Five Bestselling Travel Memoirs Box Set

by Twead, Victoria

  “I’ve always wanted to see the Terra Cotta Warriors, ever since they were discovered,” Mom said dreamily. Why would she want to do this? Isn’t she over that childish dream of digging to China yet? Because that is what she is doing – digging and BURYING my life, starting with this very first scoop! My eyes glassed over as I waited and stared out the window, letting her talk.

  “All that history! Can you imagine? I’d love to have been with the farmers when they found them. Can you imagine what it took for the archeologists to put all the pieces together to rebuild those warriors?” she continued.

  “Ok, Mom,” I finally cut in, taking my eyes away from the window, “there is a big difference between buying a puzzle and doing it on your free time,” the mention of puzzles put an even bigger smile on her face, “and giving up your entire life for one!”

  “Oh, Savannah. It’s not the end of the world. It’s going to be fun. Trust me. And we’re not giving up our whole lives. It’s only a year. You have lots of years of your life to live. It will be an amazing experience for all of us.”

  “Oooh, wow. Look! This is really cool. Soooo pretty!” Beside me, Kelly was ogling the book that was open on Mom’s lap.

  “Seriously? What are you on? ’Cause that does not sound appealing to me – AT ALL!” It was easy for her to enjoy the photos and dream of going, but I knew she wouldn’t be willing to sacrifice her life as she knew it – she’d never carried anything other than an expensive purse, let alone an ugly, heavy backpack. A faint clicking on the glass from Harrison’s claws interrupted this train of thought, but it was quickly replaced by another as I began to generate an objection I hoped Mom would appreciate more than my angst.

  “Bree isn’t going to like this one little bit. You’re seriously going to take her away from her boyfriend for that long?” I asked, slamming my palms down on the couch as I stood. Sliding the window open, I scooped Harrison up in my arms and dropped him on the couch.

  My seventeen-year-old sister, Breanna, has always been my best friend and my worst enemy. As sisters tend to be, she is both a curse and a blessing. She has a very competitive, determined personality, which explains how it’s possible for her to spend four hours, five days a week, training at gymnastics. She’d been dating Fernando for the last ten months, and I couldn’t imagine her choosing China over him, or her gymnastics, either, for that matter.

  “I already talked to her. She wasn’t too upset. She figured that she might as well be out doing this as anything else, since Fernando is going away for his two-year missionary work anyway. Ammon is already busy planning a route for us.” My eldest brother, Ammon, is a twenty-five year old “genius.” When you get right down to it, he’s not much more than a big brain carried around on a six-foot-two, surprisingly strong rack of bones. He’s the kind of dude whose head is full of random facts and figures. Research and information flood his very being, but he is not so much a nerdy brainiac as he is a crazy scientist. Even so, his desire to wander the seven seas goes hand in hand with his life-long search for knowledge. The yin and yang of his soul struggle for balance between the seeker and the wanderer.

  The moment Mom told him about her desire to see the world, she and Ammon started buying travel books. Working together, they began exploring the world through maps and books, trying to decide where this year-long excursion would lead. Their whole scheme was beginning to fall into place. Her “pretty” little book was no accident. She had gone out of her way to purchase it. Okay, this has gone far enough!

  “Why did I not know about this?! Everybody knew except me,” I demanded.

  “Well, you were away,” Mom said meekly.

  “That is not an excuse. You must’ve known before I went to Terri’s. You just leave me in the dark and break it to me now? You don’t even care how I feel about it!”

  “I just figured there was no sense in worrying you until I knew for sure we were going,” she admitted. Like that makes me feel any better! I took a deep breath.

  “But why?! Why do you want to do this?” I questioned fearfully.

  “I’m always jealous of Ammon when he goes away and does his three-month backpacking trips. I’ve always wanted to do that. Now is just the right time for me.”

  From what I’d heard of his travels, including the unbearably stingy budget and the food he ate, it was the very last thing I’d ever be envious of.

