First things first, I’m sorry if I offended you by offering to help your class. It’s just something I do. I mean, thinking up ways to help people is something I do. Well, actually, offending people is something I do too, but not on purpose. I can be a little pushy. My friend Lucinda says I go overboard with helpfulness. She’s getting tired of bake sales and clothing drives and collection cans, and also of sticking up for me every time I put my foot in my mouth. And I can’t blame her. Luckily, we’ve been friends since we were three. Well, anyway, I’m sorry. I won’t bring up the subject of a drive again.
As for Wentworth, my sister and brother and I go here because my father teaches one of the fourth-grade classes, so we get scholarships. Otherwise, my parents couldn’t afford the tuition. So don’t you go reading too much into my life, okay? (FYI, my mother is a part-time bookkeeper in Burton.)
All right. Let’s go to a different subject. I’ll tell you about our animals. We live way out in the country and we have two dogs and one cat, and my brother has a ferret named Harriet. (He thinks “ferret” and “Harriet” rhyme.) Also, we see tons of animals in our yard and in the woods. Here’s a partial list: coyotes, foxes (gray and red), raccoons, skunks, squirrels (black, gray, and red), mice, bats, deer, woodchucks, weasels, snakes, turtles, lots of different kinds of birds, and . . . bears. No kidding. We really do see bears. Needless to say, our cat doesn’t go outdoors, even though he would like to.
Okay, about Pat and Chris, I guess you’re going to keep giving me clues about them. That will be fun. Can I just ask one question, though? How come they live with you? (If that’s too nosy, you don’t have to answer. I tend to be nosy in addition to offensive and pushy.)
I have a fun idea. In your next letter, why don’t you tell me ten interesting things about yourself, okay?
Sincerely,
Allie
P.S. Let’s try to stop being aggravated with each other.
P.P.S. Mr. Jessop never looks at our letters. We seal them in envelopes before we give them to him. He said Ms. Dennis doesn’t look at your letters either. So we can quit worrying that they’ll see what we’ve written. They just want us to experience letter writing.
October 9
Dear Allie,
Okay, I guess I had that coming. About assumptions, I mean. So . . . I’m sorry. And, okay, let’s try not to be aggravated with each other. Maybe we should just start over.
Hi, my name is Jennifer. Here are ten things about me. I hope you think they’re interesting:
1. The best gadget my father ever invented was this light-up magnifying glass for old people to use when they can’t read the menu in a restaurant—and then it turned out that someone else had already invented it. That was right before we moved in with my grandparents.
2. My best subject in school is English and Ms. Dennis says I’m a very good writer. I like to write, and I know Ms. Dennis kind of hopes I’ll become a writer one day, but I haven’t thought that far ahead. I just know I want to go to college.
3. One of my cousins is pregnant. So now you know that at least one of them is a girl, but I’m not going to tell you which one. The baby is due next month—and our house is already pretty crowded. . . .
4. My mom died when I was four. She had a heart attack, which the doctors said was unlucky at her age. If you ask me, it’s unlucky at any age.
5. I do think you’re a little nosy, but I don’t mind. About my cousins—they don’t live with us, we live with them. I mean, when we moved in with my grandparents, they were already here. Nannie and Poppy have raised them since they were babies and were taken away from their parents. (Their mother is my father’s sister.) Nobody really talks about why they got taken away. I once heard my father say that they’re troubled.
6. I like to collect stuff and save stuff, which is not easy in a house like mine where there isn’t much space. There are three small bedrooms in my grandparents’ house. Nannie and Poppy have one, my sister and I have one, and my cousins share the third. Dad sleeps in the living room. After my cousin’s baby comes, she and the baby will get one room to themselves, and my other cousin will move in with my sister and me. So anyway, I have to collect things that are both small and free, like pictures of people with unfortunate hairdos.
