Dear Mr. Henshaw / Дорогой мистер Хеншоу. 7-8 классы

© Шитова А. В., адаптация, словарь, 2014

© ООО Антология, 2014

Dear Mr. Henshaw,

My teacher read your book about the dog to our class. It was funny. We licked it.

Dear Mr. Henshaw,

I am the boy who wrote to you last year when I was in the second grade. Maybe you didn’t get my letter. This year I read the book that I wrote to you about called Ways to Amuse a Dog. It is the first thick book with chapters that I have read.

The boy’s father said that city dogs were bored so Joe could not keep the dog unless he could find seven ways to amuse it. I have a black dog. His name is Bandit. He is a nice dog.

If you answer I will put your letter on the bulletin board.

My teacher taught me a trick about friend. The i goes before e so that at the end it will spell end.

Keep in tutch*.

Dear Mr. Henshaw,

I am in the fourth grade now. I made a diorama of Ways to Amuse a Dog, the book that I wrote to you about two times before. Now our teacher is making us write to authors for Book Week. I got your answer to my letter last year, but it was only printed. Please write to me in your own handwriting. I am a great lover of your books.

My favorite character in the book was Joe’s Dad because he didn’t get mad when Joe amused his dog by playing a tape of a lady singing, and his dog sat and howled like he was singing, too. Bandit does the same thing when he hears singing.

Dear Mr. Henshaw,

I am thinking about Ways to Amuse a Dog. When Joe took his dog to the park and taught him to slide down the slide, wouldn’t some grownup come and say he couldn’t let his dog use the slide? Here grownups, who are mostly really old with cats, get mad if dogs aren’t on leashes every minute. I hate living in a mobile home park.

I saw your picture on the back of the book. When I grow up I want to be a famous book writer with a beard like you.

I am sending you my picture. It is last year’s picture. My hair is longer now. With all the millions of kids in the U.S., how would you know who I am if I don’t send you my picture?

Enclosure: Picture of me.

(We are studying business letters.)

Dear Mr. Henshaw,

I am in the fifth grade now. You might like to know that I gave a book report on Ways to Amuse a Dog. The class liked it. I got an A-. The minus was because the teacher said I didn’t stand on both feet.

Dear Mr. Henshaw,

I got your letter and did what you said. I read a different book by you. I read Moose on Toast. I liked it almost as much as Ways to Amuse a Dog. It was really funny that the boy’s mother tried to find ways to cook the moose meat they had in their freezer. 1000 pounds is a lot of moose. Moose burgers, moose stew and moose meat loaf don’t sound too bad. Maybe moose mincemeat pie would be OK because you wouldn’t know you were eating moose. Creamed moose on toast, yuck.

I don’t think the boy’s father had to shoot the moose, but I guess there are many moose in Alaska, and maybe they needed it for food.

If my Dad shot a moose I would give the tough parts to my dog Bandit.

Dear Mr. Henshaw,

This year I am in the sixth grade in a new school in a different town. Our teacher is making us do author reports to improve our writing skills, so of course I thought of you. Please answer the following questions.

1. How many books have you written?

2. Is Boyd Henshaw your real name?

3. Why do you write books for children?

4. Where do you get your ideas?

5. Do you have any kids?

6. What is your favorite book that you wrote?

7. Do you like to write books?

8. What is the title of your next book?

9. What is your favorite animal?

10. Please give me some tips on how to write a book. This is important to me. I really want to know so I can become a famous writer and write books exactly like yours.

Please send me a list of your books that you wrote, an autographed picture and a bookmark. I need your answer by next Friday. This is urgent!

Dear Mr. Henshaw,

At first I was very upset when I didn’t get an answer to my letter in time for my report, but it was OK because I read what it said about you on the back of Ways to Amuse a Dog. On the book it said you lived in Seattle, so I didn’t know that you moved to Alaska, but I should’ve guessed from Moose on Toast.

When your letter finally came I didn’t want to read it to the class, because I didn’t think Miss Martinez would like your silly answers. She said I had to read it. The class laughed and Miss Martinez smiled, but she didn’t smile when I came to the part about your favorite animal which was a purple monster who ate children who sent authors long lists of questions for reports instead of learning to use the library.

Your writing tips were OK. I could tell that you were serious about them. Don’t worry. When I write something, I won’t send it to you. I understand how busy you are with your own books.

I hid the second page of your letter from Miss Martinez. That list of questions that you sent for me to answer really made me mad. Nobody else’s author put in a list of questions, and I don’t think it’s fair to make me do more work when I already wrote a report.

Anyway, thank you for answering my questions. Some kids didn’t get any answers at all, which made them mad, and one girl almost cried, she was so afraid she would get a bad grade. One boy got a letter from an author who was really excited about getting a letter and wrote such a long answer that the boy had to write a long report. He thinks that nobody ever wrote to that author before, and surely he wouldn’t again. About ten kids wrote to the same author, who wrote one answer to all of them. There was a big argument about who could keep it until Miss Martinez took the letter to the office and made copies of it.

