The Naked Mole-Rat Letters (10 page)

I paced. The best thing to do would be to confess to the murder of the book and apologize. But I find it very hard to admit that I'm
wrong. There's something about Dad's voice. When he's disappointed or angry, his voice comes at me like warm mud and clogs up my brain.

“Frankie, I think I know the reason you don't want to be in the play,” he went on. “Skip said that you practiced very hard for the leading role, and my guess is that you are disappointed that you didn't get the part. I understand your disappointment, but I still think it would be good experience for you to be in the play. In elementary school you were a big fish in a little pond, Frankie. Now that you're in junior high school, you're a small fish in a big pond. Sometimes you have to settle for a small role. According to Ms. Young, you should feel lucky to get in at all. And getting a small part certainly doesn't justify destroying a library book. Tomorrow I expect you to go to the library and pay for the book with your own money.”

“Fine! But you can't make me be in the play.”

“Okay,” he said. “One last thing. I was thinking that maybe I've been putting too
much pressure on you, expecting too much from you. I'm going to ask Mrs. Whitehead to come over after school for the next few weeks and help, just until my work eases.”

I groaned. “We don't want anybody else in the house.”

“I think we need help. I think—”

I opened the door. “We don't need help! I'm not doing the play anyway.”

Nutter came running down the hall and threw himself at Dad. “I'm sorry I ate the cake. Frankie shouldn't get into trouble for that. She takes good care of me. Don't ask Mrs. Whitehead. She has hairs coming out of her nose.”

Dad cracked up.

Skip slithered into the hall. “It's true. We hate Mrs. Whitehead.”

“All right.” Dad gave in. “I won't ask Mrs. Whitehead to come, but you guys have to each promise something. Nutter, you have to promise not to eat cake before dinner. . . .”

Nutter saluted like a soldier.

“Skip, you have to mind your own business. It's okay to
play
at being a spy, but you shouldn't
really
spy on people.”

Skip nodded, like
that
was going to stop him.

Dad turned to me.

“I know. I know,” I said. “I have to pay for the library book.”

“And . . .”

“And watch Nutter more closely after school.”

“And help me with my koala costume!” Nutter exclaimed.

Dad ruffled Nutter's hair.

The phone rang, and Dad went to get it.

I grabbed Skip by his skinny little arm. “You dirty rotten pig. Spy on me e-mailing again, and I'll tell everybody in your class that you wet your bed.”

“It's not true. I don't wet my bed.”

I let go and crossed my arms. “I'm a very good actress, Skip. Even your friends will believe me.”

That got him.

But I wasn't done. I needed more info. “How much of my e-mails to Ratlady did you read?” I asked.

“Nothing. I just saw her name. You deleted them faster than I could read them. Why are
you writing to her anyway? Why is this such a big deal?”

“She's an enemy, Skip. She's trying to get her claws into Dad. You have to know who your enemies are.” I slammed my door.

A minute later Dad knocked. “Hey, Frankie. Why is this door closed again? You can't stay angry.”

“It's not because I'm angry,” I lied. “I have a report to do. I work better in privacy.”

“Well, come out anyway. It's Beth on the phone. She says she really wants to talk to you.”

“I'm not in the mood for Beth,” I said.

The last two things aren't lies. I'm not in the mood to talk to Beth, and I do have a report to do.

So am I writing my report? No, I am writing the saga of this evening. Although I'm feeling somewhat better now, I'm still mad at Skip. Perhaps I should sell him on eBay. I'm certainly never talking to him again. Now that Dad knows that I e-mailed Ratlady, he might find out what I've been e-mailing her about, and it will be all Skip's fault.

I'm starved, but I'm not coming out of this
room . . . at least not until Dad is working on his stupid dulcimer in the basement. Then I'm going to sneak out and go on-line. I have one absolutely last lie, which will absolutely convince Ratlady. Since Ratlady doesn't listen to me, I am going to write her a message and say it's from Dad. It's a dramatic, drastic idea, but these are dramatic, drastic times.