7. I stole all my cousin’s money (the cousin who’s having the baby). This is because Brandon (that’s the baby’s father) has some weird power over her, and she doesn’t seem to have a mind of her own when he’s around. She’s been earning $$ to pay for the baby’s expenses, and she has a lot saved, but all Brandon has to do is ask for it—which I know he’ll do eventually—and she’ll fork it over in one second. Brandon is 22 and has a drinking problem, so I know exactly how he’ll spend a load of cash. I’ll give the $$ back to my cousin after the baby is born and she finds out how expensive diapers are.
8. I’m afraid of clowns and moths.
9. The farthest I’ve ever traveled is Cleveland.
10. I have a secret best friend. Her name is Starla. Sincerely, Jennifer
October 13
11:15 p.m., so obviously not written in class
Dear Jennifer,
Hey, wait a minute! How can you just end your letter by saying you have a secret best friend—with a name as interesting as Starla? You have to elaba ellab tell me more. That is all for now.
Your intrigued friend,
Allie
P.S. I just realized that both your cousins are girls, right? Because if they’re sharing a room, and if the one who isn’t having the baby is going to move in with you and your sister, then she must be a girl too. Now the only question is, which one is Pat and which one is Chris?
October 20
4:20 p.m.—not written in class either. You’re about to find out where I am.
Dear Allie,
That was pretty clever of you to figure out that my cousins are both girls. And since you’ve already figured out the main part, I’ll tell you that Pat is the one who’s going to have the baby, which by the way is a boy, and Chris, the one who makes fun of my handwriting, is the one who will be moving in with Ava and me. The three of us are going to be crowded, that’s for sure. Ava and Chris are each going to get one of the bunk beds, and I’ll be sleeping on a fold-up cot that we can put away during the day. In case you’re wondering, the reason Chris gets the bunk bed is because she and Pat lived here first. And she’s older. Dad tried to stick up for me when my grandparents made the decision about the bedrooms, but the truth is that no one wants to share a room with an infant, except for Pat, who has no choice. And I don’t really care whether I sleep on a cot or on the bottom bunk.
Ha! I knew that #10 on the list would get to you. And I guess I could be really mean and end my letter here, but I won’t do that. Here is the story of Starla. It starts with wishes:
I wish for a lot of things, like a room of my own, and some privacy, and that Dad would invent something really popular (and original), and that Chris wouldn’t make fun of me all the time. She torments me for getting good grades and for staying out of trouble (she’s jealous), and she calls me Pinocchio—not because I lie (that’s her specialty), but because of the size of my nose. Anyway, most of all, I wish I had a best friend. Well, I used to wish for that, and then I met this really cool girl and her name was Starla and that seemed like fate. Because of her name. Starla. And I was wishing. Get it? Wishing on a star(la)?
As you can imagine, the less time I have to spend at home with Chris, the better. So last summer, every day after I had finished with this baby-sitting job I had, I would go to the Coffee Cup, which is about four blocks away. It’s a coffeehouse where I like to hang out. Not that I drink coffee. I just like sitting at the little scarred tables, working on my poems in the dim light. Sometimes there are poetry readings at the Coffee Cup and those are really interesting and so are the poets’ outfits and hairdos. Anyway, I would settle down there every afternoon at about 4:00 and this waitress who had the most amazing haircut I’d ever seen would always ask me if
I wanted to order something, and I’d always say no, and she never minded. She’d just let me sit and write. Sometimes on her breaks she would sit down with me and ask how I was and what I was working on. Like she was really interested. And she always looked right into my eyes and listened very seriously to my answers. Eventually, Starla and I (Starla is the waitress, in case you couldn’t guess) started talking and it turned out that she’s only seventeen, but already she has dropped out of school and lives on her own and is supporting herself. Can you imagine? She didn’t like the way things were in her home, but unlike me, she did something about it. On the other hand, at her house it wasn’t just a matter of overcrowded bedrooms and jealous cousins.
