Dear Pen Pal

by Heather Vogel Frederick

  “No, thanks,” he says in a low voice. I notice that he’s looking pale and slightly greenish, which is not a good sign, and sure enough, a little while later, just as we’re getting onto the New Jersey Turnpike, he throws up.

  Becca shrieks, because some of it splatters across the aisle onto her sneaker, and pretty soon we’re all shrieking and holding our noses. Mr. Keller hollers at us to pipe down and the bus driver pulls over at the next rest stop and we all pile out again while he cleans up the mess. Kevin stands off to the side, crying, while his dad pats him on the back and tells him not to worry, it’s okay, it could happen to anybody. But it’s not okay, because for the rest of his life he’s going to be known as “that kid who threw up on the eighth-grade field trip.” Just like my mom is going to be known as “Handcuffs Wong.”

  The bus smells a lot better when we get back on, fortunately, and it’s a warm day so we crack open the windows, which helps too. Just in case, though, the driver makes Kevin and his dad move to seats in the very front.

  “How about we start finalizing our itinerary,” says Mrs. Chadwick, whipping out her clipboard. Becca’s mother loves being in charge.

  All of us students have been divided up into “pods” of six and assigned to a pair of chaperones. Our pod includes me, Becca, Emma, Cassidy, Ashley—who got stuck sitting on one of the other buses because she was late—and Kevin Mullins, whom nobody else wanted. Most of the time all the pods will be together, like when we go to see the Declaration of Independence and tour the Supreme Court and the U.S. Capitol and get our picture taken on its front steps. We were all supposed to tour the White House, too, but our school couldn’t get tickets this year. I guess it’s been extra busy this spring, for some reason.

  Each pod has some free choice time too, though, and Mr. Romero and Ms. Flanagan, our social studies teachers, sent home packets of information on suggested destinations a few weeks ago for us to look over. There are tons of museums to choose from, which sounded incredibly boring to me at first, but then Gigi told me that the Smithsonian has an exhibit of some of the inaugural ball gowns and other dresses worn by the First Ladies over the years. I definitely want to see that.

  The best part of the trip, and the only other thing I’m really looking forward to besides seeing the First Ladies exhibit, is that on our last night we’re going on a cruise on the Potomac River. We get to dress up and have dinner on the boat and everything.

  Oh, and the other good thing about this trip? We don’t have to wear our school uniforms at all for the next three days. I am so glad, because as far as I’m concerned I never want to wear maroon or gold again my entire life.

  “Okay, so let’s see, after we check in at the hotel, there’s nothing planned until we all meet for dinner. I thought perhaps we’d head straight for the National Gallery,” says Mrs. Chadwick, who’s obviously feeling patriotic because she’s dressed in jeans, a white T-shirt, and a red denim jacket. “Lots of important paintings there that I don’t want you girls to miss.”

  Becca shoots me a look, then takes the clipboard from her mother and scans the list. “How about the National Mall instead?” she counters. “I’ll bet they have good shopping there.”

  Behind us, Emma giggles.

  “What’s so funny?” Becca snaps.

  Cassidy breaks the bad news to her. “The National Mall isn’t a shopping center,” she explains. “Don’t you remember that PowerPoint presentation we watched in social studies? It’s like a big park in the middle of the city. That’s where the Vietnam Memorial is, and the Washington Monument and stuff.”

  “Oh.” Becca looks disappointed and kind of embarrassed. She hates it when Cassidy knows something she doesn’t.

  Emma wants to go to the Library of Congress instead—she would, naturally—and Cassidy votes for the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum. I stare out the window of the bus. I could be in Paris, France, right now, and instead I’m either going to have to look at a bunch of old paintings, a bunch of old books, or a bunch of old airplanes.

  “I know Megan would like to see the ‘First Ladies at the Smithsonian’ exhibit at the American History Museum,” my mother says.

  I look over at her, surprised. Gigi must have told her. My mother carefully avoids my gaze, and it occurs to me that this might be her way of trying to make up for the fact that I didn’t get to go to Paris. She knows how disappointed I am, especially since I’ve hardly spoken a word to her since we left Logan Airport last night.

