I Just Got a Letter from Allyson Pringle

by Anya Bateman

  “I see,” said Alvarez. “Just don’t start fanning a red cape around and shouting Olé.”

  We got a kick out of that. And because of those few feet of extra rope Alvarez willingly extended, I discovered one day toward the end of September that I wasn’t nearly as anonymous at Hollenda High as I’d thought.

  I was up at the chalkboard, playing a game we had nicknamed the Spanish Inquisition. I absentmindedly chewed on the chalk for a second or two as I concentrated. Quick as a cat, Alysse called out, “Kendall Archer, what are you doing? Get that chalk out of your mouth! My gosh, it looks like you’re smoking!”

  “Señor Alvarez,” she said then, turning in our teacher’s direction, “how do you say no smoking in Spanish? Kendall-Wendall—I mean Armando, here—is not allowed to be smoking!”

  “No fumar,” Alvarez responded with a patient smile.

  “And how do you say word to the wise in Spanish?” asked Alysse.

  Word to the wise? I tilted my head.

  When Alvarez hesitated, Alysse proclaimed: “It’s the Mormon health code!”

  Stunned by the comment, I pulled the chalk from my lips and didn’t close my mouth for several seconds.

  “Uh-oh, let’s not go there,” said Señor Alvarez, glancing at me with concern. Alvarez was no doubt wondering exactly where Allyson was heading with her comments; he looked like he might have been fearful that she’d said too much already. There was protocol regarding people’s beliefs. But what I didn’t notice on his face was surprise. Señor Alvarez was reacting as if he, like Alysse, already knew I was a Latter-day Saint. In fact, as I walked back to my seat, it struck me that not a single person in that classroom was acting as if my being a Mormon was any big news. Dennis Craig, for instance, quickly returned to the vocab cards he’d painstakingly made for himself. Dee Dee had chuckled, but now she had pulled out her lip gloss and was applying it nonchalantly. Carlin lifted one corner of his mouth as he stretched out his arm and expanded his fingers. I had the distinct feeling that Alysse hadn’t let any kind of cat out of any kind of bag with her proclamation. People in my Spanish class were acting as if they already knew.

  But how? I couldn’t figure it out. I’d never said much to anyone about my religion. I’m sorry to say that I wasn’t exactly your enthusiastic member missionary. I blamed it on basic shyness. Although it was true that I interacted pretty well now, it takes some extra metal in the spine to really get out there and take advantage of missionary opportunities. Oh, there were a few people I’d mentioned things to, here and there. When my biology lab partner the year before had told me she planned to smoke pot with her cousin during the Christmas break, I’d lectured her to the moon and back. But it wasn’t as if I’d quoted scriptures to her or something. Then, when I was asked to play my trombone at our ward’s Christmas party, I invited a couple of other orchestra members to participate with me, but they hadn’t even stayed for refreshments. I also remember saying something about family home evenings to a sophomore I had tutored a few times during my junior year.

  I’m guessing the guys I ate lunch with knew because we’d all had lunch together the year before as well, back when Arnold had the same lunch. But that was seriously about it. I wondered if this had anything to do with my brother and sisters. Yet Kip, Hollenda basketball hero though he was, hadn’t set foot in the school for years, and Lynette, though she was popular with people who knew her, wasn’t that well known throughout the school. Monica, who’d grown to be six feet by ninth grade, had kept her head down for the most part except when she was playing volleyball. Were Arnold and his sisters spreading the word?

  As Allyson watched me return to my seat, she studied my face, a slightly sheepish expression on her own. I could tell she was wondering if maybe she had stepped over some invisible line by mentioning the Word of Wisdom.

  I decided to keep her guessing. My face void of any expression, I opened my Spanish textbook and didn’t take my eyes from it. But then I faked a cough.

  Alysse’s head popped up like a bedspring and I could tell she was grinning in my direction. I coughed again. “I really do need to quit smoking the chalk,” I quipped, just loud enough for her to hear.

  “Ha!” Allyson whipped around to Lakeesha Campbell. “So did you hear that? Kendall here only likes to make people think he’s super serious, but you just heard that, right?”

