Chapter 1
Two things you hardly ever see are snow in summer and underpants on my head. But if you’d been on Mount Baldy last August 19th, you’d have seen both at once!
I kind of hope that was your last chance.
It all started when we flew out west for our family vacation. Here’s what we brought: three car seats, eight suitcases, five backpacks and Mom’s Super Bag. (Plus two parents and six kids.)
When we squeezed past the flight attendant to get to our eight seats, she counted us and her eyebrows popped up. If she knew our last name, she’d have laughed her head off, like everyone does: “Bah, hah! The Small family! You gotta be kiddin’ me!”
Quinn hated it when Mom buckled him in next to her. “Yah! Yah! Yah! Yah!” he shouted.
I was going to sit behind Quinn, but Jenna barged past me and plopped her Harry Potter down on the seat I wanted.
“I get the window!” she said, all loud, like she was barking.
“Mom said I could, since I get carsick.” I tried not to sound a hundred percent crabby.
“This isn’t a car.” Jenna fastened her seat belt.
“I mean motion sick, Jenna. You know what I mean,” was what I said. Miss Boss of the World, was what I thought. Already that day she: 1) made ME feed Lucy, our dog, which is HER job, but SHE was “too busy.” And 2) she jammed a bunch of HER stuff in MY suitcase, so now it was a big bursting mess. Plus, 3) she made me put HER snacks and water in MY backpack, so she’d have room in hers for HER precious Harry Potter.
“Just chew gum,” Jenna said. She settled in and got busy reading.
“Cleo, take the other window,” Dad said, but Jack already had that seat behind Jenna. “Let’s go, Jack, scoot over.” Dad was carrying Lily and Ray (who’s Quinn’s twin) and his backpack and he was almost as crabby as me.
“Awwwwww.” Jack took about a year and half to move to the aisle seat.
When I squished past him to sit down, he handed me a throw-up bag. “Here you go, Barf Girl.”
Dad plunked Lily down next to Jenna and sat with Ray behind me and Jack. Ray was chewing on a tractor. He flipped a switch that made the tractor play “The Farmer in the Dell.” He switched it off, he switched it on, over and over while he chewed.
“Yah! Yah! Yah! Yah!” Quinn wouldn’t stop. Mom pulled his purple spider toy from the Super Bag, but Quinn just threw it all wild, like babies do. It flew over Mom and hit the old guy across the aisle, smack, right on his bald head. He made a loud noise that sounded like “GOPHER!”
“Whoa, jeez, sorry about that, terribly sorry.” Dad tried to apologize, but the bald guy just flapped open his newspaper and stuck his face in it.
Jenna was so busy reading, she missed the whole thing. She was gone, in wizard land. She didn’t even hear Lily next to her playing Bears-and-Barbie. Lily’s blond Barbie was whining at the pocket-size Bear Family:
“What will I do without my magic shoe-laces?!”
“Oh, Mrs. Kleenex, we will save you from the bad dragon!” Papa Bear said in Lily’s low Papa voice.
Jenna kept reading, right through all the whining and growling. I think she could read Harry Potter even if her pants were on fire.
I like to read too, but I’m not interested in all those wizard books. I’d rather read books about regular kids who lose their pet or there’s a bully in their class or something. You know, normal stuff.
But who could read on this airplane, anyway? (Besides Jenna.) There was Jack’s Game Boy chirping away like a little robot, and “The Farmer in the Dell,” and Mrs. Kleenex shrieking and Quinn’s yah-yahs. I mean, who could concentrate?
The bald guy kept rattling his newspaper and looking at us sideways.
When the seat belt sign got turned off, Mom put Quinn in the aisle. He shot up and down, holding his spider up like an airplane: “BrruuUMMMM !”
Ray joined in with his tractor: “Brummm, rrrRRUUUUMMMMM ...”
A lot of passengers reached for their headphones.
When Quinn passed us, Jack grabbed his Spiderplane and held it high. Quinn screamed SO loud, like a lady seeing a mouse. “EEEEEEEEE!”
“Spider-Man, my Spider-Man, Spidaspidaspidaspida Spider-Man . . .” Jack sang.
“ EEEEEEEEE! ”
Even Jenna looked up. “Quinn, jeesh, STOP!”
“ EEEEEEEEE! ”
The bald guy slammed his newspaper shut and went to the bathroom.
“Oh, Jack, for heaven’s sake!” Mom was on her feet. She took Jack by the arm and put him with Dad and gave Ray to me. Then she took Quinn in her lap and stuck a lollipop in his mouth. He went quiet like Ray’s tractor does when you switch it off.
Ray was pretty squirmy after all the excitement, but I gave him my charm bracelet and he calmed down. In the middle of sucking on the silver heart, his head plopped down on my lap and he was asleep. So things were pretty quiet, except for Lily.
“Oh, Mrs. Kleenex, the bad dragon has gone away to a tea party in the ocean!”
I watched the movie for a while. It was about a family with TWELVE children. That’s TWO TIMES as many as we have. Wow. Imagine being on an airplane with them.
I smooshed my face to the window and looked down. I saw snowy mountains, which meant we were almost there. Gram was probably parking her old gray car right now. I was hoping she’d bring brownies for us, like she did last summer, because I was starving and all I had was a tangerine and a cheese stick.
The mountains got closer.
“One, one thousand, two, one thousand . . .” I counted the seconds until we finally bumped down in Denver. I got up to 1,042.
