Lisa (28 page)

Now I think I’ll take a bath. The bathtub is about the size of a small swimming pool. Of course, the one in my parents’ bathroom is much larger …

Just kidding. Still, it’s all pretty grand.

It’s hard to believe this vacation is almost over. It’s been so
interesting. When I think about it, before I left, I was scared to death about being in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar languages. I’ve realized that people are people, and if you try to be nice and try to speak to them in their own language, no matter how badly you mangle the phrases from the phrase book, they want to be helpful and welcoming. I’ve enjoyed the trip. I’m a little sorry it’s almost over, but I can’t wait to see you guys and hear everything about High Meadow. I get to read your diaries, right? Don’t leave
anything
out.

Love
,
Lisa

Dear Diary
,

Wow, I can’t believe my trip to Europe is over and we’re flying home already. Before we left home, four weeks seemed like forever. And a few times, like that night in Paris when we had to wait three hours for dinner, or the morning Mom insisted on pointing out every old rock in Windsor, or a few times when I was trapped in the car in Italy when Mom and Dad were arguing over directions, it really did feel like time was standing still!

But a lot of the time, the hours just flew by. Like when I was in the Musée d’Orsay. Or the afternoon I spent getting to know Tessa. Or the couple of days we spent at Enrico’s home. Or the hour last night we spent on the phone with Peter.

It was so great to talk to him, even though Mom hogged the phone. I only got about five or ten minutes—and I think I only got that much because Peter asked for me specifically, which made me feel really good—but we managed to catch up on a lot in that short time. I told him about our trip, and what Stevie and Carole were doing while I was in Europe, and he told me about the work he’s doing in Africa, which sounds pretty interesting. The only slightly awkward moment was when he mentioned his screenplay. I didn’t say too much, and I guess he thought that meant I’d liked it as much as I said in my letter. I feel kind of weird about that. I still don’t want to hurt his feelings, but I also don’t want to lie … Oh well. I’ll have to think about that more when I get home.

Anyway, I think Mom and Dad were really glad to hear Peter’s voice. They seemed a lot more cheerful after they called. And their moods improved even more when they saw the restaurant where we were having dinner. Enrico’s parents had suggested it the day before when we’d left their place. They said it was their favorite restaurant in Florence, and I can believe it. It was wonderful. Our table was on a huge stone balcony overlooking a busy city square. People bustled around below us as we sipped wine (Mom and Dad) and mineral water (me) and ate pounds and pounds of delicious Italian food. We had a perfect view of the sun as it set over the ancient-looking buildings, and as it grew dark, a little orchestra set up in the square and started a concert,
so we got to hear and see that as we ate, too. It was positively perfect. I think Mom and Dad thought so, too, and I’m glad about that. I’m not sure they had as good a time in Europe as I did, although I think there were moments they enjoyed a lot. Mom loved staying at Enrico’s mansion, and I think she really did like touring some of those dusty old ruins and fancy churches. Dad loved trying all the different food in the different countries—well, except maybe for that tongue sandwich back in Paris. But he now claims that gelato (that’s Italian ice cream) is his new favorite food. And he even seemed to like the steak and kidney pie he had in England, though I thought it was awful.

So now here we are on another plane, heading back across the Atlantic. I’m sad to leave Europe behind—there’s so much more that I didn’t get to see. But even more, I’m happy to be going home. I miss my friends so much I can hardly stand it. I can’t wait to hear all about their adventures at High Meadow. I hope they kept good diaries! (At least Carole …) I want to know about every second of their trip.

Because I’m definitely going to make them listen to me talk about every second of mine!

Okay, I know I didn’t make any promises about this diary. In fact, I pretty much told you (Lisa, that is) not to count on me. But it’s the night before we leave for
High Meadow, and I’m too excited to sleep, so I figured I’d jot down a few words. Who knows? Maybe I’ll be inspired to keep it up through the whole trip. Maybe I’ll even decide to start keeping a diary regularly, like forever! Wouldn’t that be something? It would be like going to High Meadow had changed my whole entire life! My parents would practically die of shock, and Miss Fenton would probably think I’d been kidnapped by aliens and undergone an entire personality transplant. Hmmm. Maybe I’ll tell her I’m keeping a diary, even if I decide not to. It might be worth it just to see the look on her face.

