Sea City, Here We Come!

  Then there’s summer school itself. They bunch all the grades into one place, the high school. Half the kids are these huge sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds who don’t want to be there — and look much bigger and angrier than you. And the other half are little kids who don’t want to be there — and walk around with these pathetic, scared faces.

  I thought a long time about it. Now I have this theory. The Claudia Kishi Theory of Summer School Torture. See, the teachers like to take summers off, too. So the worst thing in the world is to have stupid kids in school. The kids have to make up classes, which means some teachers have to teach the classes.

  If you were a teacher who had to give up a vacation for summer school, how would you feel? I know I’d be furious.

  So that’s why they make summer school the most miserable place in the world: REVENGE!

  I guess they figure they’ll scare you into getting good grades the next year. They make it so horrible you’ll never want to come back. Like prison.

  Who knows, next summer they may have a rock pile.

  I did end up working hard. I even understood the stuff.

  Anyway, my class lasted for a month. The first week I felt as if I were in another town. I knew nobody. Everyone looked so glum and unfriendly.

  The second week I got to know some of the kids. And you know what? Most of them were pretty cool.

  Monday of that week, a bunch of us stopped at the ice cream truck on the way home. “Now let’s see,” said this girl named Theresa, as we walked with our pops. “If the guy has twenty-two ice cream bars that cost him fifty cents each, sells one to each of us for a dollar fifty, then … how much did his toupee cost?”

  I nearly spit out my ice cream. “Stop!”

  “Can we use a calculator?” asked another classmate, named Carly.

  We laughed all the way home. The more we joked about how stupid we were, the closer we felt.

  It turned out Carly lives near me. Over the week we became pretty good friends. She’s a fantastic watercolorist and potter. She even has a pottery wheel in her basement.

  You know what the best thing was? Eventually the kids in my class started calling me “the smart one.” Me. Claudia, the Blot on the Kishi Family Tree.

  So the good news was that despite the Torture Theory, and despite the fact that I hated the work, summer school actually wasn’t so bad.

  By the Friday of the BSC meeting, I was having mixed feelings. I was glad school was almost over, but I wondered what would happen to my new friendships. What if Carly and Theresa and I weren’t in the same classes in the fall? Most of us were starting to feel pretty sad — especially Carly. I could sense she knew how strong my BSC friendships were.

  I tried not to think of the future. And I vowed I’d write to Carly when I was on my real vacation.

  It was hard to stay in a good mood at the BSC meeting. There was Shannon, on the way to stardom at summer camp. Jessi, Mal, and Stacey were a day away from fun and sun. Mary Anne and Dawn were all starry-eyed about Mini-Camp. And Kristy was her usual gung-ho self about the Krushers.

  Thank goodness I was going to Sea City. I kept thinking about that. Every time I’d picture Jessi or Stacey or Mal on the beach, I’d just put myself in the picture.

  Only eight days and counting! I could practically feel the ocean breezes.

  * * *

  But first I’d have to say good-bye to the others. When Saturday came, Kristy, Mary Anne, Dawn, and I met at the Pikes’ house.

  Do you know what it’s like when a family of ten is leaving for vacation? It gives chaos new meaning. It’s like cattle-rustling in an old Western.

  Except cattle are much quieter than the Pike kids.

  Jessi had slept over the night before. As I walked up the Pikes’ lawn, she struggled out of the house with two suitcases.

  She smiled and said, “Hi, Clau —”

  Claire barreled out of the house. “Where’s Thomas?”

  “Who’s Thomas?” Jessi asked.

  “My new stuffed bear,” Claire whined. “I can’t find him!”

  “Did you pack him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Let’s check.” Jessi put the suitcases down on the front stoop and opened one.

  At that moment Margo’s voice screamed from inside, “Stop, Nicky!”

  I could hear her footsteps go tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap —

  “Watch it!” Jessi cried.

  Margo had run out the front door. The taps stopped when her foot landed inside Claire’s open suitcase.

  “No!” shouted Claire.

  “Whoa!” shouted Margo.

  Margo went flying onto the lawn. Claire’s suitcase followed her, spilling clothes and toys and books. Jessi ran to Margo. I rushed over to help. Nicky appeared in the door, his mouth hanging open.

