What do you think? The exact wording probably needs some work, but I think something along those lines would really draw Miss Fenton in and get her excited about the report right away. Just a friendly suggestion …
FROM: LAtwood
TO: Steviethegreat
SUBJECT: Congratulations!
MESSAGE:
I’m glad you’re psyched about your new report! It’s really well written and exciting. I just have a few comments you may want to think about.
For instance, you sort of switch your point of view around in the first paragraph. First you address “Ladies and gentlemen,” then you address Miss Fenton specifically. You might want to change that. Also, where you mention your “less-than-wonderful grades,” I think you should change the phrasing to something less slangy. Maybe your “poor grades” or “inferior grades” or “disappointing grades.”
There are a few other minor grammatical issues, but if you want, I can wait and read the whole paper for you before you turn it in. Basically, like I said, it sounds great. You just might want to keep in mind that it is a paper for school, so it should probably sound a little more formal from now on. Teachers don’t like too much slang and casual language.
By the way, I don’t think you have to worry about Miss Fenton. (You know, like you were talking about earlier when you thought your summer was doomed.) I have to admit, I was a little worried myself when I heard about your assignment. It would really stink if you couldn’t come to riding camp with us; and it would stink even more if you couldn’t ride for the entire summer. But now that you’re so enthusiastic about your report, I’m not worried at all. Didn’t you tell me once that Miss Fenton admitted she thinks you’re clever? You said she said it’s your saving grace, I think. So I’m sure she’ll like the new direction of your report—IF you really take it seriously and make it solid and substantial.
I have some ideas about how you can do that. While you’re talking about everything you did in Vermont, you could include some specific information about sugaring off. For one thing, it’s interesting; and for another thing, teachers like it when you show that you’ve learned a lot about a topic. Besides that, you told me once that Miss Fenton likes a lot of detail. (I think the way you put it was that she’s obsessed with details, especially when she wants to know why you’re late for homeroom!) So I’m sure she would love it if you included a lot about sugaring off. You could probably work in the information most easily in the form of footnotes. Teachers LOVE footnotes, and I just learned how to format them on the computer. I can show you how if you want.
By the way, another thought: Didn’t you also mention that Miss Fenton’s favorite word is “responsibility”? Maybe you should throw that in once or twice near the beginning—you know, just so she knows you remember this is all connected to homework somehow.…
FROM: Steviethegreat
TO: DSlattVT
SUBJECT: My nutty friends
MESSAGE:
Okay, so I finish dinner and come back to the computer to get back to work on my report, and what do I find waiting for me? E-mails from Carole and Lisa. You see, I e-mailed them about the new direction of my report just before dinner and sent them a copy to read. They both read it, and they both said they liked it. But they both also had an awful lot of “comments” and “ideas” and “suggestions” about how to change it.
Get this: Lisa wants me to add footnotes! I can’t believe it. I would never hurt her feelings by telling her this, but footnotes would totally defeat the whole purpose of this paper. It would turn my cool, exciting, fun idea into something dry and dull and scholarly and, well, Lisa-like. I know you’ve never even met Lisa, since she started riding at Pine Hollow after you moved away, but I’m sure I’ve told you enough about her to understand what I’m talking about. She can sometimes be a little too serious and thoughtful for her own good. Especially when it comes to stuff like schoolwork.
Then there’s Carole. (You do know her, so I’m sure what I’m about to say won’t surprise you one bit!) She wanted me to make the entire project about horses. Of course, it will be partly about horses anyway. But leave it to Carole to forget that there’s anything else to life! Ninety-nine percent of the time I don’t mind at all when she goes on and on about horses. Actually, I usually think it’s sort of cute—you know, just what makes Carole be Carole. But this is one of those one-percent times when I wish she could focus on something else for a change, like what my idea is really all about. I mean, if I were writing this report for Max, it would make sense to concentrate almost totally on horses. But somehow I don’t think Miss Fenton would be interested in reading the entire personal history of every horse I’ve ever met.
Whew! I feel better now that I got that off my chest. Plus, as I was reading over my friends’ e-mails again, I realized that maybe they do have some good ideas after all. Maybe the new opening lines Carole suggested for my paper were a little silly, but she does have a point when she says I’ve hardly mentioned horses at all so far. It couldn’t hurt to stress that angle more, especially since Miss Fenton already knows how serious I am about riding. It might impress her more if she thinks a lot of my distractions were horse-related (instead of, say, TV-related or shopping-related or Awesome Jawsome-related—ha ha!) And Lisa’s idea about adding lots of detail about sugaring off is a good one, even if I would rather close my hand in the car door than put the info in footnotes. Maybe she even has a point when she reminds me to keep the homework connection in mind (though leave it to her to bring it up).
Okay, so while I still think they kind of missed the point, I have to admit that the two of them have come through for me yet again. (Though not in quite the way they thought they were.) From now on I’m going to try to sort of mix in their good ideas as I write, working all that horse and sugaring-off and homework stuff right into the course of the story. I’ll try to make it all seem so natural that my report can be chockful of facts and information and details and it will still be more like reading an exciting book or watching a great movie than plowing through some deadly dull term paper.