Anyway, Starla and I are kindred spirits. I think she’s the only one in the world who understands me. And she wants to understand me. We’ve become really good friends. Starla lets me come over to her apartment when she isn’t working, and she styles my hair and shows me the books she’s reading to educate herself since “the traditional educational system has failed her.” She never criticizes anything about me, she always wants to hear about school, and she tells me to put Chris’s comments out of my head. She says they’re useless, that they’re hurting my psyche, and that they clutter up my mind. “Fill your mind with the things that matter,” she says. Also, she tells me I’m a strong young woman and that I can do anything I want in life. At Starla’s, I feel like the most important person in the world.
Wow. It’s getting late. I’d better go. I’m enclosing my school picture so you can see what I look like (even though it isn’t a very good picture—my nose looks bigger than usual, and my hair doesn’t usually have that strange swirl near my right ear). I’m also sending you one of my poems.
Your friend,
Jennifer
October 31, aka Halloween
Writing from the Coffee Cup again
Dear Allie,
I haven’t heard from you in a while. Is everything okay? I kind of hoped you would write back after I told you about Starla—and sent you my picture and poem. I hope I didn’t say something to offend you.
Did I?
—Jennifer
November 6
Dear Jennifer,
I’m really sorry I didn’t write back sooner. I love having your school picture and the poem. I’ve saved them with your letters. You don’t look a thing like I thought you would. You know how sometimes you create an image of someone based on the way that person sounds over the phone? Well, based on the way you sound on paper, I pictured you as having cool glasses and a very sophisticated hairstyle. I didn’t know what color your skin or hair or eyes would be, but I imagined a short haircut, maybe a little spiky on the top, and thick black intellectual glasses. Now I see that you don’t wear glasses—at least you’re not wearing them in the picture—and although your hair is incredibly sophisticated, it’s way different than I had pictured it. How long is it? Does it reach your waist? And, ahem, your nose is not big at all. It’s just a nice regular nose. I don’t know what Chris is talking about. Starla is right. Chris is probably hurting your psyche.
Your poem is amazing. Thank you for sending it. I don’t know anyone who writes poetry like yours.
Well, now I guess I should explain why I’ve been out of touch. There is a good reason, even though it doesn’t excuse me from writing. On October 15th my dad was fired from his job. Well, he wasn’t exactly fired, but his position was “eliminated,” along with about eight other positions at school, in order to cut costs. The principal, Mrs. Mason, plans to combine the two smaller fourth-grade classes into one big class, so out went Dad. Mrs. Mason said Missy and Justin and I can stay at Wentworth on our scholarships until the end of the semester, but starting in January Mom and Dad will have to pay full tuition. Of course, there’s no way they can afford that, especially since less than a week after Dad was fired, Mom was fired from her job. Her boss also said that her position had been “eliminated,” but I don’t think “eliminated” sounds any better than “fired,” do you? I am so mad—and also so sad. Everybody’s trying to save money these days, and how do they do it? By taking away people’s jobs. Missy and Justin and I will switch to public school in January. But you know what? I wish we could switch right now. At school, everyone knows that Dad got fired and they look at my brother and sister and me with this horrifying mix of pity and disgust—like Dad did something wrong and got caught, and now we’re paying for it.
I’m having trouble concentrating on my work.
So that’s my sad story. Sharing it with you makes me feel better, though.
I’m enclosing my school picture here so that you can see what I look like. I wonder how you’ve been picturing me. Oh, I’m also enclosing a photo of Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, our dogs. And before you say anything, I named them when I was six and didn’t know any better. They go by Snowy and Beauty.
Love,
Allie
November 8
Dear Jennifer,
I’m writing to you again—probably before you’ve even received my last letter—because I just realized that that letter was pretty much all about me, which was kind of rude. I didn’t mean to ignore what you told me about Starla and Chris and Pat and the baby.
I’m dying to know more about Starla and Pat, but I really want to know why Chris is mean to you. Why does she tease you all the time? I HATE when people are mean to each other. (I guess I’m thinking about myself—and about the kids at my school, who aren’t exactly being nice to Missy and Justin and me right now. Sorry this got turned back to me again.) Anyway, please supply details about Chris, and know that over here in Connecticut someone is on your side.
