A Whirlwind Vacation

by Krulik, Nancy

  The other artists watched as Mr. and Mrs. Bridgeman talked about how much the painting would cost. The Bridgemans were paying for it in Euros, the kind of money a lot of countries in Europe use.

  Katie had no idea how much the painting cost in American dollars. But it must have been expensive, because the other artists seemed really impressed. They weren’t laughing at Pierre anymore. One of the men even splashed a big blob of yellow paint onto the center of his gray, black, and brown painting.

  “You’re so lucky,” Katie told Annabelle. “You’re going to have one of Pierre’s paintings in your new house.”

  “I’d rather have it in my old house ... and stay in Boston,” Annabelle said with a heavy sigh.

  “It will be okay,” Katie assured her. “You heard what Pierre said. Change can be good.”

  “That’s easy for you to say,” Annabelle replied. “Nothing ever changes for you.”

  Katie thought about all the changes the magic wind had brought her on this vacation. “That’s what you think,” she murmured.

  Chapter 12

  “Are there really four thousand animals here?” Katie asked Vicki as they entered the Faunia, a giant zoo in Madrid.

  “It looks like there are at least four thousand people here,” Mrs. Garcia noted. “This certainly is a popular tourist attraction.”

  Katie looked around. Mrs. Garcia was right. There were crowds of people everywhere. Many of them were studying giant maps of Faunia.

  Vicki nodded. “Faunia is a super place,” she said. “You can visit the whole world in one afternoon.”

  “I always wanted to take a trip around the world,” Mr. McIntyre joked.

  “And you will,” Vicki assured him. “Today we will visit a tropical rain forest, walk around in the dark with bats flying around, and hang out with penguins in the South Pole.”

  “I love penguins,” Annabelle squealed. “They walk so funny.”

  “I know,” Katie agreed. She put her heels together and started to waddle around like a penguin. Annabelle did a penguin walk of her own.

  “Quick, take out the camera,” Mrs. Garcia shouted to her husband. “Get a good shot of the girls acting like penguins.”

  Mr. Garcia took photos of Katie and Annabelle as they waddled around.

  “I can do that, too!” Mrs. McIntyre joked. “Look at me. I’m a penguin.” She waddled over toward her husband.

  “I guess we’ll go to the South Pole part of the park first,” Vicki told the group. “You folks should feel right at home there.”

  “I can’t believe the Penderbottoms, Miss Cornblau, and Miss Framingham went to an art museum instead of coming here,” Annabelle said. “This is so much fun!”

  “The Prado is a pretty incredible art museum,” Mrs. Carew told her. “It’s got an amazing collection of paintings and sculptures by famous Spanish artists.”

  “I’d rather be around animals than just about anything,” Annabelle told her.

  Katie was happy to find that she and Annabelle had something in common. “I want to see all of the animals, even the bats!” she announced.

  “Don’t forget about the snakes in the rain forest,” Annabelle added.

  “I love snakes,” Katie assured her. “We have one in our classroom. His name is Slinky.”

  “We have a turtle in our class,” Annabelle said. “A snake would be so much cooler.”

  Katie was shocked. But not that Annabelle had a turtle for a class pet. Katie was surprised that for once Annabelle wasn’t bragging that what she had was the best.

  This was going to be una buena día—a good day. Katie could just tell.

  Chapter 13

  Katie was right. Faunia was the greatest animal park she’d ever seen. The rain forest had been especially incredible—all warm and steamy. She’d seen birds whose bright colors were as beautiful as the rain-forest flowers. In fact, everything in the rain-forest exhibit was beautiful ... even the lizards!

  Annabelle, on the other hand, liked the penguins the best. “Those penguins were hysterical!” she giggled as they left the park. “I liked when they went sliding around on the ice.”

  “I really felt like I was in the South Pole,” Katie agreed. “It was freezing in there!”

  “I’m glad we got our picture taken with those parrots on our shoulders,” Annabelle noted.

  “Me too. I’m going to put mine on the bulletin board in my room,” Katie assured her.

