“Some trouble?” he asked.
I didn’t know what to say, so I said, “My lunch. Somebody steals the good stuff out of my lunch.”
“Find him and punch him in the nose,” said Dad. I could tell he didn’t think that my lunch was important.
“I hoped you would call,” I said. “I waited and waited.” Then I was sorry I said it. I still have some pride left.
“There was heavy snow in the mountains,” he said. “I had to put chains on wheels and lost some time.”
I know about putting chains on trucks. When the snow is heavy, truckers have to put chains on the drive wheels – all eight of them. Putting chains on eight big wheels in the snow is no fun. I felt a little better. “How’s Bandit?” I asked.
There was a strange pause. For a minute I thought that we were disconnected. Then I knew something must have happened to my dog. “How’s Bandit?” I asked again louder, remembering that Dad might have lost some of the hearing in his left ear from all that wind.
“Well, kid – ” he began.
“My name is Leigh!” I almost shouted. “I’m not just some kid you met on the street.”
“Easy, Leigh,” he said. “When I had to stop to put on chains, I let Bandit out of the cab. I thought that he would get right back in because it was snowing hard, but after I chained up, he wasn’t in the cab.”
“Did you leave the door open for him?” I asked.
Big pause. “I think I did,” he said which meant that he didn’t. Then he said, “I whistled and whistled, but Bandit didn’t come. I couldn’t wait any longer because I had a deadline for delivering a load. I had to leave. I’m sorry, kid – Leigh – but that’s the way it is.”
“You left Bandit to freeze to death!” I was crying from anger. How could he?
“Bandit knows how to take care of himself,” said Dad. “I think he will jump into another truck.”
I wiped my nose. “Why would the driver let him in?” I asked.
“Because he’ll think that Bandit is lost,” said Dad, “He won’t leave a dog to freeze.”
“What about your CB radio?” I asked. “Didn’t you send a call?”
“Surely I did, but I didn’t get an answer. Mountains kill the signal,” Dad told me.
I was going to say that I understood, but here comes the bad part, the really bad part. I heard a boy’s voice. He said, “Hey, Bill, Mom wants to know when we’re going out to get the pizza?” I felt sick. I hung up. I didn’t want to hear any more, when Mom had to pay for the long distance phone call. I didn’t want to hear any more at all.
To be continued.
Dear Mr. Henshaw,
I don’t have to pretend to write to Mr. Henshaw anymore. I have learned to say what I think on a piece of paper. And I don’t hate my father either. I can’t hate him. Maybe things would be easier if I could.
Yesterday after I hung up on Dad I fell down on my bed and cried and swore and punched my pillow. I felt so terrible about Bandit riding around with a strange trucker and Dad taking another boy out for pizza when I was all alone in the house with the dirty bathroom when it was raining outside and I was hungry. The worst part of all was that I knew if Dad took someone to a pizza place for dinner, he wouldn’t have phoned me at all, no matter what he said. He would have too much fun playing video games.
Then I heard Mom’s car stop out in front. I washed my face and tried to look as if I hadn’t been crying, but I couldn’t fool Mom. She came to the door of my room and said, “Hi, Leigh.” I tried to look away, but she came closer and said, “What’s the matter, Leigh?”
“Nothing,” I said, but she didn’t believe me. She sat down and put her arm around me.
I tried hard not to cry, but I couldn’t help it. “Dad lost Bandit,” I finally said.
“Oh, Leigh,” she said, and I told her the whole story, with pizza and all.
We just sat there for a while, and then I said, “Why did you have to marry him?”
“Because I was in love with him,” she said.
“Why did you stop?” I asked.
“We just got married too young,” she said. “Growing up in that little town wasn’t exciting. There wasn’t much to do. I remember how at night I looked at the lights of Bakersfield in the distance and wished I could live in a place like that, it looked so big and exciting. It seems funny now, but then it seemed like New York or Paris.”
“After high school the boys mostly went to work in the fields or joined the army, and the girls got married. Some people went to college, but my parents weren’t interested in helping me. After graduation your Dad came in a big truck and – well, that was that. He was big and handsome and nothing seemed to bother him, and the way he drove his truck – well, he seemed like a knight to me. Things weren’t too happy at home with your grandfather drinking and all, so your Dad and I went to Las Vegas and got married. I loved riding with him until you were born, and – well, by that time I had had enough of highways and truck stops. I stayed home with you, and he was gone all the time.”
I felt a little better when Mom said that she was tired of life on the road. Maybe I wasn’t to blame after all. I remembered, too, how Mom and I were alone a lot and how I hated living in that mobile home. The only places we ever went to were the laundromat and the library. Mom read a lot and she read aloud to me, too.
Now Mom went on. “I didn’t think that such life was fun anymore. Maybe I grew up and your father didn’t.”
Suddenly Mom began to cry. I felt terrible making Mom cry, so I began to cry again, too, and we both cried until she said, “It’s not your fault, Leigh. You mustn’t ever think that. Your Dad is a good man. We just married too young. He loves the life on the road, and I don’t.”
“But he lost Bandit,” I said. “He didn’t leave the cab door open for him when it was snowing.”
“Maybe Bandit is just a bum,” said Mom. “Some dogs are, you know. Do you remember how he jumped into your father’s cab? Maybe he was ready to try another truck.”
She could be right, but I didn’t like to think so. I was almost afraid to ask the next question, but I did. “Mom, do you still love Dad?”
“Please don’t ask me,” she said. I didn’t know what to do, so I just sat there until she wiped her eyes and said, “Come on, Leigh, let’s go out.”
So we got in the car and drove to a diner and got a bucket of fried chicken. Then we drove down by the ocean and ate the chicken sitting in the car. It was raining outside, and there were waves breaking on the rocks. We opened the windows a little so we could hear the waves roll and break, one after another.
“You know,” said Mom, “when I watch the waves, I always feel that no matter how bad things are, life still goes on.” That was how I felt, too, only I didn’t know how to say it, so I just said, “Yeah.” Then we drove home.
I feel a lot better about Mom. I’m not so sure about Dad, although she says he is a good man. I don’t like to think that Bandit is a bum, but maybe Mom is right.
Today I felt so tired that I didn’t have to try to walk slowly on the way to school. I just did. Mr. Fridley had already raised the flags when I got there. The California bear was right side up so maybe Mr. Fridley didn’t need me to help him at all. I just put my lunch down on the floor and didn’t care if anybody stole any of it. But by lunchtime I was hungry, and when I found that my little cheesecake was missing, I was mad again.
I’m going to get the thief who steals from my lunch. Then he’ll be sorry. I’ll really fix him. Or maybe it’s her. Anyway, I’ll get them.
I tried to start a story for Young Writers. I wrote the title which was Ways to Catch a Lunchbag Thief. A mousetrap in the bag was all I could think of, and anyway my title sounded just like Mr. Henshaw’s book.