How I Became a Writer and Oggie Learned to Drive Read online

  It was at one of these merciless moments, I told Oggie, that the Mysterious Mole People came up out of the blue, or rather out of the brown, and slurped Disney World.

  The newspapers reported a terrible earthquake had done it, but Amory Ellington knew the real story just from one glance at the headlines.

  Amory Ellington is the kid investigator who’s on the Mole People’s case. He has this turtle named Alphonse that he always talks to.

  “Yo, Alphonse, look at that. The Mysterious Mole People have struck again,” he’ll say, or something like that. Alphonse never says anything back. Most of the time he looks asleep, but he’s one sharp reptile and knows what’s happening.

  Amory Ellington has been collecting evidence about the Mysterious Mole People’s existence for years. The problem is, nobody except Alphonse believes him. Even Amory’s own mother thinks he’s making it up, and she’s basically a good person.

  “Mole People! Oh, Amory, honey. Have you been taking your vitamins?” she asks him. She has a theory that vitamins are the answer to everything, like mothballs.

  At last, Amory can’t stand it anymore. The news about Disney World is too terrible to ignore. It’s one thing to slurp a few robbers and parking lots, quite another to swallow a hundred-acre entertainment park. Who are these Mole People, anyway?

  “Alphonse, buckle up and prepare for departure,” Amory tells the old turtle. “We’re going to Florida.” Ten minutes later, they’ve got their backpacks on and they sneak out through a side door.

  This is the start of a lot of adventures they have on the road to Disney World. They go through kidnappings, shoot-outs, cement feet, and con men disguised as turtle-food salesmen. An old lady in Alaska tries to put them in an orphanage for not having any parents, but they escape by swimming the Black Sea.

  After that, they build a raft and go all the way down the Amazon River to Florida. (Oggie wasn’t too hot on geography. I could take him pretty much anywhere I wanted without him asking a lot of questions.)

  In Florida, Amory and Alphonse start snooping around what’s left of Disney World, which looks like a war zone: busted sidewalks, trash blowing everywhere. Then it happens: walking along a muddy street one afternoon, they get held up at gunpoint.

  “Your money or your life, you reptiles!” the hold-up man yells.

  They’re about to hand over their last dollar when the ground starts shaking. It opens with a terrible roar at their feet. There’s a flash of black fur, and the hold-up man is sucked under, screaming at the top of his lungs. The ground seals back over again, neat as can be. You can hardly see that anything happened.

  Amory and Alphonse stand there with their eyes like hubcaps. They’re thankful for being saved but also awed out of their minds.

  “Alphonse, who ARE these Mole People? How do they know when to strike? Are they good or are they bad? What is their GRAND PLAN?” Amory asks the old turtle when his breath comes back. “We’ve got to find out more about them!”

  From that moment on, Amory and Alphonse’s one ambition in life is finding some way down into the Mysterious Mole People’s kingdom to uncover the truth about them. And pretty soon, guess what? They do.

  A Good Writing Trick

  THIS WAS MORE OR less the story I’d been telling Oggie ever since we moved out of Ansley Park.

  Nothing was written down yet. I was just making it up as we went along.

  It took me a few months to get to this point of Amory and Alphonse deciding to visit the Mysterious Mole People. Not because I think slow or anything. I always knew where I was headed, down into the Mysterious Mole People’s kingdom. I just wasn’t in a big hurry to get there.

  That’s a trick you learn when you start making up stories for people. It’s better to travel around a little to drive up the suspense, hang out in different places, give your characters a few tight situations before getting into the main story.

  You might want to have them associate with some bad types, or almost die a few times. The main plot is important, but if everything gets over too fast, people are disappointed. They expect some adventures along the way to kind of whet their appetites for the real fireworks later.

  Well, I’ve got to say Oggie fell for everything. He got completely hooked on Amory and Alphonse’s adventures. He was crazy about the Mysterious Mole People and desperate to get down to their underworld kingdom. And he was always pestering me to tell him more. I wouldn’t give him the story every day though. I’d save it for times when things were out of whack, usually around his bedtime after he’d had a bad day.