  “Are you okay?” Jessi and I asked Margo at the same time.

  “Did Nicky touch me?” was her reply.

  “I didn’t,” Nicky said.

  Margo burst into tears. “He was trying to lick me and give me his cootie germs!”

  Jessi and I looked at each other, then at Nicky. By now, most of the other Pike kids — and Mr. Pike — had come to the door.

  “Nicholas,” Mr. Pike said very seriously. “Please come into the living room. We need to have a talk.”

  “Oooh, Nicky,” teased Adam. Or Byron. Or Jordan. (I wasn’t really looking at them, so it was hard to tell. They’re identical triplets.)

  As Nicky slunk inside, Claire cried, “Here he is!” She held up a gray stuffed bear with a scarf around its neck.

  “Thomas?” Jessi asked.

  With a huge smile, Claire hugged the bear. “Thomas-silly-billy-goo-goo!”

  She turned and began to skip into the house.

  “Uh, Claire,” Jessi said. “Would you help me pick up all this stuff?”

  “Margo knocked it over,” Claire replied.

  “Jessi was the one who opened it on the stoop,” Margo shot back.

  For a moment — just a teeny moment — I was glad I was going to summer school instead of to Sea City.

  Mal bustled out the front door with a couple more suitcases. “Uh-oh,” she said. “Let’s see if we can pack Claire’s suitcase in world record time!”

  Well, that seemed to do the trick. Everyone pitched in and stuffed the suitcase again.

  Then the kids ran back into the house, screaming with excitement. Mal and Jessi and I carried the suitcases to the cars.

  “Hi!” Dawn called from down the street. She and Mary Anne were walking toward the house.

  “Hi!” Jessi, Mal, and I called back.

  Mary Anne pointed to a minivan in the Pikes’ driveway. “Whose is that?”

  “My mom and dad rented it,” Mal replied.

  Dawn looked puzzled. “But you have two station wagons.”

  “Well, we’re bringing twelve people to Sea City,” Mal said, pulling open the rear of the van. “And since you guys and Logan are all arriving next week with Franklin and his kids, and they’re leaving with only Logan on Monday, that means we’ll be coming home with … um …”

  We counted in our heads. “Sixteen!” I announced. (See, summer school had done me some good.)

  “Right,” Mal said. “So Dad figured we would be more comfortable with a van and a station wagon.”

  Honk! Honk!

  The Junk Bucket was turning into the driveway. That’s the name of Charlie Thomas’s car. Kristy was practically hanging out the window, waving.

  Honestly, that car is so old and rusty and clankety, I don’t know why it doesn’t fall apart. (Kristy’s rich neighbors must love it.)

  “ ’Bye!” Kristy yelled.

  “We’re not going yet!” Jessi reassured her.

  When Kristy got out, Charlie tooted the horn a couple of times and headed back home.

  The Pikes’ door opened again, and the rest of the family came tromping out. They were carrying suitcases, backpacks, fishing gear, flippers, water wings, lif
e vests, you name it.

  “I call the van!” Adam yelled.

  “Me too!” cried Nicky.

  “Me too!” the rest of the kids screamed.

  “I called first!”

  “I did!”

  Mr. Pike let out a whistle. In a loud voice, he announced who was going in which vehicle. Of course, this was followed by a chorus of “No fair!” and “Can we switch on the way back?” and “I’m hungry!”

  Soon everyone was handing us stuff to pack into the car and van. Mr. and Mrs. Pike knew exactly how to stack everything to make it all fit.

  Vanessa Pike stood next to us with an excited smile. That usually means she is about to recite a poem (Vanessa loves to speak in rhymes). “As we pack up for New Jersey,” she said, “everything is topsy-turvy.”

  In the backseat of the station wagon, Nicky groaned loudly. “That doesn’t rhyme, mush-brain!” he cried.

  Vanessa put her hands on her hips. “Sticks and stones may break my bones —”

  “And we all hate your stupid poems!” Adam bellowed from the van.

  “That doesn’t rhyme, either!” Vanessa retorted.