About those questions you sent me. I’m not going to answer them, and you can’t make me. You’re not my teacher.

P.S. When I asked you what the title of your next book was going to be, you said, “Who knows”? Did you mean that this was the title or you don’t know what the title will be? And do you really write books because you have read every book in the library and because writing is better than cutting grass or clearing snow?

Dear Mr. Henshaw,

Mom found your letter and your list of questions which I stupidly left on my desk. We had a big argument. She says that I have to answer your questions because authors are working people like everyone else, and if you found time to answer my questions, I should answer yours. She says that I can’t expect everyone to do everything for me all my life. She said the same thing to Dad when he left his socks on the floor.

Well, I have to go now. It’s bedtime. Maybe I’ll start answering your ten questions, and maybe I won’t. There isn’t any law that says I have to. Maybe I won’t even read any more of your books.

P.S. If my Dad was here, he would tell you a thing or two.

Dear Mr. Henshaw,

Mom is asking me about your stupid questions. She says that if I really want to be an author, I should follow the tips in your letter. I should read, look, listen, think and write. She says the best way she knows for me to begin is to sit down and answer your questions fully. So here we go.

1. Who are you?

Like I said, I am Leigh Botts. Leigh Marcus Botts. I don’t like my name Leigh because some people don’t know how to say it or think it’s a girl’s name. Mom says that with a last name like Botts I need something fancy but not too fancy. My Dad’s name is Bill and Mom’s name is Bonnie. She says Bill and Bonnie Botts sounds funny. I am just a plain boy. This school doesn’t say that I am “Gifted” or “Talented”, and I don’t like soccer as much as everybody at this school does. I am not stupid either.

2. What do you look like?

I already sent you my picture, but maybe you lost it. I am medium. I don’t have red hair or anything like that. I’m not really big like my Dad. Mom says that I take after her family, thank goodness. That’s the way she always says it. In first and second grades kids called me Leigh the Flea, but I have grown. Now when the class lines by height, I am in the middle. I guess you could call me the most medium boy in the class.

This is hard work. To be continued, maybe.

Dear Mr. Henshaw,

I wasn’t going to answer any more of your questions, but Mom won’t fix our broken TV because she says it’s bad for my brain. This is Thanksgiving vacation and I am so bored that I decided to answer a couple of your stupid questions with my stupid brain. (Joke.)

3. What is your family like?

Since Dad and Bandit went away, my family is just Mom and me. Before, we all lived in a mobile home near Bakersfield in California. When Mom and Dad got divorced, they sold the mobile home, and Dad moved into a trailer.

Dad drives a big truck. His cab is over the engine. Some people don’t know that. The truck is why my parents got divorced. Before, Dad worked for someone else, hauling stuff like cotton, sugar beets and other produce around California and Nevada, but he wanted to have his own rig for cross-country hauling. He worked practically night and day and saved some money. Mom said that we’d never get out of that mobile home when he had to make such big payments on that rig, and she’d never know where he was when he hauled cross-country. His rig, which truckers call a tractor, but everyone else calls a truck, is surely a beauty with ten wheels and everything, so he can hitch up and haul anything.

My hand is tired after all this writing, but I try to treat Mom and Dad the same so I’ll get to Mom next time.

Mr. Henshaw:

Why should I call you “dear,” when you are the reason I have to do all this work? I can’t leave Mom out so here is Question 3 continued.

Mom works part-time for “Catering by Katy” which is owned by a really nice lady whom Mom knew when she was growing up in Taft, California. Katy says that all women who grew up in Taft had to be good cooks because they went to so many potluck suppers. Mom and Katy and some other ladies make fancy food for weddings and parties. They also bake cheesecakes and apple pies for restaurants. Mom is a good cook. I just wish she would do it more at home, like the mother in Moose on Toast. Almost every day Katy gives Mom something good to put in my school lunch.

Mom also takes a couple of courses at the college. She wants to be a licensed nurse. They help real nurses except they don’t stick needles in people. She is almost always home when I get home from school.

Mr. Henshaw:

Here we go again.

4. Where do you live?

After the divorce Mom and I moved from Bakersfield to Pacific Grove which is in California, about twenty miles from the sugar refinery where Dad had hauled sugar beets before he went cross-country. Mom said that all the time she was growing up she wished for a few ocean breezes, and now we’ve got them. We’ve got a lot of fog too, especially in the morning. There aren’t any crops around here, just golf courses for rich people.