  “WHAT if Amory and Alphonse GET KILT? HOW are they going to escape THIS TIME?” Oggie would screech whenever I quit for the night, usually with Amory and Alphonse on their last gasp, going over a giant waterfall on a snowboard or something. Oggie would look pretty worried.

  He wasn’t really worried, though, not the way he worried about real stuff, like Mom and Dad splitting up. He knew Amory and Alphonse would probably make it somehow. He’d get into bed and lie down to think about them. Five minutes later, he’d be asleep.

  “I don’t know how you do it. What story are you telling him?” Mom would ask me when I came back downstairs. She was pretty much in awe that I could put Oggie to sleep like that.

  I never let on about The Mysterious Mole People, though. I’d shrug and say I wasn’t telling him anything special. That story was like a secret pact between Oggie and me. We kind of needed it to hold on to. We were afraid if we told anybody, they might say something that would wreck it for us.

  The Blue Hawks Game

  UNFORTUNATELY, EVEN AFTER GETTING by the Night Riders that afternoon and walking like maniacs the rest of the way, Oggie and I still ended up being late to Saturn.

  I was glad to get there at all, I can tell you, but I couldn’t say that to Dad. He doesn’t like excuses. You’re either late or you aren’t, and that day we definitely were. Dad was completely disgusted with us, which made him not want to talk to us during the ride over to the ballpark.

  He gets that way sometimes. Rather than just be mad at a person, he’ll give you the silent treatment for a while to sort of take it out on you.

  So, he and Cyndi sat in the front seat and talked, and that left me and Oggie in the backseat. Oggie had gotten over the yeeks but still didn’t look too happy about things. A few days had gone by since I’d told him the last installment of The Mysterious Mole People, and I had some new ideas, so I whispered,

  “Amory and Alphonse think they’ve found an entrance to the Mole kingdom. You want to hear about it?”

  He shook his head.

  “You don’t care that it’s a slurp hole that was left open by mistake? They found footholds dug into the sides. Footholds! You know what that means?”

  Oggie just sat there.

  “It means the Mysterious Mole People still have HUMAN FEET. Think of it, HUMAN FEET, after all this time crawling around like moles underground! Maybe they aren’t that changed from being human after all. Maybe they still speak English!”

  Oggie didn’t answer. I could see he wasn’t very interested just at that moment, and I could see why. He was giving Cyndi the hairy eyeball because SHE was sitting up front with Dad.

  Oggie usually sat up front so he could practice driving. Not real driving. Dad let him put his hand on the wheel to get the feel. Oggie was wild about doing this whenever he could. I could see how upset he was about Cyndi being in his place. Then Dad reached his arm around Cyndi and sort of pulled her in close. Oggie put on his pointy-eyed look, which means he might throw a fit anytime.

  “Hey, Oggie, you know what?” I whispered.

  “What.”

  “I’ve been thinking I should make the Mysterious Mole People story into a book.”

  Of course, I hadn’t been thinking that at all. I invented the idea on the spot to get Oggie’s mind off the front seat and bring him back to normal. It worked, though. Oggie kind of dropped his teeth and stared at me.

  “You mean, make a RE
AL book?”

  “Yup.”

  “How can you? It’s not even written down.”

  “I know, but it could be. It’s in my head.”

  “I thought it would get wrecked if we told people. You said we should keep it secret.”

  “Right. We should. Until it’s published. After that, it’s okay. You get a copyright so no one can steal the idea.”

  Oggie’s eyes just shone out at me. “I bet a book could make a lot of money,” he whispered.

  “Maybe.”

  “Could it make enough to buy a car?”

  I rolled my eyes at that. Oggie brings cars into everything. You can be talking about what to eat for dinner and he’ll start telling you how much gas a Jeep Cherokee eats up going from Boston to New York City in a snowstorm. He knows that stuff, honest to God. You have to take him seriously, too, or he gets furious.

  “Buy a car? Sure, why not?” I said, like it was nothing at all. “After one book, they always want you to write another one. We could get a whole fleet of cars.”

  “Wow!” Oggie said. He was impressed out of his mind.

