Surviving Summer Vacation (13 page)

The less said about our trip home the better.

As Mr. Rupe turned into the driveway, Mrs. Rupe exclaimed, “Watch it, Milton, you're going to hit the—”

The motor home clipped the garbage cans, and they fell over, clattering, and rolled into the gutter.

Mr. Rupe turned off the ignition and sighed. “I think I'll stick to driving something smaller than this from now on. It's made me a nervous wreck, and I didn't think I had a raw nerve in my body,” he said.

We'd made enough noise so my folks came out and were waiting to meet us as we got out of the coach.

Billy bailed out first and ran to meet them. “I'm going to get glasses just like the ones Lewis has,” he said. “I'm sorry I broke
his
glasses. I didn't mean to sit on them.”

The welcoming smile on Mom's face flickered uncertainly. “Lewis?” she asked, stepping forward to see me more clearly. The lens hadn't fallen out, but there was a crack in the middle of it that divided her face into two parts.

“Hi, Mom,” Alison said, reaching for a hug. “I need to hang out my sleeping bag to dry right away. It was under one of the skylights that was broken when we came through the storm near Missoula, and it got soaked. I saved one of the hailstones that fell through, in the freezer. It's as big as an egg.”

“I spit in the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone,” Billy said proudly, struggling to control William, who was trying to escape. “It went all the way to the bottom.”

“You're home a day earlier than we expected,” Mom said, no longer smiling but anxious. “Did you have trouble?”

Mr. Rupe was opening up the lower level bays to unload. “Oh, it worked out all right,” he said. “But after everything that happened, we decided we'd had enough of sightseeing. We just wanted to come home. The kidnappers are in jail in Montana, and Lewis found the money.”

“Billy felt sure the money would be his, since he found it first,” Mrs. Rupe said, allowing her cigarette ashes to drift all around her as she waved a hand. “But of course that was out of the question. I'm so tired, I can't possibly cook.
Let's call out for pizza, maybe fried chicken.”

“Kidnappers?” Mom echoed faintly.

“Money?” Dad repeated, scowling.

“When Billy cried, though, the people at the campground said he could keep William,” Harry reported, as my parents looked more confused by the moment. “Some camper had left him behind there in the first place.”

“I have to go potty,” Ariadne said.

“Uh, I have dinner on the stove,” Mom said, looking as if she'd been hit by a hurricane. “Come on inside, kids. We'll talk about all this later. Thank you so much for taking Alison and Lewis with you, Mrs. Rupe. I'm sure they had a . . . wonderful time.”

“If you have any questions after Lewis tells you the story, I'll be glad to fill in the details,” Mr. Rupe told Dad as he emptied the first compartment.

When we got in the house, Mom checked the stuff on the stove and said, “You obviously have a lot to tell us.” She glanced sideways at Alison who was putting another two place settings on the table. “Did the Rupes offer you money for caring for the children?”

“No,” Alison said cheerfully, “but I survived the trip, and I sure learned a lot about baby-­sitting. I should qualify as an expert from now on.”

“I had fried chicken and all the fixings planned for your homecoming dinner,” Mom said. “I didn't expect you tonight, so I don't have any of your favorites.”

“Meat loaf is good, Mom. Smells great,” I said as we took our places. I took a big helping of salad and then another big one of green beans, loading up my plate.

“Tell us,” Dad commanded, unwilling to wait any longer. “Start with the kidnappers.”

Mom was still trying not to be upset, trying to make things seem ordinary. “And your glasses, Lewis. How did Billy manage to sit on them? Why weren't you wearing them?”

“We were sharing them, and we'd come past the last of the buffalo so Billy wanted to see them. He's as blind as I am without glasses.”

“Who was kidnapped?” Dad asked in a tone that meant he wasn't going to be sidetracked another moment.

So between us, Alison and I told them the whole story. Well, almost. Neither of us mentioned Mr. Rupe's terrible driving. It didn't matter because we never intended to get into a car with him again. We'd figured out that a person could be intelligent and responsible in other ways and still not be a very competent driver.

Mom looked at me kind of funny when I took a second helping of green beans (when I was little I used to feed them to the dog under the table when nobody was looking) while Alison told them about the hail. It had not only broken our skylights but had made the freeway so icy that all traffic had stopped for nearly half an hour, and then when we got to the campground it had cooled off the heated pool enough so ­Ariadne complained about how cold it was. “It was so loud on the roof that we had to yell to hear each other,” Alison concluded.

Dad had a look on his face that made me think he suspected he hadn't yet heard the whole story. “But Yellowstone was terrific,” I said. “I hope our whole family can go back together someday. You'd like the animals, and the paint pots, and the geysers, and the mud volcanoes, Mom.”

She was looking at me strangely too. Not only surprised that we were home early, and I was eating salad and green beans, but as if I'd changed in some way she couldn't quite pin down. “I didn't make any dessert for tonight,” she said. “I was planning on brownies for tomorrow.”

“That's okay. We don't need any dessert.” I didn't tell her that instead of stopping to eat lunch on the way home we'd finished off the junk food we were carrying, including two or three candy bars apiece. The thought of any more sugar at the moment made me a little bit queasy. “I'll rest up for brownies tomorrow. It was a great trip, but I'm sure glad to be home.”

“Me too,” Alison said.

When the phone rang, she got up to answer it, and I listened to her saying, “Oh, hello, yes, this is Alison. Oh, she did? How nice of her. Yes, I've had considerable experience baby-sitting for young children. ­Certainly, Mrs. ­Potter, I'd be glad to stay with your children tomorrow night. Yes, thank you. See you then.”

I'd thought she was all burned out by Ariadne and Billy, but she hung up with a grin. “That new neighbor of the Mahoneys has two little girls. She's asked me to sit, and if the kids like me, it'll be every Thursday night while they go bowling and then other times once in a while.”

“I thought you'd be tired of baby-sitting after this trip,” Mom said. “How were the Rupe kids?”

I thought of Ariadne at the top of the cedar tree, and wetting the bed, and with ice cream dripping off both elbows. I remembered Billy Scotch-taping the cat, and hiding my glasses, and tying Alison's shoelaces together.

“Okay,” Alison said, and I echoed, “Okay.”

As always, the first paper I had to write when school started was on how I spent my vacation. I told the truth, every word, and there was a big red A at the top of the paper when Mrs. Garvey handed it back to me.

She was smiling. “My, Lewis, you certainly have a wonderful imagination,” she said.

DON'T MISS THESE OTHER WILLO DAVIS ROBERTS MYSTERIES:

The View from the Cherry Tree

Megan's Island

Baby-Sitting Is a Dangerous Job

The Kidnappers

Hostage

Scared Stiff

The Pet-Sitting Peril

What Could Go Wrong?

Secrets at Hidden Valley

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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This Aladdin paperback edition May 2015

Text copyright © 1994 by Willo Davis Roberts

Cover illustration copyright © 2015 by Jessica Handelman

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Cover designed by Jessica Handelman
Interior designed by Mike Rosamilia

The text of this book was set in New Century Schoolbook.

Library of Congress Control Number 2014952693

ISBN 978-1-4814-3719-6 (hc)

ISBN 978-1-4814-3718-9 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-4814-3720-2 (eBook)