Melanie Martin Goes Dutch (12 page)

Dear Diary,

I guess I'm just not as into cheese as some people.

I mean, cheese is okay. I like American cheese, and cream cheese on bagels, and mozzarella on pizza, and sometimes I don't mind a sprinkle of parmesan on spaghetti.

But I'm not a cheese person.

Well, around here, they take cheese very seriously— too seriously.

Hans took us to a cheese museum—a kaasmuseum (Cahs Moo Zay Um). Cecily walked on one side of Hans and I walked on the other.

We went to a cheese market that's been going on every Friday morning pretty much forever. Cheese sellers in straw hats were auctioning off tons of huge yellow cheeses. Imagine if you put your arms out in a big circle and touched your fingertips. Each wheel of cheese is that big—maybe bigger. Hans looked at me and asked, “You know what these cheeses are covered with?”

I wanted to say “
Ja
,” but shook my head. I wished
he'd given me an easy question.

“Wax,” Hans said. We watched the men stack the waxy cheeses onto wooden sleds and rush to get them weighed and sent all over the world. Probably even to New York.

“Holland was the first country to export cheese,” Hans said. “Holland still exports more cheese than any other country.”

“Sports?” Matt said. “What's x-sports?”

“Exports,” Dad explained, “are things one country sells to another country.”

Cecily asked Hans to take a picture of all five of us in front of the giant cheeses. He gave her a big smile, and to make sure we smiled, guess what he told us to say?

Speaking of, Mom and Dad bought a plate of cheese

for us to sample. I didn't want any. Matt said, “Pretend you're a mouse.
Now
do you want some?”

I glared at him and said, “Pretend you're a human. Now will you mind your own beeswax?”

Matt swung his arm out, to punch me, I think, and he banged his elbow on a gate and ripped his shirt.
(Served him right.) He started hopping around and moaning, “Ow ow ow ow ow!” and Cecily hugged him and said, “Matt, you poor thing. There's nothing funny about funny bones, is there?”

I swear, I felt like puking.

At lunch, I practically did puke. We had pumpernickel bread with pea soup, or
erwtensoep
, which Mom pronounces Air Tin Soup.

I thought it was gross. Cecily loved it. (Naturally.)

Matt told Cecily his favorite joke. He told her to say “pea green soup” after everything he said.

Matt said, “What did you have for breakfast?”

Cecily said, “Pea green soup.”

“What did you have for lunch?”

“Pea green soup.”

“What are you having for dinner?”

“Pea green soup.”

“What are you going to do before you go to bed?”

“Pea green soup!”

Everybody laughed.

Except me.

1. That joke is immature.

2. I've heard it about a billion times.

3. I don't like pea soup for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

P.S. I signed my name backwards because everything feels sort of wrong right now.

early afternoon on the bus back to

Dear Diary,

I feel as if I'm getting smaller and smaller. Like Alice in Wonderland or something.

Hans isn't paying attention to any of us. He's talking different languages to a bunch of adults. He's probably telling
all
the ladies that they have pretty names.

He led us to a cheese shop where a blond lady in a puffy white costume talked in Dutch and English about how cheese is made. Matt whispered, “It stinks in here.” Mom said, “Shhhh,” and the lady explained that cheesemakers boil milk, then add “lactic acid” and
“rennet” so the milk curdles and separates into curds and whey.

“Curds and whey?” Matt said. “That's what Little Miss Muffet eats!”

Dad laughed and Mom beamed at her little Angel Boy, and the lady kept talking about smelly cheeses. She said cheese can be eaten “young” or ripened in salt water and eaten months or years later. She said aging cheese makes it more flavorful.

Petrified cheese? Flavorful?

Yuck!

All this curds-and-whey talk wasn't making me hungry; it was making me want to hold my nose.

Dad must have seen me squinch up my face because he announced, “Melanie likes her cheese bright orange, square, processed, individually wrapped, and made in the good ol' U.S. of A.”

First of all, since when is that a crime? Second, since when does everyone else care about young versus old cheese, and sheep versus goat cheese?

I thought Cecily might defend me because she likes golden brown grilled American cheese sand
wiches as much as I do. But she giggled along with Dad. She was giving Matt a piggyback ride and they were sampling bites of Gouda. The Dutch lady pronounced it Howda, or HHHGHHHowda, as if she were gargling and the word got stuck in her throat and she finally had to spit it out.

When the lady walked away, Dad said, “Howdy, kids! Howda like the Howda?” Matt made a thumbsup sign and he and Cecily started saying “HHHGH-HHowda HHHGHHHowda HHHGHHHowda.”

Then Matt whispered, “Who cut the cheese?”

Cecily said, “He who smelt it dealt it.”

Matt said, “She who denied it supplied it.”

I wasn't going to laugh, but I looked at Dad and couldn't help smiling.

Cecily laughed this morning when Dad said he was going to “shake a tower” (meaning take a shower). He's been using that line since I was born, so none of us ever laughs when he says it. But Cecily had never heard it. You could tell it just made Dad's day to have someone appreciate his ancient comedy routine.

Cecily might have figured out that I'm mad at her because she asked me if I was. We were standing near some old wooden windmills. One used wind power to grind stuff into mustard and the other used wind power to grind stuff into paint. (Holland has about a thousand windmills.) Well, we all went up and down the musty mustard mill. Then Matt and Mom and Dad went up the paint windmill but Cecily and I didn't because we saw two Dutch children feeding two little goats.

We walked over and Cecily said, “Aren't they cute?”

I just shrugged. I felt like saying,

But I knew that would be immature, so I didn't.

Even though I did a good job of not being immature, I did not do a good job of being mature because I didn't say anything at all.

That's when Cecily asked, “Are you mad at me?”

I was so surprised, I said, “No.”

After that I didn't know what to say, which is weird since at home we talk nonstop when we're together, and when we're on the phone, neither of us wants to be the first to hang up so we sometimes say “Bye! Bye! Bye! Bye! Bye! Bye!” until one of our moms forces us to put down the phone.

Well, we just stood there in silence, because I couldn't exactly accuse her of stealing my family or Hans away. After a while, Cecily said “
Hallo
” to the Dutch children and they said “
Hallo
” back. Then
Mom, Dad, and Matt showed up and Dad said, “Two American kids, two Dutch kids, and two goat kids— this calls for a photo!”

Mom said, “Smile and say you-know-what.”

Cecily and I did smile and say you-know-what. But I didn't feel like it and I bet she didn't either.

P.S.
I did not think that we would fight
.

I thought that things would turn out right
.