But anyway, back to the trip. Lisa, I really wish you were coming with us. I know I should be tactful here and say stuff about how it probably won’t be any fun without you. And it’s true that it won’t be as
much
fun with you way over in Europe somewhere. But it’s still going to be fun! I just hope you’re having even more fun checking out the Eiffel Tower and everything, so Carole and I won’t have any reason to feel guilty.

As I was saying, though, I think this trip will be really cool. Those little campers aren’t going to know what hit them. By the time Carole gets through with them, they’ll know everything there is to know about riding and then some. And by the time I get through with them—well, let’s just say I’m not going to let all the fun pranks and silly songs and stories I’ve picked up at camp over the years go to waste. They’re going
to wonder how they had the good luck to end up with such a cool counselor! I can’t wait.

I also can’t wait to see Kate, of course, and Eli and Jeannie, too. We’re all going to have such a blast! Now if only I could manage to fall asleep so morning would come sooner … Well, I guess I’d better go give it a try. I’ll write more when we get there.

Dear Diary (or really Lisa since that’s who’s going to read this eventually. I certainly don’t plan on looking at it again!),

I can’t believe the day we just had! Both Stevie and Kate are sleeping soundly, but I have a lot on my mind and I can’t sleep.

The day started off wrong and it just never got any better. First of all, we were so tired that when the bell rang to wake us up, we fell right back to sleep again. All that traveling yesterday was more tiring than any of us had realized. So when the breakfast bell rang, we did the same thing. Eventually Jeannie came and woke us up. She was more or less nice about it, but we’re here to help, not to cause trouble. We were causing trouble then because there was going to be a ride and nobody could go until we were ready.

It didn’t get much better when we went for our ride. I guess Eli and Jeannie must have been talking about
us to the campers, who have been here a couple of days already. They took one look at Stevie and me in our brand-new Western riding clothes and they started calling us dudes. Most of them are from out West and they don’t have a very high opinion of English riding. They’ve got a lot to learn on that subject, but we didn’t do much of a job teaching them today.

First of all, I was having trouble with my horse. He’s a good horse (I don’t think there’s any such thing as a bad horse, just bad riders), but we aren’t used to one another yet. I forgot for one little second that in Western riding you use neck reining. The horse didn’t do what I wanted and three of the kids kept laughing about it. Little monsters. Remind me to tell you more about Lois, Larry, and Linc. Stevie dubbed them the Lions. It’s just like her to come up with something like that. Anyway, these kids are really obnoxious, and I’m sure they’re going to be our biggest problem.

Check that. I’m not sure they’re going to be our biggest problem. I’m beginning to think that
we
are going to be our biggest problems. We don’t seem to have any idea of what’s going on. Every time the triangle rang, everybody else knew exactly what to do and Stevie, Kate, and I were left standing there, looking blankly at one another. The kids thought it was hysterical. Eli seemed a little perturbed, and Jeannie, who never quite recovered from having to dig us out of bed this morning, just looked peeved.

What’s weird is that the three of us arrived here thinking of ourselves as Eli and Jeannie’s saviors. We thought they had all these gigantic problems that we were going to solve, and now it looks like the three of us—Stevie and me particularly—are just causing more problems.

And I haven’t even told you what happened when we tried to help in the garden this afternoon. Trust me, you don’t want to know. I’ll only say that it had to do with a worm that one of the L-ions dug up and everybody else thought it was a riot. It wasn’t.

So, although Dad always tells me not to complain, here I am complaining. I can’t help it. If we don’t start being useful to Eli and Jeannie pretty soon, I’m sure they’re going to want to put us on a plane and send us back home. I wouldn’t blame them one bit, either.

