With Warm Regards, Franny

by Ben Chambers

  I was actually thinking about going up to watch a movie. But right then, I saw Penny walking up to me.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Penny came up to me quite quickly, looking very worried. “Franny, are you okay?” She was looking at me quite funny. I think it was probably because I wasn’t looking the best. I hadn’t really thought about it too much, but I hadn’t had a shower since Thursday. My face was probably all oily and gross. That happens sometimes, when I don’t wash it enough. And my hair was a mess. I already knew that part, I just didn’t care, really. And I realised I was wearing the same clothes that she saw me in on Friday, too.

  “Have you been home yet?” she said. Penny is really a very smart person. She probably knew straight away that I hadn’t. “Your uncle came to my house yesterday looking for you. He said no one has talked to you since Thursday. What’s going on?”

  I couldn’t really look Penny in the face very well then. I was feeling a bit ashamed. “Oh, I’ve just been doing a lot of errands at the moment,” I said. It was a pretty bad excuse, but it was all that I could think of.

  “Franny,” she said, and she sounded very sad. That made me feel even worse. I wouldn’t look at her, though. But then she did something. She took my right hand and held it between both of her hands. I had to look at her then. She looked very concerned. “Franny, you have to go home.” She said it very nicely though, not in a very bossy way.

  “I will,” I said. Which I guess was true. I suppose I had to go home eventually. “I just don’t want to just yet.”

  “Please. Let me take you home. I’m parked over the road. I can come in and see your family with you, if you’d like. They’re so worried about you. I am too.” When she said that she was worried about me too, I felt horrible. I was making all this trouble for my whole family and now even for Penny too. “Can I take you home?” she said. I didn’t say anything though. I was just feeling quite bad, and I didn’t really feel like talking. Then she very gently said, “Here, I’ll give you a ride,” and started leading me towards her car.

  “No.”

  “Franny—”

  “Please. I promise. I promise, okay?” I said. “I promise I’ll go home in just a bit, I just need a little longer. But then I’ll go straight home. I promise.”

  Penny looked at me for quite a while then. She was really staring at me a lot. But then she finally said, “Okay.” I was quite relieved when she said that. “But if you want me to help you with anything, come and see me, okay? You can always ask me for anything.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  Then Penny gave me a really big hug. I couldn’t really hug her back though; I didn’t really feel like I deserved to.

  “I’ll come over and see you and your mother tomorrow, all right?”

  “All right,” I said. She gave me another big hug and then left.

  Chapter Eighteen

  After a while, I started thinking about this place called MOTAT. I remember my dad telling me that MOTAT stands for something, but I can’t really remember it. I think it’s Museum of Trains and something. But it’s this very interesting place filled with a lot of old stuff like planes that flew in the war and pieces of trains that don’t work anymore and lots of other old things. That’s where my dad used to work, before he got another job about ten years ago. It was so much fun when he worked there. That was when my mum was working a lot too, so I’d often have to go to a daycare centre during the school holidays, because no one was available to look after me. I couldn’t even look after myself; I was too little.

  But there was a daycare centre right next door to the MOTAT place. So I’d get to go there all the time, which I liked a lot, because I got to ride in the car with my dad when we drove there in the morning. They were the best car rides I’ve ever had in my life. It was always pretty early in the morning, but that was all right, because I was only a little kid, so I didn’t mind getting up early. I had so much energy. My dad liked to go early, because he said he wanted to beat the traffic. He didn’t seem to like waiting in traffic with lots of other cars. But I didn’t really care too much. I don’t think kids really notice that sort of stuff when they’re excited. The reason I was always excited was because on the way, we would always stop at a cafe. We had to get some hot drinks for the car trip. My dad would always get some coffee, which I didn’t really like when I was that young. He let me try some once, but I thought it was gross. I still don’t really like it very much. But I’d always get a hot chocolate, which was very tasty. The hot chocolate would always come with a marshmallow on top. Sometimes they’d give me a white one, or sometimes they’d give me a pink one. But the thing was that they never gave my dad a marshmallow with his coffee. For some reason, they only gave them to people who ordered hot chocolate. But I knew my dad loved marshmallows a lot, so I’d usually give him my one. Sometimes I wouldn’t though. Sometimes I’d feel very cheeky or very silly, and I’d go to give him my marshmallow, but then, when he was reaching out to take it, I’d quickly stuff it in my mouth! I know that might sound very mean, but it wasn’t. Things were never mean with my dad. I would get this big smile on my face, and he’d lean down and poke me in the tummy and call me a little piggy. Or sometimes he’d call me a greedy gobbler. I always liked that. But here’s what happened. One day when the cafe lady gave me my hot chocolate, it had two marshmallows on top.

  “One for you, and one for your father,” she said to me. I gave her a big smile because she was so nice, and I was very excited. I got easily excited like that when I was a young girl. Then every day from then on, me and my dad both got to eat a marshmallow during our morning trips, because she would always give me two. That lady was so nice. I still remember her. She had short blond hair, and she was very friendly.

