Free Bingo Brown and the Language of Love by Betsy Byars

especially affected by what people wrote on the backs of envelopes.
    Yes, he no longer loved Melissa. Regretfully, he opened the flap. As he took out the letter, he smelled the fragrance of an unfamiliar flower.
    Then he saw the heading: “From the Desk of Cici”
    Cici!
    Bingo drew in a deep breath. He should have known, but he was in such a state of personal agitation that he was blind to what was going on around him. In his agitated blindness, he had fallen out of love with a girl he had never been in love with!
    This was the letter! The letter!
    Bingo closed his eyes. If the first words in the letter were “Dear Melissa,” then he was honor bound— honor bound —to put it back in the envelope without reading it.
    Even though this would mean that he would never know what Cici wrote to Melissa—and it had to be something about him—maybe even something hurtful. Maybe something to make Melissa fall out of love with him! And even though he was out of love with Melissa, he did not want her to fall out of love with him.
    If his eyes—when he opened them—saw two words, “Dear Melissa,” then he would have to—be honor bound to—put the letter back in the envelope.
    He opened his eyes. “Dear Melissa.” Bingo read faster.
I got his picture!
    I went to his house. He opened the door himself! He said, “Hi,” and smiled. I was so blissed out that I honestly didn’t mind he had freckles! He held the door open. I almost died! I went into his living room and into his kitchen. Melissa, guess what? He’d been cooking! In an apron!
    We went out in the backyard. He smiled. I took his picture. Melissa, I was so blissed out I got my thumb in front of the lens. He smiled again. I took another picture. Then a terrible thing happened. This nerd next door stuck his head over the hedge. Bingo and I had to go in the house to get rid of him.
    We went in the kitchen. He put on his apron, and he looked sooo cute. We started talking. I was holding a poodle. He was cooking. We were having a blast!
    Then—booo—something really awful happened. His mom came home. I was hoping she’d say, “Stay for supper,” but she didn’t. She freaked out. Like, the whole time I was explaining why I was there, her eyes were shooting darts at me. Finally she goes, “Bingo is not allowed to have friends in the house when either his father or I”—blah, blah, blah.
    I hope you like the picture. I kept one for myself, the one of him with the poodle. I love that dog.
    Bingo bent closer. It looked to him as if the word “dog” had originally been “boy.” She had originally written, “I love that boy.” The d had been a b! The g had been a y! Bingo could see it plain as day. He bent to read the rest.
Write and tell me if you like the picture I took for you. I’ll go over to his house as often as I can so I’ll have lots of interesting things to write you about.
    Your #1 friend,
    Cici
    The two i’s had hearts over them instead of dots.
    Bingo’s photo had fluttered unnoticed from the envelope to the floor. Now he picked it up, and looked at it with new intensity.
    He went directly to the bathroom. He stood looking at himself in the mirror.
    Could this be the face that two girls loved?
    His eyes gazed first at the face in the mirror, then at the face in the photograph. Could there be something in this face that he did not see? What was it? Where was it?
    And one final burning question: How long would it last?

The Black-Belt Eyebrow
    B INGO WAS LOOKING INTO the dim recesses of the medicine cabinet. He had noticed last week that the Yogi Bear vitamins were gone. Bingo shook the can of mousse. They were out of that, too.
    Every drugstore product that had brought him comfort in the past had been swept from the cabinet as he himself had been swept from the family. He wouldn’t have been surprised to find himself actually gone, vanished.
    He turned the cabinet door around and peered in the mirror. No, he was still there.
    As Bingo was closing