Road Trip

Summertime and dad finally has some days off, so we're going to visit my cousins.  The house is full of action this Saturday morning as Dad gets the car ready, Mom gets the food and little ones ready, and they both direct all the rest of us kids to get ready. I am so excited, I already have my bag packed with my bathing suit, pj's, toothbrush, and a change of clothes.  I swing it around over my head as I run through the house, excited to be on the move, and accidentally smack Paul with it.

"Hey, smarten up!" he says, irritated, and tries to grab my bag out of my hands.

"Stop it!  Leave my bag alone!"

Taller and faster than me, he grabs the bag out of my hands and swings it around, holding it just out of reach over my waving arms.

"Give it back!  Mom, Paul's got my bag!" I cry, clearly the injured party now.

"Go outside and run around, both of you!  Right NOW!"

Mom has stopped what she's doing to glare at us both.  She is clearly exasperated with us; we don't have to be told twice.  Paul tosses my bag back over, actually past me, muttering something under his breath, and I pick it up from the floor and check that things are okay.  Hmmph, everything's all scrunched up now. Brothers can  be such a pain.

I head outside to where Dad is busy loading up the station wagon.  I love this car because it has a third row seat that looks out the back window.  I don't usually get to sit back there though, unless not everyone is going - my older brothers take that seat.  Just like the school bus, the big kids get to sit in the back - it's an unwritten rule.  I give Dad my bag and he puts it on the pile with the rest of the stuff we are bringing.  It looks like we're not ready to go quite yet.

Its still early on Saturday morning, the sky is blue and it's a wonderful day with a road trip to look forward to.  The drive to our cousins in Minaki is a few hours along a windy road, and there's lots to look at out the window, if you get a window seat.  If you're the one in the middle then you'd better have a good book.  I look for something to do while I'm waiting, and see Phillip and Paul over on the swing set doing chin ups.  That looks like fun!  I run over to join them, and stand there watching.

"Can I have a turn?" I ask, as Phillip drops to the ground.

"No, Paul was here first," he says, as Paul reaches up and Phillip hoists him up to the bar.

Paul's arms are stretched all the way out as he makes a big face and grunts his way up to the bar, feet dangling below.

"One...twwwoo...thrrreee..ugh..ffffour...argh..fiiiiive..." Paul counts out as his skinny arms manage to hoist his body up and down and up again and again.  He's so skinny, I can't imagine it could be THAT hard.

"Can I try, can I go next?" I ask again, now that it looks like Paul's fading.  I move closer and start reaching up to the bar, jumping to see if my hands even get close to it, but Paul's not ready to stop yet.

"Get out of the way!  You're bothering my chin-ups! Stop bugging me and wait your turn!"

Paul is frustrated with me and he lets me know it, trying to scissor kick over to me and I back away, just out of reach.  He drops to the ground as his hands give out from all that extra movement, and as he gets up from the ground, I can tell I'm in trouble.  I head off running over to the car, screeching all the way as he gains on me.  I make it once around the car with Paul roaring after.  Just as he's closing in on me, Dad straightens up.  Somehow we both missed seeing him there amid all the stuff.  He's got a look on his face that says he means business.  I screech to a stop, ready to defend my position if I need to.

"Paul!  Leave your sister alone!"

"But she was bugging me on the swings!  I didn't do anything!"

"That's enough now! Go into the house and into your room; we'll come and get you when it's time to go!"

Paul shoots me an angry look, and I'm relieved he's going into the house.  I know I'm going to be in trouble for that later though.

I go back over to the swings, but there's no-one else there now and I can't reach all the way up to the bar on my own.  I settle for sitting on the swing, and it feels like someone's just let the air out of a tire; things are a little bit flat.  It's not as much fun by yourself.

Soon the car is packed and ready.  I find a spot in the middle seat beside Thomas, and mom calls back over to us to make sure we've all remembered to pack toothbrushes.  Then, out the driveway and we're on the road!  Thomas has let me sit beside the door this time, so the window is down and I'm resting on my elbow, watching my town go by, looking for my friends houses.  Soon we're through town, through the train underpass and driving along Lake of the Woods.  There are lots of boats out on the water already.

Every once and a while I can sneak a look at Tom's book and read over his shoulder, but he turns the pages too quickly for me.  It's hard to read Tintin from too far away because the speech bubbles are so small, and some of the words are so big, but it's fun to look at the pictures.  I like his Asterix comics the best, although those are hard to read, too.  We're on the Minaki highway now, away from the big lake and winding through many smaller ones.  We go past fields of horses and cows, past lakes and through forests.  It's a great day for a car ride.  I can really smell the pine trees as the air heats them up.  The wind is warm and I close my eyes.

