Read Melanie Martin Goes Dutch for Free Online Page B

“It's when tourists get lured to the same crowded place and the place isn't all that interesting.”
    “And they trap you?” Matt asked. His eyes got big and round and he stopped fiddling with his stupid baby tooth.
    “No,” Dad laughed. “They just take some of your money.”
    “If Alkmaar is a little touristy,” Mom said, “that's fine because Matt here is a little tourist.”
    “I'm sure it'll be fun,” Cecily said, all cheerful.
    “I bet it will be cheesy,” I piped in. I meant it as a joke. Cecily laughed but I could feel Mom and Dad just wishing I had a better attitude. Sometimes even I wish I had a better attitude.
    I also wish Cecily would stop acting so cheerful. She's like a teacher's pet, only in this case, a family's pet. I thought it would be great being on vacation with her. But when we got on the bus and Matt said, “Sit next to me!” instead of saying, “Dream on, you little twerp,” she looked right at me, then said, “Okay,” and plopped next to him like she was his friend, not mine.
    I can't believe Matt the Brat is taking over my best friend. I can't believe she's letting him. And I can't believe Hans called on Cecily and made Matt the star of his show when he knew me first.
    Right now Cecily is letting Matt color all over her magazine. He is sitting on his bony-squooshy-plumpbutt-tushy-rump uglying up all the celebrities. He's giving them antlers and bloodshot eyes and drawing Band-Aids and Frankenstein stitches on their faces and putting cotton balls in some of their nostrils and making boogers ooze out of other of their nostrils. And Cecily is
laughing
.
    Mom and Dad are sitting side by side reading a book of van Gogh's letters.
    That leaves me, myself, and I in my slept-in clothes and inside-out underwear.
    At least I've got you and a pencil. And Anne Frank's diary.
    I'm up to the part where she says that she knows it does no good to be “gloomy” but says, “Still, I can't refrain from telling you that lately I have begun to feel deserted…. But why do I bother you with such foolish things? I'm very ungrateful, Kitty; I know that.”
    I feel a little deserted too. But, I know that I should be very grateful.
    It's just hard sometimes.

    (Zon Za HHHunse)
    Dear Diary,
    I guess I'm just not as into cheese as some people.
    I mean, cheese is okay. I like American cheese, and cream cheese on bagels, and mozzarella on pizza, and sometimes I don't mind a sprinkle of parmesan on spaghetti.
    But I'm not a cheese person.
    Well, around here, they take cheese very seriously— too seriously.
    Hans took us to a cheese museum—a kaasmuseum (Cahs Moo Zay Um). Cecily walked on one side of Hans and I walked on the other.
    We went to a cheese market that's been going on every Friday morning pretty much forever. Cheese sellers in straw hats were auctioning off tons of huge yellow cheeses. Imagine if you put your arms out in a big circle and touched your fingertips. Each wheel of cheese is that big—maybe bigger. Hans looked at me and asked, “You know what these cheeses are covered with?”
    I wanted to say “
Ja
,” but shook my head. I wishedhe'd given me an easy question.
    “Wax,” Hans said. We watched the men stack the waxy cheeses onto wooden sleds and rush to get them weighed and sent all over the world. Probably even to New York.
    “Holland was the first country to export cheese,” Hans said. “Holland still exports more cheese than any other country.”
    “Sports?” Matt said. “What's x-sports?”
    “Exports,” Dad explained, “are things one country sells to another country.”
    Cecily asked Hans to take a picture of all five of us in front of the giant cheeses. He gave her a big smile, and to make sure we smiled, guess what he told us to say?

    Speaking of, Mom and Dad bought a plate of cheese
    for us to sample. I didn't want any. Matt said, “Pretend you're a mouse.
Now
do you want some?”
    I glared at him and said, “Pretend you're a human. Now will you mind your own