The Naked Mole-Rat Letters (17 page)

“I know.”

“Will you help me make a koala costume anyway?”

I squeezed his hand. “As soon as we get home.” I told him about the costume ideas that Ayanna had e-mailed, and he got excited.

All the way home, I kept thinking how happy Dad was going to be when he saw us. We finally got there and ran up the porch steps, and I opened the front door.

It took a few seconds for me to realize what was happening. Smoke billowed out.

“What's wrong?” Nutter yelled.

I pulled Nutter down the porch steps, and Mrs. Holmes came out of her house at the same time.

“Glory be!” she yelled. “There's smoke coming out your kitchen window.”

She told us to stay outside and ran for the phone.

We stood in the front yard, our feet in the soft grass. I don't know what Nutter was thinking about. My mind was inside the house, imagining that the flames were eating up everything that I loved: photographs, dulcimers, this diary.

The fire truck came, and all the neighbors poured out to see if they could help. Ozzie's truck pulled up. Dad and Skip hopped out.

Dad's face was twisted like he couldn't figure out what was going on. He saw the smoke first and stumbled toward it. Then Nutter called out to him, and he turned and saw us. Before I could say anything, he ran over and picked Nutter up.

“You're okay,” he said, and hugged Nutter close. Tears were streaming down his face. “You're okay, too, Frankie? Thank God!” He
reached out and pulled me to him. And I started to cry because I knew that the only reason he cared about me was because he didn't yet know that the fire was my fault.

Chief Daniels stepped out onto the porch. “Not as bad as it looks, Robert,” he boomed. “Just a kitchen fire. There's damage to a wall and those cabinets you've got over the oven—nothing you can't fix or paint. Didn't have time to spread beyond that. Soon as we get the smoke out, ya'll can go back in.”

“We'll help,” Ozzie said.

Dad was struggling to comprehend it.

“Started in the oven,” the chief said. “You forget you were cooking something?”

Time went into slow motion. Dad set Nutter down and looked at me. “What happened, Frankie?”

Not a single lie came to my mind.

“I—I was making a pizza.”

He shook his head slowly as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing. “You were making a pizza?”

The way he said it made it sound as if I was polishing my toenails.

I wanted to say that I was sorry and explain how thoughtful I was to make dinner for them, and how responsible I was to leave a note, and how smart I was to find Nutter. But I couldn't talk. Everybody was staring at me. My throat burned and my eyes were stinging. The air was growing cold.

“Frankie, what were you thinking?” he yelled. “First you lose Nutter, and then you almost burn down the house! You complain when I ask Mrs. Whitehead to look after you, and then you do something like this.”

A car pulled up, and The Troll got out with a foil-covered pan.

“Doris Trolly!” Mrs. Holmes clapped her hands. “You came just in time. And with a little something, I see.” She peered under the foil. “Lasagna for the Wallops. What a sweetheart you are!”

Something inside me snapped. “Would you mind your own business?” I yelled.

Everybody shut up. Mrs. Holmes looked at me as if I had slapped her across the face. The Troll looked at me as if she wanted to push me off the nearest bridge. Then the chief
stepped out on the porch. “Robert, it's your phone. Somebody named Ayanna . . .”

Everybody looked at us, wondering what the heck that was about. I swear it was like a soap opera, except it wasn't at all funny.

Dad took the cordless phone. He said that he was busy and that he'd have to call back. She must have asked if everything was okay, because he sighed and said, “Yes, I just have a mess I have to clean up.”

I'm the mess.

Chief Daniels let us back in after they blew out the smoke with some big fans. Behind and around and above the stove, everything was black: the ceiling, the cabinets, the light fixture. A whole wall full of Mom's postcards was burned. I knew them by heart. I knew which ones were now charred beyond recognition. Mount Everest at sunset. A Greek temple. The wild ponies at Chincoteague. A castle in Ireland. All gone. Nutter's favorite of a little Indian boy riding a baby elephant . . . gone.

