Melanie Martin Goes Dutch Read online

  I know Anne called her diary “Kitty” but I can't think of a good name for you, so I'm going to stick with “Diary.”

  we leave so I wrote another poem.

  I've been packing my favorite clothes. I'll also pack my art kit and cards and Anne Frank's diary and you—my diary—right in my backpack. That way, I'll have something to do for seven hours if Cecily conks out on the plane.

  Tomorrow I'll pack Hedgehog. She's so small and soft that I could squoosh her in my backpack, but what if I forget her at the airport or on the plane? Instead, I'll pack her with the clothes in Matt's and my bag so she'll be snug and safe until we get there.

  Guess what? We ordered in Chinese food and Matt's and my fortune cookie fortunes were both about going away! I am taping them in here.

  Dad expanded my vocabulary by explaining that “transformation” means change.

  Fortunately yours (Get it?),

  Dear Diary,

  I'm waiting to board.

  I'm bored of waiting!

  When you fly to a different country, you're supposed to get to the airport very very early.

  Thanks to me, we did. That's because I recited my latest poem:

  We are now at the gate.

  Cecily and I took a magazine quiz called “How Well Do You Know Your Best Friend?” It had questions like “Who is your best friend's crush?” (we both wrote Christopher) and “How many children will she have someday?” (we both wrote two) and “What does your BFF want to be when she grows up?” (Cecily wrote “writer” for me; I wrote “actress” for her).

  The scoring section said that we were “Totally Tight”—which, duh, we already knew!

  Dad bought himself a New Amsterdam beer (he thought that was pretty clever) and bought us small bags of potato chips. Matt got barbecue, and Cecily and I got plain because we both hate barbecue and both love plain.

  It's fun traveling with someone who likes the same exact stuff I do!

  Uh-oh. Time to, as the airline people put it, “board the aircraft.” Gotta go.

  Dear Diary,

  When you get on a plane, it is not very ideal that regular passengers have to walk right by first-class passengers. They have big, cozy, comfortable seats and stretched-out legs, and they get snacks and drinks right away, while regular people (like us) are all smooshed in the back, hungry and thirsty.

  Personally, I don't like having to walk by first-class passengers. I doubt they're saying “Nyaaa-nyaaa nya

  nyaaa-nyaaaaaa” or anything, but they probably think they're cool and we're not.

  I mentioned this to Dad and he said that when I grow up, I can make tons of money and do whatever I want, but right now I'm lucky to be flying around at all. He said that at my age, he didn't even have a passport, let alone go skittering off to Europe with a best friend at a moment's notice.

  Well, excuuuuse me! I was just making an observation. Dad didn't have to sound so annoyed about it.

  I told Cecily about walking past first-class passengers and she agreed with me completely.

  It's so cooool that she and I are having a sleepover on an airplane!

  Mom and Dad said to try to sleep because when we get to Europe, it won't be bedtime—it will be morning, like it or not.

  Here's what they don't get: It's hard to sleep when you're excited. And we haven't even had dinner yet.

  We just had dinner. I don't know what they ate in first class, but the second-class people had to choose between fish (yuck!) and chicken. Chicken would have been okay

  except that it came with rice and salad, which might have been okay, except the rice had little corn kernels and bits of green pepper in it, and the salad had slivers of beets in it, and the chicken had no flavor. Not counting my bread and my brownie, I gave most of my dinner to Dad.

  Dad eats anything. When it comes to food, he's a total vacuum cleaner. I told Cecily that sometimes we tease him about being a Big Pig (or B.P.), but only when he's in a good mood.

  We're in row 17. This is how we're sitting: Mom, Dad, Matt, Cecily, me. There's an aisle between Matt and Cecily. I'm glad I'm not sitting next to Matt because one of his baby teeth is loose and he keeps wiggling it and it's driving me crazy.

  It's not driving Cecily crazy. She thinks it's funny.

  Matt just got up and said, “Mind if I watch you write in your diarrhea? I mean, diary?”

  I told him to get a life. But it reminded me of what I just read in Anne Frank's diary.

