The Naked Mole-Rat Letters by Mary Amato

of Ratlady receiving it. What would she see? A torn piece of white paper stuck on black paper with clumpy glue? Would she think it was cute? Would she laugh and throw it away?
    A letter addressed to Ratlady in Dad’s handwriting was paper-clipped to the back. I slipped Nutter’s picture into my binder and read the letter.
    Dear Ayanna,
    Thanks again for sending the book to my kids. Nutter wanted you to have this picture. It’s a ghost.
    He is very excited about Halloween and wants to be a daddy koala so that he can carry around his baby koala (the backpack). He said he likes you already.
    And the answer to our last question is no! Your e-mails to Heartstrings haven’t been distracting me from my work; they’ve been inspiring me. After your first reply on Saturday, I sat down and played like I haven’t played in years. There was a newly married couple in the shop and when I was done, they bought the dulcimer right out from under my fingers.
    You’re like the sun coming up in the morning, Ayanna. Everything about you shines with warmth and light. Even your e-mails.
    How can I feel this close to you when we’ve just met? How can I feel this close to you when you live so far away?
    Wanting to see you again,
    Robert
    P.S. Look for a box in the mail soon.
    E-mails to the shop? What a dirty rat. She was using his business e-mail address so that I couldn’t read their messages. And since when did he like e-mailing? I ripped the letter in half, and Mr. Peter looked up from his desk. “You’re making a lot of noise, Frankie. Do you need any help?”
    â€œNo, thank you.” I stuffed the pieces into my backpack and got out a blank sheet of paper. I knew I needed to get some problems done in case Mr. Peter decided to roam the rows. But the torn halves of the letter seemed to be shouting at me from the depths of my backpack,
Dad and Ratlady are falling in love!
How could I review for a test when the Big Bang of bad news was exploding in my brain?
    I couldn’t stop thinking about the consequences. If they got married, would we move there or would she move in with us? I imagined our house. When other people see ourhouse, they probably just see a messy place with lots of wood and odd things everywhere. The wood is Dad because he is a great carpenter and, of course, dulcimer-maker. We have wood floors. Big wooden bookcases. Dulcimers hanging on all the walls. The odd things are Mom. She hung a red chair from the ceiling in the living room so that it looks like it’s floating in air. She wallpapered the kitchen with postcards of the world’s most beautiful places, even though Grandpa Ted said you can’t wallpaper a room with postcards. She lackered (laquered? lacquered?) old family photographs onto the dining room table so that we’d always be eating with the whole family. She sewed brightly colored fringe onto all our pillowcases so that we’d have wild dreams.
    I pictured Ratlady driving up with a moving van. She’d probably want to throw out the chair, rip down the postcards, and hang up pictures of naked mole-rats. She’d probably make us sleep on boring white pillowcases. She’d probably arrive with her own furniture, all coated with the smell of small mammals.
    Or what if we had to move to Washington, D.C.? I’ve seen pictures. It’s all concrete. No trees. No creek. Kids take subways to school and get mugged on the playground. I wouldn’t know anybody there but Ratlady!
    How could any normal dad fall in love with a stranger? Who was this Ratlady, really? What kind of person would fall in love with a guy who has:
    1. Two sons who drool and have diarrhea?
    2. A nose that is always full of snot because he is allergic to many things, including small mammals?
    3. A tendency to say ridiculous things because of a special drug that he is on?
    4. No money?
    5. A crowded trailer to live in?
    The lies that I’ve been telling her obviously