 |
| Level 5 | Level 6 | |||
| Level 8 | Level 9 | Level 10 | Level 11 | Level 12 |
| Home |
Dear Mr. Henshaw
by
Beverly Cleary
After the divorce, Mom and I moved from Bakersfield to Pacific Grove which
is on California’s Central Coast about twenty miles from the sugar refinery
at Spreckels where Dad used to haul sugar beets before he went cross-country.
Mom said all the time she was growing up in California’s Great Central
Valley she longed for a few ocean breezes, and now we’ve got them. We’ve
got a lot of fog, especially in the morning. There aren’t any crops
around here, just golf courses for the rich people.
We live in a little house, a really little house, that used
to be somebody’s summer cottage a long time ago before somebody built
a two-story duplex in from of it. Now it is what they call a garden cottage.
It is sort of falling apart, but it is all we can afford. Mom says at least
it keeps the rain off, and it can’t be hauled away on a flatbed truck.
I have a room of my own, but Mom sleeps on a couch in the living room. She
fixed the place up real nice with things from the thrift shop down the street.
Next door is a gas station that goes ping-ping, ping-ping every time a car
drives in. They turn off the pinger at 10:00 P.M., but most of the time I
am asleep by then…
| Home |