Audrey wiped her eyes. “It’s worth a try, I guess,” she said.
She picked up her rod and cast her favorite lure near the underwater stump. But her lure got snagged so badly that she had to break it off. The same thing happened with her second-favorite lure. When she lost her third-favorite lure and got her reel tangled, Audrey quit.
Amelia Bedelia was out of ideas. Her stomach growled. She opened the pizza box. She offered a slice to Audrey, but Audrey was so angry that she took the slice of pizza and flung it as hard as she could. It skipped across the surface like a flat stone until it came to rest right above the stump.
That piece of pizza floated like an abandoned ship. Suddenly, a whirlpool opened beneath it and inhaled the pizza.
Amelia Bedelia and Audrey looked at each other. “What was that?” they both yelled.
“That,” said Audrey, “was a ginormous bigmouth bass.” Her eyes lit up, and she grabbed her rod. “Oh, no!” she said. “I’ll never untangle this reel in time!”
Amelia Bedelia picked up her cane pole. “Try this,” she said.
Amelia Bedelia sprinkled some water from the lake onto the last piece of pizza, to soften it. This slice had a crazy combination of toppings.
“I hope Mr. Bass likes anchovies,” said Audrey, as she carefully squished the pizza around the hook, forming a lump as big as a tennis ball. “You cast it, Soaky,” she said. “You’ve practiced it all week.”
“Okay,” said Amelia Bedelia. “But then I’m handing it to you.”
Amelia Bedelia looked at the lake. Ripples were still moving out across the water. She imagined a giant bull’s-eye. The center was where their pizza ball had to land. She leaned back, yelled,
and cast the bait dead center with a SPLASH! She handed the pole to Audrey.
Nothing happened. Seconds passed. Still nothing. More nothing.
And then . . . nothing at all.
When they looked at each other, then it happened. It was like a toilet had flushed in the lake. The pizza disappeared into the biggest mouth Amelia Bedelia had ever seen on a fish. Audrey let the fish take the dough ball to the bottom. Then she leaned back hard to set the hook and snag the fish.
“Did you get it?” asked Amelia Bedelia.
“I think so,” said Audrey.
She had, because just then the only thing that kept Audrey from being yanked overboard was Amelia Bedelia, holding her tightly around her waist. The fish circled their boat one way, then the other. The fish went right. The fish went left, then jumped in the air, walking across the surface on its tail. Luckily, that bass tired out before they did.
“Grab the cooler!” yelled Audrey.
“How can you be thirsty at a time like this?” asked Amelia Bedelia.
“Empty it and put it in the lake,” said Audrey. Amelia Bedelia held the cooler overboard and let it fill with lake water. Then Audrey steered the fish into the cooler to trap it. The cooler was big, but the fish was huge. It barely fit. “One, two, three, lift!” said Audrey. They heaved the cooler full of water and fish into the boat. Water sloshed and the fish flapped, but they did it, and then they collapsed into giggles.
Suddenly Amelia Bedelia remembered the symbols of the boat and the fish on their map. This fish was almost as big as the boat. Her fortune had come true!
“ZZZZRRRRR ENTRIES GZZZ PRIZE ZZ FISH ZZ TEN MINUTES!”
The staticky loudspeaker on the public dock told them that they were running out of time.
“Hurry, Soaky!” shouted Audrey.
They took turns rowing and holding the top on the cooler until they got to the public dock.
“We were getting worried about you two,” said Doc. “Hurry, it’s almost over!”
“Dad, help us!” shouted Amelia Bedelia as they struggled with the cooler.
Amelia Bedelia’s father and Doc each grabbed a handle and hoisted it onto the dock. “Whew!” said Doc. “What’s in here?”
“Five hundred dollars!” said Amelia Bedelia.
Audrey and Amelia Bedelia threaded their way through the crowd with the help of Doc yelling “Gangway!” and “Coming through!” At last they arrived in front of the very official-looking judges, a big scale, and a tape measure on a table.
The newly crowned Miss Bigmouth stood beside them, shimmering like a mermaid in a sparkly green cape and tiara.
“Okay, young ladies,” said one of the judges. “You’re in just under the wire.”
Amelia Bedelia looked up. She saw balloons shaped like fish, but no wires.
The girls lifted the cooler lid together.
“Whoa-ho-ho. . . ,” sputtered Doc.
Amelia Bedelia’s father just opened and closed his mouth like a fish himself, but no words came out. A hush fell over the crowd.