  The lady the Frank family had to live with, Mrs. Van Daan, said, “Hey, Anne, can't I just have a look?”

  “I'm afraid not.”

  “Just the last page then?”

  “No, I'm sorry.”

  Well, poor Anne was nervous because “there was an unflattering description of her” on that very page!

  I wish we were flying nonstop to Amsterdam. We're not because by the time we planned this trip, all the cheap nonstop tickets were sold out. So we're flying to London, then switching planes.

  I also wish that my chair were more comfortable. It has a headrest, but I'm not tall enough for my head to rest on it. In fact, the top of my head comes up to the bottom of the headrest. So it's almost as if the headrest is resting on my head, which is not restful.

  I do like my blue blanket and white pillow and little writing tray.

  So far it has been an excellent flight. Not too many bumps. The pilot said to expect a few, though. When he said that, I made a scared face to Cecily and she said, “Don't worry.”

  I don't know why, but instead of making me feel better, that made me feel worse. It's not like I worry deliberately.

  In front of us, a screen is showing a map with a cartoon picture of our plane halfway between the United States and Europe. Later there will be a movie, but it sounds like it's for grown-ups.

  The screen is now showing the time in the airports where we started and where we'll land. It is 11:00 P.M. in New York (late!) and 4:00 A.M. in London (early!). But it's about to be yesterday in New York and it's already tomorrow in London.

  Mom, Dad, and Matt have fallen fast asleep. Dad's head is flopped forward and Matt's mouth is wide open. Cecily is reading her magazine, but her eyes are getting droopy, and she's starting to blink in slow motion.

  Behind us, a big lady is snoring like crazy. I wish someone would poke her.

  I'm going to try to sleep, but it's not easy to sleep in a chair when it's noisy and you're wearing clothes. Sometimes it's not easy to sleep in a bed when it's quiet and you're wearing pajamas!

  nine in the morning in Amsterdam

  but middle of the night in New York

  Dear Diary,

  The airline people lost our luggage! We've been sitting here in this Dutch airport for hours and hours watching baggage go around and around and none of it is ours. Tons of people got their luggage. Even the big snoring lady grabbed hers and went on her merry way.

  I am so

  Here's what happened. Once we got to London, we had to race onto a bus that took us to another bus that took us to a different plane that was going to Amsterdam. Our luggage was supposed to tag along with us, but did it? Noooooo!

  When we first got here, I could barely keep my eyes open.

  Now I'm not even sleepy.

  It's hard to be mad and sleepy at the same time.

  Mom and Dad had to fill out a bunch of papers called Baggage Claim Forms, which asked what our luggage looked like and whether it contained any “valuables.”

  “What did you pack?” Dad asked us. “Nothing valuable, right?”

  “Valuable?” I said. “I packed Hedgehog! And all my favorite clothes.” My voice came out shaky and I was trying not to cry.

  “I packed DogDog,” Matt said, and he did start to cry. Mom packs for him. He couldn't care less about clothes; he just cares about DogDog.

  Poor DogDog has already been lost once, in Italy.

  Matt looked so pathetic, I almost felt sorry for him. I was considering putting my arm around him and being a Perfe
ct Big Sister—a P.B.S. But right then Cecily gave Matt a big hug and said, “Don't worry.” It sort of made me mad that she was acting like a P.B.S. And that she was telling Matt not to worry about losing DogDog and me not to worry about bumps.

  Mom and Dad asked Cecily what she had packed, and she said, “Clothes and a gift for you two, but nothing I need right away, so don't worry.”

  Wait a sec. Now Cecily is telling my parents not to worry???

  I'm probably just cranky because I hardly got any sleep.

  Well, the luggage people said we should wait for the next flight from London. So we did. Cecily and I started playing my favorite hand game, Quackadilioso. But Matt wanted to play. I said, “You don't even know how.” Cecily said, “That's okay. We can teach him.” Ten seconds later, the two of them were clapping away.

  Which was fine. Who wants to clap in public anyway?

  I'm just looking around at posters of colorful tulips and pretty windmills and at signs in Dutch and English. No Smoking in Dutch is Niet Roken (Neat Row Ken). Beware of Pickpockets is Let Op Zakkenrollers (Let Op Zock En Rrrollers).

