Mosquitoes of Summer (2 page)

As the older child, Hannah was the shy and quiet one. She often had a smile on her face, and many people considered her the quintessential model of a “nice girl.” A voracious reader, she zipped through the books her mother bought her. She absolutely adored Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys mysteries. She was also the
biggest
(Hannah’s emphasis) CSI fan. The TV show that highlighted forensic science and “gross stuff” was Hannah’s
raison d’etre
, and she worshipped the weekly drama. Life would be worthless if she missed an episode of blood and gore.

She was also a real pro at pushing Emily’s buttons. Quietly and on the sly.

“Emily, your head’s on my side of the car,” whispered Hannah to the slouched-over blond hairball. “Push over or you’ll squish Mr. Bean.”

Instead of sitting back, Emily raised her left arm and plopped it further onto Hannah’s side. A deliberate, methodical and evil move. Hannah pushed it back with her right hand while her real-life parrot, Mr. Bean, sat upon her left. A severe tactical error! Emily lashed back. Hannah’s life flashed before her eyes.

“Ouch! You almost got Mr. Bean and now he’s freaking out,” yelled Hannah. “Get back on your side. Mooom-mmm! Emily is
touching
me. She won’t stop pushing over to my side. Tell her to stop. Now!”

“Hello Mr. Bean.”

“Pretty boy.”

“Cutie pie.”

“WHATCHA DOIN?!?!?!?!” screamed the green feathered Bean as he struggled to hold on to Hannah’s spastic hand.

“Emily, sit up,” said Mom glancing behind her.

“Watcha doin?” said the parrot, in a more subdued voice.

“If we get into an accident your seat belt won’t help you. In fact it might hurt you even more. So sit up!”

“Watcha doin?” Louder.

“And stay on your side.”

“Watcha doin?” Even louder.

“Hannah, stop pushing Emily

“Hannah, stop pushing Emily and watch out for the Bean. He’s toppling over.
Emily, Sit up!!
”

“WHATCHA DOIN?!!!”

Completely frazzled, Dad turned up the radio in hopes of drowning out the three mad sopranos in the back seat. This did not bode well for the upcoming 12 hour drive to PEI.

Then … horror of all horrors:

“How many more minutes till we get there?” yawned Emily. “I’m hungry.”

Reality check: they were only half an hour into the ride. Moans and groans came from both the front and back seats as “Teeny One” demanded answers, and more Timbits. Breakfast in the car would not be the same without those little donut hole treats that were gobbled up in one bite.

After scarfing down a dozen Timbits, Emily moved on to a bag of cotton candy and then some Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Crumpling up the chocolate bar wrapper, she then asked for chips. It was all washed down with some neon blue Gatorade.

“Hannah, peel your sister off the ceiling of the car and hide her snacks,” cried Dad. He was maneuvering through a difficult stretch of Highway 640 and the distraction from a hyper child on a massive sugar high was a bit much. “I can’t believe all this construction. They’ve been working on this road forever, and they make the detour lanes so narrow. Because it’s still dark out it’s hard to see where your next turn is.”

Thankfully, a few minutes of silence passed. There was actually a glimmer of hope that peace would triumph. But alas ...

“Mom, do my eyes still glow red in the dark or have I outgrown that little problem?” asked an angelic-looking Emily. She had a very attractive ring of chocolate around her mouth. She was peering at her reflection in the car door’s window, moving her head from side to side.

Mom almost choked on her cappuccino and laughed till she cried, or just plain cried. Hannah couldn’t tell for sure. Dad had an alarmed look on his face. “Yes Emily, the curse is still with you. Your eyes glow red, you can turn your head completely around three times, and when you speak you actually growl. Seriously though, wherever did you get that crazy idea from?”

“Do we really want to know?” whispered Mom. “Let’s tell ourselves it was a completely normal comment from a very normal child. Okay? Sometimes we need to pretend ignorance. It’s what keeps me sane.”

After giving Emily the evil eye, Hannah checked on the Bean. He was sleeping in his Bean Mobile (a converted cat carrier), oblivious to the chaos. He hated early mornings and refused to get out of his cage at home when it was time to leave. After forcefully prying his feet off his warm teddy bear one claw at a time, Mr. Bean was dumped into his carrier and brought to the car at four o’clock in the morning. How rude!