“Hold up your lunker, ladies, and let everyone have a look,” said a judge.
Audrey took the head, Amelia Bedelia grabbed the tail, and on the count of three, they hoisted their fish up in the air. The crowd gasped. So did the judges.
A photographer started snapping pictures for the paper. Her camera made annoying little flashes right before the big flash. Those flashes always made Amelia Bedelia close her eyes—and that’s what she did. But since a bass has no eyelids, the flashes startled him back to life. He flicked his tail hard and soared up, up, up into the air.
“Grab him!” yelled Amelia Bedelia.
“Come back here!” yelled Audrey.
And come back he did, landing right on top of Miss Bigmouth’s head. Her tiara popped up and came to rest on the head of that monster bass, crowning him King of the Bigmouths.
That’s when Miss Bigmouth gasped, then let out a scream heard clear across the lake. She dove into the water. King Bigmouth landed with a big, splashy plop and swam away for freedom, crown and all.
Although absolutely everyone agreed that Amelia Bedelia and Audrey’s fish had been the winner, it had never been officially weighed or measured. So the judges had to declare another winner. The lucky fisherman thanked the judges, shook their hands, and then signed the prize check over to Amelia Bedelia and Audrey.
The next morning, Amelia Bedelia’s dad packed up the car to go back home. Doc, Mrs. Doc, and Audrey came over to say good-bye.
“Soaky!” yelled Audrey. “Look at this!”
She held up a copy of the Lake Largemouth News. On the front page was a picture of Audrey, Amelia Bedelia, and their bass. Even though Amelia Bedelia had her eyes closed, she knew she’d keep that photo forever.
They all had a good laugh, but even so, the morning was a sad one. Amelia Bedelia’s mother baked blueberry muffins for Doc and wrote down the recipe for her easy-breezy appetizer for Mrs. Doc. Amelia Bedelia had picked a bunch of wildflowers for Audrey, and the girls arranged them in a pretty purple vase. Amelia Bedelia’s dad fixed the leaky faucets in the cabin so that when the mayor’s family came to stay, they could spend the whole time relaxing instead of working. Plus, he topped off the gas tank in their boat.
As the grown-ups said their good-byes, Amelia Bedelia and Audrey stood together on the dock and looked out at Lake Largemouth one last time.
“Do you think our bass is back home at the stump?” asked Audrey.
“Yup,” said Amelia Bedelia. “He’s wearing that tiara and ordering pizza.”
The thought of that made them both burst out laughing until they cried.
“Amelia Bedelia,” said Audrey, “I wish I had a sister just like you.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” said Amelia Bedelia. “You’d be a great big sister.”
They hugged one last long, hard hug, and then Amelia Bedelia climbed into the car. She lowered her window and yelled, “Smell you later, Stinky!”
“Stay dry, Soaky!” shouted Audrey.
The cabin and Lake Largemouth disappeared in a cloud of dust as Amelia Bedelia’s family drove off.
The drive home was very different. There was no more roaming. There was no more getting lost. They got on the highway and zoomed.
The road was smooth, so Amelia Bedelia worked on her journal. It was her longest entry yet. She wrote down everything she was thinking about Audrey and Lake Largemouth and catching the biggest bigmouth.
After a while, Amelia Bedelia’s father looked at her in the rearview mirror and asked, “How big was your fish?”
Amelia Bedelia held up her hands to show him. Then she made it a bit bigger.
Amelia Bedelia’s mother smiled. “Like father, like daughter,” she said. “Sweetie, you look tired. Try forty winks.”
Amelia Bedelia was tired. She tried blinking her eyes forty times, but that only made her feel more tired. She got up to thirty-three winks before she dozed off. When she woke up, her mom was driving past the POP. sign for their town. Amelia Bedelia’s crayon marks had washed away. That’s okay, she thought. The population was right again, now that they were back.
They stopped at the Paw Palace to pick up Finally (who wiggled and wagged and kissed Amelia Bedelia again and again), then headed to their house. They turned into their driveway, and Amelia Bedelia felt the car go bump-bump over the uneven sidewalk. That’s when she knew she was home at last.
“Wow,” said Amelia Bedelia’s father, pointing at the odometer. “Look at that. We drove five hundred and two miles exactly.”
“Next time,” said Amelia Bedelia, “let’s roam for a thousand miles, like Mom’s fortune!”
“That’s the spirit,” said her father.
