Bingo Brown and the Language of Love Read Free

new job selling real estate, and even though she hadn’t gotten a commission yet, she was very happy.
    “Tell Billy yes!” she went on forcefully. “Tell Billy we will be glad to keep the poodle. Certainly it will make up, in part, for their having to keep you last fall.”
    This last humiliation, being put in the category of a dog, made Bingo turn—he hoped with dignity—and start back to his room.
    He went directly to Billy, at the open window. “Yes,” he said. He closed the window and went back to his bed.
    Well, at least he now had something to write to Melissa. “Billy Wentworth’s poodle, Misty, will be spending next week with me, so this will probably be my last letter for a while. I’ll have to keep an eye on her. Sincerely, but somewhat despondently, Bingo Brown”
    He fumbled under the bed for his summer notebook and flipped to “Trials of Today.” He wrote:
    1. Continued animosity from my mother and the cruel implication that I am, socially, on the same level with a poodle.
    2. Having the privacy of my bedroom invaded by an enemy agent.
    3. Inability to create postal history by writing Bingo letters to Melissa.
    4. Continued failure in reaching the mainstream of life.
    It made Bingo feel somewhat better to have survived four trials of this magnitude, but he still had only one word to list under “Triumphs”: none.

Chef Bingo
    B INGO TIED ON HIS apron and looked down at the cookbook on the counter. It was open to page forty-four: chicken breasts in tarragon sauce.
    Bingo cracked his knuckles, cheflike.
    “Let’s see,” he said. Beneath his breath, he began to read the ingredients. “Chicken breasts—I have those. Onions—I have those. …”
    In order to make up for his phone debt, Bingo had agreed to cook supper for his mom and dad for thirty-six nights. His mom had originally wanted fifty-four. “That’s fair, Bingo,” she had argued, “a dollar a night.” But he had bargained her up to a dollar and a half.
    “All right, thirty-six,” she’d said finally. “But no Hamburger Helper, Bingo.”
    “Of course not.”
    This was Bingo’s third supper, and he was ready for something from the spice rack. As he rummaged through the little scented tins, he caught the aroma of ginger, but with a quick glance of regret at the telephone, he continued to rummage.
    “Tarragon … tarragon. I wonder if that’s anything like oregano? Garlic … dill …
    “What else do I need to do? Oven”—Bingo turned on the oven with a flourish—“three-fifty.” Bingo had already learned that 350 degrees was the perfect cooking temperature. He never planned to use anything else. For example, this tarragon chicken thing called for—he checked the recipe—275, but—
    The phone rang and Bingo moved sideways toward it. Bingo was now allowed to answer the phone, but he couldn’t place any calls. With his eyes on the cookbook, he picked up the phone.
    “Hello.”
    A voice said, “Could I speak to Bingo, please.”
    It was a girl’s voice!
    Bingo was so shocked he almost dropped the phone. He had not spoken to a girl on the phone since his last call to Melissa. He did not think he would ever speak to a girl again.
    Now not only was he going to speak to a girl, but it was a strange girl.
    A rash of questions burned out of control in his brain. Why was a strange girl calling him? What did she want? He was too young for magazine subscriptions, wasn’t he? Could she be conducting a survey? Could it be a woman with a little girl voice wanting him to contribute to a good cause? Could it be—
    “Is this Bingo?”
    “Well, this is Bingo Brown,” he said, emphasizing his last name.
    That was quick thinking. After all, there might be other Bingos. He didn’t want to proceed with the conversation only to have it end with something like, “Well, boo, I thought I was talking to Bingo Schwartznecker.”
    “Oh, Bingo. Hi!”
    There was a faint tinge of that long-remembered deepening of pleasure. How did girls do