Tales of the Heartily Homeschooled: Sample Chapters

Ontario: The Journey Begins

Rachel:
Carolyn Currey and I had emailed for two years without ever having met. She lived in British Columbia, I lived in Michigan. We grew close in heart despite the distance, so when the Curreys announced that they were moving to Waterloo, Ontario (a scant four hours north of my house), we were overjoyed. And when it became clear that first, getting together was harder than it sounded, and second, their move would be short-lived and they’d soon be heading west again, we were determined to meet somehow.

So it was that I found myself in Waterloo the night before the Curreys were due to set out across Canada, ready to pack myself into the van along with my aunt and uncle, eight cousins, two dogs, a hamster, a guinea pig, and a rabbit. When I arrived in the dusk, the house was a-twitter with activity. We went through whirlwind introductions (“Rachel, meet Carolyn, Janice, Dana, Christa, Sara, Andrew, Naomi, and Elyssa... family, meet Rachel”) and then plunged back to work, packing and cleaning till the wee hours of the morning. After a few hours of sleep, we were set to wake up again and receive visitors: old friends of the Curreys who had procrastinated their own visit until moving day. They pulled up in their fifteen-passenger van late in the morning and unloaded another tribe of ten children. The movers were due to arrive in an hour or so.

So there we were: ten Curreys, twelve friends, one Thomson (laughing up her sleeve at the familiar absurdity of the situation), a myriad of pets, and a few other friends and family members who’d come to say good-bye—all of us prepared to meet the movers. The movers, I think, were not quite so prepared to meet us.

Carolyn:

The movers carefully backed the truck down our long laneway, dodging half-a-dozen children under the age of ten. The supervisor marched into the house, took stock of the situation, and opened her mouth to issue orders. She’d barely had time to say, “Look lively, boys, there must be a zillion beds here somewhere. There are eighteen kids in this house!” before five of the girls (all dancers, small but surprisingly strong), grabbed two fifty-pound boxes or a bookcase each and charged out again. That was the beginning of the end. The hordes descended upon the work. We emptied the house in record time, and the overseer staggered out at the end with her eyes still popping.

The rest of the afternoon was filled with last minute cleaning, visiting, and packing. Once the disbelieving movers had left, more friends and relatives showed up to say good-bye. A few more showed up for supper, and then quietness descended as the population dwindled to a mere eleven.

My dad, the master packer, filled our van with sleeping bags, tents, animals, suitcases, and (most dreaded of all) small stuffables. Mom and a few of the older girls stood out in the field as the sun set.

“I feel like the words ‘End of Chapter Whatever-It-Is’ ought to appear in the sky right about there,” Mom chuckled.

The peace was quickly shattered by a loud bellow. “Are there any more small stuffables? Last call for small stuffables! No? All right, then... everybody in!”

Accordingly, we crammed eleven people into the overstuffed vehicle and set off for parts unknown.