  So I really liked going to daycare. It was nice at the end of the day too, because I’d always get to ride with my dad again on the way home. Although sometimes my mum would pick me up early. Which I didn’t like too much, but it was okay I guess.

  At the day care centre, every day when I stayed there, they used to let my dad come over and collect me during lunchtime. Because it was so close, he could just walk right over and pick me up. It only took him about ten seconds to get there. Then he would take me back to MOTAT, just so we could spend some time together. We would go back to his section where he frequently worked. He had this section where he was in charge of a whole lot of old inventions and things. He had to look after them and tell people all about them when they came over and asked questions. But his favourite thing was this big printer, although it was a very old-fashioned printer. It was called a printing press. I remember exactly, because he showed me it all the time.

  During his lunch break, we would always go back into his office. It was this little dusty room that he never cleaned. But I think he liked it like that. He liked old dusty stuff quite a lot. But then he’d sit down and let me sit in another chair next to him. He’d get out some lunch for both of us, which he always made in the morning. Sometimes it would be sandwiches or chips or pasta or other stuff. But he always brought an apple. Sometimes it was a pear, every now and again, on rare occasions. But it was almost always an apple. He used to give me a slice of his apple every day. More than a slice, even. Practically the whole apple! He’d take the apple from his bag, and he’d cut it in two pieces, right down the middle, and give me one of them. It was so nice of him, because it was his own lunch that he brought in, but he always shared it with me.

  I was thinking about that stuff and it really made me want to go to MOTAT and have a look around. It had been such a long time since I’d visited there. We mostly stopped going once my dad got a new job. I don’t know why he quit. I think that was his favourite job he ever had.

  I really didn’t feel like taking the bus again, but I had no choice. I could have tried walking, but it was so far away. I even did start walking for a little bit, but I only made it about two minutes before I gave up and went to the bus stop instead. I didn’t have to wait too
long for the bus though, which was nice. But there were quite a lot of people on there as well, which wasn’t too nice. I sat next to some girl who didn’t even look at me once the entire trip. She had on this funny perfume which smelled like something I recognised but couldn’t remember. Mostly, it just smelled of chemicals.

  The bus took me right outside MOTAT, since it was a popular destination for people riding the bus. There were even two other people that got off at MOTAT as well as me. It was a very nice day outside. The sun was quite warm on my skin, but there was a little bit of wind that was slightly cold. It was quite a nice combination actually. I felt very refreshed.

  The front gate had this big archway that you had to walk through. Only, the arch was made out of train tracks, instead of wood or bricks. And on top of the arch, there was this little train that said MOTAT on the side of it. It was quite cool to walk underneath and look up and see all the mechanical things on the bottom of it. I don’t think that train really worked, though. It was always stuck up there at the top of the arch.

  I came into this big courtyard. Even just the courtyard had a lot of old stuff in it. There were some old wooden things on one side and another big rusty thing on the other side. But the craziest thing was right in the middle. It was this big steam engine. I hated that thing. I remember being only very young and seeing it for the first time. My dad was holding my hand and taking me to see it. This was on the weekend, so he didn’t have to work. We had come in especially for the opening of this new thing. It was very busy that day, with lots of people everywhere. My dad was saying hello to a lot of people and shaking their hands. I guess because he worked there, so he knew everyone. Some of them tried to say hello to me, but I was quite shy. I wasn’t very good at saying hello back to them.

  There was this big crowd of people, all standing around something I couldn’t see. Me and my dad eventually got through the crowd of people, right up to the front, so that we could see it. We were standing behind this rope fence that was set up. I didn’t really know what it was at the time, but I eventually found out it was the steam engine. It mostly just looked like a lot of metal. We stood there for a minute, then some guy come out to talk to all of us. He was making a speech, apparently. I didn’t really care about it though. But at the end, he told some other man to start the engine. Then my dad kind of rubbed my shoulder and bent down to me and said, “Watch this.” I was already watching, but I started watching even harder then. I kept watching, but nothing happened. I looked up at my dad, but he was still just looking at the engine, so I looked back at it. But even still, nothing happened. Some of the people in the crowd started looking around and talking and stuff, and then out of nowhere, there was this huge bang. It was the loudest noise I’ve ever heard in my whole life. And I was standing right next to it. It was just this really very huge boom. I was so scared, I ran straight away. Nobody was hurt or anything. People actually started clapping and cheering as the engine started up, but I was running as far away as I could. It was strange, because normally, I would never run away from my dad like that, but I was terrified. I didn’t get very far before my dad caught up to me. He kind of picked me up and hugged me very tight. I was just crying into his shirt though, I was so terrified of that thing. I think if my dad hadn’t caught me, I might not have ever stopped running.

