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 really be disappointed that I couldn’t meet him.
Friday, March 30Today 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 Reserved. Angela Badger sat in the middle and some of the girls pushed to sit nest to her. I sat across the table from her. The librarian told us that we could choose our lunch from the salad bar. Then all the librarians went to sit at another table with Mr. Badger.
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.
I still tried to think of something interesting to say to Mrs. Badger while eating my salad. Some girls were telling Mrs. Badger how they wanted to write books just like hers. The other librarians were having a lot of fun talking and laughing with Mr. Badger.
Mrs. Badger tried hard to make some of the shy kids to say something, and I still couldn’t think of anything to say to a lady who wrote books about girls. Finally Mrs. Badger looked at me and asked, “What did you write for the Yearbook?”
I turned red and answered, “Just something about a ride on a truck.”
“Oh!” said Mrs. Badger. “So you’re the author of A Day on Dad’s Rig!”
Everyone was quiet. We didn’t think that the real live author would know anything we had written, but she had read it and she remembered my title.
“I just got honorable mention,” I said, but I was thinking, She called me an author. A real live author called me an author.
“So what?” asked Mrs. Badger. “I liked A Day on Dad’s Rig because it was written by a boy who wrote honestly about something he knew and had strong feelings about. You made me feel what it was like to ride with tons of grapes behind me.”
“But I couldn’t write a story,” I said, feeling a lot braver.
“So what?” said Mrs. Badger. “You will know to write stories later, when you have lived longer and have more understanding. A Day on Dad’s Rig was a great work for a boy your age. You wrote like you, and you did not try to write like someone else. This is a mark of a good writer. Keep it up.”
I noticed that the girls who had said that they wanted to write books just like Angela Badger looked embarrassed.
“Thanks,” was all I could say. The waitress brought ice cream. Everyone finally began to ask Mrs. Badger if she wrote in pencil or on the typewriter and how many books she published and were her characters real people and did she have the problems when she was a girl like the girl in her book and what was it like to be a famous author?
I didn’t think that answers to those questions were very important, but I had one question that I wanted to ask. I did it at the last minute when Mrs. Badger was autographing some books that kids had brought.
“Mrs. Badger,” I said, “have you ever met Boyd Henshaw?”
“Why, yes,” she said, signing someone’s book. “I once met him at a meeting of librarians.”
“What’s he like?” I asked.
“He’s a very nice young man with a twinkle in his eye,” she answered. I think I have known that since the time he answered my questions when Miss Martinez made us write to an author.
On the ride home everybody was talking about Mrs. Badger. I didn’t want to talk. I just wanted to think. A real live author called me an author. A real live author told me to keep it up. Mom was proud of me when I told her.
The gas station stopped pinging a long time ago, but I wanted to write about all this while I remembered. I’m glad tomorrow is Saturday and I don’t have to go to school. I wish Dad was here so I could tell him all about today.
March 31Dear Mr. Henshaw,
I’ll keep this short to save your time. I had to tell you something. You were right. I wasn’t ready to write an imaginary story. But guess what! I wrote a true story which won Honorable Mention in the Yearbook. Maybe next year I’ll write something that will win first or second prize. Maybe by then I will know how to write an imaginary story.
I just thought that you would like to know. Thank you for your help. I’m glad I didn’t hand in that stupid story about the melting wax trucker.
Your friend, the author,Leigh Botts
P.S. I still write in the diary that you started me on.
FROM THE DIARY OF LEIGH BOTTS***Saturday, March 31This morning the sun was shining, so Barry and I mailed my letter to Mr. Henshaw and then went to see if there were still any butterflies in the grove. We only saw three or four, so I guess most of them have gone north for the summer. Then we walked to a little park and sat on a rock watching the waves. After that we walked back to my house.
A tractor without a trailer was parked in front. Dad’s! I began to run, and Dad and Bandit got out of the cab.
“Bye, I have to go,” shouted Barry who heard a lot about Dad and Bandit and who understands about parents and divorce.
Dad and I just stood there looking at each other until I said, “Hi, Dad. Have you seen any shoes on the highway lately?”
“Lots of them,” Dad smiled, not like his old self. “All kinds.”
Bandit came to me, wagging his tail and looking happy. There was a new red bandanna around his neck.
“How’re you doing, kid?” asked Dad. “I brought your dog back.”
“Thanks,” I said, hugging Bandit. Dad’s stomach seemed bigger, and he wasn’t as tall as I remembered him.
“You’ve grown,” he said which is what grownups always say when they don’t know what else to say to kids.
Did Dad think I would stop growing just because he was away? “How did you find Bandit?” I asked.
“By asking every day over my CB,” he said. “I finally got an answer from a trucker who said he had picked up a lost dog in a snowstorm in the mountains, a dog that was still riding with him. Last week we were at the same truck stop.”
