Burning Questions of Bingo Brown Page 11

  Melissa turned around and smiled. “My mom said the same thing.” She had on a blue dress Bingo had never seen before. There were ribbons in her hair. She smelled strongly of gingersnaps.

  Bingo leaned back. Ever since his name had been drawn in what he now thought of as The Lottery, he had felt like a VIP. He could not have felt more important if his prize had been a million dollars.

  He had seen lottery winners on the evening news occasionally, saying stupidly that they were going to keep on with their same old jobs, same old lives. Bingo couldn’t understand that. He would buy race cars and airplanes and dash around the world.

  Well, now he had won The Lottery, and he was keeping on with his same old life—going to school, coming home. He was even beginning to make up a few questions.

  Melissa said, “Oh, I forgot my flowers!” She turned around. “Bingo, I forgot my flowers!”

  Miss Brownley said, “It doesn’t matter.”

  “But they were beautiful. I made a hole in a paper doily and stuck them inside. It was just beautiful.”

  “Mr. Markham wants to see you, not some flowers. Here we are.”

  They drove into the hospital parking lot and got out of the car. In silence they went in the hospital and got in the elevator. Miss Brownley punched Four.

  Melissa glanced at Bingo. “I’m nervous, are you?”

  Bingo nodded.

  “I hope he looks like himself, don’t you? I came to see my great-grandmother one time and I didn’t hardly know her. She had always been real fat and nobody had told me she had gotten thin and—”

  “This is our floor,” Miss Brownley said.

  Melissa couldn’t finish about her great-grandmother.

  Miss Brownley smiled. “Don’t worry. It’s going to be fine.”

  Mr. Markham was lying in the first hospital bed in room 419. His shoulder was in a cast. The rest of his body was hidden under the covers.

  Bingo and Melissa paused in the doorway. Bingo wasn’t sure he was going to be able to go any further. Something in his own shoulder had started to feel funny.

  “Gang! Welcome!”

  Bingo had to go in then, because Melissa grabbed his hand and pulled him. They walked to the side of the bed and stood there, holding hands.

  This was the first time Bingo had ever held hands with a girl, but it was not romantic. Melissa was holding too tight. It was more a mutual-strength kind of thing.

  “Bingo, Melissa, how are you?” Mr. Markham looked thinner, paler, but his voice was the same.

  Melissa said, “We’re fine, Mr. Mark. We want to know how you are.”

  “How do I look? No lying now. You know I value honesty.”

  “Well, Mr. Mark, you don’t look so bad as I was afraid you would.”

  “That is a great comfort to me. So what’s going on at school?”

  There was a pause and Miss Brownley filled it. “The class is doing real well, Mr. Markham, you’d be proud of them. I’m a poor substitute for you, I’m afraid.”

  “No, you’re a good substitute,” Melissa said loyally, “but we want Mr. Mark back.”

  Bingo cleared his throat. He knew it was his turn. He blurted out, “The pencil sharpener’s broken.”

  “Oh, too bad, Bingo. I know what a hardship that must be for you.”

  “Yes, I hardly know what anybody’s doing these days.”

  “Bingo.” Mr. Markham looked disappointed. “I was counting on you to fill me in.”

  “Well, I did have to walk over to the trash can on Wednesday when we were all writing why we wanted to go on a field trip to the newspaper. See, only twenty people out of the whole school got to go.”

  “So why did they want to go, Bingo?”

  “Well, Billy Wentworth wanted to go so he could get out of cleaning his room. Mamie Lou wanted to go because she may be an editor, if she doesn’t get to be President. Freddie wanted to go because—maybe I shouldn’t tell you. I don’t want to disillusion you about Freddie.”

  “You couldn’t, Bingo, believe me,” Mr. Markham said with a faint smile.

  “Freddie wanted to go to the newspaper because he thought he would see Snoopy there posing for Charles Schultz.”

  Mr. Markham bit his bottom lip. “Don’t make me laugh. Whatever you do, Bingo, don’t amuse me.”