  “I’ll have to hang it in my new room,” Annabelle told Katie. She sounded sad.

  Katie knew just how to cheer her up. Nothing made Annabelle happier than eating!

  “Vicki, can we stop for a snack?” Katie asked as the tour group left the park.

  “Absolutely,” Vicki replied. “And I know just the place!”

  Vicki had the bus driver bring the group to a café on Cava de San Miguel, a street that was built back in the Middle Ages! The adults all ordered fried pockets of dough filled with beef. Katie and Annabelle asked for fruit salad instead.

  “I can’t believe how old this street is,” Katie said as she looked around. “A real knight could have been standing right here once upon a time.”

  “Maybe a princess rode by on her horse,” Annabelle added. She waved her hand like a princess greeting her royal subjects.

  “It would be so cool if we were wearing costumes like people wore back then,” Katie remarked.

  “You mean like those?” Mr. Garcia said as he took out his camera. Katie turned around in her chair. A group of street musicians were heading their way. They were dressed in long black capes and bright yellow sashes.

  “Oh, here comes a tuna!” Vicki exclaimed as the waiter put a platter on the table.

  Katie looked at her strangely. “I thought you said these fried sandwiches were filled with meat, not fish.”

  Vicki laughed. “No, not tuna fish, Katie. That group of street musicians is called a tuna. The musicians in a tuna are called tunos. Tuna groups have played music on the streets of Madrid for hundreds of years.”

  Katie giggled. “Oops.”

  The strolling musicians played their song as they traveled down Cava de San Miguel. They stopped as they reached the café where Katie and her tour group were sitting. One of the tambourine players walked over to Katie and reached for her hand.

  Katie jumped back.

  “It’s okay,” Vicki assured her. “He just wants you to dance.”

  Katie blushed. She didn’t want to dance right in the middle of the street. Not in front of all these people!

  But Annabelle did. She leaped up from her chair and began swaying back and forth to the music. “Come on, Katie,” she urged. “It’s fun.”

  Katie watched Annabelle. She did seem to be having a good time. Slowly she stood up to join her.

  Annabelle grinned and curtsied low. Katie curtsied back. Then the girls began to dance wildly, right in the middle of the street.

  Katie laughed.

  “What’s so funny?” Annabelle asked her.

  “I’ll never be able to look at a can of tuna fish again without thinking about dancing,” Katie told her.

  “Me either,” Annabelle said with a laugh as she twirled around again.

  When the tuna finished playing their song, the grown-ups all reached into their pockets and gave them some change.

  “Well, that was fun,” Mr. Bridgeman said as they got up to leave. “What a busy day. I sure am ready for my siesta now.”

  “Your what?” Annabelle asked him.

  “My siesta. That’s a mid-afternoon rest,” Mr. Bridgeman told her. “And you girls should take one, too. That way you’ll be fresh and ready for the bull fight this evening.”

  Katie gulped. “Bull fight?” she asked nervously.

  “We’re going to a bull fight?” Annabelle asked. She didn’t sound any happier about it than Katie did.

  “Yes,” Vicki told her. “I got tickets for our whole group.”

  Katie frowned. She didn’t want to go to
a bull fight. She didn’t want to see a man with a red cape and a sword hurt a poor bull.

  Mrs. Carew studied her daughter’s face. “I don’t think Katie would like that very much,” she said.

  “Me either,” Annabelle piped up.

  “Well, there is something else you could do that would be a lot of fun,” Vicki suggested. “You could go to a tablao.”

  “A what?” Katie asked.

  “A tablao. That’s a club where you can watch a flamenco dance show,” Vicki explained. “I know of a place near the Plaza Mayor where you can have a delicious dinner and see a show.”

  “That sounds like fun,” Mr. Carew said. “Annabelle, would you like to go to the tablao with us tonight instead?”

  “Can I?” Annabelle asked her parents.

  “It’s fine with us,” Mrs. Bridgeman agreed.

  “Yeah!” the girls both cheered at once. Then they began dancing in the street again.

