Chapter 2 - Across Canada - busted

Well that’s it. We had lunch at a roadside place that made a sort of Acadian pie that was mostly potato and not that great but interesting if you know what I mean. The car stopped dead right in the middle of the highway and it just wouldn’t go no matter what Dad did. We had to get it towed to a garage where the mechanic said he was surprised it had come this far. So that’s the end. Dad is mad that now he has to buy a new car as well as pay for plane tickets to get us home. I’m disappointed because I never got to see the rest of Nova Scotia or the Bluenose boat that’s on the dime.

Oh well, Mom is happy.

Chapter 2 - Across Canada - Edward's last day

Yesterday was sunny and hot so we went to the beach. Mom made sandwiches from the leftovers from the lobster dinner and we got some fruit and pop on the way. Sidney wore her new bikini and I know she was desperately hoping there would be lots of boys. Sam wanted to play with her latest souvenirs, three Mexican jumping beans she calls Preston, Edward and Irving, named for each letter of P.E.I. There were actually five in the packet but two of them don't jump. I just wanted to lie out in the warm sun and read. We were having a good time until it got late and it was time to leave. Our motel key is one of those big plastic kind with the address of the place printed on it, but it was coloured a sort of rusty red. I guess nowhere else in the world would that be a problem except on a beach on Prince Edward Island. The key thing was exactly the same colour as the sand and it got lost.

Dad got in a state, divided the area into squares and put each of us into one square, directing us to go over the sand that was in our square on our hands and knees until we found it. Except Mom, who just breathed this big sigh and went to stand by the water's edge, looking out to sea while we worked. The sun was starting to set and it was getting harder and harder to see. I thought for sure we’d have to sleep on the beach and was wondering whether ‘Fakira the brave’ would be able to find fresh water so we wouldn’t die of thirst. Mom came back and told Dad to just leave it, the motel would give us another key, and Dad said the motel will charge him for an extra key and Mom called him cheap and Dad kept stepping into my square of sand and mucking it up and when I shoved his feet out of the way he got all mad at me.

At last Sam found the key. But in the scrabbling in sand she lost Edward. On our way back to the motel she howled all the way saying Dad didn’t look for Edward because he didn’t love her. She went on and on until he promised he’d buy her another Edward, but that made her howl more, saying “Is that what you’d do if you lost me? Just buy another Sam?” Sometimes she is just too weird. Dad lost his temper and then Mom snapped at him and Sidney asked where we were going to eat that night and everyone told her to shut up. What a family! I sure hope this really is our last vacation because I don’t know if I can stand another one.

Today we got to go to Green Gables where Lucy Maud Montgomery wrote the Anne books. Sidney said they were little girl books but I don’t care. I just love them. I am nothing like Anne. I wish I was more like her and had red hair and wasn’t so shy. I bought a postcard of her house to help inspire me to be more like Anne. Mom bought us new outfits in Charlottetown. Mine is a striped pantsuit with navy blue fringes. Sam had a conniption yesterday when Irving the jumping bean became Irving the fly and flew away, but I thought it was thrilling. So that’s what’s inside a Mexican jumping bean! Now she won’t let Preston out of her sight so she can see him become a fly too.

Chapter 2 - Across Canada - a taste of heaven

We took the ferry across to Prince Edward Island and drove past green farms and soft hills, pretty towns, and the most wonderful red coloured dirt. Dad says it’s not dirt, it’s soil. Scientists like Dad are very particular about things like that. But I don’t mind knowing the correct names for things. I will always call it soil from now on. The best bit was seeing the ocean again, even thought it’s a different one from the one I know. The smell of it makes me get all energetic and I want to do things. I had no idea how much I loved the sea until being away from it for so long.

We went looking for a place for dinner and passed a church hall with a big sign saying “Lobster & Steak dinner $6”. Even Dad thought that was reasonable so in we went. I thought Mom’s head might turn right around because we’re walking into a church hall and she hates churches and religion and God so much, but she just set her mouth in a straight line and went in.

I’ve never eaten lobster before. I had no idea they are so enormous! There was also corn on the cob and salads and bread rolls and butter. You pay your $6 then take a plate and line up. Sam was trying to decide if she wanted steak or lobster but I knew I just had to try lobster. Travel is about trying new things. If I want to be a world traveller I have to be open-minded and try everything that is available. Dad got to the front of the line first and pointed to a huge steak, which one of the old ladies picked up with a big fork and slapped on his plate. And then right away another lady plopped a lobster on his plate as well! He stood there looking shocked and I’m sure the rest of us had eyes like saucers until the lobster lady asked him to move along and help himself to corn. I can’t believe it – we got a steak AND a lobster plus all that other stuff for only $6!

