help, so I said that I wanted to go to Heartstrings after school to talk to my dad about it without Skip and Nutter around. “Will you pick up Nutter and bring him to my house and baby-sit him just until I get home?” Beth can’t resist Nutter. She’s an only child.
“Well, stage crew isn’t meeting today, so I guess I could,” she said. “If you promise to tell me everything.”
I agreed. Lie number one hundred and three.
Maybe I’ll chicken out by the time school is over.
5:15 P.M.
Isn’t it strange that when you wake up in the morning you have no idea what will happen during the day? When I woke up this morning, I had no idea that the day would be a whirlwind of crime, unexpected encounters, and mind-blowing relevations (revealations? revelations?).
All afternoon I wondered if I’d have the guts to ask for Johnny’s help to read Dad’s business e-mail. At three o’clock I reminded Beth to pick up Nutter, and I left school, still wondering.
Johnny lives with his grandma in a trailer about a mile behind the town on Old School Road. He could ride the bus, but he always walks. I cut across the field, hoping no one would guess where I was going. Luckily Old School Road is pretty deserted. So once I got onto it, I was alone. Just as I came around the curve, I caught sight of him.