  “If there is any more fighting, we are not stopping for ice cream,” Mrs. Pike said. “Now come on!”

  Before long, we were finished packing and the kids were in the car. Then Stacey came jogging over from the Pikes’ backyard. (She and her mom live in the house behind the Pikes’.) “Hi, guys,” she said. “I came to say good-bye. The Barretts are going to pick me up in a few minutes.”

  On her face was this half-happy, half-sad expression. I could see Mary Anne’s lips start to quiver. “Oh …” she said. “I’ll miss you!”

  “Me too!” Stacey replied. She and Mary Anne hugged and rocked back and forth.

  Then Mal and Jessi and I said, “Ohhhhh,” and went into a three-way hug.

  “Hey, we’re only going to be separated for a week,” said Kristy, the Voice of Sanity.

  We agreed that Kristy was right. Eventually Jessi hopped into the station wagon and Mal climbed into the van.

  “ ’Bye!” the rest of us called out as the caravan began moving. “See you soon!”

  “ ’Bye!” answered Jessi and a couple of the other kids (the rest were gabbing and fidgeting and getting tangled in seat belts).

  “Tell Mrs. Barrett we’ll meet her at the gas station!” Mrs. Pike called out.

  “Okay!” I replied. We waved until they disappeared. Then we ran through the Pikes’ yard to Stacey’s house. Mrs. McGill was smiling, but looked a little worried. “Now, you packed your injection kit?” she asked.

  “Yes, Mom,” Stacey said patiently.

  “And you have the number for the doctor down there, just in case?”

  “Yes, Mom.”

  “We’re hee-ere!” Buddy Barrett’s voice shouted from the driveway.

  Stacey looked at Mary Anne, Kristy, Dawn, and me. “Ohhh …”

  We all hugged again. Mary Anne started bawling. To tell you the truth, I was a little misty-eyed myself (but maybe it was because I was thinking of summer school).

  We followed Stacey to the front yard. She grabbed her suitcase, which was on the porch, and ran to the car. Mrs. Barrett helped her jam it into the trunk. We mentioned the gas station to Mrs. Barrett. She thanked us, climbed into the driver’s seat, and pulled away.

  The car jumped the curb, then drove onto the road.

  “ ’Byyyyeeee!” the cry rang out along Elm Street.

  Sigh.

  Some of us were on our way.

  I felt pretty good, though. Because it meant my trip was that much closer!

  “One!” Vanessa squealed.

  We were about an hour away from Stoneybrook. Vanessa, Nicky, and Claire had decided to play some sort of secret game. For a long time they’d been staring out the window. Now they were collapsing into giggles in their seats.

  I hadn’t been paying much attention to them. I was too busy reading my book, The Golden Key by George MacDonald, which was taking a lot of concentration.

  “One what?” I said, looking up.

  They all giggled again. I went back to my book.

  About ten minutes later, Nicky blurted out, “Two!”

  More hysterical giggles.

  I happened to be looking out the window when they got to “Four.” That was when I figured out what they were doing — counting people in other cars who were picking their noses.

  So mature.

  “Come on, let’s play a new game,” I suggested. “I’ll start a story and everybody will add to it.”

  “Nooo,” Nicky complained.

  “Okay, you don’t have to play, Nicky,” I said. “Vanessa: Once upon a time there was a big fat toad who ate something very strange. Your turn.”

  “Um … It was a goober from an old man with a bushy mustache!” she said, convulsing with laughter again.

  “Then he turned green and sprouted hair from his ears!” Nicky added, suddenly interested.

  “And went to the barber to have his ears cut off,” Claire said.

  We continued this until everyone was laughing too hard to go on.

  Before long Vanessa asked, “When are we going to stop?”

  “When we get past New York City,” Dad said. “I agreed with Mom and Mrs. Barrett to stop at the Howard Johnson’s, like we always do.”

  “If you had a car phone you could call them and tell them to stop now!” Nicky said, pouting.

  “Which is why I don’t have a car phone,” Dad mumbled.

  “What?” Nicky said.

  “Oh, nothing,” Dad replied. I smiled at him.

  Well, getting past New York ended up taking a lifetime. We got stuck in traffic between two enormous trucks for about a half hour.