  “I wasn’t trying to.”

  “There, that’s better. And why did you want to go, Bingo?”

  “I didn’t. I wrote the truth. I wrote that I had something better to do—come here and see you.”

  “That’s what I wrote,” Melissa said, beaming at Bingo. “That’s exactly what I wrote.”

  The nurse came in. “That’s it. Sorry.”

  Melissa said, “We just got here.”

  “Next time you can stay longer.”

  “But next time it won’t be us. It’ll be two different people.”

  “I’m sorry. Five minutes was the agreement.”

  “I’ve got to tell him one more thing.” Melissa leaned over the bed. “My dad got a job.”

  “Oh, I knew seeing you two would make me feel better. Tell the gang I’ll see them soon.”

  “We will.” Bingo and Melissa backed out into the hall, waved with their free hands and started for the elevator.

  Bingo was a little worried about the fact that he and Melissa were still holding hands. And he had no idea how to stop holding a girl’s hand. Were you allowed to just let go? Would he and Melissa still be holding hands when they got to the car? How could they get in the car holding hands, with her in the front seat and him in the back? Would they have to hold hands out the window? Would Billy Wentworth see their hands and—

  “Excuse me,” Melissa said. “My hand’s getting sweaty.”

  “Oh.” So that was how it worked. “Mine too.”

  They wiped their hands—Melissa on the skirt of her dress, Bingo on his pants—and stepped onto the elevator together.

  As they rode to the lobby, Bingo had a mature feeling. At last he was asking questions that had answers. You stopped holding hands with a girl when your hands got sweaty. It was simple, really.

  Maybe he could have a section in his journal. Questions with Answers. He stepped off the elevator with new purpose in his stride.

  Bingo lay in his bed. He was surprised to find that he still had that VIP feeling. It was not just because he’d been chosen to go to the hospital and see Mr. Mark, it wasn’t because he’d held Melissa’s hand or seen Billy Wentworth’s envious face peering out the window.

  This feeling was because of the little parts of the past week, things he normally might not have noticed. Like Miss Brownley smiling when she read his name. Like her saying she was glad he was chosen because—how had she put it—because he was a good communicator. It was Mr. Markham seeming glad to see him. It was making Mr. Markham bite his bottom lip to keep from smiling.

  A person who was still swirling around in his own personalized tornado would have missed those little things.

  “Misty!” Mrs. Wentworth called outside his window. In the living room his parents laughed at something on television.

  But in Bingo’s bedroom there was only a sigh of contentment as Bingo pulled his Superman cape closer around his shoulders and fell asleep.

  A Biography of Betsy Byars

  Betsy Byars (b. 1928) is an award-winning author of more than sixty books for children and young adults, including The Summer of the Swans (1970), which earned the prestigious Newbery Medal. Byars also received the National Book Award for The Night Swimmers (1980) and an Edgar Award for Wanted . . . Mud Blossom (1991), among many other accolades. Her books have been translated into nineteen languages and she has fans all over the world.

  Byars was born Betsy Cromer in Charlotte, North Carolina. Her father, George, was a manager at a cotton mill and her mother, Nan, was a homemaker. As a child, Betsy showed no strong interest in writing but had a deep love of animals and sense of adventure. She and her friends ran a backyard zoo that starred “trained cicadas,�
�� box turtles, leeches, and other animals they found in nearby woods. She also claims to have ridden the world’s first skateboard, after neighborhood kids took the wheels off a roller skate and nailed them to a plank of wood.

  After high school, Byars began studying mathematics at Furman University, but she soon switched to English and transferred to Queens College in Charlotte, where she began writing. She also met Edward Ford Byars, an engineering graduate student from Clemson University, whom she would marry after she graduated in 1950.

  Between 1951 and 1956 Byars had three daughters—Laurie, Betsy, and Nan. While raising her family, Byars began submitting stories to magazines, including the Saturday Evening Post and Look. Her success in publishing warm, funny stories in national magazines led her to consider writing a book. Her son, Guy, was born in 1959, the same year she finished her first manuscript. After several rejections, Clementine (1962), a children’s story about a dragon made out of a sock, was published.

