Next I went to the library for books on batteries. I got some easy books on electricity, really easy. I never thought about batteries before. All I know is that when you want to use a flashlight, the battery is usually dead.
I finally stopped writing my story about the giant wax man, which was really stupid. I wanted to write a poem about butterflies for Young Writers because a poem can be short, but it is hard to think about butterflies and burglar alarms at the same time, so I studied electricity books instead. The books didn’t say how to make an alarm in a lunchbox, but I learned a lot about batteries, switches and wires, so I think I can do it myself.
Back to the poem tonight. The only rhyme I can think of for “butterfly” is “flutter by.” I can think of rhymes like “trees” and “breeze” which are very boring, and then I think of “wheeze” and “sneeze.” A poem about butterflies wheezing and sneezing seems silly, and anyway some girls are already writing poems about monarch butterflies that flutter by.
Sometimes I start a letter to Dad to thank him for the twenty dollars, but I can’t finish it. I don’t know why.
Today I took my lunchbox and Dad’s twenty dollars to the hardware store and looked around. I found a switch, a little battery and a doorbell. While I was looking around for the wire, a man asked if he could help me. He was a nice old gentleman who said, “What are you planning to make, son?”
KEEP OUT
MOM
THAT MEANS YOU
Then I went to work to connect one wire from the battery to the switch and another to the doorbell. It took some time to do it right. Then I fixed the battery and the switch in one corner of the lunchbox and the doorbell in another. I closed the box just enough so I could put my hand inside and push the button on the switch. Then I took my hand out and closed the box.
When I opened the box, my burglar alarm worked! That bell inside the box was ringing so loudly that Mom came to my door. “Leigh, what is going on in there?” she shouted.
I let her in and showed her my burglar alarm. She laughed and said that it was a great invention.
I can’t wait until Monday.
Today Mom packed my lunch, and we tried the alarm to see if it still worked. It did, good and loud. When I came to school, Mr. Fridley said, “Nice to see you smiling, Leigh. You should do it more often.”
I put my lunchbox behind the partition and waited. I waited all morning for the alarm to go off. Miss Martinez asked if I had my mind on my work. I pretended I did, but all the time I was really waiting for my alarm to go off so I could run back behind the partition and catch the thief. When nothing happened, I began to worry. Maybe something broke on the way to school.
Lunchtime came. Still nothing happened. We all took our lunches and went to the cafeteria. When I put my box on the table in front of me, I understood that I had a problem, a big problem. If I opened the box now, the alarm might go off.
“Why aren’t you eating?” Barry asked me.
Everybody at the table looked at me. I wanted to say that I wasn’t hungry, but I was. I wanted to take my lunchbox out into the hall to open, but even there I couldn’t open it quietly. Finally I held my breath and I opened the box.
Wow! My alarm went off! It was so loud that everyone in the cafeteria looked around. I looked up and saw Mr. Fridley standing by the garbage can smiling at me. Then I turned the alarm off.
Suddenly everybody seemed to notice me. Even the principal came to look at my lunchbox. He said, “That’s a great invention you have there.”
“Thanks,” I said, happy that the principal liked my alarm.
Some teachers came to see what was going on, so I had to show again how my alarm worked. Maybe I wasn’t the only one who had problems with the lunchbox, because all the kids said that they wanted alarms, too. Barry said that he wanted an alarm like that on the door of his room at home. I began to feel like a hero. Maybe I’m not so medium after all.
But one thing bothers me. I still don’t know who the lunch thief was.
Today Barry asked me to come home with him to see if I could help him make a burglar alarm for his room because he has little sisters who take his stuff.
Barry lives in a big old house that is cheerful and messy with many little girls around. Barry didn’t have the right batteries, so we just looked at the models that he puts together.
I still don’t know what to write for Young Writers, but I was feeling so good that I finally wrote to Dad to thank him for the twenty dollars because I had found a good use for it even if I couldn’t save it to buy a typewriter. I didn’t say much.
I wonder if Dad will marry the pizza boy and his mother. I worry about that a lot.
This week some more kids came to school with lunchboxes with burglar alarms. At lunchtime, our cafeteria rang with the sound of burglar alarms. This didn’t last very long, and soon I didn’t even set my alarm. Nobody stole anything from my lunchbox anymore.
I never knew who the thief was, and now I am glad about it. If he had been caught, he would have been in trouble, big trouble. Maybe he was just somebody whose mother packed bad lunches. Or maybe he packed his own lunches and there was never anything good in the house to put in them.
I’m not saying that stealing from lunchboxes is right. I am saying that I’m glad I don’t know who the thief was, because I have to go to school with him.
Tonight I was looking at a piece of paper and trying to think of something to write for Young Writers when the phone rang. Mom told me to answer because she was washing her hair.
It was Dad. I felt sick, the way I always do when I hear his voice. “How’re you doing, kid?” he asked.
“Fine,” I said, thinking about my burglar alarm. “Great.”
“I got your letter,” he said.
“That’s good,” I said. I was so surprised by his call that I couldn’t think of anything to say. Then I asked, “Have you found another dog to take Bandit’s place?” I think what I really meant was,
“No, but I ask about him on my CB,” Dad told me. “He may be found.”
“I hope so.” This conversation was going nowhere. I really didn’t know what to say to my father. It was a shame.
Then Dad surprised me. He asked, “Do you miss your old Dad?”
I had to think a minute. I surely missed him, but I couldn’t say it. My silence bothered him because he asked, “Are you still there?”
“Sure, Dad, I miss you,” I told him. It was true, but not as true as it had been some time ago. I still wanted him to drive to our house in his big truck, but now I knew I couldn’t hope for it.
“Sorry I don’t visit you more often,” he said. “Is your mother around?”
