December 18, 2015
Dear Ms. Van Antwerp,
Thank you for the puzzle book. I finished it in five days. I was surprised you continued writing to me on the fifteenth of the months when I haven’t written you back in four months. Why did you keep writing? I was trying to tell you, without writing again, that I did not want to continue with the letters, but you didn’t understand. This is my last letter to you.
Here is what has happened in the past five months:
I started tenth grade at my new school Maxwell Academy and they call it Second Year. The classes at the school are pretty good and the building is extremely nice. They assign much more homework. I have been put in the most advanced math classes, including a special course with only a few boys, and I’m the best in the class. They serve very good lunches, as good as what our cook makes (or better), and there is a water polo team, which I play on, and I’m better than 60% of the players. Patrick was my one friend there (I met him when I came at the end of First Year), but he moved to Delhi (INDIA) because his father took the ambassadorship assignment from President Obama.
There are several boys at my school who make fun of me for various reasons, including that my hair is greasy and I have extremely sweaty palms, sometimes so sweaty that they leave a handprint. (This started over the summer. I saw a doctor and they tried putting shots of Botox in my hands, but it didn’t help for more than 7 to 8 days.) They say I smell bad and they call me The Screamer because of the one freakout I had last year, which I told you about in my March 2015 letter. (Did you know I photocopy every letter before I send it so I can keep our letters in order and then they make sense and I can refer back to check things you or I have written in the past? They are kept in 2 three ring binders.) I hate when they call me Screamer. Any time they come near me I try to imagine I am climbing inside myself. It’s hard to explain. The way I think of it is like I’m turning inside out sort of. I usually go quiet, but what’s really crazy about it is that it feels like, inside, I actually am screaming.
I’m building a model Lusitania with a kit Susannah ordered for me from London.
I’m writing a new story.
My mom was in a mental hospital again, a different one, but she got out, and then she went to live with her parents in Santa Barbara. She left on October 6. I don’t know if she will be coming back for Christmas. My sister Lauren is coming home, but not Susannah because she started new philanthropy in Peru. Lauren got engaged to Steve on Thanksgiving, but any time she talks to Dad about it she is crying, so I don’t know if she’s happy or sad. I definitely think it’s sad, though I understand people cry with both sets of feelings. Her wedding will be on June 14, 2016.
Thor is awesome. Every day I take her for a long walk after school. She’s super smart, so she doesn’t have to be on a leash. Most recently I taught her the command “hide,” so if I say it, she goes and hides behind a bush or a car or something, and then when I say “come out” she jumps right back to me. It’s amazing!
I’m reading the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov for the second time.
I think this will be my last letter. Don’t forget the pact we made a long time ago when you promised you won’t tell my dad anything I say in the letters unless I am in danger. I have always liked writing to you because it feels good. I have also liked that I would get a letter on the fifteenth of the month, which is nice and even to balance out the days, more or less, even though some months have more than 30 days and one month has less, but I don’t want to do it anymore. Maybe you can write me one more time in order to finish this year, since I was the first one to ever write, but could you try to have the letter to me by December 31, 2015? That would really even things out well, although I’ve messed up the pattern the last few months. If you do write me again, I would like to know (a) how your vision is doing, (b) if the dean of the English school at University of Maryland let you into a class, (c) if you are still attending the garden club, and (d) if you went for dinner again with the dude from Texas.
Warm regards,
Harry Landy
FROM: [email protected]
