Dump Trucks and Dogsleds: I'm on My Way, Mom! Read online

  “Parka,” Frankie read, crossing off the first word on my dad’s list.

  I got my blue parka out of the closet and handed it to Ashley.

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” she said. “If I put this big, puffy jacket in the bag, there will be no room for anything, not even your toothbrush.”

  “Now you tell me,” I said. “Where were you when I went to the crossword puzzle contest?”

  We decided I’d wear the parka instead of packing it.

  “Snow boots, snow gloves, and knitted beanie,” Frankie read from the list. “Where are you going, man? To the Arctic Circle? You better leave today. I hear the ice is melting fast up there.”

  “That’s why my family recycles everything,” Ashley said.

  While Frankie and Ashley discussed what they were doing to prevent climate change, I dragged out my warmest snow clothes from the cedar chest in my closet. Ashley studied them for a minute, then picked up the boots. She put one boot on either side of the very bottom of the bag, which propped it open to make room for other things.

  “Hank, watch how I’m doing this,” she said.

  I watched, amazed, as Ashley filled up one boot with my warm socks and the other boot with my pajamas that she rolled up tightly. It’s funny how you can know someone all your life and not know what hidden talents they have.

  With the help of Frankie and Ashley, I finally got my bag packed. I’m happy to report that I even got my toothbrush safely inside.

  “Wow,” Ashley said when we were finished. “I love going on trips. I wish my mom was having a baby so my dad would take me on a mystery trip.”

  “Trust me, Ashweena,” I said to her. “You don’t wish your mom was having a baby because before you know it, you’d be squished into half of your room and sitting on half of your desk chair because The Baby gets half of everything.”

  “Maybe having a little brother won’t be so bad, Zip,” Frankie said. “I’m a little brother, and look how cool I turned out to be.”

  “Ask your older brother Otis if he shares your opinion,” I shot back.

  “Now that you mention it, I think you might be right,” Frankie said. “Last week, he put blue masking tape right down the middle of our room and told me that his side of the room was a separate country and I didn’t have a passport to enter.”

  My dad pushed open the door and came in. And let me just warn you, it wasn’t a pretty sight. He was wearing a bright red and white, wooly snow cap with long tassels hanging down by his ears along with two huge, red pom-poms . . . and I’m talking blimp-sized, red pom-poms. He looked like a nerdy Santa Claus except with no presents and no reindeer.

  “Tell me you’re not wearing that on our trip, Dad,” I said. “And tell me fast.”

  “What’s wrong with this hat?” My dad caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror over my dresser, and flashed a crazy smile. “I found it buried under my college fencing equipment.”

  “And that’s exactly where it needs to return,” I told him.

  “Wow, Mr. Z . . . you fenced in college?” Frankie asked.

  “I’ll have you know, I received a third place medal in men’s sabre fencing.”

  With that, he lunged at Frankie, waving a pretend sword around like a madman. That move, combined with his bouncing red pom-pom hat and fluttering ear flaps, created a picture that I won’t soon forget. I hope you never have that picture of your dad in your head.

  “Frankie and Ashley really want to hear all about your fencing days, Dad. But maybe you can save the story for later. They were just leaving. Weren’t you, guys?”

  “Yes, Mr. Zipzer,” Ashley said. “I have rhinestones waiting to be glued on a new pair of sneakers, and rhinestones don’t like to be kept waiting, especially the purple ones.”

  “And I have . . . uh . . . some . . . uh . . . important stuff to do, too,” Frankie added. “So important I can’t even say how important it is.”

  Wow, Frankie was really struggling. I made a mental note to give him a few lessons in the old Hank Zipzer make-up-an-excuse-on-the-spot technique.

  “It can wait until next time, kids,” my dad told Frankie and Ashley. “I’ll dig out my fencing gear and put on a real exhibition for you.”

  With that, he disappeared from the room with his red pom-poms following after him. We all breathed a sigh of relief.

  “It’s going to be a long three days,” I said, shaking my head. “Between that hat, my dad’s stories, and my sister Emily’s attitude, maybe I should pack myself in a bag and ride in the trunk.”

