Give Me a Break (From the Files of Madison Finn, 18) (14 page)

On the Road Again


So our stay here at Treetops is almost done. We’re headed back to Far Hills 2day.


I did really well in the demo, actually. Carlos stepped in as my partner. Aimee was really jealous--or at least she joked around that she was. But Carlos made me look like a skiing pro. I actually skied and wedged and stopped in the right place on this little hill. I made it around all five cones he put out in this baby obstacle course. Dad and Stephanie were very impressed.


And the most incredible thing happened after the demo was over--we met Foster Lane!!! Well, we didn’t actually meet him, we saw him signing autographs. And we each got one. He signed Aimee’s soft cast first, but the ink started to run because it was a little wet, so he signed a piece of paper after that. Aimee says she’s going to frame it when we get home. I think she’ll probably build some kind of shrine. And he is SO not that cute. He had zits!


Aimee was super happy though. She said everything worked out for the best because we stuck together.


Rude Awakening:
Friends are like blankets. I never thought I’d need them so much until I got left out in the cold.


Madison had to stop typing for a moment. She was thinking again about the exact moment when Hugh had ditched her on the slopes—when she had been left out in the cold for real. Even though she’d recovered and skied the demo with Carlos, it hadn’t hurt any less.

She glanced out the window of the chalet, out onto the snowy exterior of the resort. Something about the icicles, the snowdrifts, the tall, tall trees—it just didn’t seem as romantic as it had a few days before.

The laptop went
bling
and Madison turned back to her e-mail. Her battery was running low. She would have to remember to plug the computer in and recharge it before the long trip home.

Madison started typing in her file again.

Maybe everything that happened this week was all meant to be--the flat tires, the snowdrift inside the living room, Aimee’s accident, getting dumped. And maybe Aimee and I were meant to have all those annoying fights (they were SO annoying!)


Maybe everything happened so we could see that the best lucky charm was with us all along--each other.


It’s kind of cool to think that a person can be my best lucky charm.


Aimee came into the main room where Madison was sitting and typing on her laptop. Phin trotted in behind her.

“Phinnie sure does love you,” Madison said.

“And I love him! I can’t wait to see my puppy, Blossom, though,” Aimee said. “I’ve missed her.”

Dad strolled into the room carrying a cup of hot coffee. “So, girls,” he said. “We have another day ahead of us. Stephanie and I were thinking. I know we’re heading back home, but why don’t we spend part of our last afternoon checking out some more of the scenery?”

Madison’s face lit up. “Sure,” she said. “I’m going to get dressed.”

Stephanie checked them out of the hotel while Dad loaded up the Jeep. They drove to the other side of Elk Lake, where there were places to rent skates and—best of all—lots of hot chocolate.

Aimee grabbed a cup and parked herself at one of the tables. It was outdoors, but it was on a patio. Stephanie decided to sit out the skating to keep company with Aimee and Phin. Madison and Dad wandered onto the frozen lake in their rented skates.

“I haven’t skated much this winter,” Madison said. “I’m a little wobbly. I seem to wobble at all winter sports.”

“You were great yesterday,” Dad said. “I was very proud of you.”

“Really?” Madison said.

“Of course. I know it has been a rough week for everyone, especially you.”

“What about Aimee?” Madison asked. “It’s been rough for her. I mean, she’s the one who got hurt.”

“Yes, but all the excitement swirled around her. You had to do most of the waiting around and the helping out. I know that can be tough,” Dad said. He spun on the edge of his skate blade and did a full turn.

A little way across the lake, Madison saw some boys with hockey sticks skating circles around each other. She squinted. Was Hugh over there? She couldn’t tell. They were all too far away.

Dad zipped back and forth in front of Madison, who slowly skated along, pushing off more with one foot than the other. She was beginning to wobble less, though. Her arms relaxed, too.

“Go, Maddie!” Aimee cheered from the sidelines.

Madison threw her arms up into the air and then leaned forward to take a bow. Unfortunately, the tip of her skate caught on a patch of rough ice—and there was nothing to grab on to.

“Oh, no!” Madison let out a cry.

“Hold on!” Dad skated over and scooped Madison into his arms before she fell.

Madison righted herself. She gave Dad a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks, Dad,” she said.

“Hooray!” Aimee cried. “Good save!”

Later, as they left Elk Lake, Madison gazed over at the hockey players again. She could see better now. Hugh wasn’t there. He really was gone for good.

The ride back to Far Hills went much faster than the ride up had gone. For one thing, Dad didn’t get lost. And Aimee and Madison talked almost the entire way home.

At a rest stop, Aimee and Madison got out for a snack. Aimee grabbed an apple and handed it to Madison. Then she grabbed another apple for herself.

“Okay, now we have to do this. It will tell you who your true love is,” Aimee explained.

“Aimee, you are such a faker. I thought you didn’t believe in any of this stuff! You told me!”

Aimee raised her eyebrows. “I changed my mind. So, let’s play.”

She started twisting off her apple stem and reciting the alphabet at the same time. It took until the letter
W
for Aimee’s stem to pop off.

“That’s the first letter of my true love’s name,” Aimee said.

“Maybe it’s Egg,” Madison teased. Egg’s real first name was Walter.

“Very funny,” Aimee said. “Now, you take the stem and poke—poke—poke—poke…”

The stem poked through the apple skin on the letter
D.

