A Whirlwind Vacation Read Online Free Page A

know, I could go for one of those ham and cheese sandwiches I saw people eating yesterday,” Mr. Carew suggested.
    Annabelle’s father nodded. “Me too.” He turned to Vicki. “Can you recommend a good café?”
    â€œThere’s one right near the Cathedral of Notre Dame,” Vicki said. “That’s the next stop on our tour of Paris.”
    â€œNotre Dame,” Katie squealed excitedly. “Do you think we’ll see the Hunchback?”
    â€œThat’s only in the movies,” Annabelle told her.
    Katie frowned. Annabelle was such a know-it-all.
    â€œThat’s true,” Vicki agreed. She smiled at Katie. “But I think you’ll like Notre Dame anyway. There’s no other place like it.”
    Annabelle opened her mouth to speak, but Katie beat her to it.
    â€œNot even in Boston?” Katie asked Vicki.
    Annabelle blushed.
    Vicki laughed. “Not in the whole world,” she assured Katie.

Chapter 7
    Vicki wasn’t kidding. The Cathedral of Notre Dame was amazing! It was also kind of scary. The old church was decorated with huge, creepy stone monsters called gargoyles. They stuck out from the outer walls of the building, glaring angrily at the people on the street below.
    The grown-up tourists seemed really interested in the gargoyles. The Garcias and the McIntyres were even taking pictures of one another making creepy faces. But Katie thought the stone creatures were really scary.
    â€œI don’t like those things,” Katie said with a shiver. She turned away from the monsters’ rock-hard stares.
    â€œThey’re really just water spouts,” Vicki assured her.
    â€œCreepy water spouts,” Katie corrected the tour guide.
    Suddenly Katie heard a loud rumbling. “AAAAHHH!” she screamed out. She grabbed her mother by the arm. “What was that?”
    â€œIt was just my stomach growling,” Annabelle said with a giggle.
    â€œI think she’s hungry,” Mrs. Bridgeman told Vicki. “Didn’t you say there was a café nearby?”
    Vicki pointed toward the street. “There’s one right on the corner there. The girls will love it.”
    Katie was happy when she and her parents began to follow the Bridgemans away from the cathedral. She couldn’t wait to leave those gargoyles!

    â€œI would like a fromage sandwich,” Katie told the waiter at the café. She smiled proudly as she used the French word for cheese. The waiter smiled back and wrote down her order.
    Then the waiter walked over to the next small table where Annabelle and her parents were sitting. The tables at the café were so small that they couldn’t all sit together. But they were close enough.
    â€œRuff! Ruff!”
    Katie turned around. The woman at the next table was sitting with a small black poodle on her lap. In Paris, lots of restaurants allowed dogs to sit at the table.
    Pepper would love that, Katie thought to herself. She missed her cocker spaniel. He was back home in Cherrydale. Katie’s next-door neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Derkman, were taking care of him while the Carews were away. Katie hoped Mrs. Derkman was being nicer to Pepper than she had been to her third-grade class. When Mrs. Derkman had been Katie’s teacher, she’d been really strict.
    â€œDo you think Pepper’s okay?” Katie asked her mother.
    â€œI’m sure he’s fine, Katie,” Mrs. Carew answered. “He’s probably busy playing with Snowball in the yard right now.”
    Snowball was Mrs. Derkman’s dog. She was Pepper’s best friend ... other than Katie, of course.
    â€œI think I’ll send Pepper a postcard,” Katie told her mother. “I saw one with a picture of a French poodle on it back at the hotel.”
    Mrs. Carew smiled. “I think Pepper would like that.”
    Just then the waiter arrived with coffee for the adults and sodas for Annabelle and Katie.
    â€œMerci,”