I ran to my room.

I thought Dad would follow and yell. But he's too busy. A couple of people from church
came over, and they're scrubbing down the kitchen.

Maybe I should go down and offer to help. My legs won't move.

I don't know how I'm going to sleep. I know I screwed up. I feel like crawling into a cave.

The house smells like a giant piece of burned toast.

The phone rang at 10:30
P.M
. Everybody was gone. Dad picked up in the kitchen.

I sat for a while in my bed, telling myself that it was wrong to listen in, but then I couldn't stand it. I crept out to the phone in the hallway and picked up the receiver. I think I have a sickness. A spy sickness. Maybe it's genetic. Maybe both Skip and I have it.

“What do you mean it's partly your fault?” Dad was asking.

“We were sending e-mail messages to each other after school.” It was Ayanna. “Frankie
should have been doing her homework and looking after Nutter instead of chatting with me on-line.”

“E-mail messages about what?”

Ayanna was silent for a moment. “Various things. We've developed a sort of relationship.”

“What do you mean?”

“I promised I wouldn't tell, Robert.”

“What is this, some kind of secret?”

“No, not really. She e-mailed me. I e-mailed back. Now, she's opening up to me, writing more personal things.”

“Personal things like what?”

“Today I think she needed some advice about, well, a boy.”

“Johnny Nye?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“And what advice did you give her?”

I didn't like the tone of his voice. I don't think Ayanna did, either.

“I think you should talk with Frankie about this, Robert, because—”

“Well, I think I have the right to know what you've been talking with Frankie about.”

“We talked about how cruel kids can be sometimes and how sometimes you have to stand up for what's right.”

“So you encouraged her to . . . ?”

“I encouraged her to be true to her heart.”

Dad was silent. “Ayanna, I'm sure you meant well. But you don't know Frankie. And you don't know Johnny Nye. You don't know what's going on here. I don't think you should be interfering and trying to give advice long distance.”

“I'm sorry, Robert. I didn't mean to interfere. It seemed like she was reaching out to me—”

“She shouldn't be reaching out to a stranger who lives six hundred miles away. She should be reaching out to me. Or to her guidance counselor. Someone who's here. She's been getting into trouble. Did you know? Serious trouble. She ditched school. Forged a note. Rumors are flying about her and this boy. I thought he was basically a good kid, but now I'm not sure. She's lying and cheating. She never used to do this.”

“I don't think it's because of the boy—”

“How do you know?” he snapped, and then his voice grew soft. “I'm sorry, Ayanna. I don't want to be angry with you. It's just that I'm very frustrated right now. I think I got so caught up with what was happening with you that I forgot to pay attention to what was happening here at home. I let things get out of control.”

There was a long silence. I held my breath, afraid that they would hear me.

“Perhaps we should step back,” Dad finally said.

“It's always wise to be cautious,” Ayanna agreed.

“Maybe it was a crazy idea—you and me,” Dad said. “We're worlds apart.”

She didn't say anything.

Dad took a deep breath. “I'll call you once things get straightened out around here.”

“Okay,” she said.

It didn't sound like either of them believed it.

I want to e-mail Ayanna. I want to tell her that none of this is her fault. But I'm too nervous. If Dad catches me on-line, he'll have a nervous breakdown for real.

Dear Diary:

I can't get out of bed. The whole house still stinks like a bad report card with my name on it.

Dad came in at 7:30, and I rolled over to face the wall.

“Frankie, at some point we'll need to talk about what happened last night. For now you should know that I'm grounding you for a week. No friends. No phone calls.”

No problem, I thought. No friends anyway.

“No e-mailing either,” he said. “Now get moving or you'll be late.”

“I'm not going.” I pulled the covers over my head.

He yanked them off. “You're not going to miss another day of school.”

“I'm sick.”

“Stop lying, Frankie!”

“I can't go to school.”