You know, I just thought of something. If all those textbook writers out there would do exactly what I’m planning to do, maybe I wouldn’t be in this situation at all. Maybe I would have been so caught up in the story of the American Revolution that I would have been dying to learn everything there was to know about Paul Revere. (Though I’m not sure anything could make fractions seem exciting …)
By the way, I’m attaching the file of what I’ve written so far. I thought you might like to see the personality profile I wrote about you. I’ve included part of that letter you wrote inviting me to Vermont. Do you mind? Don’t worry, I explained that comment you made about the principal’s office—I even managed to work in that phrase Miss Fenton always used when she was scolding us. Remember? She always blamed most of what we did on our “natural exuberance.” (I looked it up to make sure I spelled it right.) Plus, that gave me a perfect chance to write in a suspenseful reference to what happens later on in the story, just like you always see in books and movies.
I’d better sign off and get back to work. But let me know what you think of my report. Also, could you send me any info you can think of about sugaring off that I can use? I remember a lot of stuff, but I want to make sure I get everything exactly right. And you know a lot more about it than I do. If you can think of anything else I can use, send that too—you know, like the names of the horses at your stable, facts about the weather in Vermont, stuff like that. You know how Miss Fenton feels about details, especially useless or boring ones. Thanks!
Welcome to My Life …
I spent almost every second of the next week looking forward to my trip to Vermont. Finally the big day arrived. I packed my suitcase (which had plenty of room for my math book and To Kill a Mockingbird, along with the warm winter clothes I would need in Vermont’s northern climate), and my dad drove me to the airport in Washington, D.C., and made sure I got on the right plane. While I wait
ed for the other passengers to board, I had a chance to think about my first trip to Vermont, which is known as the Green Mountain State. Actually, that’s what its name means—the Ver part means “green,” and the mont means “mountain.” That’s because there are lots of mountains there, and lots of green—except in the winter, when most of the green (and the mountains, for that matter) are covered in a layer of white snow.
My seatmate was one of the last people aboard. He was a middle-aged man wearing a business suit. He smiled and said hello as he stuck his briefcase under the seat and sat down, so I said hello back. “Are you going to Vermont?” I asked him. Okay, I know that doesn’t sound like a very intelligent question, since obviously the whole plane was going to Vermont. But I was just trying to be friendly.
“Yes, I am,” he said. “I’m going to an office supply manufacturers’ conference.”
I controlled my urge to wrinkle my nose at that. It sounded pretty dull. I was afraid he might start going into more detail about staplers or whatever and put me to sleep, so I decided to change the subject. “I’m going to visit my friend Dinah,” I told him as the plane started taxiing down the runway. I turned to look out the window, wanting to see the city disappear beneath us. My mother always tells me it’s polite to look at someone when you’re speaking to them, but I figured this must be an exception. My seatmate probably wouldn’t mind if I kept an eye on the scenery while I talked.
I don’t remember exactly what I said, but basically I explained all about Dinah’s invitation for me to be a part of this year’s sugaring off. I figured the businessman probably knew a lot more about three-hole punches and pencil sharpeners than he did about making maple syrup, so I told him everything I had found out about it. For instance, I explained that the sap that becomes maple syrup comes from a tree called the sugar maple, or Acer saccharum, which grows best in temperate places where it’s really cold in the winter, like Vermont. I also discussed how we would be driving horse-drawn sleighs to collect the sap from the maples, and some of the ways that driving a horse pulling a cart or sleigh is different from riding in a saddle.
Everything I was saying was so interesting that I hardly even noticed the flight. I guess it took a few hours to get from Washington to Vermont, but it felt like just a few minutes. I felt the plane begin its descent, and through the window I watched as we broke through a bank of fluffy white clouds and the land below us came into view. I watched in silence for a minute or two, amazed by the difference between the kind of landscape I was used to and this hilly, snow-covered place. Then, feeling guilty, I quickly summed up what I had been talking about so that my seatmate wouldn’t be left in suspense. “So,” I explained, “the most important part seems to be keeping an even tension on the long reins.”
I could see little figures on the ground below as our plane aimed for a long, straight runway that seemed to be the only thing that wasn’t covered with snow. Suddenly I realized that I was really here—in Vermont, about to see Dinah, ready to throw myself into the cool new experience of sugaring off. The excitement sort of overwhelmed me for a second so that I thought I wouldn’t be able to stand it.
“We’re almost here!” I cried.
My seatmate sat up straighter. “In Vermont already?” he said, rubbing his eyes and peering past me toward the window. “I had a great nap. I always sleep well on planes. Now, what was it you said you were coming up here to do?”
I couldn’t believe it. He had slept through my entire fascinating lecture on sugaring off and sleigh driving! For a second I felt really annoyed and considered telling the man exactly what I thought of his manners. I mean, looking out the window while you’re talking is one thing. Falling asleep while someone else is talking—especially when she’s talking about something interesting—is something else!