“You two can go, just send me a postcard,” said her mother, turning off the car.
The daisies that had been in full bloom when they left were now gone, all but one. Amelia Bedelia’s mother picked it.
“Welcome home, honey,” she said to Amelia Bedelia’s dad. “That was fun.”
“Same time next year?” he asked.
“Yay!” yelled Amelia Bedelia.
Amelia Bedelia’s mother tucked the daisy behind her ear and smiled.
Amelia Bedelia raced around the house making sure everything was there. She ran into her room. Her dolls and stuffed animals stared back at her. They looked surprised to see her. Yet something was different. Something had changed. She glanced at herself in her mirror.
Her hair was a little bit longer. She’d grown a teensy bit taller. More freckles had bloomed across her nose to keep the others company. But that wasn’t it. When she looked into her own eyes, she realized that she was what had changed. She had taken this trip and would never be the same. The Amelia Bedelia who had left a week ago was not the Amelia Bedelia who had returned.
That night, Amelia Bedelia took her journal out of her backpack. Thumbing through it, she could recall their whole vacation—the boring and fun and frustrating and fantastic parts. It was all there, waiting for her. She taped in the picture of Audrey and her and their fish. Then she remembered her father’s fortune—the one from the Chinese restaurant. Now she had the perfect spot for it. She taped it to the top of the page.
Amelia Bedelia read the fortune out loud: “‘Follow your dreams.’” Then she wrote her shortest entry of all.
Amelia Bedelia turned out her light and went to sleep, to work on her own dreams.
Excerpt from Amelia Bedelia Goes Wild!
Amelia Bedelia was sick. She was really, really, really, really, really sick. She was sick of being her bedroom. She was sick of rearranging her plush animals and dolls. Sick of gazing out the window at the beautiful spring day. Sick of thinking about how much fun her friends were having on the class field trip to the zoo.
Most of all, she was sick of being sick.
“How’s the worst patient in the world?” asked Amelia Bedelia’s mother. She put a bowl of soup and a grilled cheese sandwich on Amelia Bedelia’s desk.
Amelia Bedelia stood up on her bed.
“I’m all better now!” she announced. To prove it, she began jumping up and down and waving her arms around. Quickly she plopped back down again.
“Mommy,” she said. “Make the room stop spinning!”
“Don’t make yourself dizzy, sweetie,” her mother said, tucking her back in. “I don’t want you to fall and hit your head, on top of having the flu.”
Amelia Bedelia began coughing. She had been coughing and sneezing all day long. It took all her strength just to toss her used tissues into the trash can.
“Are you okay?” asked her mother. “The pesky flu bug is tough.”
“The flu is an insect?” asked Amelia Bedelia. “This isn’t fair! How can a little insect make me miss seeing all the cool animals at the zoo?”
Two Ways to Say It
About the Author and Illustrator
HERMAN PARISH was in the fourth grade when his aunt, Peggy Parish, wrote the first book about Amelia Bedelia. The author lives in Princeton, New Jersey.
LYNNE AVRIL has illustrated all the stories about young Amelia Bedelia. The artist lives in Phoenix, Arizona.
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Credits
Cover art © 2013 by Lynne Avril
Cover design by Sylvie Le Floc’h
Copyright
Gouache and black pencil were used to prepare the black-and-white art.
Amelia Bedelia is a registered trademark of Peppermint Partners, LLC.
Amelia Bedelia Road Trip! Text copyright © 2013 by Herman S. Parish III. Illustrations copyright © 2013 by Lynne Avril. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Parish, Herman.
Amelia Bedelia road trip! / by Herman Parish ; pictures by Lynne Avril.
pages cm.—(Amelia Bedelia chapter books ; #3)
Summary: Fun and fiascoes ensue when young Amelia Bedelia and her parents take a road trip through their state.
ISBN 978-0-06-209503-9 (trade ed.)—ISBN 978-0-06-209502-2 (pbk ed.)—ISBN 978-0-06-227057-3 (pob)
Epub Edition © JULY 2013 ISBN 9780062095053
[1. Automobile travel—Fiction. 2. Vacations—Fiction. 3. Family life—Fiction. 4. Humorous stories.]
I. Avril, Lynne, (date) illustrator. II. Title. III. Title: Road trip!
PZ7.P2185Aq 2013 [Fic]—dc23 2013013831
13 14 15 16 17 CG/RRDH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
First Edition
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