Dear Sylvia (4 page)

I will practice my Scottish and bring my bathing suit. Most of the blood came off it.

Best wishes to you too!

Owen

Deer Sylvia,

Thank you for bringing me to your Scottish dancing club and to swimming in your pool.

I'm sorry but next week I will not be able to come because I probably will be feeling ill.

Sorry,
Owen

Deer Sylvia,

Thank you for inviting me to your Scottish dancing and swimming.

I don't think I will be able to come next week.

I hope your ankles are OK.

Best wishes,
Owen

Deer Sylvia,

Thank you for taking me to Scottish dancing. I had a good time especially with the sword.

I'm sorry it got stuck in that girl's hair.

Next week I am
unfortunittly
unfortunately busy probably by being sick.

Owen

PSST! How are your ankles?

Deer Sylvia,

I am having a hard time writing this letter so I'm sorry. Uncle Lorne said Owen just say it right out so I will. I don't think I should have to wear a skirt even if I am the only boy Scottish dancing. I know girls wear hockey
geer
gear just like boys but this isn't hockey it's dancing and I don't think I can do it.

Sorry.
Owen

PSST! When you were jumping around the swords and pointing your toes and your hair was bouncing under your cap and you looked right at me like you could walk through a mountain and then you smiled and your face went red and you twirled a bit and dipped and that little bit of sweat went from your eyelash
strait
straight onto my cheek I thought maybe then I could do it. It's just a skirt and nobody would see me but the other girls.

But I've had time to think and it's too hard.

Deer Sylvia,

First of all Leonard was not supposed to say that to you in the driveway when you came with your mother to pick me up again for Scottish dancing. He was supposed to give you a letter which he didn't.

Second I was not hiding from you. I was in the basement taking care of Sylvester's rock which as you know is very important. That's why I said I could not go Scottish dancing this week.

Leonard was wrong. I did not say I would not go ever again.

I'm sorry if you were upset and if I was there in the driveway instead of in the basement I would have gone.

I'm sorry.

I should have just sent the letter or called on the phone but it costs extra money and we don't have any now because Dad's typewriter is still broken. So I gave the letter to Leonard. He wasn't supposed to tell you I was in the basement.

Are you mad at me?

I would like to go with you next week again. I will practice. I will get a skirt. I will try not to bump around the other girls.

From,
Owen

Deer Sylvia,

I sent the other letter and will wait in the driveway myself on Tuesday so you won't think I am in the basement. Mom told me all the men in Scotland wear skirts. That's just what they wear. So it's all right. Mom had one for me and it fits if I wear suspenders which I hope is allowed in the rules.

Leonard laughed so hard when he saw me he started to crawl on his belly and got a nose bleed. Lucky it was on the floor and not the carpet. Andy said the
feercist
bravest Scottish fighters all wore skirts called Kilts for everybody they kilt in battle. So now I understand.

I will be out in the driveway myself on Tuesday waiting for you with my kilt on.

Owen

PSST! I liked the dinner with your family. I'm sorry I should have sent you a card saying THANKS. My mom bugged me and bugged me and somehow I didn't do it because I was worried about the kilt.

But I did have a hard time swallowing the arty chokes and so now I know why they are called that.

I keep thinking about you when you dove off the diving board at your swimming pool and cut the water like a knife with your body so sharp and straight and how when you came up you looked at me to see if I was looking at you. I am always looking at you.

Someday I will send you all of these letters and then you will know.

Deer Sylvia,

I have been practicing the Paw Debask here in the basement with Sylvester and I think I have got it. I know I shouldn't look at my feet all the time when I do it but maybe then I won't knee anybody else.

It is very easy when you are in the basement with the bagpipe music in your head.

I did try butter on the arty chokes by the way. And I could swallow that. I am sorry to say I am starving hungry these days that we're poor. The Lord Buggle hotel doesn't pay much and Mom has her eye on another job at the Hotel Kwincy in Elgin. Is that close to your house? If she gets it then maybe I won't need a drive home from dancing.