As for the baby, I’m torn between thinking how much fun a baby will be and imagining how difficult this is going to be for Pat and the rest of your family. I think babies are fun, don’t you? But they’re the most fun when they aren’t actually yours. I would like to have a baby for about three hours. That would be ideal. What is Pat going to do after the baby is born? Will she be able to stay in school? I hope you’re not somehow going to get stuck baby-sitting all the time. I’m feeling a little nervous since you wrotethat your summer job was baby-sitting. Do not, I repeat, do NOT let your family make you do that.
I just reread what I wrote and I hope I’m not being pushy again. But I’m worried that since you’re the youngest in your family, maybe the others think they can boss you around?????
Now as for Starla, she really does seem very cool. And even though she dropped out of school, it sounds like she’s a good influence on you. But I’m wondering . . . why is she your SECRET best friend????? And who are you keeping her a secret from?
I’d better sign off. Mom wants us to have a family conference in about five minutes. It was pitifully easy to arrange a family conference since Mom and Dad are both home all day now. And here is the lovely subject of the conference: How to stretch our remaining dollars as far as possible. Mom is probably going to make up one of the giant charts she’s famous for. I mean, famous in our family. By the end of the meeting it will be full of reminders such as: If you can use it again, don’t throw it out!!! (Mom’s reminders always end with multiple !’s.)
Please write when you can and fill me in on your life. I need to concentrate on someone else’s life in order to keep my mind off my own.
Love,
Allie
November 11
Dear Allie,
I got both of your letters—the second one just came today—and I was really happy to have them. However . . . I was SO sorry to hear about your parents and their jobs. I can’t believe it—any of it. I mean, it must have been hard enough when your dad’s job got “eliminated” (yeah—stupid term), but then to find out that you’ll have to go to a new school in the middle of the year, and on top of that, for your mom to lose her job too? Allie, I’m not even sure what to say, except that I’m here. That sounds really lame, but you know what I mean (I hope). I feel like your friend, even though we haven’t met. Ea
ch time I get one of your letters and see your thoughts and words in your own handwriting, it’s almost as good as a visit. I want you to know I think of you a lot, if that helps at all right now.
Okay, so I’m going to try to take your mind off things by answering your questions. Oh, wait! I almost forgot—your school picture! Thank you for sending it. I love your curly, curly hair. It makes me want to start a collection of photos of excellent hairdos. You are so lucky to have hair like that. Also, I can tell from your photo (as if I didn’t already know from your letters) that you are one of those people who are just truly NICE. You’ve said you think you’re pushy, and maybe you are a little, well, let’s just say assertive. And overly ambitious. But you do things from your heart.
Now back to your questions. Regarding my hair: it doesn’t reach my waist, but it does go about halfway down my back. Starla likes that because she says it has lots more styling possibilities than short hair. (Starla plans on attending cosmetology school.) Sometimes when I’ve been to Starla’s apartment after she’s finished her shift at the Coffee Cup and she’s done something new with my hair, I have to brush it out on my way home. Otherwise my father will get suspicious. (I’ve never confessed this to Starla.)
Which brings me to two more of your questions: Why is Starla a secret, and who’s she a secret from? The answer to the first question is: She’s a secret because Dad disapproves of her. He’s met her at the Coffee Cup a few times and he knows we’re friendly, but he thinks she’s wasting her life, and also that she’s a bad influence on me because of walking away from her family and dropping out and wanting to go to cosmetology school instead of regular college. And, all right, she has about a dozen piercings. Even I can’t look at some of them without cringing (on the inside). But I don’t understand why my father can’t accept the good things about Starla. For instance, it must take a lot of courage to leave a bad situation behind when you’re still only sixteen and find a way to support yourself and even plan on furthering your education, don’t you think? And considering how mean Chris is to me—not to mention that Pat is about to become an unwed teenage mother—Starla seems like a better influence than either of them.
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