  Everybody likes this idea except Kevin and Cassidy. My mother manages to win them over by explaining that there are plenty of other interesting things to see, too, like antique cars and the original Star-Spangled Banner and George Washington’s sword and even the ruby slippers that Judy Garland wore when she played Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz movie. “Too bad your mother isn’t with us, Cassidy—they have Julia Child’s kitchen, too!”

  Cassidy’s forehead wrinkles. “Who’s Julia Child?”

  “Only the most famous TV chef ever,” Emma tells her.

  I wish Mrs. Sloane-Kinkaid could have come on the trip too, but her baby is due in a little over a month, and she decided the long bus ride would be too tiring.

  In the end, after a lot of discussion, we decide that our free choice destinations for the other days we’re here will be the Air and Space Museum, since that’s the only thing Cassidy really wants to see, the Library of Congress, because Emma is desperate to see it and Mrs. Hawthorne made my mom and Mrs. Chadwick promise we’d make sure she gets there, and the Museum of Natural History, which we throw in because it has plenty of bugs and stuff for Kevin but also the Hope Diamond for the rest of us. If we have any extra time, we’ll also go to the National Gallery to keep Becca’s mom happy, and maybe the Botanic Garden, which is my mother’s idea of fun, of course.

  After another stop for lunch and a few more hours on the bus—barf-free, fortunately—we finally arrive at our hotel in Washington. It’s one of those huge high-rises with an elegant lobby, the kind my dad always books for our family when we travel. It’s no big deal to me, but my friends are all excited about it, and they mill around talking and laughing while our teachers and parents sort out the room assignments. All of us girls are going to be together on one floor, while all the boys will be stashed a couple of floors below us.

  “Now remember, you are representing Walden Middle School, and I will not tolerate any monkey business!” Mr. Keller tells us sternly, when we gather a few minutes later in one of the conference rooms for a group meeting. I guess he didn’t get the memo about the school uniforms, because he’s wearing his. The short sleeves of his maroon polo are way too small for the bulging muscles in his upper arms. A tailor could fix that, but maybe Mr. Keller likes it that way. He probably thinks it makes him look like a superhero.

  Of course his comment unleashes a whole lot of chimp noises from the back of the room, and I turn around to see Zach and Ethan and Third and some of the other boys scratching themselves and generally acting like third graders. It’s totally stupid but I can’t help it, I laugh anyway. So does everybody else.

  “I have an announcement too!” says Mr. Romero. “I just found out that, thanks to a Walden parent who wishes to remain anonymous, we’re going to get to tour the White House after all!”

  A huge cheer goes up, and I turn to my mother. “Did Dad buy them for us or something?” I whisper.

  She shakes her head. “You can’t buy tickets; they’re free. It must be somebody who has a connection here in Washington.”

  Eventually, after a few more announcements and dire threats from Mr. Keller, we’re released to our chaperones. We dump our suitcases upstairs in our rooms and then our pod heads for the nearest Metro station. Becca spots Zach and Ethan and Third and their pod and makes a beeline to where they’re standing.

  “Where are you guys going for free choice?” she asks.

  “The Spy Museum,” he replies.

  “Cool!” Becca turns to her mother. “Can I go with them, Mom?
”

  The one thing that bugs me about Becca is that she will drop me like a hot potato if there’s a chance she can do something with a boy instead, especially Zach Norton. And here I thought she was as excited as I was to see the First Ladies’ gowns. Emma flashes me a sympathetic glance. She understands my mixed feelings about Becca.

  “Me too, Mrs. Chadwick!” echoes Ashley, who is standing close to Third. Really close. I look at them, wondering if there’s something going on that I don’t know about. I haven’t seen Ashley all that much lately. I was supposed to go to her birthday party last weekend but I ended up in Boston at this stupid green-living convention with my mother instead. My dad’s been after me to make sure I spend as much time with her as I do with Gigi. Things are still kind of rocky between my mom and my grandmother.

  Mrs. Chadwick frowns. “Absolutely not, girls,” she replies. “Remember we talked about this already? We stick to our pod, and we stick to our plan.”