Mom and Dad are chatting in the front seat and I hear Mom say with a laugh, "It's awfully quiet in here, are we missing someone?"

Just like a deer in the headlights, my eyes pop open and my head swings around, taking in everyone in the car in one movement.  I know right away what's wrong.

"Paul!  It's Paul!  We forgot him at home!"

In all the hullabaloo of packing up and getting ready and, finally, leaving, we had forgotten to go and get Paul when we left.  I can hardly believe it.  What will we do now? Will we turn around and go home?  This is worse than the time when no-one came to pick me up after Brownies in the church basement and I had to wait outside in the dark for hours until they missed me at dinner and Dad had to drive all the way back into town to get me.

"We're almost there," Dad calms Mom, "We can phone from Con and Marg's place and make sure he's okay.  Claudette can watch him until tomorrow when we're home."

Poor Paul.  I feel so bad that I got him into trouble, and now he's stuck at home all by himself.  I can't think of anything worse than that.  Still, I can't help but feel a little happy that he won't be around to get me back for getting him in trouble.  And, I'm sure he'll be able to find something to do... !

Trailer Ladies

In the summertime, it's pretty nice at our house on Tetroe Road.  There's lots of sunshine and shade, and there's a big field out behind the house where a bunch of us can play baseball.  But there's no lake right here.  Instead, we have to walk all the way to Rabbit Lake or Round Lake for swimming.  Usually I end up with a stubbed big toe before we're very far down the road, and I hobble all the rest of the way to the beach in my flip-flops.  We love going to our Grandparent's camp on Lost Island, or to our cousins' on Gun Lake, because then we don't have to walk to the beach, it's right there.  To me, that's what going to camp is all about - being just a jump away from the water.  But that's not everyone's idea of going to camp.

It's funny but as you go down Tetroe Road from our house, after McInnesses, Derouards, and Guerettes, there's a trailer parked in the trees.  Actually, it's not really a trailer at all but an old streetcar from the city that has been parked there - that's what my brother said. I've never actually seen a streetcar.  This one has shutters on the windows and a regular door to go in.  There's a big chain fence all the way around the yard, and all winter long it's locked up tight.  We don't even notice it, in the winter, because nothing is shoveled and the trees are so heavy with snow that they almost block the trailer from sight.  But in the summertime, eventually there's a day when we head down Tetroe Road and that gate is open.  On those days, it's like summer has come and the magic is back.  The Trailer Ladies have returned to their summer camp.

The streetcar (or trailer, as we call it), is a nice green colour that makes it blend in with all the pine trees around it.  If you didn't know to look there for it, it wouldn't catch your eye.  Usually there's a puff of smoke coming out of the chimney from the kitchen, and it smells so good - it's a signal to us if we haven't noticed the open gate.  On that day, the day of the Trailer Ladies' arrival, my first few steps between the gate at the top of the driveway are tentative.  Will they recognize me?  Will they be as nice as I remember them to be?  Maybe they won't want me to bother them?  But it doesn't take long before my curiosity gets the best of me and I walk down the drive.

The Trailer Ladies are two sisters, Hilda and Irene.  My favourite is Hilda because she seems to have an extra sparkle in her eye, but they are both very nice.  They always wear dresses with little flowers on them, and sometimes they also have an apron on, over top.  They call the trailer their "cottage" and I think that is so neat because I've never heard that word used before, except in books - like in fairy tales.  Around here, people have "camps", which sounds so boring - especially compared to my Trailer Ladies and their cottage.

Hilda has short, wavy gray and brown hair, while Irene's hair is a little longer but it's WHITE.  I don't know who is older; they both seem Very, Very Old.   Hilda has a cane and  walks kind of hunched over which maybe sounds scary but it isn't - in a way it's really nice because when I go to see her, she always takes one hand from her cane to hold my hand, and her smiling eyes look right into mine even though she's probably taller than me.  Usually, when she takes my hand, she puts a candy into it.

Although I love to run down Tetroe Road, when I get to their place I slow right down and walk down the driveway to the trailer, taking in the trees and smell of pine needles, and then the trailer, the shutters now open after the long winter.  Placed there, the trailer looks kind of like an old dragon slowly waking up, a nice dragon, a quiet dragon, one that no longer cares to fly but instead happy to lie in the shade and dream about flying, the smoke puffing slowly out of the chimney like thought bubbles.  I get to the front door and give a quiet knock, the kind of knock that means I'd like to see you, if its okay... I hear some shuffling around behind the door, and then...