I have been thinking a lot about the Invisible Enshurince Man. Dad has a new typewriter now that he found in the trash. It was perfectly good. It just needed a new ribbon and some cleaning and some oil and a new bell. So now Dad is CLACKclackCLACKing again and the pages are flying out the machine like newspapers in a movie. I think the Invisible Enshurince Man is a spy who is keeping his eye out for the end of the world which is when aliens will come looking for H-2-0 which is a very expensive chemical hard to buy on other planets. They will come to take all of ours and Rebecca his secretary will get captured!

So he will have to get on board the big saucer and then drive it through the meteor shower and find Rebecca.

I'm not sure how it's going to end.

Owen

Deer Sylvia,

I'm sorry I forgot the Paw Debask. I knew it and I knew it and then when the record started I didn't know anything. I just tried looking at you to follow but you do it so fast and my feet got behind you and I didn't think my elbows were doing anything at all till they hit Sally.

I don't think it will be much of a black eye. When we weren't poor Mom used to put meat on our eyes when they were black. It made you feel like maybe you could be dinner too someday.

I have started practicing the Paw Debask with Sadie after I get Fillus to sleep. I hope you don't mind. She gets these steps much faster than me and then she shows me.

Here is the latest with the Invisible Enshurince Man. Andy took a peek at some of the pages when Dad was outside fixing his new typewriter. It's now giving 2 letters whenever Dad punches 1 key. And not 2 letters the same either.

Andy said the Invisible Enshurince Man is actually about a man who sits in the office all day and gets afraid of the telephone. I don't know why he is afraid. But he stares at it and stares. He is supposed to pick it up and call people and tell them what to buy. But it's like the telephone is now an elephant which you can't pick up.

I don't know how Dad can have a hole book about that. Maybe the aliens have made the telephones into elephants and that's just part of their plot to take over the world. Nobody can call the army when the invasion begins!

I am sitting in the basement on Uncle Lorne's old cot writing to you and it's getting late and dark and sleepy but I don't want to go.

Love,
Owen

Deer Sylvia,

The Invisible Enshurince Man is not just afraid of his telephone. Andy snuck in and read some more while Dad was sleeping this afternoon. He is writing at night now and sleeping more in the day because that's how writers do it. Otherwise it would be too easy.

Rebecca isn't his secretary at all. She is the waitress at the restaurant where the Invisible Enshurince Man has lunch every day. She brushes her hair behind her ears before she writes down on a pad his order even though it's the same order every day and that's why the Invisible Enshurince Man loves her.

But Rebecca can't see him.

Leonard said — if she can't see him then how does she know he's there?

Andy said — she can hear him.

Leonard said — but wouldn't she get scared watching food being chewed in the middle of the air then disappearing into an Invisible stomach?

Andy said — nobody can see the food once it disappears behind Invisible lips and teeth.

And Leonard said — did Dad used to bring his lunch or eat at a restaurant every day when he was an Enshurince Man?

Which we don't know.

Tomorrow is dancing again and I know I will not
imbarass
embarrass you again.

Owen

Deer Sylvia,

I know I am supposed to look proud and not be turning my head to watch everybody else. I only do it because everybody else knows what they are doing. Anyway in hockey you must look around or you get knocked into the snowbank.

And I know Scottish dancing isn't hockey but Mrs. MCcTargus could be a hockey coach if she wanted. She yells loud enough.

But I'm not trying to hit anybody. I don't know what gave you that
impresshun
impression.

I am trying my best and anyway when I started I didn't even know the Paw Debask.

Owen

Deer Sylvia,

I can't stop thinking about what you said. I don't know why you got so mad all of a sudden when I was just learning. I didn't know you had to do the Paw Debask backwards too and I don't know what a traveling step is except in basketball.

Sincerely,
Owen

Deer Sylvia,

I know you didn't yell but you almost did and before you were laughing so that's why I made a little joke with Janice and sent her skidding a little bit but nobody was hurt and it was fine until Mrs. MctArgus came back right then.

