Melanie Martin Goes Dutch (15 page)

on a pew in St. Bavokerk in Haarlem

Dear Diary,

Matt was walking really slowly and Dad kept saying “Hurry!” and Matt kept saying “Wait up!” Finally Cecily said, “Hey Matt, what do you get when you cross a turtle and a porcupine?” Matt shrugged his shoulders. “What?” Cecily said, “A slow poke!” and we all laughed. Even me.

I hope things are getting back to normal again. When things feel wrong, it makes me worry that Dad might have a point: Maybe I don't appreciate it enough when things feel right.

I wonder if Anne Frank appreciated her life when she was ten and a half. In her diary, she tries so hard to have a good attitude. She says their hiding place is “a paradise compared with how other Jews who are not in hiding must be living.”

And she really appreciates the friends who help them and bring them stuff. She wrote, “Miep is just like a pack mule, she fetches and carries so much…. We always long for Saturdays when our books come. Just like little children receiving a present. Ordinary people simply don't know what books mean to us, shut up here.”

It makes me wonder: Was Anne Frank ever just an ordinary person? Did she ever visit Haarlem or have a fight with her best friend?

I'll tell you this. We are appreciating Haarlem because it is soooo pretty! Dad took a ton of pictures of the brick alleyways and antique-y street lamps and the flowers in the courtyard of the Frans Hals Museum. Cecily liked the museum. I didn't because it was mostly full of portraits of old fogies who have been dead forever.

We did see one painting we all liked so much that we bought Mom a postcard of it. Jan Breughel (Yahn Brew Gull) painted it around 1640 and it's called
Allegory of Tulipomania
. Tulipomania sounds like a disease but isn't. It was when people got so excited about tulips that came in new shapes or colors that they spent gazillions of guilders (old Dutch money) to buy bulbs. Someone once paid as much for one bulb as it would have cost to buy an entire house!! But rich people liked having fancy tulips in their gardens because then everyone could see how rich they were. Meanwhile regular people thought they were out of their minds, and ministers gave sermons about how it's wrong to spend so much on flowers.

Well, in the painting (and postcard), dozens of
monkeys
, not human beings, are buying and selling tulips and bulbs. One monkey is peeing on tulips! (That cracked Matt up.) Dad said that was Breughel's way of making fun of rich people. He also said that Breughel's father and uncle were really famous painters. (I'd never heard of them.)

We are now in a church that is around five hundred years old. I'm sitting down because my feet feel five hundred years old.

Mozart played the organ here when he was ten. Can you believe he was famous when he was my age? (I
have
heard of Mozart!)

I am now going to shut my eyes and try to imagine what his organ concert sounded like. I am also going to try to picture him wearing one of those white wigs with a ponytail attached.

If my signature is funny, it's because my eyes will be closed.

Do Re Mi—

(Sand Fort)

Dear Diary,

I got in trouble.

We three kids wanted fast food, but Dad said no, so we went to this tiny fancy place and ordered pork chops and
stamppot
(Stamp Pot is mashed potatoes and mixed-up vegetables). Dad also ordered a beer by
saying, “I'll have a Heinie” (for Heineken). I felt like hiding under the table!

My pork chop was good except it had gristle and fat on it, so after I ate everything I liked, I pushed the disgusting stuff to one side of my plate. But even there, it was still grossing me out, so I spooned up the gristle and fat and dumped it onto Dad's plate.

Okay, fine, I realize I don't have the World's Best Manners. But first of all, they're not as bad as Matt's. And second of all, I
always
separate yummy stuff from yucky stuff and transfer the yucky stuff to Dad's plate, and he never minds. A lot of times he even thanks me! At home, when we order in fried rice, I transfer heaping spoonfuls of egg and onions to Dad's plate, and he gobbles up my rejects, happy as can be. (He is a Big Pig, after all.)

The problem was that this time when I transferred the food, I accidentally splashed sauce onto Dad's new striped shirt.

Next thing you know, his striped shirt was polka-dotted with brownish-orangeish specks. Dad quietly checked the damage and took a deep breath. I expected
him to start ranting about how after wearing the same dirty shirt for days, he finally gets to put on something clean and new and I go and make a mess of it. Or how my table manners are atrocious and I should be ashamed and wait till Mom hears about this. Or something.

Maybe it was because the restaurant was tiny, but Dad stayed quiet. I looked at Cecily and Matt to see if they were smiling or making faces, but they were both staring straight down.

I almost wanted Dad to just start yelling because, well, imagine knowing a volcano is going to explode but not knowing when.

Finally, it occurred to me to say, “Sorry, Dad.”

Using his inside voice, Dad said, “Thank you for apologizing, Melanie. But I do not want you to use my plate as a garbage can anymore. Is that clear?” He was rubbing bubbly water on his shirt.

I nodded, but Dad repeated, “Is that clear?” so I said, “Yes.” I even said “Sorry” again because I was.

My eyes were burning and I was hoping I wouldn't start crying with Cecily right there. But then I did start and I had to keep dabbing my eyes with my
napkin and hoping no one noticed even though everyone probably did.

Pathetically yours,

Dear Diary,

Anne Frank wrote in her diary, “Am I really so bad-mannered, conceited, headstrong, pushing, stupid, lazy, etc., etc., as they all say? Oh, of course not. I have my faults, just like everyone else, but they thoroughly exaggerate everything.”

I want to keep reading, but our train is slowing down.

Time to get off! Holland is so small that we're already here at the North Sea. Sea in Dutch is
zee
.

Dear Diary,

Oh my God, I mean gosh! Mom may be seeing Rembrandts and Mondrians and de Koonings or whoever, but guess what we're seeing? Half-naked people!!! A lot of ladies on this beach are
not
wearing tops!!! They're wearing bikini bottoms and nothing else!!!

It's pretty embarrassing!!!

I wonder if Mom would even approve of Dad's taking us here—especially without her. Well, too late.

Here we are.

Dad is
not
concentrating on his guidebook. And when we got changed into our new bathing suits, he forgot to say one word about sunscreen. Usually he and Mom are
obsessed
with sunscreen. Usually they put sunscreen on the part on the top of my scalp, for
gosh sake!