  Zakkenrollers. Isn't that the weirdest word??

  I'm also listening to people talking different languages. I can't understand a single syllable.

  Mostly I am just trying to take my mind off my worries. But I'm still worried. What if Hedgehog is in Africa or Asia or Antarctica and I never see her again?

  Mom says she's between New York and Amsterdam and I should be patient.

  I'm trying, but patience has never been my specialty.

  Little poems are my specialty.

  Impatiently—

  Dear Diary,

  Well, we waited and waited for the next flight from London and when it arrived, we watched tons more happy tourists pick up their luggage. All that did was get us madder and tireder.

  More tired.

  Whatever.

  The luggage people apologized (big of them) and said they will send us our luggage as soon as they locate it.

  They better!

  What a Big Fat Waste of Time. Instead of getting a lovely first impression of Holland, we spent the whole morning in Schiphol Airport (Mom calls it Ski Pole).

  We have now decided to take a taxi to where we're staying even though we won't be able to unpack.

  “We're giving up?” I asked.

  Mom said sometimes it's wise to give up.

  Dad said it's time to begin our vacation.

  Matt said his tooth is getting really loose.

  Cecily didn't say anything because she is in the toiletten (Twa Let Ten). In the toiletten, you have two choices: Dames (Dom Iss) or Heren (Hair Ren). Heren starts with Her, which is why I almost almost almost went in the wrong door! Fortunately a nice Dutch man said, “No, no, over there.” Later Mom told me that dame is an old-fashioned slang word for woman, like damsel, and that Dames is the door to pick if you're a dame.

  Dear Diary,

  We are staying in the coooooolest place! It's a canal house, which is a big house next to a canal (kanaal, pronounced Con Ahl). That's a man-made river. The house used to be the home of a rich family. We just checked in and we're on the third floor, but there's no elevator, so we came up this dark staircase with steps that were so steep and narrow that Dad had to turn his big feet sideways just to walk up them. We have a suite. Mom and Dad share the bedroom, and Cecily, Matt, and I share the living room. Cecily and I are going to sleep on a big, soft, comfortable sofa bed (yay!) and Matt will sleep on a stiff little cot (hee hee).

  I'm glad we have our own room. Sometimes when we take trips, Mom and Dad and Matt and I share one room, and that can start out cozy but end up messy.

  Here's what I love about this hotel: When you look out the window, you see water where you expect to see a street. And boats! Big boats, little boats, motorboats, sailboats, even paddleboats. Some boats are actually parked along the canal. And some boats are houseboats that people live in all the time. You can see tricycles on them and flapping laundry. People actually have birthday parties on them! We also saw one boat that was in the shape of a wooden shoe!

  Matt is standing at the window waving like crazy to all the boat passengers. A few have waved back.

  Mom said that in winter, the canals freeze over, and instead of boats, there are skaters out there. She said that in Holland, people sometimes skate from one city to another.

  “Awesome!” Matt said.

  Dad got out his guidebook and told us to sit down. I sat on one side and Cecily sat on the other, and he showed us where we are on the map. Picture a spiderweb that is blue—as if the web were water—and plunk it on top of a bunch of land, and that is what Amsterdam looks like.

  New York's streets and avenues are wide and mostly go straight up and down or side to side. (Manhattan is like a long, skinny waffle that's been nibbled on.) Amsterdam's streets and canals are skinny and mostly curve in half-circles.

  “It's sooo cooool,” Cecily said. “The canals look like the ripples a stone makes when you throw it in water.”

  Dad said, “They sort of do, don't they?”

  Mom came over. “You're right. They fan out just like ripples.”

  I was going to say that to me, the canals looked like a big blue spiderweb. I didn't, though.

  Okay. I have another awful confession. I'm suddenly not a hundred percent totally positive that having Cecily along is such a great idea after all.

  Matt, Mom, and Dad seem to think it is.

  Here is my new poem.