  “Hey, all I did was cough,” I said with mock innocence. “Can’t a guy cough?”

  “Uh-huh, chalker’s cough,” she said with a wide grin. “I tell you,” Alysse continued to Lakeesha, “you’ve gotta watch this guy.”

  Lakeesha chuckled uncertainly and Daphne Price leaned around to take a second look at me as well. Even Rhonda, two rows away, turned in our direction to see what was going on.

  “What’s Allyson talking about?” I said, my mouth twitching as I lowered my head and started working on the vocabulary questions.

  “See, there he goes again,” Alysse said.

  After Lakeesha lost interest and turned to see what James Domrose was up to, I smirked at Alysse ever so slightly. Alysse whipped around again. “Okay,” she said. “Did you see that look on his face? Shoot, you missed it again.” Then, noticing that Señor Alvarez had stood and was giving us the “You’re taking advantage of my good nature” look, Allyson called out, “Lo siento, Señor Alvarez,” and lifted her fingers in a V.

  Señor Alvarez shook his head and sighed good-naturedly. “Tranquilo.”

  But Alysse, obviously intrigued, kept darting glances at me throughout the class period, an amused expression on her face. By conversation time, she had apparently figured out I had a question. “¿Qué pasa?” she asked. “You’ve got an eyebrow thing going on.”

  “Nada. . . .” I laughed, “except maybe . . .”

  “What?”

  I went ahead and said it. “I guess I was just wondering how you knew what church I belonged to and why nobody else in the class seemed surprised either.”

  “Uh-oh, was it supposed to be a secret?”

  “Oh no.” Hardly, I thought. “It’s just that I didn’t think all that many people knew, that’s all.”

  “Hey, everybody knows when you’re different,” Alysse stated matter-of-factly. “It’s just the way it works. And you’ll have to admit that you’re definitely not your average, run-of the mill, foul-mouthed, flagrantly truant student.”

  “There are quite a few others who aren’t flagrantly . . . well, what you just said. You’re not, and nobody thinks you’re Mormon.”

  “That’s because I’m not Mormon.”

  “Okay, I’ll have to think about that one.”

  “You do that,” she grinned, tapping me on the hand with the feather end of her pen.

  “Isabela y Armando—Español, por favor,” Señor Alvarez reminded us.

  “Sí, Señor,” said Alysse, responding to her Spanish name. “¡Pronto!”

  “Sí, Señor,” I repeated, automatically complying or at least looking like I was. In truth I was still thinking about what Alysse had just said and having a hard time accepting it. Was I really all that different?

  I looked over at James Domrose, who was flexing the scorpion on his bicep, and then at another guy sitting on the next row, who’d stuffed something in his mouth that I was guessing wasn’t gum, his orange salamander earring dancing with each chew. Okay, maybe I was different. I’d just had no idea anybody had been noticing.

  Once again Alysse seemed to know what I was thinking. “There’s nothing wrong with your kind of different, believe me,” she said quietly as Alvarez hurried to the supply closet to get some vocab quizzes. “In fact, you remind me of my brother, Pete. No offense, but he’s a little over-the-top conservative, just like you. Like he’s forever warning me to tone down and be careful. Moi? Even now that he lives back east he’s calling me all the time to check up on me. Pete got accepted to Yale.” I heard a lilt of pride in her voice.

  I appreciated Allyson’s attempt to comfort me, but again, I sort o
f doubted her brother was LDS.

  Still curious, during lunch I asked Parry Lunder, who’d joined us at our table for the first time, if he knew what religion I was. Lunder and I had never had any classes together, and our Hollenda paths just hadn’t crossed, for some reason—not even once. I didn’t know anything about his religion or personal beliefs.

  “Sure,” Parry said, flipping open his sub sandwich and picking off the onions. “You’re Mormon.”

  Chapter Eight

  Things were crazy at our house. My sister Monica had called us from Utah a week or so into her semester at Utah Valley University to let us know that she and Rulon, her roommate’s brother, were in love and wanted to get married at the Christmas break.

  My mother had been whirring away on her old Singer in the computer/sewing room ever since, her face openly smiling one second, pinched the next. At the same time, Dad had been working overtime on the computer, trying to generate some additional sales to help pay for extra wedding expenses.

