slapping the magazine shut.
Why does Evelyn always have to fi nd a way to talk about boys and kissing? And other things.
On the back cover of Life magazine there’s a picture of a pink convertible fi lled with big-chested blond girls in shorts.
Th
e one sitting up on the trunk of the car is holding a big armload of Betty Crocker cake mixes.
“I want one of those,” Evelyn says.
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C O U P O N S A N D B O M B S H E L T E R S / C h i c k i e She’s talking about the car, of course.
“You want everything,” I say.
Th
en I notice the small print under that picture. I lean down close and read it. “Hey, did you know you can earn a car with Betty Crocker coupons?”
Out of the side of my eye, I see Bunna straighten up suddenly.
“What’s Betty Crocker coupons?” Rose asks.
“Th
ey’re on the tops of the cake boxes,” Bunna says.
Evelyn scowls at Bunna.
“How many coupons?” Rose asks.
How in the heck does Bunna know about cake coupons?
Th
at’s what I want to ask.
“I think it says fi fty thousand,” I say. I have to squint hard at the small print, because I’m not wearing my new glasses. I’m not wearing my glasses because I think I look more sophisticated without them, and a person with freckles needs all the sophistication she can get.
“If you could aff ord to buy fi fty thousand cake mixes, you wouldn’t need to pay for a car with coupons,” Evelyn says.
Th
en she gives Bunna a look—an Indian warrior look.
“C’mon girls,” she says. “Let’s go.” It was Bunna’s idea, all right, but Junior wrote it down. Th at’s
when we discovered that Junior knew how to write a really good letter. It was Father Flanagan who made it happen, of course. Father started making plans the minute Bunna burst into class.
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M Y N A M E I S N O T E A S Y
“Look here, Father, look at this!” Bunna is practically hollering, waving the letter like a white fl ag.
Father takes it and reads slowly, nodding his head. Th en
he looks at the picture of the blond girls with the cake boxes.
By the time he’s done looking back and forth from one to the other, he’s smiling.
“Th
is project would take a lot of work,” he says. “And we’ll need some students with fi rst-rate penmanship.” I raise my hand right away. “I have great penmanship, Father,” I say. I’m not bragging. It’s true, and everybody knows it.
“So do I,” Bunna says.
Everyone laughs, of course, because everyone knows that Bunna’s handwriting is a train wreck.
But in the end we all wrote letters, good penmanship or no penmanship. We each wrote hundreds of letters, copying the same words over and over:
Dear Mrs.____________________,
I am a student at Sacred Heart School, a parochial boarding school situated in the heart of Alaska. Most of the
students here are Native Alaskan, and many of us had never been outside our home villages prior to coming to Sacred Heart. Our school, Sacred Heart, is run by the generous donations of God-fearing citizens like yourself. We are currently in desperate need of a bus to enable us to enjoy the learning opportunities and sports activities available to us 146
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M Y N A M E I S N O T E A S Y / C h i c k i e throughout our region. We have discovered that if we save up enough Betty Crocker coupons, we can earn a bus for our school.
We hope that you will be willing to save coupons for us. . . .
Sincerely,
_____________________, Sacred Heart student We wrote about 5,000 of those letters, sitting there in the library every day before dinner, writing and writing. Me and Bunna sat next to each other and got into some sort of unspoken competition over it. I was faster than he was, which gave me endless satisfaction.
Sister’s the one who makes me late to the library one day—
she needed help in the laundry. But it’s Amiq, of course, who has to make an issue of it. He starts yapping the second I slide into my chair.
“Look here, Snowbird. Bunna’s winning,” he says.
I grab a piece of paper and start writing as fast as I can, slowly realizing that something is going on,