  “I think the timing is right for him, too. He knows what he’s doing. This is going to be our last chance to do something as a family; I mean, it won’t be long before you’ll all be moved out and we’ll be living our own lives.”

  Isn’t life always going to be gathering around the table and eating dinner with the family, laughing and telling jokes and stories? I sure don’t want anything else. I was forced to face the current family situation I’d been too scared to accept. Dear Skylar had gone off and joined the military three years ago, and Dad had moved out. Mom was right, but I wasn’t ready. I wouldn’t be leaving home for years. I’m only fourteen!

  It was all beginning to feel way too real. “Why does that mean we have to go away for a whole year?!” I nearly cried all over again, unable to grasp that length of time. A year is all the time between one birthday and another, the entire time from one Christmas to the next!! The wait between those events already seemed to take forever. I couldn’t even imagine how it would feel to be away from home SO LONG, pining to come back every single day.

  “Because if I’m going to go to all the effort of selling everything, any less time just wouldn’t be worth it. If you’re going to go see it, you may as well REALLY see it,” she explained.

  “See what!?”

  “The WORLD, Savannah! There’s so much out there we can’t even imagine.” My mouth hung open as I tried to form words, but nothing came out. It was one of the most eye-opening days I’d ever experienced – the day I realized how completely unpredictable life can be. One day it’s going this way and the next, it’s spiralling off in a semicircle, taking a blind leap from atop a sheer cliff. And I’m in the back seat, unsure if we’ll somehow magically soar off into a regal sky or suffer what I figured was the far more likely outcome, the one where gravity kicks in and causes us all to be ripped to shreds on the jagged rocks below. That is essentially what it was: a blind leap of faith – faith in one’s self, in one’s ability, happiness, strength, endurance – the list could go on and on.

  Completely drained by the day’s emotional toll, I sobbed myself to sleep. The whole giant disaster began forming into nightmares. Harrison always slept at the end of the bed and kept my feet warm, but I was grateful to him for staying close and letting me cuddle him in my arms that night, at least until I fell asleep. It was as if he could sense my pain and knew I needed him.

  Chapter 3: Itinerary

  A few days passed but, unfortunately, Mom’s sanity level did not change. She had disciplined me for bad behaviour in the past, but I always knew I’d crossed the line when she threatened to take my pets away. She once literally let my hamsters loose in the yard. But this, THIS, was more devastating than my puny little mind could absorb. She didn’t even consult me about it first. And then it hit me. This wasn’t about me. There’s nothing to complain about because she wasn’t doing it to punish me, so it wasn’t something I could beg or cry my way out of. I had to try to reason with her.

  I walked casually into her room, Harrison’s nails clicking gently on the hardwood floor behind me. Standing at the end of the bed where she lay, I tilted my head sideways to see what she was reading. Hrmph! Just as I suspected. She seemed unmoved by my presence, so I grabbed her foot and bit her toe.

  “Yoweeee!” she yelped, slamming the book down. I chuckled, and she returned to her book. I jumped onto the three-and-a-half-foot-high bed and crawled down the length of her body, disturbing her completely. I then shoved her book away so she was forced to look at me.

  “STOP planning this!” I said in a typically theatrical tone, grabbing the something-or-other Asian book
from her hands “Errrr” I growled at her and reinforced it with a crazy, wagging head movement and clenched teeth. Adding a second, more forceful “eerrrgggg,” I did my best to intimidate her.

  “Savannah! For goodness sake!” She lifted her blankets in a self-defensive stance, trying hard not to giggle in discomfort.

  Dropping to her belly, I bit her hips and shook her, imitating a disgruntled animal’s wild mauling behaviour, then looked up pleadingly, “But a whole year, Mom? Really?” I buried my head again. “We could just stay here, nice and cozy by the fireplace,” I said, smiling to emphasize how attractive that would be. “We don’t need the Asian sun to keep us warm. And why couldn’t we just use a tanning bed? And hey, we can buy those straw hats here, too, I’m sure. Heck, we’ve got Discovery Channel for your little warrior guys. Plus, you know how much I HATE rice.”