  Frankie patted me on the back. “Hey, Zip. Relax and enjoy the trip. It’s going to be your last couple days as the only boy in the Zipzer family.”

  Wow, that fact hit me like a ton of bricks.

  I just sat there and let it all sink in. This baby, this brother, this crying little poop machine, really was going to arrive very soon now, whether I liked it or not.

  CHAPTER 4

  There’s only one thing more boring than taking a long car trip with your dad and your sister and your dog, and that’s telling someone else about it. So I’m going to do us both a huge favor, and just say this: We got there.

  And there was . . . Vermont. Not just Vermont, but our family’s favorite ski slopes just outside of a town called Randolph.

  I hope you appreciate what I’ve done for you. Even though my car trip took six and a half hours, I got you there in two short paragraphs. So you owe me one. Big time.

  CHAPTER 5

  We checked in to the Don’t Fall on Your Butt Motel.

  Okay, it wasn’t actually called that, but it should have been because that’s the first thing I did when I stepped out of the car. Hey, no one told me that the entire state of Vermont is still covered with ice in the spring. Of course, someone must have told Emily, unless she just has a built-in ice detector, because the minute I landed on my butt, she said, “Everyone knows, Hank, you have to walk flat-footed and carefully on ice or you’ll fall on your rump.”

  “Thank you, oh rump mistress,” I said.

  Then a great thing happened. The rump mistress herself went sliding on a puddle of black ice and landed smack on her . . . let’s all say it together . . . RUMP!

  I didn’t just laugh; I snorted and howled like a ticklish hyena.

  “I don’t see anything funny about this,” Emily snarled.

  “Trust me, Emily. This is not just funny, this is the king of comedy.”

  She tried to lunge for me, but all that did was send her right back where she belonged, sprawled out like a rag doll on the ice. Cheerio stuck his nose out of the car and looked at Emily laying there on the ground. He gave a little yip and started wagging his tail very fast. I believe that was his way of laughing at how ridiculous she looked. Seeing him so amused made Emily even madder.

  Her face turned all red. She looked like she was about to start her fake crying routine. Fortunately, my dad reached out and pulled her up before the waterworks started. Like mother, like daughter.

  “We’re here to have fun, kids,” he said. “Let’s all try to get along. Now, both of you help me unload the luggage from the car.”

  Of course, I (being the boy) had to carry old Emily’s bag up the stairs to our room. It weighed a ton.

  “Don’t let my duffel touch the ground,” Emily commanded as I lugged it up the stairs. “I don’t want it to get wet.”

  “What did you pack in there?” I grunted. “Boulders?”

  “Use your head, Hank. Where would I get boulders in New York City? And besides, what would be the point of transporting large rocks to Vermont, where many types of geological boulders exist naturally in the landscape.”

  Some sense of humor that girl has, huh? I was going to point out to old Em that I didn’t actually think she had packed large, brown rocks in her bag, but to be truthful, I didn’t have the lungs to talk and carry her stupid bag upstairs at the same time.

  We were in Room 23. The first thing I noticed as I walked inside was that Room 23 o
nly had two beds. And did I mention . . . there were three of us? I’m no math genius; I think you know that by now. But even I could figure out that we were one bed short. When I pointed this out to my dad, he phoned downstairs to the motel desk and asked them to send up a rollaway cot.

  They did, but it was not a great rollaway cot. In fact, it looked like it could roll away on its own at any minute. Emily and I flipped to see who was going to sleep on it, and wouldn’t you know it, I lost.

  My dad insisted we go to bed early, so we could wake up at the crack of dawn and hit the ski slopes before the crowds arrived. He and Emily went to sleep right away. Cheerio curled up on the pillow next to my dad and started to snore. But me, I couldn’t find a comfortable position no matter what I did. I tossed all around that stupid rollaway cot, trying to find a place where there wasn’t a spring poking some part of my body. I must have tossed one time too many because in the middle of the night, I awoke to find myself the bologna in a bed sandwich. By that I mean, the rollaway cot had snapped shut like a clamshell and trapped me in the middle.

