Melanie Martin Goes Dutch (30 page)

P.S. Just in case I ever forget it, I'm taping in my recipe for Ten-Dollar Cookies:

Dear Diary,

I almost forgot about the labor (get it?) I'm supposed to do: the what-I-read-and-what-I-learned book report. I was about to
when I remembered it has to be only a hundred words.

I think the teachers just want to be sure we don't forget how to read. It would be bad if we all started fifth grade sounding out words.

Over spring break, I had to write a thirty-line poem
for school, and I practically had a heart attack over it. But I got it done. Now since I am more mature, I realize I can write and I can count so I can do this.

I've decided to do my report on the diary of Anne Frank.

P.S. When I finish, I'll copy it in here.

Dear Diary,

Dad once said that the most important part of writing is rewriting. He told me Isaac Bashevis Singer, who won the Nobel Prize for writers (which is like the Academy Award for actors) said, “The wastepaper basket is a writer's best friend.”

Well, my wastepaper basket is full of crumpled-up sentences. Perfectly good ones, too. I admit that I spent a long time on a short report, but this is the first
assignment of the year, and I wanted to make a good impression.

This summer I read The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank. Anne was an excellent person who lived in a terrible time. Anyone who reads her diary will be different afterward. It makes you ask: How could someone be so evil that he would stop a kid from growing up? How could other people let him?

Of course, not everybody sat back. Some people did try to stop Hitler and to help. They were heroes. They really really understood that being a good person cannot just mean doing nothing wrong. It also has to mean doing something right.

Sincerely,

P.S. I probably shouldn't have written “really really” but I really really needed two more words.

Dear Diary,

Well, even though I finished my book report, here I am back at my desk. A poem was rumbling around in my head, so I figured I might as well let it out.

It's actually pretty cheesy—but you know what? I'm blaming that on Holland!

Besides, who cares? It's not for school. It's for my
only.

the day after Labor Day