We live in a little house, a really little house. It was somebody’s summer cottage a long time ago before they built a two-story house in front of it. Now it is a garden cottage and it is falling apart, but it is all we have money for. Mom says that at least we have a roof over our heads, and it can’t be hauled away on a truck. I have my own room, but Mom sleeps on a couch in the living room. She decorated the place really nicely with things from the thrift shop down the street.

Next door is a gas station that goes ping-ping, ping-ping every time a car drives in. They turn off the pinger at 10:00 P.M., but mostly I am asleep by then. On our street, besides the thrift shop, there is a pet shop, a sewing machine shop, an electric shop, a couple of antique shops, plus a restaurant and an ice cream place.

Sometimes when the gas station isn’t pinging, I can hear the ocean and the sea lions barking. They sound like dogs, and I think of Bandit.

To be continued unless we get the TV fixed.

Mr. Henshaw:

If our TV was fixed I would be watching “Highway Patrol,” but it isn’t, so here are some more answers from my stupid brain. (Ha-ha.)

5. Do you have any pets?

I do not have any pets. (My teacher says always answer questions in full sentences.) When Mom and Dad got divorced and Mom got me, Dad took Bandit because Mom said that she couldn’t work and look after a dog, and Dad said that he likes to take Bandit in his truck because it helps him to stay awake on long hauls if he has his dog to talk to. I really miss Bandit, but I guess he’s happier with Dad. Like the father said in Ways to Amuse a Dog, dogs get bored if they stay in the house all day. That is what Bandit would do with Mom and me.

Bandit likes to ride. That’s how we got him. He just jumped into Dad’s cab at a truck stop in Nevada and sat there. He had a red bandanna around his neck instead of a collar, so we called him Bandit.

Sometimes I lie awake at night listening to the gas station ping-pinging and thinking about Dad and Bandit hauling tomatoes or cotton on Interstate 5, and I am glad that Bandit is there to keep Dad awake. Have you ever seen Interstate 5? It is straight and boring with nothing much but fields. It is so boring that the cattle in the fields don’t even moo. They just stand there.

My hand is tired from all this writing again. I’ll get to No. 6 next time. Mom says not to worry about the postage, so I can’t use that as an excuse for not answering.

Mr. Henshaw:

Here we go again. I’ll never write another list of questions for an author to answer, no matter what the teacher says.

6. Do you like school?

School is OK, I guess. That’s where the kids are. The best thing about sixth grade in my new school is that if I do my best, I’ll finish it.

7. Who are your friends?

I don’t have many friends in my new school. Mom says that maybe I’m a loner, but I don’t know. A new boy in school has to be careful until he knows who’s who. Maybe I’m just a medium boy whom nobody pays much attention to. The only time anybody paid much attention to me was in my last school when I gave the book report on Ways to Amuse a Dog. After my report some people went to the library to get the book. The kids here pay more attention to my lunch than to me. They really want to see what I have in my lunch because Katy gives me such good things.

I wish somebody would invite me to their place sometime. After school I spend time kicking a soccer ball with some of the other kids so they won’t think I am a snob or anything, but nobody invites me anyway.

8. Who is your favorite teacher?

I don’t have a favorite teacher, but I really like Mr. Fridley. He’s the custodian. He’s always fair about who gets the milk first at lunchtime, and once when he had to clean after someone who got sick in the hall, he didn’t even look cross. He just said, “It looks like somebody’s made a mess,” and started putting sawdust around it. Mom got mad at Dad for making a mess too, but she didn’t mean throwing up. She meant that he stayed too long at that truck stop outside of town.

Two more questions to go. Maybe I won’t answer them. Ha-ha.

Mr. Henshaw:

OK, you win, because Mom is still nagging me, and I don’t have anything else to do. I’ll answer your last two questions even if I stay up all night.

9. What bothers you?

What bothers me about what? I don’t know what you mean. I guess I’m bothered by a lot of things. I am bothered when someone steals something out of my lunch bag. I don’t know enough about the people in the school to know who it can be. I am bothered about little kids with runny noses. I don’t mean I am fussy or anything like that. I don’t know why. I am just bothered.

I am bothered about walking to school slowly. The rule is that nobody should be on the school grounds until ten minutes before the first bell rings. Mom has an early class. The house is so lonely in the morning when she is gone that I can’t stand it and leave together with her. I don’t mind being alone after school, but I don’t like it in the morning before the fog lifts and our cottage seems dark and wet.

Mom tells me to go to school but to walk slowly which is hard work. Once I tried walking around every square in the sidewalk, but that was boring too. Sometimes I walk backwards except when I cross the street, but I still get to school so early that I have to hide behind the bushes so Mr. Fridley won’t see me.

I am bothered when my Dad telephones me and finishes by saying, “Well, keep your nose clean, kid.” Why can’t he say that he misses me, and why can’t he call me Leigh? I am bothered when he doesn’t phone at all which is most of the time. I have a book of road maps and try to follow his trips when I hear from him. When the TV worked I watched the weather on the news so I would know if he was driving through blizzards, tornadoes, hail or any of that fancy weather they have in other places of the U.S.