The taste of lobster is like heaven. Especially when it’s dipped into melted butter. Mine was so big I could barely get through it and couldn’t even start the steak. I thought it would be an insult to the ladies who worked so hard to make it, so asked Mom to wrap it in a napkin, convincing her and Dad by saying it will save time and money at lunch tomorrow if we made steak sandwiches with the bread rolls. Mom sniffed at the bread rolls, saying they were bought instead of homemade but I thought with all the rest of the stuff we got who cares about bread rolls anyway? Mom’s purse was bulging with everyone’s leftovers and she kept looking around hoping nobody noticed. Well, almost everyone’s leftovers. Dad actually ate it all. Even a huge serving of strawberry shortcake. It’s the first time I think I’ve seen him really happy on this whole trip.

Chapter 2 - Across Canada - everyone's smelling

Our car is a lot fuller than it was when we left home. Sidney has bought about a dozen new outfits. I have my socks, three new books and a big map of Historical Canada that I can put on my bedroom wall. It has the flags and crests and everything for each province and territory. Even Sam buys stuff and she hates shopping usually. It’s mostly bizarre souvenirs though. Yesterday in Bathurst she bought a round metal tray with a bright red lobster painted on it. What does she want with a tray decorated with a lobster? It’s her new favourite thing and she put it on the night table on her side of the bed. Sidney made the mistake of putting her makeup on it when Sam was having a shower, and when she saw that Sam just tipped it all over the floor. One of the bottles of perfume opened so we had to evacuate the hotel for hours until the smell of ‘Tigress’ had subsided. I was secretly relieved. I can’t stand that stuff. In the morning Sidney puts on way too much and the smell of her ‘Tigress’, Mom’s ‘Shalimar’ and Dad’s ‘Brut’ makes me want to puke. Thank goodness Sam doesn’t wear anything smelly. Except her socks. I hate perfume. I'd rather smell like the little bars of soap that we find in each motel. Before I wash I always close my eyes and smell the soap to try to fix it in my memory so that I can compare them with all the others. I guess my sense of smell is not so sharp because they are all starting to smell the same. Unless they are the same. I hadn't thought of that. They could be I suppose - they are almost always the same colour of pink.

When I was a little kid my friend Lisa Donahue’s Mom used to give us her old blue perfume bottles when they were empty. If we filled them with water it made more perfume. I’d line mine up on the windowsill to see the light shine through the colour, making blue patches on my bed and carpet as the sun hit them at different times of the day. Looking back, even then it wasn’t the perfume I liked so much as the dark blue bottles.

Mom said I am not to be trusted with money anymore because I give it away to old ladies on the street or spend it on useless things like books and out of date maps instead of ‘practical things’ like clothes and jewelry or things for my hope chest which don’t really seem all that practical to me. She tells me I should be less serious and more fun at my age or I’ll turn into my father. So now I have to ask her whenever I want to buy anything which is embarrassing so I don’t anymore. How can what I want be less useful than a metal lobster tray?

Chapter 2 - Across Canada - violets and wolves

We crossed the border into New Brunswick. Every time we go into another province I look up the provincial flowers, trees, and flags in my atlas and almost have them all memorized. I will always think of purple violets now when I think of New Brunswick. I can test myself on the way back. The scenery is mostly just trees and trees going on and on. There's no mountains, just lots and lots of trees. Mom says this province's motto should be "the drive through province". I think she meant it as a joke.

I like to trace the outline of each province on my atlas to memorize its curves and shape. The least interesting was Saskatchewan which is just an enormous rectangle. My favourite so far is Quebec. Its shape looks to me like a wolf, with a long snout and its mouth open to the sea and its lower lip sticking out which is the Gaspe peninsula that Dad says we will get to see on our way back home which makes the idea of heading home much better knowing I am going to go round Quebec's lower lip and see Roche Perce which is a big rock with a hole in it that boats can go through which I know about because there is a photo of it in my atlas.

It rained really hard almost the whole day. Because the only things you could see were trees that went by in a green blur I watched the raindrops hit the window and flow across in streams on an angle from the top left to the bottom right as we drove along. Sidney would be able to see them going from the right to the left as she is sitting by the other window but she doesn't seem that interested and just rolled her eyes at me when I brought it up. I liked to trace the path of the water streams just like I trace the outline of the provinces and tried to see patterns but it was mostly only lines. When I got bored with that I would watch a raindrop that landed near the top of the window and that was really small and then got bigger as another drop fell on top of it. It would finally get so big and heavy that it started to move down the window, slowly at first in little steps and jerky movements and then, as it joined other drops and got bigger and bigger, it moved faster and faster. Finally it would get so big that it would just run down to the bottom of the window really quickly and I would have to find another drop to watch. Rain really is beautiful when you have the time to look at it and don't worry about getting wet.

Chapter 2 - Across Canada - does God work in a parking lot?

Everyone else is getting tired of travelling but I really look forward to getting into the car every morning now, not really knowing where we are going but knowing that it will be somewhere new. Or wondering if we’ll even get there. The car didn’t start again this morning and we actually had to phone a garage to fix it. When it was working again we followed the St. Lawrence River, stopping to see a crazy big church that Dad had read about and said people from all over the world went there to be cured from whatver they had that was wrong with them. Mom refused to go inside saying it was all hogwash. She just sat in the car with her arms crossed tight puffing on cigarettes like a chimney. I wonder if being this angry at God in a church parking lot means she's going to hell. I hope not. Dad tried to make it up to Mom by stopping again, this time for lunch in Rimouski. It’s kind of an ugly place but at least it has a good name. Mom softened up a bit and uncrossed her arms for the first time in hours. Her fingers don't look any different so I guess her blood is still circulating. I sat with my arms crossed that tight to see what it felt like but the tips of my fingers turned purple after about 10 minutes.