But I’m not going to let that happen. Neither will Stevie or Kate. We came here to be helpful and we’re going to be helpful. Whatever it is that Eli and Jeannie need us to do, we’ll do. If we don’t know what we’re supposed to do, we’ll ask, and we’ll learn, really fast. At least I hope so.

Eli told us what our morning chores are for tomorrow. Stevie’s going to work in the vegetable patch (no worms!) and I’m supposed to collect eggs from the henhouse. Kate is going to help with the kitchen crew.

So, when do we get to ride again? Oops, that
sounded like a complaint. I didn’t mean it. I may even cross it out. No I won’t. This is a diary and diaries are supposed to be honest. Grrr.

Good night.

Carole

Too tired to write now—remember to write more tomorrow about chicken biting Carole and stupid difference between stupid onions and stupid weeds.

What a humiliating day! I can’t believe I actually fell off my horse during our trail ride. Yes, Lisa, you read that right—I fell off my horse. It was just a stupid mistake, because I wasn’t paying close enough attention, but Stevie and Kate and I seem to be making a lot of stupid mistakes today. For instance, this morning I made the mistake of thinking the hens in the henhouse wouldn’t mind one bit if I took all their eggs. Well, one of them sure taught me different, and I have the scratch to prove it. Kate’s big boo-boo of the day was herding all the horses into a field where they weren’t supposed to be, so she basically had to do the same job twice.

Who ever said we were here to help Jeannie and
Eli? As far as I can tell, all we’re doing is causing extra problems. Stevie says we just have to try harder. My only question is: How?

Today we had a stampede on our cattle drive, but it turned out okay in the end. Too tired to write more. Good night.

It’s been pretty peaceful here at camp for the past couple of days while the others are off on their cattle drive. They’re supposed to get back tomorrow, I think. Actually, I think they were supposed to be here today, but Eli called Jeannie this morning and told her they would need an extra day. I don’t know what that’s all about. I just hope Stevie and Kate are doing better than I did here for the first day or two after they left. See, what happened was I separated the wrong horse from the herd. The horse that was supposed to be in a field by himself ended up with the rest of the horses. His name is Arthur, and he’s a troublemaker—in the middle of the night, he ended up convincing all the others to follow him as he jumped the fence and took off for the hills. I ended up having to go out and round them up. Jeannie was happy that I was so successful at
that—though I’m sure she would have been a lot happier if I hadn’t made the mistake that caused the problem in the first place.

Since then, though, things have been a lot better. I think I’m finally starting to get the hang of the routine around here. It’s a little lonely without Stevie and Kate, but like I said, they’ll be back soon. I can’t wait to hear all about the cattle drive!

Dear Diary
,

From what they wrote in their diaries, it sounds like my friends had a terrible time at High Meadow! Well, they didn’t. Not really. They told me all about it after I got back from Europe last week. It sounds like there were some problems, especially early on—they had trouble getting used to all the chores on a working ranch, like weeding the garden and collecting eggs, and some of the younger campers made fun of them and called them dudes because they knew more about English riding than Western. But they got the hang of it all eventually, and in the end they were as sad to leave the ranch and the campers as the campers were to leave them.

As Stevie put it, it was wonderful, it just didn’t seem that way all the time. I guess that’s sort of how my trip to Europe was, too. Looking back on it now, all I seem to remember most of the time are the wonderful parts. But at the time, I can’t say that I had fun every second of every day.

Now that I think about it, I guess that’s the whole point of this diary—or scrapbook or whatever I should call it. It’s supposed to help me remember the wonderful times in my life. And if it helps me remember the not-so-wonderful ones at the same time, well, I guess that will just make the wonderful ones seem even better.

Speaking of this diary—I can hardly believe it. I just realized that there are only a few blank pages left. When I first got it, I was sure it would last for ages, but I’ve filled it up in just one year, even though I feel as though I didn’t write nearly often enough. Still, I’m pretty happy with it overall. I think writing in here has helped me sort through things. I also think it’s helped me “find my own voice,” as Ms. Shields would put it. That means I think that the stuff I write in here is the truth as I see and describe it, and I don’t try to write it for anyone else but myself. Or something like that, anyway.