  “Oh, Savannah, that’s not the same at all,” she said. “It’s a bit too late to talk me out of this, and you’ll learn to like it, I promise.”

  “Like what? The trip or rice? I doubt I’ll ever like either.” With a sudden jolt, I remembered another argument, this time a strong one. She can’t just leave the family business.

  “What about the tour business!? We can still run it as a family without Dad,” I pressured desperately. My own powers of persuasion were failing to convince her, so I began putting a lot of this on his shoulders and became a little less jocular.

  “Yah, I thought about that at first, but it’s a heck of a lot of work to run it all, you know.” My parents had built their tour business from scratch. What started out as a favour, driving our hosted Japanese students to Seattle, turned into a multi-bus company offering adventure tours on weekends for Vancouver’s ESL (English as a Second Language) students. We highlighted main attractions around B.C. and parts of the U.S., including all the major attractions as well as activities such as skiing, river rafting, sky diving, and bungee jumping.

  “But we’ve done it for all this time!” I waved one hand around, leaning the rest of my weight on the other arm. “And it’s doing so well. How can you just stop now?”

  “Oowwww! Your boney hips are killing me!” she whined.

  Adjusting myself to relieve her now that I finally had her attention, I added, “Mom, you basically run it all anyway.”

  “Without your Dad, though, it’s going to be a lot harder. It won’t be the same anymore,” she told me.

  “It’s not like Dad did a whole lot anyway,” I spat out venomously. If it weren’t for him leaving, Mom never would have had this stupid idea of selling everything. Live out of a bag! Good Grief! “You’ll still have Ammon and everyone else helping, and soon I’ll be old enough to work for you, too.”

  I couldn’t understand why this didn’t seem to register with her. Our family had worked so hard on this business. We’d made a pretty good living, and now that our only competitors were relocating to Toronto, there was more potential than ever. How could she turn her back on it when, after ten years of hard work, legalities, paperwork, and overcoming all sorts of other obstacles, the company finally verged on real success?

  “I don’t know what your dad is going to do if I take over the business. I could run him right out of town, of course, but it’s just not worth it. Who needs that kind of negativity? Life is too short for that.”

  “How is he ever going to do it without us? He can’t do it without us,” I stated. This was a fact.

  “I’m going to have to teach him what I know before we leave. After that, he’ll just have to figure it out for himself. It’s the best I can do,” she said, realistically.

  “Don’t tell me you feel sorry for him!? You’re just going to give him everything??” I simply couldn’t believe it.

  “No, no. Not at all! He’ll have to buy me out of the business. Plus, when I was talking to Pam---”

  “You mean she told you to do this!?” I jumped in, trying to comprehend my wealthy aunt coming up with the idea of backpacking. Dad’s sister-in-law was my well-to-do Aunt Pam who lived in Seattle, three hours south of us. I had always respected and loved her dearly.

  “No, no. Of course not. But when I told her I was going to take over the business, she asked me if that was what I really wanted to do. ‘Don’t just do what you think you have to do to meet other peoples’ expectations,’ she said. She just planted that little bit of doubt in my mind, and then I started thinking, ‘Yah. What do I want to do?’ That’s when it hit me very strongly that I need to take you guys and go see the world.”

  “But how are we going to support ourselves? What are you going to do for work?” Finally, more pressing concerns began to surface. I just looked at her, desperately seeking answers.

  “My whole life, things have always worked out. I’ve never been without food, never without shelter. One way or another, things have always worked out for me, and I’ve always had what I needed,” she replied, her faith in the universe’s inherent bounty shining through, as always.

  She’d given neither a solid, nor a comforting answer. I didn’t share her confidence, but I had never yet seen her doubt herself. If she ever did, it never showed. She excelled at holding her head high and comforting others with her presence, never seeming to feel pressured by hard times. But her confidence still somehow managed to surprise me this time.

  “So, when are you planning to go!?”

