Melanie Martin Goes Dutch (7 page)

P.S. Matt's stitches are out and his face is back to normal (if you can call Matt's face normal).

Dear Diary,

We're going bowling. YAY! Dad said that bowling goes back to ancient times and that Dutch settlers
introduced it to America. It used to be called ninepins because it had (duh) nine pins. But some people started betting on who would win and so ninepins got outlawed. Well, guess what? The people added a pin and started playing tenpins because tenpins was not illegal!

Guess what else? Dad and Mom now consider bowling an educational activity. Works for me!

A perfect game is twelve strikes XXXXXXXXXXXX. I'd be thrilled with just one strike X or two strikes XX.

XX (Get it?),

P.S. Holland Countdown: Ten Days Till Takeoff!

Dear Diary,

Mom and I have been reading Anne Frank's diary. Anne always starts out “Dear Kitty” and usually ends with “Yours, Anne.”

I wonder if I should name you.

Anne Frank was really brave. Here's what happened. Adolf Hitler was the leader of Germany and he was not just a bad person, he was
evil
. Like a monster. And crazy! He wanted everyone to be blond when even he wasn't blond. Well, he hated Jews (which made no sense) and he got the Germans to take over Amsterdam and kick Jewish people
out of their homes
and send them away to terrible places called concentration camps!

Instead of waiting to be caught and sent away, Anne's family decided to “disappear”—to go into hiding until World War II was over.

But since Jews no longer had the freedom to go wherever they wanted, the Franks couldn't just load up their suitcases and leave. So you know what they did? They put on “heaps of clothes”—pants, vests, jackets, coats, probably even underwear—and waddled out dressed as if they were going to “the North Pole” (that's how Anne put it). Anne also packed a small bag and the first thing she put in it was her diary.

I would have done that too.

Well, they all hurried into their hiding place, which was the attic apartment above the office of
Anne's father, Otto Frank. It became their new home. At first, Anne was scared, but she wrote that it didn't feel like hiding—“more like being on vacation in a very peculiar boarding house.”

No one knew they were there except the friends who snuck them in and brought them food. No one else could know—not even all the people who cleaned or worked in the office right beneath them.

It's hard to imagine having to stay in a hiding place for years. I mean, it wasn't a game of hide-and-seek. If you got found, you would be taken away. During the day, the Franks could not even look out the window, and when people were working downstairs, they could not run water or cough or stomp around or make any noise at all. Even at night they couldn't make much noise, but at least they could flush the toilet and listen to the radio if they kept the volume down.

But they could never go out. Not even to see a doctor. Not even to see a friend.

Dear Diary,

I know Anne called her diary “Kitty” but I can't think of a good name for you, so I'm going to stick with “Diary.”

we leave so I wrote another poem.

I've been packing my favorite clothes. I'll also pack my art kit and cards and Anne Frank's diary and you—my diary—right in my backpack. That way, I'll have something to do for seven hours if Cecily conks out on the plane.

Tomorrow I'll pack Hedgehog. She's so small and soft that I
could
squoosh her in my backpack, but
what if I forget her at the airport or on the plane? Instead, I'll pack her with the clothes in Matt's and my bag so she'll be snug and safe until we get there.

Guess what? We ordered in Chinese food and Matt's and my fortune cookie fortunes were both about going away! I am taping them in here.

Dad expanded my vocabulary by explaining that “transformation” means change.

Fortunately yours (Get it?),