Melanie Martin Goes Dutch (10 page)

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 and 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.

Vondelpark is big and green with wide bike paths and no cars. It's full of couples, dogs, and old people. Not too many kids, though. And no colorful tulips because it's summertime. Holland must be extra beautiful in the spring—the postcard racks all show giant tulip fields filled with bright blooming flowers.

I loved loved loved not having to watch out for traffic. I also loved speeding up and making circles and doing wheelies and biking one-handed and going side by side with Cecily.

We got off our bikes to rest in a rose garden, and Matt made up a game that was like an outside version of No Peeking. He told Cecily to close her eyes, then he led her to a rose and told her to smell it and guess the color—red,
yellow, pink, orange, or white. She kept guessing wrong and Matt kept cracking up.

I overheard Mom and Dad whispering about Cecily's mom's operation, which must be coming up pretty soon. Mom said, “I can't imagine what she's going through.” I realized that I haven't been thinking at all about Mrs. Hausner. Maybe kids hardly ever think about grown-ups' problems? Or maybe some do? Or should?

Just then Mom called out, “Hey kids, who can spot a squirrel?”

That sounded easy, so Cecily, Matt, and I started looking. But we couldn't find any! Not one! In Central Park, we would have found bunches.

“Squirrels are rare in Europe,” Mom said. She said that in New York, foreign tourists sometimes stop to take photos of squirrels.

Imagine thinking that a bushy-tailed squirrel is a big deal. Then again, Dutch people think biking in a busy city is not a big deal and it totally is!

We had dinner early. It was cheese fondu.

Cheese fondu is a bubbling hot pot of cheese melted with a lot of wine plunked in front of you right at your
table. You put a piece of bread or apple at the end of a metal poker thing and stir it all around until it's covered with gloopy cheese. Then you blow on it and eat it.

Cecily loved it and Matt said he was glad the bread was soft since his tooth is so loose.

Mom said fondu means “melted” in French. “Do you like it, Melanie?” she asked.

“Not really,” I said. “It's a little winy.”

“Sometimes you're a little whiny and we like you,” Dad said, smiling.

I could
not
believe Dad said that! Matt started laughing like a hyena. Even Cecily laughed a little.

I looked down at my empty plate and my eyes were stinging and I couldn't get the bread in my mouth to go past the lump in my throat and it was all I could do not to cry.

“Come on, cupcake,” Dad said, putting his hand on my arm. “I'm just teasing.”

“You're jet-lagged, pumpkin,” Mom said. “Hang in there. We'll be going to bed soon.”

“I'm not tired!” I said even though I probably was. After that I didn't say another word because I was
afraid that if I looked up, the tears in my eyes would spill out. It also did not help that, right in front of Cecily, Dad had called me cupcake, Mom had called me pumpkin, and they both had been singing Beatles songs.

Mom got the check and said, “Well, I'm tired. Let's go.”

I was hoping our luggage had arrived while we were out, but Hendrik, the check-in man, said nothing had been delivered.

I was about to complain, but Cecily said, “Oh well, at least it won't be hard to figure out what to wear tomorrow!”

Mom and Dad laughed and Dad said, “You're right about that!”

I bet they think Cecily has a great attitude.

Especially compared to you-know-who.

P.S. Matt's asleep and Dad helped Cecily try to call her parents. She had to dial special numbers just to connect to America. Neither of her parents was home, though, so she left messages.

P.P.S. It turns out that Cecily packed her teddy, Snow Bear, right in her backpack. She's lucky. I'm about to go to bed holding a little balled-up washcloth. Talk about pitiful!

on a bus to Alkmaar (Ahlk Mar)

Dear Diary,

Even though I didn't have Hedgehog or my pajamas, and even though it was only early afternoon in New York, I fell right asleep last night. Our sofa bed is big and comfortable and neither of us snores, kicks, rolls, steals covers, grinds our teeth, or is a bed hog, so Cecily and I both slept slept slept like Rip Van Winkle.

He was Dutch. Last week, Mom read Matt and me Washington Irving's story about how Rip Van Winkle went up a mountain and drank a yucky brew with some
Dutchmen who were playing ninepins. But the men were actually the ghosts of Henry Hudson and his crew, and the drink was a magic potion that made him fall asleep. When he woke up, he was stiff and sore and he had a long white beard. He had slept for twenty years!