  “Well, I’d leave immediately, but Ammon still has a few months left at university. If we wait for him, Bree’ll basically be finished high school by then, too.”

  “And me?! What about me?” I nearly shouted, “What about my schooling!?”

  “You’re smart. You’ll have no problem catching up. It’s only a year. I made an appointment for two o’clock next Tuesday with your counsellor.” I shook my head as it slowly sank in. She was actually going to implement this crazy scheme! I felt trapped, cornered, out of air, and tears welled up again. I realized then that, despite my stuttering, incoherent cries, nothing would come between her and this opportunity – she’d made up her mind.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  After studying the world’s seasons, temperatures, and main attractions, it was decided that we should start in Hong Kong. From there, we could travel north to Beijing, stopping en route at main attractions such as the Terra Cotta Warriors and the Great Wall of China, proceeding to Mongolia, Russia, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. We could then re-enter China at a western border crossing and pass through Tibet to reach Nepal in time for the trekking season to see the one and only Mount Everest! This was the six-month outline that was presented to Bree and me. After that we would head to India, Southeast Asia and finally Australia. Nothing I did or would try to do in the next five months could alter this, but something had to, I thought cynically. I had to find some way to stop this madness!

  Chapter 4: My Brother’s Battles

  Light streamed in after a one-week absence where humid, almost steamy air lingered as Mom began carefully pulling back the edges of the blood-caked bandages from Ammon’s scalp. Squeamish, she hesitantly peeked in before exclaiming, “It’s … it’s … it’s an EAR!” the way someone else might announce the sex of a newborn baby after peeking at its privates. It seemed quite reasonable she would find a reconstructed ear; after all, that’s what the plastic surgeon was for. Still, she had envisioned the worst, despite his earlier assurances that he’d done his best to make it look like an ear. He’d gently added, though, that it wouldn’t be as nice as the one she’d made him. She had secretly confided her fear that it might look like someone had come by with scissors and chopped it off.

  “Ammon, did you hear that! It’s really cute, even,” she said, quickly moving in front of him to see his face. He forced a stiff smile. The past few weeks had been an intensely difficult period for him. Now we at least knew he’d still have an ear, noticeably smaller than the original, but an ear nonetheless. He’d envisioned all sorts of outcomes throughout the days of sitting around in bandages, feeling nauseous. But the waiting was only jus
t beginning.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  It was only pure chance that Ammon had gone to the doctor to check a slightly irritating mole on the back of his ear, whereupon it was promptly removed. The tiny mole could so easily have been ignored or overlooked, given how much he had on his plate: He guided and drove the family’s tour bus, was a teaching assistant at Simon Fraser University, juggled his studies to complete his final honours project, and planned the trip of his dreams.

  A few days after the removal and subsequent biopsy of the dark mole, Ammon had returned to the doctor’s office to have the stitches removed. But when he got there, he was greeted with what he’d feared most.

  “I did a most precise job on your stitches to ensure the faintest of scars, but unfortunately, it was all for nothing,” the surgeon had said as he broke the news to him. “I’m very sorry to have to tell you that we’re going to have to remove a larger part of your ear. The biopsy revealed the mole was carrying an aggressive malignant melanoma cancer. You’re going to have to come in for a more extensive operation to ensure the entire cancerous area is gone. We can’t take any chances with this.”

  As Ammon left the doctor’s office, his teary eyes blurred his vision and the road ahead. He had never felt so vulnerable in his life. He pulled over and hit the steering wheel hard with the palms of his hands, gripping it rigidly as he sat stiff and straight for what seemed like forever. Even when he began to drive again, his emotions in check, he didn’t yet feel able to face us. At a red light, he had to choose whether to turn left to go home or to head right to Simon Fraser. Crossing three lanes of traffic, he sped up the mountain to the school. It was quiet and the halls echoed, but he was grateful to see she was still there, long past regular office hours. He knocked on the door that was just slightly ajar, and Doctor Northwood opened it.