Owen

Deer Sylvia,

When you almost yell at me it's like rain all Saturday afternoon and all you can do is watch out the window and if you do go out it's cold and wet.

I could write more but I won't.

Owen

Deer Sylvia,

Leonard has been teaching me the Paw Debask backwards. Sadie showed him and he is showing me so I won't be a fool next time at dancing.

I can do it fine with Leonard and I can do it fine with Sadie so next time I'll just pretend you are Leonard and I'll know it backwards and frontwards and sideways and upside down. And then you won't have to look at me like you wish I would fall off the fence into the bull's field in a red shirt.

From,
Owen

PSST! Mom has found me a Skye tartan kilt. I hope that is all right with Mrs. MaCtargus and she won't have to make fun of my clothes any more. Sometimes I wish you didn't tell her I don't know anything about Scottish dancing.

Deer Sylvia,

I miss writing to you so I am writing again even though you are going to marry the new boy Danny Bainman just because he dances like he came from Scotland which he did and now he just lives two streets over and is in your pool swimming every day.

When you are dancing with Danny Bainman and everyone is clapping and tapping their feet and the bagpipe record can't blow fast enough and you are
twerling
twurling
circling like a bunch of starlings Danny Bainman isn't even in the room.

Except for how you look at him.

Your friend,
Owen

Deer Sylvia,

Last night Fillus was sick with a raging fever and I had to walk her up and down up and down. No one else could do it. When Uncle Lorne took her he carried her like a car battery he might drop. Then Ant Lorraine grabbed her like a bag of groceries in a brown paper bag that yowelled and
shreaked
shrieked so loud that Eleanor said — all babies should be sent to reform school!

And Sadie said — give her to Owen!

So Eleanor almost threw Fillus into my arms like Andy sometimes throws the football too hard just to show you.

But I caught her all right. Her skin felt like the burner had been left on inside.

She yowelled and yowelled. We did the Paw Debask. Forwards and back. I hummed some bagpipes and so did Sadie and I travel stepped and kept dancing her.

She kept yowelling and shrieking but like a train going by which doesn't last.

Sadie said — she likes your shoulder and the way you giggle her. Fillus started to fall into
exhostshun
exhaustion then and I tried to hand her over to Sadie to show her how to giggle a baby but she cried again so I had to do it all over.

Maybe Fillus will be a great Scottish dancer because of these lessons.

Your friend,
Owen

Deer Sylvia,

I am sorry I cannot go Scottish dancing this week.

I have got a fever now from Fillus who is getting better but I am roasting and maybe will die.

I am having ginger ale which if I am not careful comes out my nose when I am lying down. So I can't write much.

Love,
Owen

Deer Sylvia,

I think probably now you are swimming with Danny Bainman because it is after Scottish dancing. I think he is watching you do your dives and then you are watching him when he shakes his arms as if he is a mussel man and then probably you are going to have dinner with him and he is going to say to your mother —
arty chokes
artichokes are my favorites!

And then he will eat them.

In case you are interested Andy has read some more of the Invisible Enshurince Man. The Invisible Enshurince Man can pick up the phone now but can only call the restaurant where Rebecca is the waitress. I don't know why the phone won't work any other way or what happened to the elephant. He calls her and orders more food even though he isn't hungry. But now at least Rebecca can see him better.

I am very weak now and probably will be dead by next Tuesday. So I won't bother Mrs. MctArgus any more.

Owen

PSST! Danny Bainman cross-gripped once in class when he should have linked arms. Even I could see that.

Deer Sylvia,

I'm sorry I wasn't awake for your visit. A long time ago when I broke my finger and went to the hospital in Elgin you came too and I was sleeping. Do you remember? You probably think all I do when I am gravelly ill is sleep.

Aktewly
Actually I had a dream. You and I walked up to the haunted house. It wasn't day but it wasn't night either. It was under water! And we swam like pike right through the front window. The red couch from the haunted house was floating in the living room and the Bog Man was trying to make dinner.