  I didn’t have a clue, really if a book could make enough to buy a car. I didn’t even care. Money was never a big issue with me. Whenever I had some, I spent it and didn’t think any more about it. That’s where Oggie and I are different.

  Ever since he was about two, Oggie was interested in money. Everything he ever got, for his birthday or whatever, he saved. He hid it in an old Batman lunch box under his bed and would take it out and count it when he thought nobody was looking.

  Then, when he was about five, Dad gave him twenty bucks for a present, and a red leather wallet to keep it in. Mom thought that was terrible. She said twenty bucks was too much for a kid Oggie’s age. But Dad said it wasn’t, that if somebody was interested in money, they should have some to be interested in. So Oggie got to keep it, and afterwards he kept all his money in the red wallet, which he loved. He couldn’t live without that wallet. Wherever he went, it went with him—with the money inside. Oggie didn’t believe in banks. On TV, they were always getting robbed at gunpoint.

  When we got to the Blue Hawks ballpark, Dad started talking to us.

  “Sit up and pay attention. Start looking for parking places,” he told us. He likes to go way up close to the stadium, even when we’re late, to get the nearest places. Mostly, there aren’t any left, but we go up anyway and wait around, blocking traffic and getting in people’s way.

  “Hey, Dad, there’s a place!” Oggie yelled. We wheeled over. At the last minute, some other people took it. Dad was furious. He rolled down his window and started yelling at them, but Cyndi stopped him. She made him go back to where everybody else was coming in and park the way you’re supposed to. I kind of liked her for that. More than I usually did, I mean. Which, anyway, wasn’t much.

  Finally, we got parked and went into the stadium. The game wasn’t bad. The Blue Hawks beat the Cougars, five to three. Oggie sat next to Dad. Cyndi went to the ladies’ rest room about twenty-five times. Well, maybe not twenty-five, but it seemed like it because every time she got up, she’d stomp on my foot with one of her big high heels.

  “Oh, SWEETIE! I am SO-SO-SO-SO-SO-SO sorry,” she’d say. Cyndi actually talked that way. She couldn’t say anything just once. She had to say it a million times to make sure you believed her.

  On the way home, since the Blue Hawks won, Dad was in a great mood. Oggie sat up front between him and Cyndi and got to put his hand on the wheel. He loved that. I can’t even begin to tell you how much he loved it. More than anything else in the world, Oggie wanted to learn to drive.

  As soon as we were back in our room—we were at Saturn that night, even though it was a Jupiter night, because Dad had made a special appointment with Mom for the ball game—as soon as we were back, Oggie began to pester me to tell more about the Mysterious Mole People. He remembered what I’d said about making a real book and was excited to get on with it. But I held him off.

  “You’re too happy,” I told him. “You got to drive and everything. You don’t need that story tonight.”

  “Yes, I do!” he yelled. “I’m NOT happy. I need it!”

  I didn’t give in. The way our family was, whenever there was a good time, you knew a bad time was probably headed for you next. I wanted to save the story for when we’d really need it.

  Also, I had other plans for the evening and wanted Oggie to hurry up and go to bed, which he finally did, thanks to Bunny Two. Sometimes just looking at Bunny can make Oggie sleepy.

  One thing I’m glad of is that when they make things like Bunny-Wunnies, they make a lot of them that all look alike. Because there will always be people like Oggie who need to have two.

  For instance, what if a person lost the one he loved? Or what if it wore out or something and the person needed to find another one?

  Some people make a big deal about only getting originals and never buying stuff that’s made in masses, but I’ll tell you, I think the more they make of something, the better. It’s a whole lot safer.

  Cyndi’s Secret

  THE PLANS I HAD for that evening, after Oggie conked out, were pretty simple. They were to find out about this baby that Cyndi had supposedly been talking about. I went downstairs and hung around with Dad. He lets me stay up late because he knows Mom makes me go to bed at ten.