"Well, hello, little Monik!  My, how you've grown!  It's wonderful to see you, come in!  Come in!"

And in that quick moment, Hilda welcomes me back into her wonderful cottage.  She holds the door open and I step over the sill, the wood stove in front of me, a small fire already crackling away with newspaper and small twigs.  They've only just arrived.  I step up the one small step from the front door into the kitchen, and sit down at the table, where I know I'm allowed.

In spite of the heat of the summer day, inside the trailer it's quite cool.  It also smells wonderful - kind of a mix of moth balls and fresh wood smoke, pie and pine needles.  Like how a cottage is supposed to smell.  From the chair in the kitchen, I can see all the way down the hall to the end of the trailer, although there are three other rooms down that way.  The rooms are divided by curtains that the ladies have made, long curtains that right now have all been swept aside to open everything up.  They made the curtains for all of the other windows, too.  Sewing is what they do - they work in the city, sewing for Eatons'.  That just adds to their magic - not only have I never been to the city, but Eatons' is the same place that sends the Eatons' catalog in the mail in time for Christmas each year; maybe my Ladies are elves in disguise?

"How did you get here?  Did you drive... where is your car?" I ask my questions as I think of them, with Hilda smiling at me and answering, asking her own questions in return.

"We got here this morning.  Our brother brought us in his car, and he's gone back to the city.  How are your mum and dad? ... Did you have a good winter? ... How was school? .... Would you like a candy - I think I have some here somewhere... ah yes, here they are!"

"Yes, thank you!"

I love Hilda.  Who else would offer a candy in the first breath, not even considering the time of day, or whether it was just before or just after lunch, or anytime.

I'm quiet for a moment as Hilda finishes stoking the wood stove and getting the kettle going.  I hear some rustling down the hall and Irene joins us in the kitchen.

"Hello Monik, how are you?  Can you come and help me back here for a moment?  I've dropped something behind the dresser and it would  be much easier for you to reach it ..."

I'm up in a flash, following Irene down the hall.  I try to take everything in - I don't get to go back here very often, these are their bedrooms.  There are needlepoint pictures, books, blankets, pillows.  You walk through these two bedrooms to get to the "sitting room" at the back.  They have an old record player there - they call it a phonograph player - it has a funny speaker on it and a really heavy needle, and the records are heavy and thick.  Irene is showing me where she dropped her watch, and I scramble underneath.  She's right, there's not much room under here and it's very dark, but she's shining a flashlight to help me to see and I have no trouble.

"Oh, thank you dear, that's much easier for you than for me!"

I'm so glad to be useful to the Ladies, they are always so kind to me.

I don't want to overstay my welcome, they are still moving in and have boxes and things to unpack and I don't want to get in the way.

"How long will you stay?" I ask, already thinking about my next visit.

"We'll be here for the month of July," Hilda says.  "We want to pick some mushrooms, and also blueberries when they come out."

Wow, I think, mushrooms!  Who picks mushrooms?  I don't even like mushrooms much.  I see them in the forest and think they all must be poison, their colours are so bright.  Maybe I'll be able to go with them to see, when they go.

"Well, I have to go now," I decide, and move towards the door, navigating around the small space in the kitchen.

"Come to see us again soon," Hilda smiles as she opens the door for me.  "Let your brothers know to come over for a candy!"

I smile a big smile and say thanks! and bye! and then I run all the way home, fast as I can, somehow excited and happy by my visit, and run just to do something with all of that energy.  Frank and John are playing in the yard, and they glance over at me as I run up.

"The Trailer Ladies are back!" I announce, glad somehow that I was the one who saw them first.

John and Frank look at each other, eyes wide open, and both say, "Trailer Ladies!" with smiles, drop everything and take off running down the road, back the way I've just come.

I wonder what the Ladies lives must be like, living in the big city, and what a change it must be for them here, at their cottage.  I guess they don't need a lake to have a cottage, instead here they have the Forest.  In the city they don't have a forest.  I think maybe that's right, that maybe all you need for a cottage or a camp is to have some quiet space in nature where you have time to read a book or not even do THAT much. Maybe to just sit and watch the birds and plants and be with yourself.  And maybe that is enough.