Melanie Martin Goes Dutch (13 page)

Dear Diary,

I just took my first ever horse-and-buggy ride!! (In New York, Mom and Dad always say that it's too expensive.)

Our buggy had red flowers in the front and big back wheels with long spokes and skinny tires and our horse
was black and had blinders and a nice barn smell. His name was Bert. Not like Bert and Ernie, though. More like Bearrrrt. Well, guess what?
He understood Dutch
! The driver, whose name was Wouter (Vow Ter), spoke Dutch to him and English to us! He told Cecily and me to sit right up front next to him, and he even let us take turns holding the reins! The horse went clip-clopping past churches, down quiet alleyways, on busy streets, and next to canals.

Going around Amsterdam by bicycle is fun, but going by horse is even funner.

More fun.

Whatever.

It was also fun to be sitting next to Cecily for a change.

At first, sitting next to her without talking made it extra obvious that we were both feeling uncomfortable (and I don't mean because of the lumpy cushions). But then the driver stopped the buggy at a vegetable stand to buy three carrots for us kids to give to his horse later. He said, “You take care of Bert,
ja
?” so I nodded.

Suddenly, two teenage guys with spiky purple hair and shoulder tattoos and eyebrow rings crossed the street in front of us. I thought up a comment, and wasn't sure if I should say it, but then I blurted out, “I think I'm in luuuvvv!”

“
Ja
, me too!” Cecily said. “I hof a feeling in my heart that I hof never felt before!”

I pretended to look worried. “But what of Christopher's heart? Will it not break in two when he finds out?”

Cecily eyed the spiky-haired teenagers and said, “Christopher? Who is this Christopher?”

We started laughing and soon I had to wipe my eyes as if I'd been crying. It's not that what we were saying was so funny. It's just that it was soooo nice to be joking around again.

A pregnant lady walked by and Cecily said, “Remember when I put the basketball under my shirt in gym and pretended to be having a baby?”

“
Ja
,” I said. “Remember when I put two green tennis balls up my shirt and pretended to be Miss America?”

“
Ja
,” she said. “Remember that piñata at your birthday party and how we had to whack it a billion times?
And when it finally cracked open, all the hard candies had broken into tiny bits and all the gooey candies had slimed over everything?”

“
Ja
,” I said. “Remember when we buried an ant alive but then we felt bad so we tried to unbury it?”

The more we remembered, the more we laughed. The buggy driver came back and he looked at us and said, “Fun,
ja
?” so we smiled and said, “
Ja
” again. But the truth is, I'd almost forgotten about him and his horse! It was as if Cecily and I were in our own world. Just us.

After a while, the driver pulled the buggy to the side of the road and we all got out and Mom took a picture of us feeding Bert his carrot snacks (unpeeled, of course). Then Matt pulled a bag of M&M's out of his pocket and said, “Cecily, I have a snack for you,” and spilled a few into her palm.

“Thanks, Matt,” she said. “Hey, look! All blues— my favorite!”

“Really?” Matt said. “Mine too!” He gave her a huuuuge hug, and she threw her M&M's in the air and caught them one by one in her mouth, and he cheered every time.

Well, I hate to even write this, but for some reason, I suddenly felt like the buggy ride had been a beautiful soap bubble… and it had just popped.

Dear Diary,

Dinner was
, which means rice table,

which Mom pronounces Rays Tahffle.

It all started in Indonesia. Dad said that long ago when Amsterdam was the most important port in the whole entire world, the Dutch East Indies Company was always sailing back and forth to the Far East, and next thing you know, people in Holland had Indonesian spices and ingredients to cook with, and they started making up new recipes.

Here's how
works: The waiter puts a

long, skinny, hot plate on your table, then brings tons of little dishes of food. Everything from fried coconuts,
fried bananas, sweet potatoes, cut-up cucumbers, and nuts to chicken kebabs, pork in soy sauce, beef on a stick, and shrimp bread. Fortunately he also brings a big bowl of rice (otherwise, I personally might have starved to death).

Well,
may be a big-deal spe cialty, but I didn't like it.

Cecily loved it. So Mom and Dad went on and on (again!) about how great she is at trying things. I can't believe I never knew she was an “adventurous eater”— as Dad keeps putting it. Meanwhile, he keeps telling me not to be a “grumble bee.”

I also can't believe I get jealous whenever Mom and Dad compliment her and criticize me. Maybe I truly am a bad person. Or maybe they're being unfair.

In Anne Frank's diary, she wrote that her parents “never rebuke” her sister, Margot, and “always” scold her about everything. That's what it's like for me! Precious Matt never gets in trouble, and, of course, Cecily can do no wrong.

Well, before Mom or Dad could stop him, Matt did something wrong. He tried an Indonesian sauce he
thought was ketchup. It wasn't. It was hot peppery sambal (Some Bull). Matt turned red and had to wash the sauce down with about fifty glasses of water. I was about to laugh, but I was afraid we were all going to have to rush to another emergency room.

Matt kept drinking water until he felt halfway normal again. (I doubt Matt ever feels totally normal.)

And I wrote a haiku.

On the way home from the restaurant, we stopped to see the streetlights and bridge lights and boat lights reflected in the dark canal. It was soooo pretty. Cecily said, “Look, the moon is glistening in the water!” Mom just loved that.

I spotted the first star in the night sky, so I silently made a wish. I wished I would stop being mad at Cecily.

Meanwhile, Matt, Mr. Fifty Glasses of Water, said, “I have to pee!” so we all started walking again.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, about a zillion rollerbladers
whizzed by. We stepped back and watched. They were mostly young men, but some were old men, some were women, and some were kids. Not too many were wearing helmets, but some were wearing blades that gave off sparks, like miniature fireworks. It was very cool.

Matt was wriggling and saying, “Let's go,” but we couldn't cross the street until they finished blurring by. Mom asked a lady what was going on and she said Friday-night rollerblading is a tradition.

I said, “It's amazing: Dutch people used to clop around in wooden shoes and now they race around on wheels!”

I thought that was an interesting comment, and Dad would have too—if Cecily had said it. But since I said it, he said, “True. But then, the Dutch have always been expert skaters, and rollerblading is like ice-skating on pavement.”

Well, it's pure good luck that we got to see them on our second evening in Holland.

But it's pure bad luck that… our luggage still hasn't come!

When we got back, the check-in man said it may take another day or two.

Dad blew up!

“Another day or two! That's outrageous!” he said. “We're here for only a week!”

Hendrik said nobody was at the baggage office at this hour, but if we don't get our luggage by tomorrow, the company will have to compensate us for our inconvenience.

“What does that mean?” Matt asked.

“Give us some money for new clothes,” Mom said.

“Does luggage ever stay lost?” I asked.

“Rarely,” Mom said.

Matt looked at me and I explained that “rarely” is grown-up for “sometimes.”

Matt is worried about DogDog, and I'm worried about Hedgehog!

As we walked up the steep stairway of the canal house, Mom and Dad got grouchier with every step. They said that if our stuff doesn't come while we're asleep, we'll go shopping first thing tomorrow.

I won't mind shopping.

I like shopping.

Dad doesn't. He said he didn't come to Amsterdam to
go shopping and he doesn't want to spend all day at it.

Mom said, “Sweetheart, I didn't come for the shopping either. I came for the art, and if nobody objects, I wouldn't mind seeing some paintings,
dank u wel
.” She wants to see the Van Gogh Museum, Rembrandt's house, the Rijksmuseum (Rakes Moo Zay Um), and the modern art museum, for starters.