A much loved member of the family, the Bean had a character bigger than his 4-foot-tall palatial cage. Last year the two-year-old Mustached Parrot had to be babysat by Hannah’s grandparents, Nagymama and Nagypapa, when the family went on vacation. A month is a long time for a bird … and an obsessed girl too.

“Love you!” screeched the Bean as the car bounced through a nasty pothole.

Every year since Hannah was four years old, the family headed to PEI for a month-long holiday. The island has some of the loveliest beaches in Canada. Hannah and her family considered the north shore of this tiny province the best place of all. They always camped at Twin Shores in Darnley, about 20 kilometers west of the ever popular Cavendish, home of Anne of Green Gables.

This winter her parents decided to buy a vacation home on the island with some family friends, and planned on renting it out when they were not using it. Mom and Dad spent months looking through the online MLS listings, eliminating most of the houses they saw. Many were so old that they were falling apart. Others were out in the boonies and nowhere near a beach. Some houses even had to be moved from where they were currently standing. Imagine that!

Dad and his friend Andrew took time off from work in May and flew to PEI to look at a shortlist of potential buys. There was a really scary house that for some reason Hannah’s parents simply adored. It boggled the mind how some parents think! When Hannah saw a picture of the house she shuddered at the thought of spending a single night there.

It was an old Victorian in New London and the price, according to the adults, was just right. But in Hannah’s experienced opinion, the outside looked like a haunted house straight out of Goosebumps. The paint had faded a long time ago and the windows were all boarded up. They looked like eyes. Grass was waist high, the porch was sagging and the roof had big gaps in it. All that from a picture!

“But it has character and the woodwork in the house is simply gorgeous and New London is one of the prestigious areas of the province and it’s not far from Lucy’s house in French River, and you’ll love it,” her parents gushed, eager to convince two very unwilling girls. Luckily, after an onsite visit, Dad broke the bad news. The interior walls were crumbling from water-damage, there was no septic system and no interior plumbing, just an outside well that might or might not have water.

“That’s too bad – really,” said Hannah as she tried to console her parents. Oh-so-short pause. “So, did you find another house?”

“Yes, but it’s a bit out of our original price range and it needs a lot of work,” said Dad. “But it’s in Darnley and on the same road we take to go to the campsite.”

Hannah and Emily’s eyes opened wider as they continued to listen to the sales pitch.

“We’d be in the area we love and know so well, and you would still be able to see all your friends that you met at Twin Shores last year. You can still go watch the movies and play chocolate bar bingo at the campsite. An added bonus is that you can continue your bottle collecting business.”

Now this was more like it, thought Hannah. Last year Emily and Hannah decided to set up their own little business and began collecting empty beer, wine and pop bottles from the campsite. Lugging back bags and bags of glass empties, they would then redeem them at the local recycling depot in Kensington. The young entrepreneurs made over $200 last year.

Long story short, the Darnley house was bought, papers were signed in June and Hannah was all packed for the July 14 departure date. She could hardly wait to get there.

CHAPTER TWO

ROAD HOGS

“We’re not far from the bridge now,” Mom shouted over the rock music coming from the car’s CD player.

Finally, thought Hannah. Twelve hours cooped up in a crowded car listening to Dad’s music was not her idea of fun. Dad just
loved
Pink Floyd, a group from “his era,” like ancient history. Hannah thought some of the music was cool, but other songs were a bit too weird. She definitely did not get the ones where the animals start making music.

Emily was a U2 fan and unfortunately knew the lyrics to every song. The family had to listen to the Greatest Hits CD (and accompanying screeching) a couple of times before it was inexplicably “lost.” Emily usually woke up between Moncton and Confederation Bridge. One year she even missed the bridge part and Hannah laughed at her sister’s confusion. Not to mention the tangled nest of hair that strategically hid her face. This year looked like it would be a repeat performance.

Confederation Bridge is the longest bridge in the world to cross ice-covered salt water. The 12.9 kilometer span has two lanes, and a speed limit of 80 kilometers per hour. Built in 1997, it links Cape Jourimain, New Brunswick with Borden-Carleton, Prince Edward Island. The Bridge replaced a ferry service that was established in 1917. For 80 years the three-hour ferry ride shuttled people and vehicles between the two provinces across the Northumberland Strait.