  “Help,” I whimpered. “My bed is eating me.”

  No one answered. My dad just kept right on snoring, and Emily tossed the pillow over her head without even waking up. This called for the Hank Zipzer Big Voice.

  “Help!” I shouted. “I’m trapped! Here! Somebody! Hello!”

  That did it. My dad woke up with a startle, flipped on the light, and squinted at me. Actually, he squinted at my forehead and my feet because the rest of me was caught in the middle of the bed.

  “Stop clowning around, Hank,” he said.

  Why is it that even in an emergency, people think I’m clowning around? Like the time I tried to explain to my teacher Ms. Adolf that Cheerio really did eat the model I built of a Hopi kiva and got the toothpick ladder stuck in his throat and we had to go to the vet for emergency ladder removal. She didn’t take me seriously at all and told me my sense of humor was wearing her nerves thin. I couldn’t convince her that I wasn’t kidding around, and it really did happen.

  “I’m not clowning around, Dad,” I said. “Could you just open the bed and get me out, and we’ll discuss my sense of humor at a later time.”

  As my dad got out of bed and came over to rescue me, I noticed that he was wearing his red and white pom-pom hat. He must have slipped it on during the night, which I don’t blame him for because it was as cold as an icebox in our room. But let me just say this: That hat definitely did not go with his boxer shorts. Or with anything else for that matter.

  He pulled the two sides of the bed down and held it open just long enough for me to pop out. Wow, it felt good to be out of that mattress sandwich.

  “Hank, if this bed isn’t working out, you can sleep with me,” he offered.

  Okay. So there were my choices. Sleep in a bed that wants to eat me, or sleep with a billy goat, because I’ve done this once before, and my dad kicks like he has hooves instead of toes. And, I should add, he would be no ordinary billy goat but a billy goat in a ski hat.

  I picked the boy-eating bed. My dad kicking like a goat I could have dealt with, but the red pom-pom hat was a deal breaker.

  In the morning, a very not-rested me, an unusually quiet Emily, and an extremely silly-looking Dad made it to the ski lift before the crowds arrived. In fact, before anyone arrived. My dad likes to be prompt, which to him means getting places about a hundred hours before anyone else does. We left Cheerio back at the motel, fast asleep on my dad’s pillow. He was the only one in the family who had the good sense to stay in bed on such a frosty morning.

  While my Dad was buying the lift tickets, Emily and I waited to get fitted for our boots and skis. She didn’t look happy, not that she ever does, but she looked especially sour that morning.

  “What’s the problem?” I asked her. “Missing your lizard?”

  “I’m a little worried about Katherine,” Emily said. “Separating from me gives her major anxiety attacks.”

  “How can you tell? Do her scales break out in a sweat?”

  Emily didn’t seem to hear what I said. She just kept staring out the window of the ski rental hut and looking up at the slopes. The first few skiers were lining up for the chair lift.

  “That looks like total fun, doesn’t it?” I commented.

  She didn’t answer. I noticed that her lips seemed tight, and formed a straight line like a ruler across her face.

  “I thought you loved skiing,” I said to her.

  “I did last year when we went,” Emily said. “This year, the mountain looks . . . I don’t know . . . bigger. Taller. Steeper.”

  “News flash, Em. Mountains don’t grow in a year. You’re a big-time scientist, you should know that.”

  She just nodded. I have to confess, I felt a little sorry for her. I mean, here we were, off on a last fun fling before Mr. Poopy Pants arrived, and Emily was looking scared, like she had just seen the swamp creature from the green lagoon.

  “Over here, kids,” the guys at the ski hut called. “Let’s get you measured for boots and skis.”

  “Give me really fast skis,” I said to my guy, who was an older teenager with bright red hair the color of a ripe tomato. “I’m going to rip up that mountain.”

  “I’ll take the slow ones,” Emily said to her guy, who was an older man with a gray beard and leathery skin. Her voice sounded kind of shaky. “It’s been a while since I skied.”

  “Take your time and get used to the snow,” the man with the beard told us. “There’s a big storm coming and it can get icy out there.”

