by Anne Kalicky
When he woke up, he rubbed his eyes and got it all over his face. They also drew in black Sharpie on Nolan’s head while he was napping and then took pictures.
Naïs was sitting next to Lena, who Nico and Ramoupoulos had helped get seated. And while Nico was lending a hand, I took the opportunity to toss our backpacks on the seats in front of the girls. Lots of travel time with Naïs behind me! THE ULTIMATE DREAM!
We shared our headphones between the seats, so we could listen to music together. I think I now know every single word to every single Pink Romance song. Who knows how, but Tom and Célia ended up right next to each other. I saw Tom was making some attempts to talk, but the mood was ice-cold.
Conrad’s whole class was waiting for us when we finally arrived. From far away,
I thought that the old Brit was wearing a construction helmet on his head, but he wasn’t actually. Conrad hadn’t changed much; he was still the same old Conrad . . . more or less.
Mom had made sure I had a little present for Conrad’s family—an Eiffel Tower. But when I gave it to his mom, I could see it was going to join their Eiffel Tower collection on the living-room shelf.
Then she gave me a pair of Scottish slippers that were already pretty well worn and a food survey to fill out: the stuff I liked, the stuff I didn’t like . . . but for some reason, nothing I liked was ever cooked during my entire stay. But I think in one week, I probably
ate food from all of the colors of the rainbow on my sandwiches!
Then Conrad showed me around his house. And it was at that point I had the “privilege” of running into Lydia, his notorious older sister. She was coming out of the bathroom and immediately slammed the door in our faces. Lydia is already annoyyyyying me!
But it’s weird, one second later, I thought I heard a guy’s voice coming from her room and Lydia laughing. I wondered if Conrad had a brother he’d forgotten to tell me about. Then I decided I was just hallucinating because I was so tired.
We played some Dogs of Hell, which I’d managed to stash in my bag. Then I went to take a shower so I could relax for a second. But the shower was really strange.
It took me a ridiculously long time to figure out how it worked. When the water was finally running, I took my time, lathering up from head to toe. But after ten minutes, there was no more hot water. It was impossible to rinse off.
It was a total disaster, because I was still completely covered in soap. I tried to quietly call out to Conrad, but that old bloke didn’t hear me at all.
It was hopeless. And so I had to sneak out of the bathroom holding a hand towel in front of me, but then I ran right into Lydia—who busted out laughing after seeing me totally naked in the hallway.
THE MOST EMBARASSING MOMENT OF MY LIFE!
Then she went back to her room and slammed the door in my face again. But I put my ear to her door and heard this conversation (in English):
With my level of English, maybe I didn’t understand everything, but this time I was certain I wasn’t dreaming! Plus, the guy she was talking to seemed totally stupid!
I was suddenly worried that I was the only one who suspected an “unknown presence”
in the house. And what if I was right last year about Conrad being shady? And what if his family had been keeping someone prisoner in their house for years? I really started freaking out.
I wanted to warn Conrad. . . . At that instant, his mom called us to dinner. I had to give up on rinsing and put on some clothes as fast as I could. And since during dinner they all seemed “normal,” I didn’t dare say anything.
I probably just needed a good night’s sleep to get my head on straight.
The schedule for the week was pretty simple: we had classes at Conrad’s middle school in the morning, we went on tours in the afternoon, and we spent a lot of time at the “community center” at night. WITHOUT THE TEACHERS on our backs!
It was a really nice place, a little like the YMCA where Nico goes. There were some badminton courts, and it turns out I’m pretty good at that game! But most importantly, there was a cafeteria. It was the spot to meet up with Nico, Naïs, Lena, Tom, Célia, and their hosts: Diana, Amy, Gary, etc. By the way, they’d all been super lucky, because they were all neighbors! Conrad, on the other hand, lives miles away in the middle of nowhere.
One night, we came back later than we thought because Tom’s pen pal, Wilson, had organized a little party at his house. Conrad’s parents were already asleep, because they have to get up super early for work.
Lydia was supposed to make sure we came home safe and sound, but when we got back, the deadbolt was locked and Lydia had even put the keys inside! Conrad knocked and knocked and sent a text to his parents, but everyone was asleep. Basically, WE WERE GOING TO SPEND THE NIGHT OUTSIDE!
And, of course, it was raining and freezing cold. Then Conrad suddenly had a brilliant idea as he looked at the flower garden bushes still draped in their protective covers from the winter.
I was sorry I couldn’t read Children Soft as Pandas, because this whole ordeal had totally stressed me out. But I actually fell asleep right away.