“You can, and you will.”

I pulled the covers back on. “You can't make me, Dad. I really am sick to my stomach.”

“Fine!” he shouted. “But if you stay home from school today, then I'm calling Ms. Trolly, and I'm telling her that I give up. She can come after school every day next week and give you the benefit of her guidance. I actually think it would be very good for you. And me.”

“I don't care. Just don't make me go to school today.”

He left in a huff.

I'm never getting out of bed again. I'm starved, but I can't face the kitchen.

Dad didn't even try talking. He hates me. Everybody probably hates me.

Ayanna probably hates me for getting her into trouble. Johnny probably hates me because he thinks I hate him. Even Nutter probably hates me for burning up his favorite postcard.

I woke up to the smell of paint and the sound of a vacuum. I pulled the covers over my head, intending to stay here all day, when Nutter came in.

“She's here,” he whispered. “Dad's gone, and she's here.”

Right away I knew something was wrong. He pulled me out of bed and over to the staircase. He pointed down.

Pushing the vacuum over our living room carpet was none other than The Troll.

Nutter pulled me back into my room. “Dad had to go to the shop, and she's going to be here all day,” he explained. “We have to clean the whole house, and we can't play until
it's done. She sent me to wake you up. She said it's ‘high' time. What's ‘high' time?”

“Forget it, Nutter,” I said.

I walked down to get some breakfast, and she waved at me as if she's always at our house on Saturday mornings, vacuuming.

“Good morning, Francine,” she chirped. “I'm saving the hallway rugs for you.”

I felt like saying it was high time for her to leave.

In the kitchen, the stove was disconnected. Ozzie was scraping the remains of the postcards off the wall behind it. Bits and pieces of blackened paper and ash fluttered to the floor with each scrape. The sound went straight to my heart like a knife. It was like having an operation without being put to sleep first.

The Troll had Skip scrubbing the kitchen floor. If I didn't hate him, I would have felt sorry for him.

“Hey, Frankie,” Ozzie said when he noticed me. “The kitchen is out of order. But there's coffee cake from Mrs. Holmes in the dining room.”

We cleaned all morning. The Troll was in heaven. She loves to clean. When we were done, she even vacuumed the vacuum.

At lunch, she made us all sit down and talk about how we could better communicate as a family. Then she told Nutter and Skip to “play a cooperative game together.” She told me I had to finish my report and that she would help me, if I needed it.

“What is the topic?” she asked.

“Naked mole-rats,” I said.

Her face screwed itself into a question mark. Clearly she had never heard of naked mole-rats.

When I finished the report, she said she would read it “for errors.” She didn't find any. She wouldn't know one if it bit her in the face.

“I know an expert on naked mole-rats,” I said. “I'll e-mail it to her to check.”

She shook her head like The Troll that she is and said: “Your father said no e-mailing.”

I was appalled. I wanted to snort and stamp my feet and butt her out of the house with
my head. I locked myself in my room and reread Johnny's letter twenty more times, and that just made me feel worse.

At dinner she pulled out this gigantic beef casserole that she had brought to “pop” into the microwave. I told her that we're all vegetarians, and you should have seen her face fall down. I knew I'd get into trouble for it later, but it was worth it.

Dad came home from work and went crazy about how great the house looked. He thanked The Troll twelve million times, and then he invited her to stay for dinner. She apologized about making beef and said that if she'd have known, she would have made a vegetable casserole.

He told her that he and Skip and Nutter loved beef, and then he glared at me.

Beth didn't call today. She always calls on Saturdays. I guess that's the end of our friendship. Since she ratted on me, I should be happy that it's the end.

I'm so depressed, I could drop dead.

I wonder what Johnny did all day.

The Red Beet Ramblers are playing in the living room right now, and I am locked in my room wishing that I had earplugs.

I've been here practically all day. I stayed in bed this morning and refused to go to church. Dad said he didn't have the strength to argue.