  Following Clementine, Byars released a string of popular children’s and young adult titles including The Summer of the Swans, which earned her the Newbery Medal. She continued to build on her early success through the following decades with award-winning titles such as The Eighteenth Emergency (1973), The Night Swimmers, the popular Bingo Brown series, and the Blossom Family series. Many of Byars’s stories describe children and young adults with quirky families who are trying to find their own way in the world. Others address problems young people have with school, bullies, romance, or the loss of close family members. Byars has also collaborated with daughters Betsy and Laurie on children’s titles such as My Dog, My Hero (2000).

  Aside from writing, Byars continues to live adventurously. Her husband, Ed, has been a pilot since his student days, and Byars obtained her own pilot’s license in 1983. The couple lives on an airstrip in Seneca, South Carolina. Their home is built over a hangar and the two pilots can taxi out and take off almost from their front yard.

  Byars (bottom left) at age five, with her mother and her older sister, Nancy.

  A teenage Byars (left) and her sister, Nancy, on the dock of their father’s boat, which he named NanaBet for Betsy and Nancy.

  Byars at age twenty, hanging out with friends at Queens College in 1948.

  Byars and her new husband, Ed, coming up the aisle on their wedding day in June 1950.

  Byars and Ed with their daughters Laurie and Betsy in 1955. The family lived for two years in one of these barracks apartments while Ed got a degree at the University of Illinois and Byars started writing.

  Byars with her children Nan and Guy, circa 1958.

  Byars with Ed and their four children in Marfa, Texas, in July 1968. The whole family gathered to cheer for Ed, who was flying in a ten-day national contest.

  Byars at the Newbery Award dinner in 1971, where she won the Newbery Medal for The Summer of the Swans.

  Byars with Laurie, Betsy, Nan, Guy, and Ed at her daughter Betsy’s wedding on December 17, 1977.

  Byars in 1983 in South Carolina with her Yellow Bird, the plane in which she got her pilot’s license.

  Byars and her husband in their J-3 Cub, which they flew from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific coast in March 1987, just like the characters in Byars’s novel Coast to Coast.

  Byars speaking at Waterstone’s Booksellers in Newcastle, England, in the late 1990s.

  Byars and Ed in front of their house in Seneca, South Carolina, where they have lived since the mid-1990s.

  Turn the page to continue reading from the Bingo Brown Series

  The Groundhog Mustache

  EVERY TIME BINGO BROWN smelled gingersnaps, he wanted to call Melissa long distance.

  Actually, it was more of a burning desire than a want, Bingo decided. One minute ago he had been standing here, smiling at himself in the bathroom mirror, when without any warning he had caught a whiff of ginger. Now he had to call Melissa. Had to!

  “Are you still admiring yourself?” his mom asked as she passed the door.

  “Mom, come here a minute.”

  His mom leaned in the doorway.

  “Is that a mustache on my face or what?”

  “Dirt.”

  “Mom, you didn’t even look.”

  “Do your lip like that.”

  Obediently Bingo stretched his upper lip down over his teeth.

  His mom said, “Ah, yes, I was right the first time—dirt.”

  “Mom, it’s not dirt. It’s hair. There may be dirt on the hair but …” He leaned closer to the mirror. “I would be the first student in Roosevelt Middle School to have a mustache.”

  “Supper!” his dad called from the kitchen. His dad was stir-frying tonight.

  “A lot of women would be thrilled to have a son with a mustache,” Bingo said, “though I’ll have to shave before I go to high school. You aren’t allowed to have mustaches in high school.”

  Bingo moved away from the mirror, still watching himself. “You can’t see it from here, but”—he stepped closer—“from right here, it’s definitely a premature mustache.”

  “Bingo, supper’s ready.” His mother picked up a bill as she went through the living room.

  Bingo followed quickly. “Hey, Dad,” he said. “Notice anything different about me?”

