“Mum! Oh! It’s so good to be home, I missed you so much, I can’t tell you!” Louisa threw herself into her mother’s arms. “It’s so good to be home, I’m going to cry!”
“”I’m very happy to see you, too, my darling,”” smiled Mum, “”was it so bad that you don’t want to let me go? The taxi is waiting outside”.
But Louisa held onto her mother as if she had never seen her before. It was true: they had just met for the first time, though she didn’t suspect that.
“I never want to let you go! You have the best smell in the world!”
“Well… that’s a nice compliment. But what’s got into you? You’re not usually so enthusiastic. Something bad happen at camp?”
“Nothing bad happened, lots of good things happened, I made a lot of new friends, I rode and I got paint on my clothes and it was great, I’m just so happy to see you!”
But Mum could not be fooled. She eyed Louisa suspiciously, as if she did not believe what she was seeing. The little girl came to her senses, smoothed down her skirt and said the first thing that came into her mind.
“The camp was good for me. It relaxed me a bit. We can go to the taxi now if you want”.” ““Louisa! Lulu! Come to daddy! You’re standing there like a man who’s wet himself in the street!” Dad ran towards Lotti on the arrivals side of London airport.
“I haven’t peed myself… It’s just still a bit weird to be home. I’m touched”.
“What? Where did you learn such words? Was it a literature camp or something?”” laughed Dad.
“What is it? Do you want to go by tractor?” Lotti opened her mouth.
“I don’t want to, but it was just that…” Dad saw that Lotti (whom he thought was Luisa) wasn’t taking the hint. Don’t be silly, we’re going in our perfectly normal car, of course”.
“Oh, you were joking!” Lotti was relieved.
“You bet. Is that so unusual?” Dad picked up Lotti’s (or Louisa’s) suitcase and started walking towards the exit. “You can charm the stars out of the sky at this time of night! Come on, we’ll grab an Indian on the corner on the way home, that’ll make your mouth water!”
“Anything but that! On the plane I got a tummy upset…”” ““Breakfast is ready!” Mum woke Louisa up at exactly 6:30, just as Lotti had told her. The little girl jumped out of bed and ran thundering down the stairs to the kitchen. She had already scouted the house the night before, so she wasn’t in the least uncertain.
“Well! What’s with all the noise? You nearly brought the ceiling down!” Mum shook her head.
“You know what I missed most about camp in the morning?”
“Tell me, what?”
“Making you coffee!”
“Well, here’s your chance!”
Louisa walked over to the coffee machine.
“The capsules are here, that’s right. I lift this one up, then the capsule I’ve used falls down… I put this one in… but what do I press?”
“What are you mumbling about, Lotti? Are you talking to yourself?”
“Oh, no! I just have to learn a poem by September and I have to remember it!
“You might ‘memorise’ it.” Mum corrected.
Of course! Louisa found the button and pressed it. The coffee flowed nicely into the doggy cup.
You forgot the milk! Louisa went to the fridge and poured milk into the coffee. She put the cup down in front of Mum.
“And you forgot to heat it up. What’s happened to you? You’ve been so strange since you came home!”” “Lotti woke up to the smell of fresh croissants. In the cage in the corner, Chubs the bunny was waiting for breakfast. Lotti had been begging her mother for years for an animal, but she never obliged because she thought animals were dirty. Quickly she filled Chubs’ feeding bowl, dressed, brushed her teeth, brushed her hair and walked out into the kitchen.
What’s got into you? “”I’ve known you for nine years, and you’ve never come out of your room in the morning, all dressed and combed”.
“The camp, you know… We did it that way there, and I found that it was much better, because I could get ready more comfortably than rushing around after breakfast.”
“Ay! You learned a lot in that camp. A little girl left; a grown woman came home. I think I need to talk to the camp director, I’ll call him”.
“Oh, no! Lotti cried out in horror. No… we can’t call her now, because the next camp is already on, and there are no phones and gadgets and stuff, you know”.
“Just kidding. I see they’ve taken your sense of humour in France along with the gadgets!
“Dad… I have to tell you something”.
Out with it.
“I love you already! I mean, of course I always have, but now I love you even more!”” ““Lotti, you should go to Lara’s tomorrow, because I have a meeting with my publisher in town”. Mum cleared the breakfast leftovers from the table and ran some water in the sink.
“Yay! It’s going to be Hyper-super! I can’t wait!”
“Hyper-super? What interesting words you have learned. Come on, help me wipe, and you can you’re your stories!”
“Well, everything was pretty cool! First of all, there was Blanche, who was really nasty at first, but then she turned out to be really nice. And Marie, a little girl with black hair who spoke really funny English! And I learned bonjour and bonsoir…”
“You already knew all that!” Mum was amazed.
“Oh, yes, but now they showed me how to pronounce it correctly! Not the way we do!” The words came out of Louisa’s mouth, and as usual when she spoke, she forgot to pay attention to what she was doing. A plate flew out of her hand and crashed to the floor with a great clatter.
“For heaven’s sake Lotti! You’ve never broken anything in your life. Not even when you were little”.
“At the camp…” Louisa moaned. “We didn’t wipe there…”
“And? Have you forgotten how?”