  But I’m not so scared of it now. I walked past it and took a quick look but then kept going. I went into the building. They had this big airplane hanging from the roof when you first walked in. It was a plane from the war. It was full of bullet holes. You could even see them from the ground. It wasn’t too busy in there just then. There were some people there though but not many. Mostly, it isn’t too popular. I think people don’t care too much about old stuff anymore. I had to go through these double doors into this big room, the exhibition room. It was the room which always changed its displays every few months. Everything in MOTAT stays mostly the same. Except for that room, which always changed all the time. They had exhibitions there. Those are when they have a special display of interesting things for a short time only. Mostly, it was just boring stuff. But once when I was a kid, they had about the coolest exhibition I’ve ever seen. It was a mirror maze. Just a big maze, made out of mirrors that you could run through. Normally, they just had the same stuff, like old medical devices or old tools and things. But this time it was very cool. You’d walk through the maze and see a thousand reflections of yourself everywhere all around you. You’d have to walk slowly, because if you tried to run, you wouldn’t know where you were going because of all the crazy reflections, and you’d smack into a mirror and hurt your face. I did that once; it was quite sore.

  It would be weird when you met someone else in the maze. You wouldn’t even know who they were, but suddenly, you’d see lots of them there with you. And you’d have to try go past each other without bumping into them or their reflections or anything.

  But they didn’t have anything on display that day. It was just a big fenced-off area with high walls that you couldn’t see over. The walls were covered in signs saying how something new and exciting was coming very soon. But it was so quiet in that room, and the walls were so big and grey. It kind of felt like nothing new and exciting would ever come.

  I went through some more doors until I got into the area where my dad used to work. It was another big room. All the rooms there seemed to be very big. I guess they had to fit a lot of stuff in them. There were displays spaced all around the walls and some things in the middle of the floor too. It was exactly the same as before. I couldn’t remember everything that used to be there, but it looked mostly the same, at least.

  I noticed just in front of me there was a group of people wandering around, looking at all the stuff. There were maybe eight of them. I kind of felt like joining them, since I didn’t have anyone else to walk around with. I was suddenly feeling quite lonely, actually. I kind of hung around near the edge of them and pretended a little bit to be with them. I didn’t want to get too close, in case they got angry at me. But I tried getting sort of near them, so I had someone to spend time with. I couldn’t understand what they were saying though. They were speaking another language. They looked quite foreign. I wasn’t too sure though, since I can only speak English.

  They were all walking around the room, seeing all the various things on display. Sometimes one of them would look back at me, and I’d sort of look away, as if I was focusing on something else across the other side of the room. I didn’t want them to think I was following them. Sometimes they would point at stuff and say things I couldn’t understand and then start laughing. I tried to laugh along too, but I couldn’t really.

  I started thinking about my essay again and what I was going to do about it. It was due the next day, and I’d practically written nothing. I wondered if, maybe, in case I couldn’t write it, if instead I could just work at an office or something like my mother. It didn’t seem too good, but at least I could probably do it when I failed my degree. I don’t think offices care too much about that stuff. If you’re only photocopying things and calling people, you don’t really need a degree.

  I thought about telling my dad that I had failed my university degree. I knew I couldn’t really tell him, since he was dead, but I thought about what it would be like anyway. He would probably be very quiet and not say very much. I think he would be very upset. He was always very proud of me going to university. He didn’t even go himself. In fact, no one in my family ever went to university. I was the first one. He was always very proud of that. He would always tell my grandmother and my uncles and things about it when we saw them at Christmas time. He never tried to pressure me to get very good grades or anything though. Sometimes I would only just barely pass my papers, but he didn’t care one bit, because he was so happy for me. He would take me out to the movies or buy me some delicious donuts to celebrate. But I’d never failed before, and I think it would make him quite sad. I don’t think he’d tell me that though. He’d just say it was okay and
that he was proud of me anyway. But I’d know the truth.

  Then me and my group moved over to the printing press, where my dad used to work a lot. There was a new man there. It wasn’t my dad, but it actually kind of looked a bit like him. When I got a bit closer, I could see he was wearing a nametag. It said ‘Ian’. He came forward and started talking to us. There were about ten people in front of me, so he probably couldn’t see me very well. I was quite well hidden in the back.

  “Who would like to see the printing press in operation?” he said. Some people in the group nodded. Ian ran around the side of the big printing press machine that was there. It was behind this yellow rope barrier, because people weren’t meant to touch it. Except for people that worked there, only they were allowed to. He turned it on, and the whole thing started moving. Some paper was running through it, and a whole lot of stamps printed writing onto some paper cards. I saw when it was coming out, it was lots of cards advertising some new kind of milk. It was probably new milk from a hundred years ago though, because it said the price was only twenty-five cents, and it had very old-fashioned looking writing.

  I wanted to look at the printing press, but I couldn’t really focus. I was thinking about something else. I was thinking about how it was probably my fault that my dad killed himself. Things were kind of okay while I was living at home, because we all sort of looked after each other. But after I moved out, my mum and dad started not getting along very well. My dad didn’t really tell me too much about that private stuff, but he definitely mentioned it to me a couple of times before. I was lucky, because I could get away and go flatting. But they were stuck there. I thought that if I had stayed at home, instead of being selfish and running away to live by myself, I probably could have kept them from getting too upset at each other. Then he probably wouldn’t have been so sad, and he wouldn’t have killed himself.