CHAPTER 25

Letters

“Look, we got you a book about the La Brea Tar Pits at the drugstore,” my father said.

Great! Just what I wanted. I knew I was going to come back to this place lots of times. I wanted to know all about it. I didn’t pay much attention to where we drove next. I was in the back seat of the Cadillac, reading about the Pleistocene. My mother annoyed me by insisting that the fossils in the tar pits were there as a result of the flood in the Bible. My father said that there was a joke going around during the ice age that Los Angeles was the tar pit of the nation.

“Well, here we are,” my father said. “The Pacific Ocean.”

The Pacific Ocean!?! I had forgotten all about the Pacific Ocean! Los Angeles has an ocean!

“It looks like Lake Michigan,” my mother said.

The Pacific Ocean! I was looking at the Pacific Ocean!

“No, this is salty; Lake Michigan is fresh water,” my father said.

“And this is bigger, right?” my mother said.

The Pacific Ocean! It’s an ocean. It goes all the way to Asia. It’s got Hawaii in it. It’s got whales in it.

“Sure,” my father said. “An ocean is bigger than a lake.”

“Well, it’s very nice,” my mother said. “We’ll have to come back sometime and spend the day.” Sometimes I can understand why Eloise likes to pretend she’s not related to them.

When we got to the Hermione Hotel, Eloise was there, back from Hollywood High School. “Look, Neddie, you got two letters,” she said.

One was from Seamus Finn. It was on Brown-Sparrow Military Academy stationery. He said his father was in Canada, shooting a movie about Mounties, and Billy the Phantom Bellboy was with him. When his father got back we were all going to have lunch with him at the movie studio. Meanwhile, would I like to meet him at the Hitching Post on Hollywood Boulevard at nine A.M. on Saturday? He said I should bring at least a dollar.

The other letter was from Melvin the shaman. It was on notepaper with kittens. Printed in pencil it said: Sandor Eucalyptus may be in Los Angeles. Be careful. Trust no one. Your friend, Melvin the Shaman.

“I have decided to major in drama,” Eloise said.