Letters to Jenny Read Free Page A

some modicum of decency. And sometimes, when I listen to my daughter sing, or watch her draw, I’m transported with her, and often I find myself quite reticent to drag myself back to the real world of deadlines, dirty dishes, crashed computers and skinned knees.
    I am unable to adequately express my gratitude, Mr. Anthony. Your letter means so much to Jennifer, and it means just as much to me. To see my daughter smile after three months of non-responsiveness is to me the greatest gift in the world. I agree wholeheartedly with your words, “… to my mind there is nothing more precious than a little girl….” But to me, it’s MY little girl who is the most precious in the world (as I’m certain yours are to you), and the gift you gave her of your time and the thoughtfulness you exhibited in the writing of your letter to her is helping to bring my Little Gift back to me again.
    I will write and keep you informed of Jenny’s progress, and will keep you up to date on anything she communicates to me regarding her, “… say in the matter …” of preference in characterization.
    Again let me express a resounding “Thank You” for having written to my daughter.
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    * AUTHOR’S NOTE:
    O N OCCASION THERE ARE REFERENCES THAT NEED TO BE CLARIFIED, SO I WILL DO SO BY MEANS OF ASTERISK FOOTNOTES LIKE THIS. T HOUGH JENNY’S MOTHER HAD TOLD ME MUCH ABOUT J ENNY , I KNEW THERE WAS MUCH I DID NOT KNOW, SO I WAS CAREFUL. I ADDRESSED MY COMMENTS TO WHAT I ASSUMED WOULD BE OF INTEREST TO ANY TWELVE-YEAR-OLD GIRL IN J ENNY’S SITUATION, AND WHEN IN DOUBT, I MADE SURE TO EXPLAIN THINGS CAREFULLY. A S TIME PASSED, AND I GOT TO KNOW J ENNY BETTER, AND AS SHE GOT OLDER, I SPOKE MORE SPECIFICALLY, AND SOMETIMES MORE INTIMATELY. B UT AT THIS STAGE I DID NOT KNOW THAT J ENNY WAS TO BECOME MY MAJOR CORRESPONDENT, WITH HUNDREDS OF LETTERS .

March 1989
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    An alphabet board spells its first word, “CAT,” and begins its second, “XAN….” Some letters arrive addressed to an elf named Jenny c/o the Monster Under the Bed in A Cute Care Section of a Cumbersome Hospital. Eleven cats vie for a maiden’s favor. And a little girl laughs again for the first time
.
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    Marsh 10, 1989
    Dear Jenny
,
     
    Remember me? I’m the author of the Xanth novels. I wrote to you in FeBlueberry, the day I received your mother’s letter. I said I was going to put a Jenny in my next Xanth novel,
Isle of View
. You don’t remember? I thought maybe I’d make her an ogre girl, and—oh, you
do
remember! You were just teasing me. And you say you want her to be an elf girl. Okay, elf she is. It’s been a long time since there’s been a lady elf as a character in Xanth, about 400 years, when Bluebell Elf had something to do with Jordan the Barbarian. Never mind what; the Adult Conspiracy forbids me from discussing anything like that with you. Today Rapunzel is their distant descendent. So it’s about time that a full elf made the scene again. I will be starting to work on that novel about the time this letter reaches you, but it will be the end of Mayhem by the time it is finished, because even with magic these things take time. Then it will be late 1990 before it is published, because there isn’t much magic in Mundania, and things take much longer there.
    Your mother says that Fracto, the evil cloud, tried to stop her from bringing my letter to you at the hospital; he blew up a real blizzard and spread ice on the roads. Yes, he does that. But she finally did get through. She says when you heard the letter, you smiled, for the first time in the three centuries since you had the accident. Well, maybe it wasn’t quite that long, but it seemed like it, didn’t it? Thank you; I’m glad you were listening. She says you managed to wiggle a toe and squeeze her fingers and move your eyes around, and that you could indicate Yes or No. Just now, while typing this letter, I called the hospital and asked the nurse at the Acute Care Section how you were