  His father turned—he was holding the wok in both hands—but before he could spy the mustache, Bingo’s mom interrupted. “You will not believe the trouble I’m having with the telephone company.”

  Bingo’s father said, “Oh?” He put down the wok and wiped his hands on his apron before taking the bill.

  “Can you believe that? They’re trying to tell me that somebody in this family made fifty-four dollars and twenty-nine cents worth of calls to a place called Bixby, Oklahoma.”

  Bingo gasped. He caught the door to keep from falling to his knees.

  “Fifty-four dollars and twenty-nine cents! I told the phone company, ‘Nobody in this family knows anybody in the whole state of Oklahoma, much less Bixby.’ Bixby!”

  Bingo said, “Mom—”

  “The woman obviously did not believe me. Where does the telephone company get these idiots? I said to her, ‘Are you calling me a liar?’ She said, ‘Now, Madame—’”

  Bingo said, “Mom—”

  “Wait till I’m through talking to your father, Bingo.”

  “This can’t wait,” Bingo said.

  “Bingo, if it’s about your invisible mustache—”

  “It’s n-not. I wish it were,” he said, stuttering a little.

  Bingo’s mom sighed with impatience. Bingo knew that she got a lot of pleasure from a righteous battle with a big company and must hate his interruption. He hated it himself.

  “So?” she said. “Be quick.”

  Bingo cleared his throat. He walked into the room in the heavy-footed way he walked in his dreams. He clutched the back of his chair for support.

  “Remember Melissa—that girl that used to be in my room at school?”

  “Yes, Bingo, get on with it.”

  “M-member I said she moved?” he was reverting back to the way he talked when he was a child.

  “No, I don’t, but go on.”

  “You have to remember! You and Dad drove me over to say good-bye! It was Grammy’s birthday!”

  “Yes, I remember that she moved. What about it, Bingo? Get on with it.”

  ‘Well, she m-moved to Oklahoma.”

  “Bixby, Oklahoma?”

  Bingo nodded.

  There was a long silence while his parents looked at him. The moment stretched like a rubber band. Before it snapped, Bingo cleared his throat to speak.

  His mom beat him to it. “Are you telling me,” she said in a voice that chilled his bones, “that you made”—she whipped the bill from his father’s fingers and consulted it—“seven calls”—now she looked at him again—“for a total of”—eyes back to the bill—“fifty-four dollars and twenty-nine cents”—eyes back to him—“to this person in Bixby, Oklahoma?”

  “She’
s not a person! She’s Melissa! Anyway, Mom, you knew she had moved. I showed you the picture postcard she sent me.”

  “I thought she’d moved across town.”

  “She drew the postcard herself. I’ll get it and show it to you if you don’t believe me. It said ‘Greetings from Bixby, OK.’ Her address was there, and her phone number.

  “As soon as I got the postcard, I went into the living room. You were sitting on the sofa, studying for your real estate license. I showed you the postcard and asked you if I could call Melissa.”

  He was now clutching the back of the chair the way old people clutch walkers.

  “My exact words were, ‘Would it be all right if I called Melissa?’ Your exact words were, ‘Yes, but don’t make a pest of yourself.’ That’s why the calls were so short, Mom. I didn’t want to make a pest of myself!”

  His mother was still looking at the bill. “I cannot believe this. Fifty-four dollars and twenty-nine cents worth of calls to Bixby, Oklahoma.”

  “I’m sorry, Mom. It was just a misunderstanding.”

  “I’ll say.”

  “I should have explained it was long distance.”

  “I’ll say.”

  Bingo’s father said, “Well, it’s done. Can we eat?” He glanced at the wok with a sigh. “Dinner’s probably ruined.”

  “I don’t see how you can eat when we owe the phone company fifty-four dollars and twenty-nine cents,” Bingo’s mother said.

  “I can always eat.”

  “May I remind you that I have not actually gotten one single commission yet?”

  “You may remind me. Now can we eat?”

  In a sideways slip Bingo moved around the back of his chair and sat. He began to breathe again.