slammed on the brakes and the bikes fell off the trunk The car in back of us started honking its horn and flashing its lights We pulled onto the side of the road My father started attaching the bikes to the rack again while my mother put cream on my brother’s knee Then Miro tried to escape I couldn’t blame him He jumped out the car window and crawled under a blackberry bush My brother was still crying My father was still figuring out how to get the bikes back on the rack And I wasn’t allowed to get out of the car because it was too dangerous So it was up to my mother to capture him She got down on her hands and knees and in her soothing cat voice she started talking to Miro People were laughing as they drove by There was my mother down on all fours talking to a blackberry bush But slowly one step at a time Miro crept out from under the bush and my mother scooped him up in her arms Then she ran for the car I didn’t want to tell her but there were blackberry twigs in her hair It was going to be a long trip A whole day of beautiful winding mountain roads and scenic vistas But we’d get to Maine all right Just in time for
But you’ll see Another family vacation was about to begin
ONE In Maine we are nearly flattened by Hurricane Bob We had been hearing about Hurricane Bob on the radio all week long After a while I got pretty tired of it How can you take a hurricane seriously when its name is Bob No offense to people named Bob but it’s just not a very scary name If I was in charge of naming hurricanes I would call them Hurricane Hulk or Demon or Destroyer Now that would scare people We had rented a cottage right by the ocean We were so close to the water that you could sit on the front porch and spit watermelon seeds into the Atlantic Or almost And there were blueberry bushes too with tiny fruit
the size of a baby’s fingernail My brother and I picked the berries right off the bushes for breakfast The other fun things you could eat were the sea urchins that lived in the water They were brown prickly animals with poisonous spines You smashed them open with a hatchet and there was an orange part inside that supposedly tasted really good like the ocean Or so my father said I tried one and that was enough My brother pretended to throw up just looking at them Our cat Miro loved Maine It was a lot better than being in a boiling-hot car He had never been to the sea before Every evening he went down to the pebbly beach to chase the little green crabs that lived there When he caught one or should I say when one caught him by pinching his nose he wished he hadn’t because crabs never let go But Miro never learned He caught furry brown wood mice too and left them on the porch in front of the door My mother would scream every time she stepped on one in her bare feet first thing in the morning Miro always looked miffed when she did that After all he was giving her a present It’s funny because my mother usually loves surprises and presents When my brother gives her a bunch of dandelions for example even if they’re half crushed she always looks so pleased I guess