  “Maybe we can join forces for something else later, like the Air and Space Museum,” suggests Mr. Mullins, who probably wants to make sure Kevin gets to spend time around other boys. Kevin gets stuck doing stuff with girls a lot of the time, because we’re a little nicer to him.

  Mrs. Chadwick pulls out her clipboard, and the parents all compare notes and decide that this would be okay, if everybody’s in favor of it.

  Becca’s smile reappears, and I find myself smiling too. There might be something going on between Ashley and Third, but Becca definitely doesn’t have dibs on Zach Norton and I’m definitely in favor of spending an afternoon with him.

  It’s a short ride on the Metro to the Smithsonian, and when we finally get to the First Ladies exhibit, it’s even better than I thought it would be.

  “Oh, wow,” I say, when we enter the long room lined with glass cases.

  Besides the ball gowns and other dresses, there’s White House china and portraits and other things belonging to the first ladies too. Looking at everything keeps our group content for a while, but I’m barely getting started by the time the rest of them are ready to move on.

  “Can’t I stay here, Mom?” I beg. “I haven’t even sketched anything yet.”

  “I suppose that will be all right,” she replies, ignoring Mrs. Chadwick’s frown. “Just keep your cell phone on in case I want to get in touch with you.”

  After they leave, I wander around the room slowly, taking my time as I examine the details on each of the dresses. They’re couture, of course, one-of-a-kind designs, and most of them are vintage. Really, really vintage! This one gown of Martha Washington’s is amazing, with hand-painted flowers, butterflies, and insects on the pink fabric. I didn’t know they had stuff like that back in the 1780s. I sketch it, along with the very first inaugural gown ever donated to the museum. President Taft’s wife, Helen, donated it in 1912. I admire the white-silk chiffon, and then get busy trying to capture the flowers embroidered in metallic thread, and the rhinestone and bead trim.

  I wish Gigi were here. She would totally love this! It’s fine being with my mother and everything, but I just wish she got fashion the way my grandmother does.

  I circle the room, dazzled and happy and completely puzzled as to why my mother doesn’t find this stuff as awesome as I do. I stare dreamily at a flapper-style dress from the 1920s that Mrs. Harding wore. It has pearlized sequins and gold beads—a lot of the first ladies liked beads and shimmery stuff, including my favorite dress, one that belonged to Jackie Kennedy. It’s a pale yellow silk single-shoulder design, really simple and elegant, with just the right amount of scattered crystal beads on the bodice to give it pizzazz. It’s perfect.

  I find a bench and start drawing. After a while my cell phone buzzes in my pocket. It’s my mother.

  “The museum will be closing before too long, honey,” she says. “Don’t you want to see any of the other exhibits?”

  “Nope,” I tell her, concentrating on getting the folds of Mrs. Kennedy’s dress just right. “Maybe another time.”

  “We’re in the gift shop when you finish up, okay?”

  A few minutes later my cell phone buzzes again. This time it’s a text from Becca: HURRY UP!

  I sigh and shove my phone back in my pocket and close my sketchbook. Downstairs, I find my mother and my friends, who are picking out postcards to send to our Wyoming pen pals. I find one of a Pocahontas quilt for Summer, and I see Cassidy holding one of the TV chef’s kitchen.

  “For your mom?” I ask her, and she nods.

  “What are you going to send to Winky?”

  Cassidy holds up another one of a lunchbox that shows a pioneer guy and a bear in front of a log cabin. “She’ll think this is funny.”

  “They have historic lunchboxes here?” I ask, kind of sorry to have missed out on that.

  “Yeah, and Kermit the Frog, too.” She passes me a third postcard. “I got one of him for the baby.”

  After the Blue Moon cheese disaster, Cassidy had to promise to write letters to her new sister or brother so she could come on this trip. Well, that plus apologize to Savannah and her parents too, like all of us had to. She thinks the letter-writing is a total waste of time, but I don’t know, I think it’s kind of a fun idea. It’s sort of like scrapbooking, which Becca and Ashley and I do together with Mrs. Chadwick sometimes. Mrs. Chadwick doesn’t seem like the scrapbooking type, but sometimes people surprise you.