  Generally my parents close up shop after family prayer, but that night they were still working close to midnight. Mom wasn’t actually using the machine anymore, just cutting out or something, but I could hear her and Dad quietly discussing wedding plans, finances, and so forth. I don’t think they realized how sound carried down that hall; even though I heard only an occasional word clearly, the low drone kept me awake. Then again, maybe I stayed awake because I was worrying along with them about how as a family we were going to pull this wedding off on such short notice. I happened to know that we weren’t exactly wallowing in the extra funds.

  Anyway, I was so tired that next day in homeroom English (not to mention early morning seminary) that I wasn’t really paying attention to the announcements on the interschool channel. When I heard Allyson’s name, however, my eyes popped open. “What was that?” I asked the guy who sat next to me. “What’d they just say about Alysse?”

  “She’s in the finals for homecoming queen,” he replied, his upper lip curled up in amusement.

  “No lie?” I chuckled happily.

  I wasn’t the only one laughing. “Good for Alysse!” Fantasia Farnell crooned.

  “Yeah, good for The Pringle!” laughed the guy next to her.

  April McKuen, who’d been nominated for some princess or queen the year before, shook her blonde curls and said, “She is so not the type.” But then even she couldn’t help smiling.

  “I’d say it’s good she’s not the type,” Janette Osborne chipped in. “Only let’s just hope she doesn’t show up as a Viking again, like she did at the dance last year.”

  That got several more laughing.

  A few minutes later, while our teacher, Mrs. Cavanaugh, a reserve naval officer, was sharing with us in a booming voice the difference between metaphors and similes, I tried to come up with a clever way to congratulate Alysse. After class I thumbed through my Spanish dictionary, hoping I could find out how to say it in Spanish. I thought Alysse would get a kick out of that.

  “Felicidades,” I practiced under my breath a couple of times during second period and once or twice down the hall to third period Spanish.

  But I didn’t get it out of my mouth.

  “You!” Alysse boomed out the second I walked in the Spanish room door. She was pointing at me. “I need YOU in my homecoming skit!”

  Before I had a chance to respond or even react, Allyson lowered herself into her seat next to me. “Here’s the scoop. We’re doing a cowboy scene. You know, singing, dancing—you love that kind of stuff, right? A real showman.”

  That lifted a few heads.

  “Let’s just say that I sing and dance about as well as you cheer,” I responded.

  “Ha, he got you on that one, Alysse,” said Daphne, sticking a piece of gum into her wide and grinning mouth.

  “Then you must be an amazing singer and dancer!” Alysse said. “Because everybody knows what a phenomenal gymnast I am.” That made people around us snicker, even Dennis Craig, who let out kind of a wheezing sound. Carlin smiled but turned forward.

  Since Señor Alvarez was up front now and practically doing gymnastics himself trying to get our attention, I turned to face forward too, excited and, yeah, flattered that Alysse wanted to include me in her skit. But it was one thing to make a few cracks in a classroom setting and far and away another thing to sing and dance on a stage in front of the whole school. There was no way I felt ready for something like that.

  After class, I was glad to see Alysse busy recruiting some others among the more real showmen of the school, including Tallulah Barlow and Tyrone Brown. Tyrone immediately adopted a western stance, his thumbs in his pockets, his head cocked back. Parker Teal hurried over as well. It didn’t look like Alysse would be having any trouble rounding up “cowpokes”; she wouldn’t be needing me. But the girl I already considered a friend apparently didn’t agree. I was almost halfway down the hall when I heard my name. I knew the sound of her voice by then and felt some little frog kicks in my stomach at the sound of it.

  “Armando, I wasn’t kidding in there about you being in my skit,” she said when she caught up with me, a little out of breath. “Seriously, how about it?” Alysse raised and lowered her eyebrows a couple of times, but then added more quietly, leaning in my direction, “I mean, it’s not as if this is really going anywhere. I don’t know what nutcase nominated me, but everybody knows it’s just a big joke. Me, homecoming queen? It’s kind of like writing in Will Ferrell for U.S. president. Who would vote for a goof-off, huh?” She smiled impishly, a dimple appearing that I’d never noticed before. “Should we ask Mr. Thorndike if he thinks I should be homecoming queen?”