Hannah had mixed feelings about the bridge. It was very exciting to see it in the distance as their car came closer and closer to the on-ramp. It meant that they were minutes away from the island. But the drive across was almost anti-climatic. Because their car was so low to the ground, Hannah had no view over the bridge. Concrete barriers lined both sides of the span and were too high to get any glimpse of the water. Ahead and behind were only cars. Bummer!

Prince Edward Island is bordered by two large bodies of salt water. The south shore is fronted by the Northum-berland Strait, and on clear days you could spot New Brunswick and Nova Scotia on the other side of the water. Gentle waves lap this shore and people claim that the water is much warmer on this side of the island. The north shore, bordered by the Gulf of St. Lawrence, is a much rougher but more exciting body of water.

At one point during the drive across, the bridge sloped upwards (so that boats might pass under it more easily). When the car got to this high point of the bridge, Hannah sat up on her knees in her seat to get a better look.

“I see it, I see it!” she yelled. “Look at the red cliffs. And the water looks rough. There’s PEI! We’re there!” Whipping out her kiddie binoculars, Hannah scanned the far shores of the island, trying to get a glimpse of a lighthouse, a boat, or even Anne of Green Gables.

“You know, before the two of you were born, Dad and I used to take the ferry across,” recounted Mom. “Back then, you had to line up in a big parking lot and wait your turn to get on. If you missed the boat,” she grimaced, “you had to wait for the next ferry, usually a few hours later.

“And when you landed in PEI and drove through the welcome gate,” Dad added, “Anne of Green Gables would be there, suitcase and all, waving to everyone. It was magical. You knew for sure that you were going to have a great time on the island.”

“How come she’s not here now?” piped up Emily, who managed to wake up from her nap just in time. Amazed, Hannah gaped at her sister, shocked that Emily was actually civil upon awakening. Usually it’s not a picnic, having to deal with someone who looks angelic in sleep, but is truly the devil when just woken up.

“Anne must be busy in Avonlea now,” said Dad. “After all, she can’t be in two places at once.” Glancing at his watch, he continued, “Right now she is probably out with her friend Diana, and then she’ll be going to the ceilidh in the church. Oops, look, we’re over. Only another half hour or so and we’ll be in Darnley by five this afternoon.”

As soon as the car touched solid PEI land, Dad changed CDs and started up Great Big Sea, a popular group of Newfoundland singers. Playing their music when on the island had become a tradition since time immemorial. Hannah loved listening to the jaunty Maritime fiddling. It always put her in a great mood; that is until Emily started singing along.

As vehicles made their way off the bridge, the Morgans were greeted by huge signs advertising the Gateway Village of Borden-Carleton. The Village was specifically built for bridge users. Many tourists stopped off here to pick up maps and guide books. The Village also had many gift stores that provided everything an average tourist would require of the island. It was a one-stop shopping experience of all things PEI. Mud shirts, Anne dolls, sea glass, Paderno pots, red sand sculptures and Authentic Lobster Chips filled store shelves.

In addition, there was a replica of one of the bridge pontoons, demonstrating the engineering feat required to build such a marvel. Hannah would have loved to stop off here and explore everything, but after such a long drive her parents were eager to get to their final destination. Regretfully, she watched as the car headed away from the south shore of the province.

Driving along Trans Canada Highway 1, the family followed signs for Summerside. One of the larger towns along the south shore, Summerside boasted warm waters, but not many good beaches, according to Hannah. At least nothing compared to where they were going. However, it did have the all important things like McDonalds, Wal-Mart, Canadian Tire and Dollarama (Hannah’s favourite store because her money went a long way there).

The car steadily made its way along the highway, passing Summerside and the Cavendish Farms Company. This local manufacturer produced various frozen food items, but Hannah’s favourite product was the best ever Flavour Crisp fries, made with home-grown PEI potatoes.

“Daddy, roll down the window. We want to smell the French fries. Look, there’s a blast of smoke. That means they’re cooking a new batch. Ummm! Smell that! PEI fries. Do you smell it Mr. Bean? This is your first sniff of the world famous fries. They’re the best vegetable in the world.”