  Grumpily yours,

  Dear Diary,

  Mom and Dad hardly ever let us go to Burger King in New York, but we were all acting so fussy (well, I was anyway) that I think they took pity, and believe it or not, the first thing we spent our foreign money on was burgers from Burger King! We ate them right here on benches in a square with pigeons cooing and pecking and strutting all around us.

  My burger was good except it had a pickle with ketchup and mustard mixed up on the top bun because Dad didn't know how to say “plain.” Dad also bought French fries, which Matt called Dutch fries and which Dad said Dutch people eat with mayonnaise. Cecily and I said, “Ewww!” at the same time, then “Jinx!” at the same time. Then we laughed.

  Matt said, “Melanie, are you in a better mood now that you have a booger in your belly?”

  Cecily cracked up.

  “That's not funny, Matt,” I explained. “That is first-grade humor. In a few years, you'll look back and realize what a dork you were.”

  “Do you look back and think you were a dork in first grade?” Matt asked.

  “I was never a dork,” I answered. “I was always very mature for my age.”

  Matt has never been mature for his age.

  Mom and Dad were not paying attention to us or to the pigeons. They were sitting on a bench singing old Beatles songs. Parents can be so embarrassing!

  Dad said that when John Lennon and Yoko Ono got married, they honeymooned in a hotel in Amsterdam and had a “bed-in for world peace.”

  Mom looked at Dad and, probably to change the subject to something more appropriate, said how beautiful Amsterdam is. So I looked around. And you know what?

  There are cafés everywhere with sidewalk tables with big umbrellas and lots of people talking and laughing.

  And there are tons of canals with little stone bridges over them. The canals are lined with short old houses—no skyscrapers—that sprout right up out of the water. We saw ducks paddling on the canals. And we saw a dog scamper out of a canal and shake shake shake water drops from its back.

  Mom said, “Amsterdam is sometimes called the Venice of the North,” and told us that Venice, in Italy, is famous for its beautiful canals.

  Here's the problem: Mom and Dad are on one bench, Cecily and Matt are on another, and I am by myself.

  On the outside, I may look normal.

  On the inside, I feel left out.

  Well, even though I feel alone, I am not alone. I just dropped my smeary top bun an
d I am having a major pigeon party.

  Yours from Pigeon Central,

  Dear Diary,

  Bicycles, bicycles, bicycles. Amsterdam is full of bicycles. People get around by boat, car, bus, tram, and foot, but mostly bicycle. Streets don't just have sidewalks next to them; they have bike lanes! Everywhere you hear the ting-ting of bicycle bells because ringing the little bells is how bicyclists say “Watch out” to each other.

  It's very cool!!

  We saw men and women all dressed up for work bicycling with briefcases in their baskets. And we saw people bicycling with dogs on leashes running beside them. We even saw enormous bicycle parking lots full of hundreds and hundreds of bikes, some shiny but most rusty. Dad said that in Holland, almost every single person owns a bicycle.

  We decided to go bicycling too, so after lunch, we rented four bicycles (Matt is too little to get his own—ha ha). The bikes we rented didn't have fancy gears. They were old black ones with foot brakes. Dad tied a folded-up newspaper to the flat metal part behind his seat so it would be more comfortable for Matt's squooshy tushy.

  Amsterdam is crowded, which is bad for biking. But it is also flat, which is great for biking. (I don't like hills for two reasons: I get tired going up them and scared going down them.)

  Well, I can't imagine us all biking together in Manhattan, but off we went! Dad led the way with Matt hanging on for dear life, Cecily next, me after that, and Mom last. Mom's job was to make sure none of us fell and cracked our heads open. She said we should have brought helmets since people here don't seem to rent them or use them. Dad said that even if we had brought helmets, they'd be inside our lost luggage, so they wouldn't do us any good.

  “I still wish you kids had helmets,” Mom said.

  “We'll be careful,” Cecily said. “Don't worry.”

  Why does it bug me every time Cecily tells someone not to worry?

  To tell you the truth, when we were bicycling, I couldn't help worrying. I worried I'd crash into a car or trolley or someone else's bicycle, and I worried I'd get tired before anyone else. The only place I didn't worry was in Vondelpark.