  “I love ice,” I said. “It makes you slide really fast.”

  “Actually, if a storm is coming, maybe we should just forget skiing,” Emily said. “We could stay in and have hot chocolate.”

  “Don’t worry. The storm’s not supposed to get here before late afternoon,” the leathery man said. “Still plenty of time for good skiing.”

  Emily didn’t answer. She just swallowed hard, fidgeted with her ski gloves, and complained about her boots being too tight.

  Once we got our boots on, we carried our poles and skis over to the ski lift line and met up with our dad. He didn’t need to rent equipment, because he had brought his from home. I have to tell you, he put together one truly super-weird ski outfit. You already know about the red pom-pom hat. But he had added a pair of zebra-striped ski pants, a red ski jacket that was so shiny it actually glittered in the sunlight, and a pair of yellow ski goggles that made him look like a mutant grasshopper.

  “Hey, kids. I have the lift tickets right here. Let’s go. Let’s go. If you listen very carefully, you can hear the mountain calling our names.”

  My dad was over-the-moon enthusiastic, like the way he gets when he finishes the Sunday crossword puzzle in under four minutes and thirty-eight seconds. I can’t say the same for Emily. She looked pale and frightened. Wow, good old Emily had transformed from Miss Know-It-All to Miss I’m-So-Scared-I’m-Going-to-Cry-Any-Minute.

  We stepped into our skis and waddled over to the chair lift.

  “I’ll jump on the first chair,” my dad said. “You kids ride up together right behind me. We’ll meet at the top.”

  “Do we have to go all the way to the top?” Emily asked.

  “Sure,” my dad said. “We’re only on an intermediate slope. It’s not that high. See you up there.”

  The chairlift swung around, and the attendant helped my dad onto the seat. As he pulled the safety bar across his zebra-striped pants, he turned around and hollered, “Is this a six-letter word for fun, or what?”

  It was time for Emily and me to get on the lift. I walked out to the spot where you board, and when I turned to check for Emily, I noticed she wasn’t next to me.

  “Hurry up,” I yelled over to her, “or we’ll miss the chair.”

  Before she could answer, the attendant had taken her by the hand and pulled her out to where you catch the chair. As she plopped down on the bench, he pulled the safety bar down across us, and told
us to hang on tight.

  He didn’t have to say that to Emily because she was already hanging on so tight, her knuckles were white. You could see that right through her puffy ski gloves.

  “You okay?” I asked her as the chairlift made its way up the mountain.

  “To tell you the truth, Hank, I’m feeling kind of scared. I don’t like looking down. And I don’t like looking up. And I especially don’t like looking around.”

  “Then look at me,” I said. “See how calm I am. There’s nothing to worry about. You know how to do this.”

  “I wish . . .” she began. “I wish . . . I don’t know what I wish.”

  I had never seen this side of her before, the side that doesn’t know something. She seemed almost human.

  “I know what we’ll do,” I said. “Let’s sing. You can’t be scared when you’re singing. It’s a proven fact.”

  With that, I burst into a really walloping version of “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad,” blasting it out at the top of my lungs.

  I’ve been working on the railroad

  All the livelong day

  The echo was so strong, it sounded like there was a whole bunch of us singing. To my astonishment, Emily joined in. We were singing our way up the mountain, when a really astonishing thing happened.

  And hold on to your hats, folks, because you’re not going to believe this. Emily Grace Zipzer actually reached out and took my hand.

  Yup, that’s what I said. Don’t tell anyone, but I held her hand all the way to the top.

  CHAPTER 6

  By the time we reached the top of the mountain, I thought Emily had calmed down enough to be able to get off the chairlift. When you get to the top, all you have to do is lift up your bar and put your skis out in front of you. When your feet touch the snow, you stand up and glide down a small mound, which gets you out of the way of the next people getting off the lift.

  I lifted the safety bar. So far, so good. I told Emily I would say “go” when it was time for her to stand up and ski down the little mound. I waited until just the right moment, and then as calmly as I could, I said, “Okay, Emily. Go.”