Surviving Summer Vacation Read Online Free

We’re leaving.”
    â€œBut sir—look, Mr. Rupe, it’s imperative that we exchange coaches—”
    â€œNot to me, it isn’t. If you have a new employee, someone with experience should be checking on him before a customer puts nine days’ worth of supplies into a rig. Get in, kids, we’re leaving. We’re late enough now.”
    So we got in, and Mr. Rupe closed the door in the guy’s face and took his seat up front.
    We were ready to roll. Mr. Rupe turned on the engine, and the big coach throbbed ­gently beneath us. Mrs. Rupe tightened her seat belt in the copilot’s seat up front, and all uskids sat on the couch or the easy chairs or on the floor. We didn’t have any seat belts.
    Harry leaned back with his hands behind his head. “This is the life,” he said.
    â€œRight, this is the life,” I echoed. I could see Syd still standing on the lawn, and he looked furious.
    Mr. Rupe shifted into reverse and began to back out into the street.
    There was a screeching of brakes and then a horn blew furiously. Harry and I turned to look out the window.
    â€œI think we almost backed into Mr. Gilligan’s pickup,” I said. Mr. Gilligan, who lives across the street, was red-faced and angry looking as he drove around the back end of the motor home.
    Mr. Rupe began to ease backward again, and his wife spoke sharply.
    â€œWatch it, you’re going to hit—well, it was only a little tree. Maybe it’ll grow back.”
    â€œThis thing’s so long it’s hard to tell how wide I have to swing to get around anything,” Mr. Rupe said under his breath.
    â€œI have to go potty,” Ariadne said.
    â€œCan’t you at least wait until we’re out of the driveway?” her mother asked, but Alison said quickly, “I’ll take her, Mrs. Rupe.”
    My sister stood up and fell forward on her face in my lap. Alison is pretty graceful most of the time, and I was surprised.
    Billy, who had been sitting on the floor in front of her, looked up with a cherubic smile. “I can tie shoelaces,” he said.
    Sure enough, he’d tied Alison’s laces together in a double knot. I thought maybe his parents would tell him that wasn’t a good thing to do, but they didn’t pay any attention. Mrs. Rupe wasn’t paying attention and Mr. Rupe concentrated on steering the big motor home down our narrow street without hitting any of the parked cars on either side.
    â€œBe careful, Milton, you’re going to scrape the . . . well,” Mrs. Rupe said as we lurched over the curb going around a corner, “I guess this takes a little getting used to.”
    We were only a block from home, and I was beginning to get the idea that Mr. Rupe wasn’t such a good driver, at least not with a big rig like this. I looked at Alison, who had just comeback from the bathroom, and decided she thought so too.
    I spoke under my breath to Harry. “Did your dad ever drive anything this size before?”
    â€œI don’t think so,” Harry said. “Don’t worry. He’ll get the hang of it.”
    â€œI’m hungry,” Billy announced about the time we went up the ramp onto the freeway. “Can I have a candy bar?”
    â€œYou know where they are,” his mother said without turning around. “Milton, look out!”
    A car narrowly missed us as we merged into the traffic on I-5, and once more a horn blared. Mr. Rupe muttered under his breath again. “You’d think they could see a rig as big as this one and go around it,” he said.
    I don’t drive yet—you can’t even get a learner’s permit in Washington until you’re fifteen and a half—but I knew that a vehicle coming onto the freeway was supposed to blend in with the fast traffic already moving, not just drive in front of it.
    My mouth felt a little bit dry, so when Harry got up to get some Cokes out of the fridge,