“I told you!” Madison squealed.
“W, D—
for
Walter Diaz
!”

“Hey, I think it really poked through on letter C,” Aimee said.

Madison frowned. “Hey! You did that on purpose!”

“Whatever. You do it,” Aimee said.

Madison twisted her stem. “A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H—”

The stem popped off.

“H
for
Hugh,”
Madison said dejectedly.

“Oh, well,” Aimee said. “Try poking the skin.”

Madison poked and poked. She finally pierced the skin on the letter
J.

“Hugh Jackson!” Madison wailed. “And he dumped me! My true love dumped me!”

Aimee held out her hands to Madison. “Maddie,” she said. “You have to look at things from a different angle.”

“What do you mean?” Madison asked.

“Well, H. J. doesn’t just stand for
Hugh Jackson
,” Aimee said.

“You’re right,” Madison said, gulping. She held the apple stem high in the air. “It stands for
Hart Jones
.”

“Duh,” Aimee said. “Maybe your new crush on Hugh was just a way to lead you back to your true love.”

“You mean, Hart?” Madison asked. “My true love?”

She and Aimee exploded into a laughing fit.

Dad pulled into Aimee’s driveway sometime after six o’clock. Mrs. Gillespie walked out to the car to help Aimee with her bags and to say hello (and thank) Dad and Stephanie and Madison. She fussed all over Aimee, checking out her cast—and wondering why there was a giant, smudged-ink scribble on its side.

As soon as they drove down the street and pulled into the Finns’ driveway, Phinnie jumped out and raced for the porch. Mom was standing there, waving hello. She threw her arms around Madison as Dad and Stephanie backed out of the driveway.

“See you for dinner Friday!” Madison called out.

Dad honked the horn and pulled away.

Mom and Madison walked inside. Mom had ordered a pizza, which was sitting on the kitchen table.

“I got pepperoni for you,” Mom said.

Madison licked her lips. “Mmmm,” she said. “We went skating earlier this afternoon and it made me so hungry!”

They ate dinner and sat around, rehashing the events of the trip. When bedtime came, Madison dragged herself upstairs, laptop in hand.

She wanted to check in with her keypal.

From: MadFinn


To: Bigwheels


Subject: Home Sweet Home


Date: Thurs 4 Mar 8:59 PM


Are you still sick? I hope not! I’m back home under my own covers right now. I am so glad to be back from the trip. It was fun but hard, too.


Sometimes Aimee and I are so different. But I guess BFFs don’t have to be identical twins. Mom and Dad both say it’s the different parts that make friendships work.


I hope u don’t mind but I’m attaching two pictures to this e-mail. The first one is me and Aimee in first grade. The second one is a picture we took on the ski trip. As you can see, we spent a lot of time falling in the snow!


I wanted to share it with u b/c I think of you as one of my BFFs too. I hope u feel the same. I am so glad I met you on TweenBlurt.com. That was REALLY lucky, wasn’t it?


Yours till the hot chocolates (with whipped cream!),


Maddie


After Madison hit
SEND
, her computer made a
bling
noise; she thought it was just the battery running low again. But then she realized it was an Insta-Message. She clicked on the corner of her screen.

: Hey I’m at egg’s and we heard u guys came back


She nearly fell off her bed. was Hart.

<
Sk8rboy>: R U There? Egg wants 2 know if u want to go sk8 @ the pond tomorrow everyone will b there xcept F & C b/c theyre still in CAL


Madison could barely catch her breath, let alone type a response.

Good luck came in all shape and sizes, she realized. And maybe the apple stem had been right. Maybe H. J. was her true love.

Madison knew only one thing for sure.

Tomorrow, she would be going to skate at the pond.

And she’d be wearing her lucky ski-bunny charm around her neck.

When I knew I’d be going to this ultrafancy ski resort, I freaked. I am always fighting with the clothes in my closet. But a quick search online showed me some cool things I could bring with me on the trip.
The Internet is a great place to search for trends, fashion tips, and other ideas about what’s hot—and in my case, what’s not.
Aimee and Fiona are always surfing online, and they always seem to know just what to wear. I need all the help I can get!

Visit Madison at the author’s page:
www.lauradower.com

Turn the page to continue reading from Laura Dower’s From the Files of Madison Finn series

Journaling


Rude Awakening:
For once, homework isn’t going to be a piece of cake—it’s going to be the WHOLE cake.


Just when I think I’m getting behind in my school work, I get a killer assignment that just about GUARANTEES me an A (or maybe an A+, fingers
so
crossed) in Mr. Gibbons’s English class. It’s like someone just handed me the golden ticket in Willy Wonka.


We started “journaling,” which is basically keeping track of feelings and observations and all that…which is what I do every day on this computer anyway! I think it’s great that everyone else in school is going to discover just how great it can be to keep files like I do. In journaling we have to write in a composition notebook. That’s the only difference.


Apparently, we have some assessment tests coming up later this year, so Mr. Gibbons says we all need to get more comfortable—and more skilled—with our writing. All the English sections in the seventh grade are doing this, so Fiona, Aimee, Lindsay, and I are already planning times when we can write together, like afternoons at Aimee’s dad’s Cyber Cafe. Mom says it sounds like we want to do what people did a long time ago in sewing circles. Talk about a time warp. Imagine us a hundred or two hundred years ago sitting around making a quilt?