  “I think you’d make a really good homecoming queen,” I heard myself say.

  My statement seemed to catch her off guard. “Oh. Oh, well, thanks, Kendall-Wendall, that’s a pretty nice thing to say.” But almost immediately she reached over and started patting me on the back. “I owe ya big time fer that, cowpoke! Better yet, put yer lucre where yer yacker is and come to practice. And hey, bring any western gear you might have tonight to Molly’s. We’re meeting at seven-thirty. That should give you time to do some homework. Don’t stress over the gear, though. Tyron-eo says he’s got a bunch of stuff and so does Fallon-eo, as in John. I’m bringing a bunch as well.” And she grinned again as she backed away from me in the direction she’d come from. “You!” she said, pointing at me again. “I need YOU in my skit!”

  I lifted my hand to protest, but by that time she was already well down the hall. “No, seriously, I can’t do that,” I was saying to myself.

  Chapter Nine

  I still to this day don’t know how Allyson got me up on that stage. Okay, I guess I do know. Hokey as it sounds, she believed in me. Alysse honestly thought I was hilarious. And okay, what high school kid doesn’t dream of that breakaway moment when he’s up there getting applause or cheers or, even better, laughs. Alysse’s comment that she wasn’t homecoming queen material may also have sparked something in me.

  But now, as I moved with the rest of the cowpokes across the wooden floorboards, I was seriously questioning my judgment. Sure, I had done things in front of people before. In church, for instance, I said the prayer on the sacrament almost every other week, thanks to the short supply of priests, and I have to say I felt loved even when I flubbed up and had to repeat a prayer. I’d also given a fairly decent talk from the pulpit only a few weeks before, and even though I had been scared to the core, everybody had made a big deal about it, which was why I had agreed once again to play the trombone at the next ward activity. But that was church, where people were required to love you. This was high school, and I did my best to avoid looking at what appeared to be thousands of faces in the auditorium below us. Luckily, there were quite a few others up there on the stage with me in similar getups: hats, vests, bandannas, and so forth. If it hadn’t been for the fact that we were also riding stick horses, we might have looked impressive.

  We deposited our “horses”
at the fake fence near the rear of the stage, then headed to our positions, looking as cowboylike as possible. Tyrone, who was sporting some crazy red boots and an old felt hat, was shoplifting the show with his extremely exaggerated bowlegged walk. If it hadn’t been for Alysse, Tyrone probably would have filled the top slot as Hollenda’s star jester. The guy had worn his own share of costumes and had made a great mayor in The Music Man. Even though he was really hamming things up now, I couldn’t cough up even a gurgle of a chuckle at his antics. I was too busy trying not to bump into anyone as I moved to my spot. It didn’t help much at all that I’d almost immediately spotted Ren Jensen and his chronies, including Bret Nuswander and Nate Manicox, on the front row leaning back in their seats as if daring me to make a fool of myself.

  After I got situated between Tallulah and John Fallon, who was one of the school’s yell leaders, I frantically reviewed the words to my small part. It was only a line or two, but I wondered why in the world I’d said I would do a speaking part.

  My palms sweaty, my mouth dry, I moved along with the rest, doing my best to stay screened from the audience, especially the front row. When one of the other cowpokes moved forward or backward slightly, I would catch a glimpse of faces, and a wave of queasiness would follow.

  But when Alysse lunged onto the stage in a hat that had to be as wide as she was tall, looking like she’d just stepped out of a Looney Tune cartoon, my upper torso jerked with surprise and then began to vibrate like a Jacuzzi. Those around me on the stage had similar reactions, snorting and coughing, and audience members erupted as well. Alysse lifted her hand, palm up, in mock innocence with a “What’s-wrong-I-dress-like-this-every-day” expression.

  When she shouted “Howdeee!” in a high nasal tone, the air I’d managed so far to hold in exploded from my nose and mouth. By the time Alysse galloped toward us on her broom-handle steed, I was laughing outright, and with each lunge of my chest, my fear fell from me like gobs of dried mud. Laughter, I discovered that day, is one great fear-buster.