 

Dear Ayanna:


This is Robert. I have something to confess. I will be getting married soon. I should have told you this right away. But I'm taking some medicine that confuses my mind. I hope that you will understand. It would be best for me and my family if you would stop communicating with me. If I call or write, it is because I am confused. Please ignore me.


Thank you,


Robert


 

Dear Frankie:


I can tell that you wrote the message. I am worried about you. Signing someone else's name to a message is serious. Here's what I think is happening: I think you feel threatened by the idea of your dad becoming romantically involved with me. You probably miss your mom a lot and worry about someone taking her place. This is understandable. It's called being “territorial.”


Lots of animals are territorial for good reason: It helps them survive. Take naked mole-rats, for example. They live in very separate colonies, which are really big families. In the wild, if one mole-rat accidentally burrows into the tunnel system of another colony, the soldier mole-rats don't bother getting acquainted with the new mole-rat. They attack immediately. This behavior is ingrained in them. Biologists call it a survival instinct. The idea is that in order to survive, a colony must defend its
territory (that means its food supply) from others—even other mole-rats.


You're thinking of clever ways to try to dissuade me from having any further communication with your father. What you need to do is talk to him about all of this. Please, turn off the computer and tell your father how you feel.


Honestly and hopefully yours,


Ayanna


 

Dear Ms. Bayo:


I don't know what you're talking about. I didn't “sign” my dad's name to an e-mail message. I have been in my room writing in my diary.


I'll tell you one thing, though. It makes a lot of sense to me that one colony of naked mole-rats wouldn't want a rat from another colony barging in.


Frankie


 

Dear Frankie:


It does make a lot of sense for mole-rats to defend their colonies: An outsider threatens the food supply.


What about human relationships? New relationships do threaten to change old dynamics. But if we close ourselves to the possibility of new friendships, how do we ever grow?


I met your father because he came barging into the small mammal house to get out of the rain and accidentally bumped into me. If I immediately became angry and hostile toward him, then I wouldn't have gotten to know him. And that would have been a loss.


I have enjoyed getting to know him, hearing him talk about you and your brothers, and learning about dulcimers. A little over a week ago, I didn't know that the Wallop family or Pepper Blossom
existed; now, I can picture you all in my mind. I didn't realize, until your dad barged in, just how boring my tunnel system had become.


Accidentally yours,


Ayanna


 

Ms. Bayo:


I'm sorry for your boring life. My life is never boring. But if I were you, I wouldn't go falling in love with strangers. You never know about strangers. They might look nice on the outside and be nasty on the inside.


—F.


 

 

F.:


You are absolutely right. It's wise to be cautious.


—A.


P.S. I know that I promised not to tell your dad about our correspondence, but I'm not sure if I should keep that promise now. Your dad needs to know how you're feeling. I won't tell him, but only if you agree to talk to him.


 

Fine.


 

Ratlady wants me to open up to Dad. How can I open up to someone who is keeping secrets from me?

I keep thinking about that letter that Dad wrote to her.
Your e-mails to Heartstrings haven't been distracting me from my work; they've been inspiring me
. What have they been writing to each other?

She agreed with me that it's wise to be cautious, but how far has her “friendship” with Dad gone?

I wish there would be a naked mole-rat emergency at her zoo that would take up all her attention. A hole in the plastic tunnel! Naked mole-rats escaping! If I lived in Washington, D.C., I'd sneak over to the zoo and create a diversion.

I'd like to talk to someone about all this, but who? I can't talk to Beth. She doesn't get it. I feel like I'm the last of my species alive on the face of the earth.

I'm crawling into bed. Good night.

Dear Diary,

I'm writing this in the girl's bathroom. That's the only place I can get a little privacy around here.

I can't believe how this day is going so far. It all started with math. I forgot we were having a test.

I have never been unprepared for a test in my life. Normally when I get a test, I know what to do and calmly do it. Today when Mr. Peter handed out the tests, I thought my eyeballs were going to explode. I stared at the first page, but I couldn't make sense of it. Meanwhile everybody around me started scribbling right away. I felt the way Helen Keller must have felt when she could feel people's lips moving but couldn't understand what they were saying. I felt like I was drowning.