10. What do you wish?

I wish somebody would stop stealing the good stuff out of my lunch bag. I guess I wish a lot of other things, too. I wish someday Dad and Bandit would stop in front of our house in the rig with a big trailer. Dad would yell out of the cab, “Come on, Leigh. Jump in and I’ll take you to school.” Then I’d climb in and Bandit would wag his tail and lick my face. We’d drive off and all the men in the gas station would stare at us. Instead of going straight to school, we’d go along the freeway looking down on the tops of ordinary cars. Then we would turn around and go back to school just before the bell rang. I guess I wouldn’t look so medium then, sitting up there in the cab. I’d jump out, and Dad would say, “Bye, Leigh. See you,” and Bandit would give a little bark like good-bye. I’d say, “Drive carefully, Dad,” like I always do. Dad would take a minute to write in the truck’s logbook, “Drove my son to school.” Then the truck would drive away and all the kids would stare and wish their Dads drove big trucks, too.

There, Mr. Henshaw. That’s the end of your stupid questions. I hope you are happy about making me do all this extra work.

Dear Mr. Henshaw,

I am sorry I was rude in my last letter when I finished answering your questions. Maybe I was mad about other things, like Dad forgetting to send this month’s payment. Mom tried to phone him at the trailer park. He has his own phone in his trailer so the broker who gives him jobs can call him. I wish he still hauled sugar beets to the refinery here so he could come to see me. The judge in the divorce said that he has a right to see me.

When you answered my questions, you said that the way to be an author was to write. You underlined it twice. Well, I did a lot of writing, and you know what? Now that I think about it, it wasn’t so bad when it wasn’t for a book report or a report on some country in South America or anything where I had to look for things in the library. I even miss writing now that I’ve finished your questions. I get lonesome. Mom is working overtime at “Catering by Katy” because people give a lot of parties this time of year.

When I write a book maybe I’ll call it The Great Lunchbag Mystery, because I have a lot of trouble with my lunchbag. Mom doesn’t cook roasts and steaks now that Dad is gone, but she makes me good lunches with sandwiches on bread from the health food store with good filling spread all the way to the corners. Katy sends me little cheesecakes and other things she baked just for me.

Today I was supposed to have an egg. But at lunchtime when I opened my lunchbag, my egg was gone. We leave our lunchbags and boxes (mostly bags because no sixth-grader wants to carry a lunchbox) along the wall under our coat hooks at the back of the classroom behind a partition.

Are you writing another book? Please answer my letter so we can be pen pals.

Dear Mr. Henshaw,

I was surprised to get your postcard from Wyoming, because I thought you lived in Alaska.

Don’t worry. I get the message. You don’t have much time for answering letters. That’s OK with me, because I’m glad you are busy writing a book.

Something nice happened today. When I was walking around behind the bushes at school waiting for the ten minutes to come before the first bell rings, I was watching Mr. Fridley raise the flags. Maybe I better explain that the state flag of California is white with a brown bear in the middle. First Mr. Fridley raised the U.S. flag and then the California flag below it. I saw that the bear was upside down with his feet in the air. So I said, “Hey, Mr. Fridley, the bear is upside down.”

This is a new paragraph because Miss Martinez says there should be a new paragraph when a different person speaks. Mr. Fridley said, “Well, so it is. Would you like to turn him right side up?”

So I got to pull the flags down, turn the bear flag the right way and raise both flags again. Mr. Fridley said maybe I should come to school a few minutes early every morning to help him with the flags, but asked me to stop walking backwards because it made him nervous. So now I don’t have to walk quite so slow. It was nice to have somebody notice me. Nobody stole anything from my lunch today because I ate it on the way to school.

I am still thinking about what you said on your postcard about keeping a diary. Maybe I’ll try it.

Dear Mr. Henshaw,

I bought a composition book like you said. It is yellow and has a spiral. On the front I printed

DIARY OF LEIGH MARCUS BOTTS

PRIVATE – KEEP OUT

THIS MEANS YOU!!!!!

When I started to write in it, I didn’t know how to begin. I felt that I should write “Dear Composition Book” or “Dear Piece of Paper,” but that sounds stupid. The first page still looks the way I feel. Blank. I don’t think I can keep a diary. I don’t want to be a nuisance to you, but please tell me how to do it. I am stuck.

Dear Mr. Henshaw,

I got your postcard with the picture of the bears. Maybe I’ll do what you said and pretend my diary is a letter to somebody. I suppose I could pretend to write to Dad, but I wrote to him before and he never answered. Maybe I’ll pretend I am writing to you because when I answered all your questions, I always used the beginning “Dear Mr. Henshaw.” Don’t worry. I won’t send it to you.