  By the time we reached the Howard Johnson’s, we were starving.

  I guess that’s why Nicky thought he could drink that humongous milkshake. I don’t need to go into the gory details — except to say that the Pike Family Barf Bucket was in the wrong car for this trip.

  I sat by the window after that. It seemed like the place to be after Nicky’s little accident. But I’d forgotten about New Jersey’s fragrant industrial area. It’s miles and miles of huge metal tanks surrounded by spiral stairs and blinking lights. It looks like a convention of spaceships. And it smells like a sewer.

  It was hard to say which was better, inside or out.

  Vanessa made the most of the situation. She had new material for her poetry. “Mister Smee and Captain Hook, ran away from Nicky’s puke!”

  “Vanessa!” Dad said warningly from the front seat.

  I gave her a Look. Nicky was curled up in his seat, trying to sleep it off. I went back to my book.

  “Hurry up and get a scarf! Please wipe up this pile of —”

  “Vanessa!” This time Dad and I yelled at the same time.

  “Sto-o-o-p,” Nicky moaned.

  I thought the trip would never end. My eyes were just closing when Dad said, “Uh-oh, do you see what I see?”

  I sat up. We were zooming past a familiar sign. “‘Sea City, Exit Ten Miles,’” I read aloud.

  Claire started squealing. Vanessa screamed out, “Sea City, here we come!” Even Nicky came to life.

  As we approached the Jersey shore, the scenery changed drastically. All these memories from past trips came back. The air became at least ten degrees cooler. I could smell the ocean. The dirt along the road was sandy and the trees were scrubby. Seagulls screeched overhead.

  The kids were jumping with excitement when Dad drove off the exit ramp. We traveled a few minutes more and came to a huge, reedy marsh. Across the marsh was a loooong, narrow road, built up on a jetty of rocks all cemented together.

  We knew that road well. It is the only way to get to Sea City.

  “The bridge! The bridge!” Claire piped up.

  “It’s not a bridge,” Vanessa corrected her. “It’s a causeway. Here we go driving to the beach —”

  “Hey, Vanessa,” Nicky int
errupted. “What rhymes with causeway?”

  The van was silent for the next few minutes. I closed my eyes and breathed in the salty air.

  Just over the causeway, a three-dimensional purple cow loomed over the road on a billboard. That’s our first important landmark on the way to Sea City. “The cow!” Claire shouted.

  I pointed to our second landmark, a roadside restaurant. “Crabs for Grabs!”

  But the third landmark had changed. It used to be a billboard for suntan lotion, which showed a dog pulling down a little girl’s bathing suit. Now it was an ad for a new local hot dog place.

  “Loooook,” Nicky said sadly, as if he’d just been told Sea City had washed away forever. “The tushy picture’s gone.”

  “What does the sign say?” Claire asked.

  “‘Weiner’s Wieners,’” I read.

  Well, that was good enough. The little girl’s bare bottom was instantly forgotten in a fit of giggling.

  Sea City is on a curved piece of land (a “spit” of land, Dad calls it) that juts into the ocean like a long tail. It seems like an island, but technically it’s not. There are patches of marsh connecting it to the “mainland.”

  One time it turned into an island, though. According to the Sea City guidebook, a huge storm washed out the marsh and the causeway. But that was ages ago.

  We zoomed onto Sea City’s main road. Suddenly we were surrounded. Hot dog stands, souvenir shops, umbrella rentals, seafood restaurants, fish markets. The crackling sound of frying food everywhere. “There’s Trampoline Land!” Nicky shouted.

  “And miniature golf!” Vanessa said.

  In the distance I could see the huge Ferris wheel arcing over the boardwalk. And I could hear crashing sounds that could only be one thing — the ocean.

  We had arrived. I couldn’t wait to see our house.

  * * *

  A stiff breeze was blowing as we pulled into our driveway. I could tell because the wind chimes on the front porch were tinkling, and the white wicker swing was rocking back and forth.

  I love our Sea City house. We rent the same one every year. It’s Victorian-style, a big gingerbread cottage with yellow and white trim. There are gables and eaves and posts everywhere. And three whole floors.