  That’s one good thing about living double the way Oggie and I do. Whatever one parent says you can’t do, the other will probably let you if you handle it right. To them, it’s like a competition. Each one tries to be the best so you’ll want to be at their place more. Not that you actually ARE at anyone’s place more—that’s set by the judge in court—but you’ll WANT to be. It’s pretty stupid when you think about it.

  Anyway, that night I went down and lurked around. I was hoping Cyndi would feel sick again and make a remark. Or Dad would ask her how she was and she’d give him a look, anything to send me a clue. I mean, I’d been trying for weeks to find out more, and so far there’d been nothing. I was beginning to think Oggie had dreamed the whole thing up.

  “So, Archie. How’re things going at school?” Dad asked me.

  He asks me that about a hundred times a week. Well, maybe not a hundred, but enough to get on my nerves. He doesn’t mean to, it’s just that he can’t think of anything else to say. He has a lot on his mind, like all these bozos at work that are trying to outmaneuver him and take over his territory. He can’t always remember what we talked about last. To him, my life probably looks like a day at the beach.

  “Everything’s great,” I said.

  I always say that, even though it usually isn’t. The main reason is, I’m not that spectacular at taking tests. I get nervous and forget things, even if I stay up all night studying. So my grades aren’t exactly top percentile.

  “Well, good. Good for you,” Dad said. “And did you make the soccer team this year?”

  “No, I didn’t, remember?” I said. “They picked Randy Collins over me. That was about a month ago. I’m taking nature photography instead.”

  “Nature photography!” Dad is about the last person on earth who’d ever be interested in something like that.

  “Yeah. Remember I showed you those photos of the turtle I took? The box turtle that was over at the pond in Grant Park? Mom has them now.”

  “Oh, yeah. I guess I forgot.”

  “And I did that report on how turtles are descended from an ancient reptilian line? How they outlived dinosaurs and will probably outlive us?”

  “Us?”

  “Well, human beings.”

  “Oh. Yeah. It slipped my mind.”

  “That’s okay. You can’t remember everything.”

  There was silence for a while, then Dad said to Cyndi, “What happened at your appointment today?”

  My antenna went up. I thought maybe she’d gone to a doctor about this baby, but it turned out she only went to see about a job that she didn’t get hired for anyway.

 
; Cyndi does short-term secretarial work.

  She told me once that she didn’t like to get tied down to any one job. I guess she probably noticed that working was one of the things Mom got into too much. Too much for Dad, I mean. He didn’t even want her to be part-time.

  Personally, I always thought it was okay that Mom worked. She’s the kind of person that needs to get out and do things.

  About a year ago, she started full-time with this company that does people’s taxes. Now she’s a total fiend on the IRS. Her friends are always calling up to ask what they’re allowed to deduct. Her big joke is you can deduct everything but the kitchen sink once you know how. Actually she said you can deduct the kitchen sink, too, but it’s got to be in your workspace.

  Dad and Cyndi went out on the porch for another beer. I was getting pretty tired, but I flicked on the TV and pretended I wasn’t listening to them.

  After a while, I heard Cyndi say, “It’s my decision. I’ve got to make up my own mind.”

  Dad said something I couldn’t hear, and then Cyndi said, “Well, what would we do with Archie and Oggie if we did?”

  The TV had a shoot-out right then and drowned out Dad’s answer. I couldn’t hear anything except machine guns mowing people down. Then everybody on the program was bending over this completely mutilated Mexican drug lord in dead silence, and I heard Cyndi say,

  “Well, it matters to me!” She sounded mad.

  “They won’t mind,” Dad said. “They know the score. When the divorce comes through, I think we should go ahead and do it. We’ll set a date and just do it.”

  After this, the phone rang. It was for Dad, a guy from his company, I guess, because Dad started talking about bozos and somebody who got the ax. He went on for about an hour until I couldn’t stay awake anymore. I went up to bed, and there was Oggie sound asleep. I wondered what he would think about the idea of Dad and Cyndi getting married so they could have the baby which was what that discussion downstairs was all about, I knew.

  The more I looked at Oggie, the more I was sure he wouldn’t like it any more than me. It was a bad idea. We didn’t need another baby in our family. What we needed was to get back together and take better care of the people that were already born.