Alpaca My Bags by Jenny Goebel

Author:Jenny Goebel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.

Adventures make life worth living,” Dad said as he dreamily flipped through a National Geographic magazine he’d brought home with him from the market.

I wondered who was right—Dad or Rachel? Was it adventure or connection that kept people going? Couldn’t it be both?

“And I’ll tell you what,” Dad added. “Nothing sucks the life out of you like a bad day at work.”

“Hear! Hear!” Mom chimed in. She was lying down on her and Dad’s bed with a cool washcloth draped across her forehead.

I kept my mouth shut.

It was Neil’s night to cook. The cramped kitchen was only large enough for one body, so we all took turns. The rest of us were scattered around the front of the trailer while my oldest brother had a pot of water boiling on the tiny stove and a pan of tomato and meat sauce warming on a hot plate on the counter. The sauce came from a jar, but Neil was adding fresh basil and minced garlic to spice it up. Of all of us, he liked cooking the most. But the trailer kitchen didn’t allow much room for culinary experimentation.

“You know, some of the newer travel trailers have pop-outs and enough space for kitchen islands,” Neil said.

Dad groaned. “Not tonight, Neil.”

Mom, no doubt trying to turn the tide of negativity flowing through the Gnarly Banana, sat up and said, “And how was bouldering today, boys?”

“Sweet,” David answered.

“Indeed.” Neil whooped. “Sunday Wild Exertion, Enjoyed Thoroughly.”

Then the conversation descended into a jumble of words that didn’t hold my interest. Some of them floated into my consciousness: crags, grip holds, technique, finger tape. But mostly, my mind wandered back to Rachel’s alpaca ranch and my success with the fence. We had a long way to go, but I was excited to see how it progressed.

I was in my own separate world until a lull in the conservation, followed by Dad asking “What about you, Amelia Jean? How was your day?” shook me from my thoughts.

“Um, it was okay,” I said. Sure, it’d been hard, and I felt exhausted, but also satisfied and accomplished. I learned I was capable of more than I thought I was. But I didn’t think that’s what Dad wanted to hear—not when that revelation had come from working at the ranch and not from one of our family adventures. So, I focused on something I knew would please him. “I ran all the way to the ranch and back.”

“Attagirl,” he said, nodding approvingly.

“I think I’ll start jogging after school every day,” I added, knowing exactly where those jogs would lead me.

Dad perked up. “Really, Amelia Jean? I didn’t think you cared much for it.”

“Well, the scenery is so pretty here. And I like being outdoors.”

Dad looked at me with a mixture of surprise and delight, like maybe I really was his daughter after all. Like all these years there’d been a little nagging doubt in the back of his head that he hadn’t passed on any strong Amundsen genes to me. But now? “That’s great.

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