Dear Pen Pal by Heather Vogel Frederick

Author:Heather Vogel Frederick [Frederick, Heather Vogel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781416982586
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Published: 2009-09-17T00:00:00+00:00

Megan

“I’m a foreigner in the world and I don’t understand the language.”

—Daddy-Long-Legs

“Ninety-nine bottles of pop on the wall, ninety-nine bottles of pop!”

I jam my pillow over my ears, trying to shut out the noise from the back of the bus, and from Becca, who’s leaning on my shoulder, snoring. We left Walden Middle School at the crack of dawn this morning heading for Washington, D.C., and I’m feeling grumpy for two reasons: lack of sleep, and the fact that I’m here and not in Paris.

My parents and I took Gigi to the airport last night, and right up until the minute she got on the plane I kept hoping they’d change their minds and let me go with her. I should have known better.

I glare at the back of my mother’s head, which is propped against the window of the seat in front of me. She’s asleep too, and so is Mrs. Chadwick, who’s sitting next to her. I can only imagine how fun this trip will be, what with the two of them as chaperones.

I yawn, and Becca stirs. “Somebody should tell those guys to shut up,” she mumbles.

A minute later, somebody does. The singing has woken Mr. Keller, who stomps down the aisle and starts throwing his weight around. After he sorts the boys out, I finally manage to go back to sleep, and I sleep all the way to Connecticut. It’s light outside by the time we reach our first stop and everybody piles off the buses. I stretch, then head for the restaurant along with the rest of my classmates.

Breakfast cheers everyone up, except my mother. She doesn’t do fast food, so she just orders coffee, but then she has to go and grill the poor guy behind the counter about whether it’s shade-grown and fair-trade certified, and of course he doesn’t have a clue so she holds up the line while he goes to find the manager. I try to pretend like we’re not together, but that’s pointless because ever since last year, when she handcuffed herself to a tree at Jess’s house and her picture ended up in the Walden Woodsman, everybody at school knows exactly who my mother is.

After breakfast, we pile back onto the bus and Emma breaks out a deck of cards. She and Cassidy and Becca and I start a game of rummy, which Gigi taught us how to play, and we invite Kevin, who is sitting across the aisle with his dad, to join us.

“No, thanks,” he says in a low voice. I notice that he’s looking pale and slightly greenish, which is not a good sign, and sure enough, a little while later, just as we’re getting onto the New Jersey Turnpike, he throws up.

Becca shrieks, because some of it splatters across the aisle onto her sneaker, and pretty soon we’re all shrieking and holding our noses. Mr. Keller hollers at us to pipe down and the bus driver pulls over at the next rest stop and we all pile out again while he cleans up the mess.

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