Then I had a better idea. I smiled at him politely. “I said I’m going deep-sea diving as part of an archaeological exploration of the underwater caves that housed the early Viking settlers who actually turned out to be first cousins of Kublai Khan’s publicity people and who gave the recipe for spaghetti to Marco Polo. We want to find the part of the recipe that includes the sauce. You may think I’m too young to be involved in something like that, but I’m actually forty-three years old.”
The man gave me a really weird look, then cleared his throat and leaned over and started fiddling with his briefcase, even though the pilot had just said that we shouldn’t take out our under-seat baggage until the seat belt sign went off. I just shrugged and returned my attention to the window. I had better things to think about.
I was excited about seeing Dinah and about learning to drive a sleigh. I was also interested in learning more about sugaring off. It was sure to be a vacation I would never forget. But I had no idea at that moment exactly how memorable it was going to turn out to be.…
I had no trouble spotting Dinah in the airport. She and her father were waiting just outside the gate. As soon as I saw her, it was as if she had never moved away. She was grinning and waving and jumping up and down, and as soon as I got through the gate, we raced up to each other for a good long hug.
In the car on the way to the Slatterys’ house, Dinah told me a lot more about sugaring off. She said they could only do it at that time of year because it had to be when the days were warm enough for the sap to flow and the nights cold enough to freeze it.
“Sounds perfectly logical to me,” I told her, “only I can’t figure out where the spigot is. What do we do? Twist off a branch?”
I thought that was pretty amusing, but Dinah just rolled her eyes. “Very funny,” she said. “No, what we do is make a hole.” She went on to explain. We would drill a hole in the trunk of the tree, then put a spile (that’s sort of like a spigot) into the hole. After that we’d hang a bucket from the spile. The spile directs the sap out of the tree and into the bucket.
Of course, back then I didn’t know as much about the whole process as I do now. “That’s all there is to maple syrup?” I asked. “We just go get it from the tree?”
“No way!” Dinah told me. “What we get from the tree is sap. That’s like very watery syrup. In fact, you can taste it and you’ll hardly be able to figure out what it is. No, what we do then is boil it. And boil it. And boil it.” You see, it turns out that it can take fifty gallons of sap to make one gallon of maple syrup! It takes even more boiling to turn the maple syrup into maple sugar. But Dinah insisted that all that work was definitely worth it—and now that I’ve learned so much about the whole process, I can say that I agree with her. Maple syrup and sugar are the best!
But I still hadn’t learned that yet. In fact, I was so busy thinking about how I had to remember to read To Kill a Mockingbird while I was there that I almost missed what Dinah said next. Luckily I tuned in just in time, because it was very interesting and informative. She was explaining the connection between sugaring off and her riding class (since she had mentioned in her letter that her riding class would be doing the sap collecting). She said that the owner of her stable, Mr. Daviet, bought the land the stable is on without even realizing that it was just packed with sugar maples. When he figured it out, he decided to start the Sugar Hut as an offshoot business. He even named the place Sugarbush Stables, both after the closest town and, of course, because of the whole maple sugar connection. Pretty fascinating detail, huh?
Anyway, Dinah also told me about the contest we would be taking part in. Mr. Daviet’s students had divided up into teams of three. The team that collected the most sap (and helped turn it into the most syrup) would win the grand prize.
“What’s the grand prize?” I asked her. For a second I imagined things like a trip to Hawaii, a million dollars, a fancy house.… But I figured it wasn’t really anything like that.
Still, I was surprised when Dinah told me what the real prize was. “The winning team will always have first pick of riding horses at classes all next summer,” she said.
“Outstanding!” I said, and I meant it. Maybe someone
who doesn’t ride wouldn’t understand, but being able to ride your favorite horse in every class is truly a terrific prize.
I was ready to get started right away, and so was Dinah. She said the weather was perfect for setting out the buckets. “You can meet Betsy Hale, our teammate for the competition,” she said, “and then we can get started.”
“Today?” I asked.
Dinah grinned. “No time like the present!”
I grinned back. I hadn’t seen Dinah for a long time, but if I had ever forgotten why we were such good friends (I hadn’t), I remembered now. We think the same way. Neither of us likes to sit around and wait for the fun to start. We like to get out there and start it ourselves! I guess you could chalk that up to our natural exuberance.
We stopped at Dinah’s house long enough to drop off my stuff and change clothes. Then we headed to the Sugar Hut. I’d like to take a moment right here to give you an idea about what the Sugar Hut is like and how I felt when I first saw it.
WHAT IS THE SUGAR HUT?
Let me spell it out …
S is for small—the Sugar Hut really is little more than a hut
U is for the unfinished, rough-hewn logs that form the walls
G is for the gorgeous drifts of snow that nestle around the tiny building
A is for the aroma of sweet-smelling wood-smoke from the fireplace
R is for the red-painted front door
H is for the humble look of the central stone chimney
U is for unbelievable—I still couldn’t believe I was really there!
T is for terrific—which is how I felt when I realized I was in for a whole lot of fun! And educational learning.
We actually didn’t spend much time at the Sugar Hut that day. We had other things to do. The first order of business was for me to meet Betsy Hale, the third member of our team. She has dark brown curly hair and a really cool smile that makes deep dimples in her round cheeks. I liked her right away. She was that kind of person.
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