“I’m glad you got him back,” I said, and after trying to think of something else to say, I asked, “Why aren’t you hauling anything?” I think I hoped he would say he had come all the way from Bakersfield just to bring Bandit back to me.
“I’m waiting for a load of broccoli,” he said. “So I thought I’d stop here on my way to Ohio.”
So Dad had come to see me just because of broccoli. After all these months when I wanted to see him so much, a load of broccoli brought him here. I felt mad and hurt. It hurt so much that I couldn’t think of anything to say.
Just then Mom drove up and got out of her old car which looked so little next to Dad’s big rig.
“Hello, Bill,” she said.
“Hello, Bonnie,” he said.
We all just stood there with Bandit wagging his tail, until Dad said, “Aren’t you going to ask me in?”
“Sure, come in,” said Mom. Bandit went with us to our little house and came inside. “How about a cup of coffee?” Mom asked Dad.
“Sure,” said Dad, looking around. “So this is where you two live.” Then he sat down on the couch.
“This is where we live as long as we can pay the rent,” said Mom. “And it can never be driven away.” Mom really hated that mobile home we lived in.
Dad looked tired and sad like I had never seen him look before. While Mom was making coffee, I showed him the burglar alarm I had made for my lunchbox. He looked at it and said, “I always knew I had a smart kid.”
Then I showed him my Yearbook and what I had written. He read it and said, “Funny, but I still think about that day every time I haul grapes to a winery. I’m glad you remember it, too.” That made me feel good. He looked at me for a while and then said, “You’re smarter than your old man.”
That embarrassed me. I didn’t know how to answer.
Finally Mom brought two cups of coffee. She gave one to Dad and took hers to a chair where she sat. They just sat there looking at one another over the coffee cups. I wanted to yell, Do something! Say something! Don’t just sit there!
Finally Dad said, “I miss you, Bonnie.”
I didn’t want to hear this conversation, but I didn’t know how to get out of there, so I sat down on the floor and hugged Bandit who looked happy like he had never been away.
“I’m sorry,” said Mom. I think she meant she was sorry Dad missed her. Or maybe she was sorry about everything. I don’t know.
“Have you found someone else?” asked Dad.
“No,” said Mom.
“I think about you a lot,” said Dad, “especially at night.”
“I haven’t forgotten you,” said Mom.
“Bonnie, is there any chance – ” Dad began.
“No,” said Mom in a sad, soft voice. “There isn’t a chance.”
“Why not?” asked Dad.
“Too many lonely days and nights not knowing where you were, too much waiting for phone calls you forgot to make because you were having fun at some truck stop,” said Mom. “Too many boring Saturday nights. Too many broken promises. Things like that.”
“Well…” said Dad and put his cup down. “That’s what I wanted to know, so I can go now.” He hadn’t even finished his coffee. He stood up and I did, too. Then he gave me a big hug, and for a minute I wanted to never let him go.
“Bye, son,” he said. “I’ll try to see you more often.”
“Sure, Dad,” I said. I had learned by now that I couldn’t trust anything he said.
Mom came to the door. Suddenly Dad hugged her, and to my surprise, she hugged him back. Then he turned and ran down the steps. When he reached his rig, he shouted, “Take good care of Bandit.”
I thought of Dad hauling a load of broccoli across the country and all those places in my book of road maps, and I didn’t like to think of Dad alone on that long haul driving all day and most of the night, thinking of Mom.
“Dad, wait!” I yelled and ran to him. “Dad, you keep Bandit. You need him more than I do. Please take him. I don’t have any ways to amuse him.”
Dad smiled at that, and whistled, and Bandit jumped into the cab as if that was what he really wanted to do all this time.
“Bye, Leigh,” Dad said and started the motor. Then he looked out the window and said, “You’re a good kid, Leigh. I’m proud of you, and I’ll try to be a better Dad.” As he drove off, he yelled, “See you around!” and was more the way I had remembered him.
When I went inside, Mom was drinking her coffee and staring into space. I went into my room, shut the door and sat listening to the gas station go ping-ping, ping-ping. Maybe it was broccoli that brought Dad here, but he had come because he really wanted to see us. He had really missed us. I felt sad and a lot better at the same time.
Abbreviationsadj – adjective (прилагательное)
adv – adverb (наречие)
conj – conjunction (союз)
interj – interjection (междометие)
n – noun (существительное)
phr.v. – phrasal verb (фразовый глагол)
prep – preposition (предлог)
pron – pronoun (местоимение)
v – verb (глагол)
Сокращенияамер. – американизм
бот. – ботанический термин
зоол. – зоологический термин
идиом. – идиоматическое выражение
разг. – разговорное выражение
across adv напротив, по ту сторону
afraid adj испуганный, боящийся
age n возраст
alarm system n сигнализация
alone adj одинокий
along 1) prep вдоль; 2) adv вместе, с собой
although conj хотя
amuse v развлекать, веселить
another adj другой
answer 1) v отвечать; 2) n ответ