  “Come on, you two,” Mrs. Carew said as they headed toward the tour bus. “Even dancers need a siesta.”

  “A siesta resta!” Katie joked.

  “Siesta resta. Siesta resta,” Annabelle repeated. “It’s like a song.”

  The girls sang and danced all the way down the street—just like a pair of tunos!

  Chapter 14

  After a nice long siesta, the Carew family and Annabelle took a taxi to the tablao.

  When Katie walked into the club, she had a hard time seeing. It was so dark in there! And crowded and noisy, too. Already, there were lots of people seated at tables. Waiters walked around with heavy trays filled with big dishes of what looked like rice and soup.

  A woman came up to them and led them to a table.

  “Mmm. The paella smells delicious,” Mr. Carew said.

  “What’s paella?” Katie asked.

  “It’s a Spanish dish made with rice, vegetables, seafood, and meats,” Mrs. Carew explained. She looked at her menu. “But they have vegetarian paella, too.”

  “I’ll have that,” Katie told her mother.

  “Me too,” Annabelle said.

  “Do you girls want to start with gazpacho?” Mrs. Carew asked. “That’s a delicious Spanish tomato vegetable soup.”

  “I’ll try it,” Annabelle said.

  “Me too,” Katie agreed. It was a little chilly in the club. A bowl of soup would be nice.

  When the waiter came, Katie’s mother ordered for the table. She was the only one of them who could speak any Spanish. She’d learned the language in college.

  A few moments later, the waiter arrived with four big bowls of tomato soup on his tray.

  “Boy, am I hungry,” Mr. Carew said.

  “Me too,” Katie agreed. She took her spoon and scooped up a bit of soup. She bent down for a taste. “Hey, this soup is cold!” she said, surprised.

  “Gazpacho is served cold,” her mother said.

  Annabelle stuck her spoon into the bowl. “I thought you said there were going to be vegetables in here.”

  “There will be,” Mrs. Carew assured her.

  Sure enough, the waiter placed four more bowls on the table. Each one was filled with pieces of fresh cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, and green peppers.

  “You add your own vegetables,” Mrs. Carew explained to the girls.

  Katie put a big spoonful of tomatoes into her soup. “My friend Kevin would love this,” she told Annabelle. “He’s a tomato freak! He’s trying to break the tomato-eating record.”

  “That’s neat,” Annabelle said. “We have a girl in my school who tried to break a record for hopping on one foot. She didn’t break the record, but she almost broke her ankle.”

  Katie laughed. “She sounds like my friend Suzanne. Once, she tried to break the record for walking backward—and she knocked over a clothing stand in the middle of the Cherrydale Mall.”

  “Even though you live in the suburbs and I live in the city, we have a lot of the same kinds of friends,” Annabelle said.

  “Kids are pretty much the same everywhere, I guess,” Katie agreed. “That’s why you shouldn’t worry so much about moving to Houston. You’ll make lots of new friends there.”

  Annabelle shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “Hey, you made a new friend in Europe, didn’t you?” Katie continued.

  “I did?” Annabelle asked. “Who?”

  “Me, silly,” Katie told her.

  Annabelle smiled and picked up her water glass. “To friends,” she said.

  Katie clinked her glass against Annabelle’s. “To friends,” she echoed.

  “That paella was yummy,” Annabelle said a while later as the waiter picked up her empty plate. “I am so full.”

  “Me too,” Katie agreed, patting her stomach and leaning back in her chair.

  From her seat, Katie could see the dancers warming up backstage. The women were all wearing elegant costumes. Most of the dresses were brightly colored—pinks, blues, greens, and purples. But one dancer wore a slinky black dress with a long lace skirt. She had a bright red rose in her hair and a black lace fan in her hands. She was tapping her feet on the floor and practicing her spins. Katie thought she was beautiful.

  “When is the show going to start?” Katie asked impatiently.

  “Right away!” Annabelle leaped from her chair. She stomped her feet and clapped her hands high above her head. “Look at me!” she shouted. “I’m a flamenco dancer.”

