Betty’s Greatest Adventure

BETTY’SBETTY’SBETTY’SBETTY’SGREATEST GREATEST GREATEST GREATEST ADVENTUREADVENTUREADVENTUREADVENTURE

Written by

Jaron Summers

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, withoutwritten permission from the publisher, except for brief passages quoted by a reviewer.

Typeset in 14 point Times Roman bydigiTEXT Ž Century City  California 90067The situations and characters depicted in this novel are works of fiction and bear no resemblance to any real persons, living or dead.ISBN 1-894489-66-7

e-mail: jaron@jaronbs.com

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“France

is as beautiful as you promised,” said Betty Graham,skipping down the gang plank of the great ocean liner that had just brought her from America.“And autumn is the perfect season to meet her,” said Mademoiselle Ucret.During their Atlantic crossing, Mademoiselle Ucret had helped Betty brush up onher French by fueling her imagination with tales of bloody guillotines, splendid palaces and wild revolutions. Just before they docked at Le Havre, MademoiselleUcret announced that Betty needed absolutely no more help with her imagination but her French verbs required much work.Customs and baggage inspection seemed to take forever but finally Betty andMademoiselle Ucret were on the train to Paris. Betty stared out of the window of their clattering coach as the green countryside sped by. “You know what I findamazing?” asked Betty.“What?”“That everyone speaks French.”“What do you expect them to speak, Swahili?” asked her governess.“No, French of course. But I just never thought it would be like this. Andthey talk so fast.”“It will all come back to you,” said Mademoiselle Ucret. “You will see.”Mademoiselle Ucret was probably right since French had been Betty’s firstlanguage. Her mother, Pauline Graham, had taught it to her along with English.Betty wondered if her mother had ever ridden on such a train as she was now on.Maybe, for Pauline Graham had been born a few miles away.

What grand fun,

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thought Betty,

if Mother were here to explain to me about France.

And then Betty gasped and caught her breath for she saw a huge airship gentlymoving across the sky. It bucked its way through the fluffy clouds. The lighter-than-air vessel was a dirigible, the kind her father had so many drawings of in hisworkshop and laboratory back in the States. Just a few days earlier, her father— Richard Graham—had flown across the Atlantic from America in such a dirigible.Betty had been heartbroken that she and Mademoiselle Ucret had not beenallowed to travel in the dirigible with her father but he had felt it would be safer for them to take a ship. “Do you think Daddy is up there in that dirigible?” askedBetty.“No,” said Mademoiselle Ucret.“Why?”“You see that swastika on its rudder?” asked Mademoiselle Ucret.“Oh, right,” said Betty. “It’s a German airship. Daddy said he wasn’t going tosell them his invention. That’s good.”“Why?” asked her governess.“If he’s not up there, then maybe he’ll meet us at the train station in Paris.”Betty missed her father and was so looking forward to seeing him.“I wouldn’t get my hopes up, Betty,” said Mademoiselle Ucret. “He’s very busy but I’m sure he’ll be at the school tomorrow to take you out for your birthday as he promised.”“I bet he’ll be at the station,” said Betty.“We’ll see,” said Mademoiselle Ucret but she did not sound reassuring.Betty stared at the rolling pastures. “The cows look the same as they do inAmerica,” she said.“Yes but here they don’t say ‘moo-moo.’”“Do they bark?” giggled Betty.“No,” said Mademoiselle Ucret. “French children think cows go, ‘me-me’ anddogs go, ‘are-are.’”Betty remembered someone telling her that a long time ago. It must have beenher mother. Yes.