  I rip a page out of my sketchbook and hand it to Cassidy. “Here,” I tell her, handing her the sketch of Martha Washington’s dress. “This was one of my favorites. Can you believe it’s over two hundred years old? You can put it with the postcard for the baby, if you want. If it’s a girl, I mean.”

  “Thanks, Megs.”

  “That was nice of you, honey,” my mother says to me later, as we’re leaving the museum. She puts her arm around my shoulder and gives me a squeeze.

  I start to pull away, but then I remember that she was the one who spoke up and made sure I got to see the dresses in the first place, so I stop myself. I’m still really, really disappointed that I didn’t get to go to Paris, but honestly, I’m tired of being mad at my mother. Even if I’m not quite ready to forgive her yet, I guess I can call a truce while we’re here.

  The next two days pass by in a blur. It turns out Washington is a pretty amazing place. The city was actually designed, just like a dress, but by an artist, not a fashion designer. Some guy named Pierre L’Enfant from France, which maybe explains a lot. Those French sure have a lot of style. The streets are really wide and straight, and there are all these big stately white buildings everywhere, and the view along the mall, the long, rectangular park in the middle of everything, is incredible.

  I’ve never thought of myself as super patriotic or anything, even though I live in Concord which is, like, the most patriotic town ever, especially since the American Revolution practically started there. Still, there’s something about the way everything looks here in Washington that makes me really proud, and I take a ton of pictures to show Dad and Gigi when we get home.

  We end up having a great time at the Air and Space Museum, too. The airplanes and space capsules and stuff are pretty cool, and I even get Mr. Mullins to take a picture with my cell phone of me and Zach standing inside the nose of a jumbo jet. Kevin’s in it too, unfortunately, but I can always crop him out later.

  Staying at the hotel with my friends is just as much fun as touring the city. Becca and Ashley and I are sharing a room, and right next to us, through a connecting door, is Emma and Cassidy’s room. We just leave the door open and it’s like we’re all together. Mrs. Chadwick and my mother are across the hall.

  “Now remember what Mr. Keller said,” warned Mrs. Chadwick the first night she and my mom came over to tell us good night. “No monkey business.”

  Behind them, Cassidy scratched at her armpits and pretended to eat a banana. We had to stifle our giggles until they were gone. For weeks, Cassidy had been planning pranks for us to play on Zach and the other guys, but whe
n we tried to sneak out and raid their rooms, it turned out Mr. Keller and some of the other dads were taking turns patrolling the halls. We had to pretend that we got lost looking for the soda machine, and slink back upstairs in defeat to watch movies on TV and eat microwave popcorn instead. That wasn’t so bad, though, especially when we figured out that we could at least make a few prank calls to them instead.

  Next to the First Ladies’ exhibit, the White House tour is my favorite. Whoever got us the tickets got us the best kind, the ones that come with a guide. Some of the other tours are self-guided, which means people get stuck wandering around by themselves. We follow our guide through all these rooms with names like the East Room and the Blue Room and the Red Room, and she tells us about the furniture and china and stuff. Mrs. Chadwick almost has a cow when she sees everything. She loves antiques.

  My mother asks about the organic vegetable garden that she heard the First Lady was planting, and Kevin Mullins’s father wants to know if we’re going to get to see the Oval Office.

  “I’m afraid that’s off-limits to the public,” our guide replies, and everybody groans.

  I keep looking around hoping to see the president, but I guess he’s off-limits too. Or at least too busy to hang out with tourists.

  By the end of the tour we’ve learned that the White House has five full-time chefs, 132 rooms, thirty-five bathrooms, twenty-eight fireplaces, and three elevators. Oh, and that it takes 570 gallons of paint to cover the outside. Our guide is really nice, but she’s kind of obsessed with numbers.

  Cassidy perks up when she hears that the White House has its own jogging track, swimming pool, and basketball court. She raises her hand.

  “Does the president play hockey?” she asks. “He should totally put in a skating rink.”

  The guide shakes her head. “He loves movies, though—the White House has its own movie theater.”

  “Hey,” Becca says to me later that night, back at the hotel. She’s whispering because Ashley’s fallen asleep already. “That was awesome today, wasn’t it?”