  Katie laughed. Annabelle sure loved to dance.

  “Come on, Katie,” Annabelle urged.

  This time, Katie didn’t think twice. She jumped up and stomped her feet, just like she’d seen the woman in the black dress do.

  Annabelle twirled around wildly. Katie whirled around, too. She turned and turned. Faster and faster. Until ...

  “Katie, watch where you’re going!” Annabelle shouted.

  The warning came too late. Katie fell backward—right into a waiter carrying a big tray filled with paella! Platters of rice, seafood, and sausage flew through the air.

  A pile of rice landed on the head of a man who was sitting near the stage. A lobster claw fell onto his wife’s head.

  A big hunk of sausage hit another woman right in the eye.

  A whole plate of paella flew toward stage ... and landed right on top of the dancer in the black dress!

  The dancer sat there for a moment, looking down at her costume. She was covered with yellow rice. Shrimp, mussels, sausage, and clams peeked out from between the layers of black lace.

  Katie hoped that the beautiful black dress wasn’t ruined. “I’ll get you some wet paper towels!” she called out to the dancer.

  Quickly, Katie raced to the ladies’ room. As the door slammed shut behind her, she grabbed some paper towels from the shelf and began to run them under the sink.

  Suddenly, Katie felt a cool breeze blowing against her neck. She knew right away this was no ordinary breeze. “Oh, no!” Katie shouted out. “Not now!”

  But there was no stopping the magic wind. The tornado grew so powerful, it knocked Katie to the ground.

  And then it stopped. Just like that.

  The magic wind was gone. Katie Carew was somebody new.

  But who?

  Chapter 15

  Slowly, Katie opened her eyes and looked around. She wasn’t in the bathroom anymore. Instead, she was standing on the stage. She glanced down. There, instead of her T-shirt and skirt, Katie saw a long black dress with a lace skirt. The dress was covered with greasy yellow rice and bits of seafood and sausage. The grease felt yucky on her skin.

  She reached up to touch her hair. Her red pigtails were gone. Instead her hair was tied up in a bun. And there was a flower tucked behind one of her ears.

  Oh, no! Katie had turned into the flamenco dancer!

  The show would be starting soon. The audience would be expecting to see a real dancer. Katie wasn’t a dancer at all. What was she going to do?

  The music began to play. Quickly, Katie ran toward the backstage area. She had to get out
of there before someone realized she wasn’t really the dancer.

  But it was too late. One of the male dancers took her by the arm. He wrapped his arm around her waist and began tap-dancing flamenco style. Before she knew it, Katie was out on stage.

  Other dancers formed pairs behind Katie and her partner. They began tapping their feet and clapping their hands.

  There was nothing Katie could do now. The show had to go on. She ran her hands up and down her skirt quickly, trying to wipe off at least some of the rice and the seafood. Then Katie began to stomp her feet to the beat.

  At first, she seemed to be getting the rhythm.

  “This isn’t so hard,” she said to herself. She stomped her feet harder.

  “Ouch!” Katie’s dance partner shouted in pain as she stepped on his foot.

  “Sorry,” Katie muttered. She waved her fan in front of her face and tried to twirl like she’d seen the real dancer do backstage.

  The black lace fan whacked Katie’s partner in the nose. He jumped backward, surprised.

  “Oof!” one of the background dancers groaned as Katie’s dance partner banged into her.

  Katie raised her arms up in the air and clapped her hands while she stomped her feet. The other dancers stared and moved out of the way. They had no idea what she was doing.

  But Katie kept going. She danced faster and faster, trying to make her way toward the backstage area. She was trying to get out of the spotlight as quickly as possible. If she could just get off the stage. Katie moved her legs faster, and faster, and ...

  BOOM!

  Katie got off the stage, all right. She fell off—and landed right in the lap of a man sitting in the front row.

  Katie’s face turned bright red. She looked like such a fool! She was so embarrassed. This was the worst night ever!

  Quickly, Katie leaped up and raced off toward the bathroom. It was the only place she could think of where she could get away from everyone.