Chapter 2 - Across Canada - the most romantic place in the world, so far

Quebec City is the most beautiful place I’ve ever been to in my entire life! It’s really historic and graceful. There’s a great big hotel that looks like a castle on top of a hill that looks out along the St. Lawrence River, with all these curvy streets and old buildings at the bottom. And the Plains of Abraham. Right here, with the fort and everything! We read about it in school but it’s so much more exciting to see the real place. I spent the entire afternoon just wandering around the whole area imagining what it must have been like a hundred years ago. Then I practiced dying like Wolfe and Montcalm, trying to be romantic without getting my clothes too dirty. Someone walked past me once with an amazed look on their face. I guess they weren't expecting some girl in a scooter skirt to be lying on the grass writhing in agony after having been shot with a musket.

Chapter 2 - Across Canada - mount royal

Dad couldn’t start the car again yesterday. It’s like, every third day it won’t start. Mom says it’s an old banger that should never have been taken on such a long trip but my guess is that it is because a huge cloud of blackflies got into the engine and mucked it all up. When he can’t get it started, Dad gets quite active. I sit in my window seat, pretending to read but really watching him through the window. To see him thrash around and hit the hood with his fist and yell at the engine is exciting. You never know what he’s going to do next. When it finally gets working again, usually because someone comes by and asks to have a look at it, he drives off as if nothing has happened, never even mentioning it.

As soon as we crossed the border into Quebec, Dad tried to speak French at a restaurant. “Icky garkon”, he said, snapping his fingers at the waiter. I could have just died of mortification. I hid my face and hope that waiter guy never sees us again. Why does Dad even try? At least Mom doesn’t pretend to know any French, which surprised me until she told us why. “What do you want to go trying to speak another language for?” she asks. “English is perfectly good. Don’t tell me those Frenchies don’t understand us.” I can’t wait to try the French I am learning at school, but I sure hope I don’t sound like Dad does or I’d die of shame.

We are in Montreal right now which comes from the words Mount Royal. It’s bigger than Toronto and ever so much nicer. I don’t know why exactly, but it is. We went to the old part of the city and I just fell in love with it. The streets have cobblestones and the buildings are delicate with spiral ironwork stairs. I sat by myself in a pretty little church and just looked at the light coming in the window, but when I told Mom later what I had done this morning she said that was a useless way to spend time and what has the church ever done except take people’s money and tell people what to do with their lives. I should have known better than to tell her.

After lunch Mom and Dad said they had to go off somewhere on their own and we could all go off on our own too. Sidney and Sam wanted to come with me. In some ways I don’t like it ‘cause I prefer to wander by myself but in other ways I’m really flattered. I know it’s only because I can figure out maps and stuff and never get lost. But I hate always having to go where they want to go. Sidney just wants to go into shops to buy make-up and Sam wants to go and run around in a park. I want to walk along the streets and look at the buildings and imagine what it must be like to live in them, but in the end Mom said I should suck it up and stick with my sisters. Just because Sidney is the eldest and responsible for our safety and because Sam is the youngest and has to be looked after. Apparently being in the middle means you are not responsible nor worth looking after.

I thought about getting them lost, but of course I didn't.

The worst bit of the afternoon was at this café where we ordered a snack in French. The waiter seemed really nice and patient. Sam hasn’t had any French in school yet so mostly just pointed and said ‘merci beaucoup’, although from her it sounded like ‘mercy bouquet’. Sidney was really good actually and got us all the kind of pop we wanted. I tried to order some cake for myself but the waiter obviously didn’t catch what I wanted so I had to point it out on the menu. He smiled, and as soon as he left Sidney burst out laughing and said in a really loud voice that I’d ordered ‘earmuffs’. I could feel myself get hot and told her she was lying and just making fun of me but then the waiter came by with this huge grin and a plate with lettuce and this pair of blue earmuffs on top. I went bright red and started to well up while Sidney and Sam snorted, but the waiter must have been sorry to have made fun of my French because he immediately brought me this huge piece of chocolate cake for free. Not for the others. Just for Me. I shared it with Sidney and Sam just to show them I know how to be magnanimous.

When we were all together again I suggested that tomorrow we go to see the Expo '67 grounds because I thought we should honour something that celebrated Canada’s 100th birthday while we were here, but Dad said it was too expensive and Mom said the people in Quebec want to leave Canada and why should we support an exhibition put on as a fake show of being united and that awful Trudeau man and his ‘Official Languages Act’ really mucked things up even if he is kind of sexy and he just married someone from our city. Well, nearly our city. North Vancouver, but it’s the same thing really.