The Naked Mole-Rat Letters (11 page)

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 she 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.

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.

“Johnny,” I called out.

He turned around and stared.

I wanted to run the other way, but I forced myself to keep walking until I caught up with him. “Hey,” I said. “I was wondering if you could help me with something.”

He didn't say a word. He just stared at me like he couldn't believe I was there. I couldn't believe it, either. I almost panicked, and then I remembered this acting technique where you “mirror” the person standing in front of you. I mirrored Johnny—slouching a little and letting my face take on this “I don't care” look, which made me relax and feel more confident. “I was wondering if you could teach me how to hack into my dad's business e-mail so that I can read his messages.”

He laughed.

I guess he didn't expect that.

I waited a few seconds for him to say something. Anything. Desperately, I pulled out the wad of bills in my pocket (the money I had forgotten to give to the school librarian). “I can pay you.”

Johnny nodded and took the bucks. “Come on.”

He walked, and I followed. The sound of my shoes crunching on the gravel was embarrassingly loud, so I racked my brain for small talk to cover up the noise. “Mrs. Keating really got mad at you today.”

Wow. What brilliant things would I think up next?

He kicked a stone. He shrugged. What else is new?

I confessed. “I was sleeping during class. I haven't even started the report.”

He smiled. “Well, well, well. The perfect Frankie Wallop is going bad.”

“I'm not going bad. I'm just . . .” I didn't know how to finish.

He kicked another stone. “So how come you want to snoop around in your dad's e-mail?”

“I . . .” I was hoping that a colorful lie would descend like a hot-air balloon from the heavens onto the gray and deserted road of my mind. Nothing came. The noise of my shoes on the gravel was ridiculous. I sounded like a circus elephant. He was looking at me. I
had to say something. Why couldn't I think of what to say?

“It don't matter,” he said, and shrugged. “None of my business.”

We turned the corner, and there was the trailer parked in a clearing. Beyond it, the road kept stretching out in the loneliest way. It shouldn't be called Old School Road, it should be called Endangered Species Road, because nobody but Johnny lives on it.

We got to the trailer door and I froze. In the back of my mind I remembered the rumor about how Johnny was taken away from his mother and father when he was really little because they beat him and didn't feed him. Was I really going into Johnny Nye's trailer?

Just then a voice called out from behind the trailer, and an old woman walked out, ducking under T-shirts and towels hanging from a clothesline. Johnny's grandma. She doesn't go into town, so I don't know much about her except that her name is Elsie Nye and that she looks like a weed that the world has let grow wild. She has tangled gray hair that reaches all
the way to her waist. Today she was wearing an old yellow dress over a pair of brown slacks. She had on work boots, like the kind my dad's friend Ozzie Filmore wears, and was carrying a bunch of vegetables in her arms.

There are two kinds of people in Pepper Blossom. There are folks like my dad, who weren't born here. They came here for college in Bloomington (which isn't far away) and loved it so much they stayed, either in Bloomington or in small towns like Pepper Blossom. Then there are the old-timers—people who've been living in these parts for generations. They live just outside of town, in trailers or old falling-down houses. They have their own way of being and their own country way of talking, using their own words for certain things. For example, instead of “grandma,” it's “mammaw.” Johnny's grandma is one of these people. So is Johnny.

“Hey, Mammaw,” Johnny said. “This is Frankie Wallop. I'm helping her with something on the computer.”

“Well that's sweet, Johnny.” She was trying to carry too much, and an eggplant fell.

Johnny and I both bent to pick it up, and we almost bumped heads.

“Aren't they beauties?” she asked. “You like eggplant?”

I must have made a face because she laughed.

“How 'bout tomatoes? Everybody likes tomatoes. Ya'll grow any at your place?”

I shook my head.

She handed me a huge red tomato and said, “Well go over to the patch and help yourself. Thanks to this warm spell, they're still growing.”

“We got to work on the computer, Mammaw,” Johnny said, setting down a bucket for her to put the vegetables in. “Maybe you could pick her some.”

I followed him up the steps to the trailer door, still holding that tomato like an idiot, not knowing what to do with it. Inside the trailer it was like a whole world crammed into a closet. On the right there was a small booth like in Mae's restaurant. There was a bright pink tablecloth on the table, but you could hardly see it because the table was full of cups
and boxes and tools. Above it, a collection of chickens—chicken figurines and chicken salt-and-pepper shakers—was displayed on a shelf.

In the middle of the trailer were a tiny stove and refrigerator, stacked with pots and pans. Everything was very clean, and the whole place smelled like apple cider. It seemed old-fashioned—not like a place that would have a computer with Internet access.

On the left were two small beds, neatly made with crocheted blankets. One was topped with piles and piles of clothes. The other was topped with something I hadn't noticed right away—a very scratched-up old guitar.

“Is that yours?” I asked.

He picked it up. “I found it in the junkyard over at Gnawbone and fixed it up. Your dad helped me.”

“Oh. Do you play?” Another brilliant question from yours truly.

He could have very easily made fun of me by saying, No, I just keep it around because we have so much room in here. But he didn't say anything. To my amazement he sat down
on the bed and started to play. I didn't know what to do, so I just stood there and stared at the tomato I was still holding.

Slowly and steadily, he plucked out a song, a really pretty tune, like something you'd sing to a little kid who was scared. It filled the whole trailer. I could feel it coming up through the trailer floor and through the bottoms of my feet.

I said something really stupid, like “Wow,” when he was done.

He looked at me, surprised.

I didn't know what to say next, so I said, “I can't stay very long because—”

“Right. The e-mail.” He put down the guitar and pulled a laptop from under his bed. I wondered if he had stolen the computer, and then I felt guilty for wondering while he cleared a space on the table and plugged it into a phone jack.

There was only one place for me to sit: next to him in the booth. I set the tomato on a stack of plates and squeezed in.

I knew Dad's business e-mail address (
[email protected]
). And I guessed
that he used the same password at work as he did at home. So it only took Johnny about two minutes to show me how to get in. It was easier than I thought.

Ayanna Bayo. Ayanna Bayo. Ayanna Bayo. There were about ten e-mails each day to and from Dad and Ratlady since Saturday. Ten e-mails each day!

“Dang. These guys like to write,” Johnny said. “I don't have a printer, or I'd print them out for you.”

“That's okay,” I said, as he scrolled through.

“Where do you want to start? With today?”

I should have stopped right there and said thank you and walked away. But I nodded, and Johnny opened a message that Dad had sent about an hour before.

The words appeared on the screen in front of us. Johnny started reading out loud.

“How can a string of words reach you across the way?


Can this song find you and say all there is to say?


Letters of love, fragile and thin,


Sometimes get lost in the wind . . .”


He stopped. “It's a song,” he said.

Listening to a boy read a love song written by your dad has to be one of the most embarrassing scenes in human history. It reminded me of the time Beth saw Dad in his underwear. Only this was five thousand times worse because this was Johnny Nye, not Beth.

“He sounds serious,” Johnny said. “Who is she?”

“You can close it. I don't need to see any more.” I got up so fast I pulled the tablecloth, and the dishes rattled. My face felt like a field that had caught fire. “Thanks a lot,” I said quickly. “See you.”

I walked out the door. To my dismay, Johnny followed. I didn't want to have to think of anything else to say. I just wanted to get out of there.

His grandma was talking to two chickens over by a little shed I hadn't noticed. She stood up and looked at me as if surprised. “Who's this, Johnny?”

Her question caught me off guard. My brain was already overloaded. How could she not remember me?

Johnny stepped in. “It's Frankie Wallop, Mammaw.” His voice was patient and soft. “I was showing her something on the computer.”