“I’ll see,” I said. By then she was standing by the phone with her hair wet and a towel. She shook her head, because she didn’t want to talk to Dad.
“She’s washing her hair,” I said.
“Tell her that I’ll send your support payment next week,” he said. “Bye, kid. Keep your nose clean.”
“Bye, Dad,” I answered. “Drive carefully.” I guess he’ll never learn that my name is Leigh and that my nose is clean. Maybe he thinks that I’ll never learn that he drives carefully. He doesn’t really. He’s a good driver, but he speeds when he can. All truckers do.
After that I couldn’t think about Young Writers, so I took
Today is Saturday, so this morning I walked to the butterfly trees again. The grove was quiet and peaceful, and because the sun was shining, I stood there a long time, looking at the orange butterflies flying through the gray and green leaves and listening to the sound of the waves on the rocks. There aren’t as many butterflies now. Maybe they are going north for the summer. I thought I could write about them in prose, but on the way home I started thinking about Dad and one time when he took me along when he was hauling grapes to a winery and what a great day it had been.
Yesterday Miss Neely, the librarian, asked if I had written anything for the Young Writers’ Yearbook, because all writing should be handed in by tomorrow. When I told her I hadn’t, she said that I still had twenty-four hours to do it. So I did, because I really would like to meet a Famous Author. My story about the giant wax man went into the wastebasket. Next I tried to start a story called
Mom said that I had to invite Barry to our house for supper because I now went to his house after school so often. We were working on a burglar alarm for his room which finally worked with some help from a library book.
I wasn’t sure if Barry would like to come to our house which is so small, not like his, but he said yes when I invited him.
Mom cooked a good supper. Barry said that he really liked eating at our house because he was tired of his little sisters. That made me happy. It helps to have a friend.
Barry says that his burglar alarm still works. The trouble is, his little sisters think that it’s fun to open his door to set it off. Then they giggle and hide. This makes his mother mad, so he finally decided to disconnect it. We all laughed about this. Barry and I felt good about making something that worked even if he can’t use it.
Barry saw the sign on my door that said KEEP OUT MOM THAT MEANS YOU. He asked if my Mom really stays out of my room. I said, “Sure, if I clean the mess.”
Barry said he also wanted a room which nobody ever went into. I was glad that Barry didn’t ask to use the bathroom. Maybe I should clean it after all.
I am thinking about Dad and how lonely he sounded. I wonder what happened to the pizza boy. I don’t like to think that Dad is lonesome, but I don’t like to think about the pizza boy either.
Tonight at supper I asked Mom if she thought that Dad would get married again. She thought for a while and then said, “I don’t see how he could do it. He will need a lot of money. But he still pays for the truck, and the prices of diesel go up all the time.”
I thought about this. “But he always sends my support payments,” I said, “even if he is late sometimes.”
“Yes, he does that,” said my mother. “Your father isn’t a bad man.”
Suddenly I was mad at the whole thing. “Then why don’t you two get married again?” I guess I wasn’t very nice when I said it.
Mom looked at me. “Because your father will never grow up,” she said. I knew that was all she would ever say about it.
Tomorrow we will get the Young Writers’ Yearbook! Maybe I will be lucky to have lunch with the Famous Author.
Today wasn’t the greatest day of my life. When our class went to the library, I saw the Yearbooks and couldn’t wait to get one. When I finally got mine and opened it to the first page, there was a monster story, and I saw that I hadn’t won first prize. I didn’t win second prize which went to a poem, and I didn’t win third or fourth prize, either. Then I turned another page and saw Honorable Mention and under it:
A DAY ON DAD’S RIG
by
LEIGH M. BOTTS
There was my title with my name under it in print. I can’t say I wasn’t disappointed because I hadn’t won a prize, I was. I was really disappointed about not meeting the mysterious Famous Author, but I liked seeing my name in print.
Some kids were mad because they didn’t win or even get something printed. They said they wouldn’t ever try to write again which I think is really stupid. I heard that even real authors sometimes can’t publish their books, but they write anyway.
Then Miss Neely said that the Famous Author the winners would have lunch with was Angela Badger. The girls were more excited than the boys because Angela Badger writes mostly about girls and their problems. I would still like to meet her because she is, as they say, a real live author, and I’ve never met a real live author. I am glad that Mr. Henshaw isn’t the author because then I would
Today was an exciting day. In the middle of the second lesson Miss Neely called me out of class and asked if I would like to go have lunch with Angela Badger. I said, “Sure, but why?”
Miss Neely said the teachers found that the winning poem wasn’t original but copied from a book, so the girl who handed it in wouldn’t go and would I like to go in her place? Of course I would!
Miss Neely called Mom at work for permission and I gave my lunch to Barry because my lunches are better than his. The other winners were all dressed nicely, but I didn’t care. I noticed that authors like Mr. Henshaw usually wear old shirts in the pictures on the back of their books. My shirt is just as old as his, so I knew it was OK.
Miss Neely took us to the Holiday Inn, where some other librarians and their winners were waiting in the hall. Then Angela Badger came with Mr. Badger, and we went into the dining room. One of the librarians told the winners to sit at a long table with a sign that said
There I was face to face with a real live author who was a nice lady, plump with wild hair, and I couldn’t think of a thing to say because I never read her books. Some girls told her how much they loved her books, but some of the boys and girls were too shy to say anything. Then Mrs. Badger said, “Why don’t we all go and get the lunch at the salad bar?”
What a mess! Some kids didn’t understand about salad bars, but Mrs. Badger showed us the way and we got all the stuff that is usually on salad bars. It took a long time, longer than in a school cafeteria. Some younger kids were too short to reach anything, but Mrs. Badger helped them.