The next day, I got an email from my parents on Conrad’s family computer. It cheered me up.
In fact, I was starting to miss them. But when I looked closer, I saw there was an attachment. When I opened it, I was so
Anyway, I’m not going to go on about my sister, especially when I saw that Conrad isn’t really much better off.
Guess what—I’d almost forgotten about the voice in Lydia’s room, when the second-to-last night at Conrad’s house I heard a deep voice:
OK, I know my English grade is just barely pushing a C, but I was certain I’d understood the conversation (and I’m rather proud of my translation here). And I can assure you none of it made any sense. Then all of a sudden, I thought: “Jackpot! Lydia is hiding a boyfriend in her room!” But what I couldn’t quite figure out was why we’d never seen him!
This time I ran off to find Conrad and tell him what was going on . . . or at least try to. I imitated the exchange, and we went to listen to the rest of the conversation.
Conrad started laughing hysterically and pulled me into his room. Then he started making these wild gestures. Only I didn’t understand anything he was trying to say.
So he took out his cell phone and started talking to it. And guess what—the telephone started answering him!
Eventually, Conrad explained that Riri was the name of a speech recognition app. . . . So in a nutshell, Lydia was talking to her phone and giving it orders with her voice! You can bet that I, with my old Niphon, didn’t know something like that could possibly exist.
OK, dear future human, I know, I know. You must be making fun of me now that you’ve just read this humiliating incident! I hope you’ll never talk about it with anyone else. Pinky swear?
Anyway, we spent our last day in London. It took almost two hours to drive there, and we nearly missed the changing of the guards. But except for tufts of black fur that stuck out above the crowd, we didn’t see much. For lunch, we had an orange mush sandwich. It was really weird.
Conrad kept trying to explain it to me in French, showing me the inside of the sandwich. “Malade! Malade!” he said, which means “Sick! Sick!” I wasn’t 100% sure what he meant, but to be on the safe side
I decided to toss my sandwich. Before I did though, Tom clarified that it was actually “MARMALADE,” a specialty there.
Anyhow, it had an orange flavor, and, to tell you the truth, it was . . . really not bad.
Then we visited Madame Tussauds wax museum,
and the good news is that there was a statue of Pietro. Look! Conrad took a photo of me.
At the end of the day, we had some free time on Oxford Street. Dad and Mom had exchanged some money for me, but you can probably guess I ran into serious
trouble in the stores. Someone should’ve told me beforehand that British money makes no sense: the big coins are the cents—practically worthless—and the little coins are worth a few bucks!
Thankfully, Tom was with me, and he explained it all before I looked like a thief and permanently ruined the reputation of the French abroad. In short, all of that is to tell you that I used my free time to get some souvenirs:
When we met up in front of the bus, Mr. Crazot started counting us. Disaster! Four students were missing: Raoul, Damien,
Mathis, and . . . “MIA” Martin.
I was afraid most of all for him. The teachers asked us where they were last seen. That’s when Lena and Nico said they remembered spotting the guys at Piccadilly Circus.
One hour later, we saw Mr. Ramoupoulos return with Raoul, his morons, and Martin—soaked from head to toe. We found out afterward that Raoul didn’t have any money left for our free time. That big idiot had spent it all in the cafeteria at the community center, offering soda to Alison (his pen pal) to impress her. So he’d forced Martin to collect all the coins in the fountain!
Believe me, they were seriously punished. In the bus on our way back to France, Ramoupoulos, Cariou, and Crazot made all four of them sit in the front to keep an eye on them.
At the time I didn’t think it was really fair to Martin. After all, he was only a victim in the whole thing.
But I realized later that there was another reason for that after all. . . .
The good news is that all six of us—Lena, Naïs, Tom, Célia, Nico, and I—could
sit in the back of the bus. We listened to music.
Lena told us a bunch of stories about her misadventures, like the time her wheelchair got stuck right in the middle of a crosswalk—which caused a mega traffic jam. Then there’s public transportation or the nasty remarks she hears sometimes, like when the restaurant staff didn’t give her a menu because they weren’t sure she could read,
or the time a friend asked her in front of the whole class how she goes to the bathroom, or the strangers who tell her, “Keep it up!” and “Good Luck!”
I’d never thought about all these struggles, and I realized Tom’s words on the wall were right: stupidity is everywhere.
Eventually, she imitated Raoul doing the Running Man, and that made us all laugh.
Nico, Tom, and I told them all about IAG, and we said our first mission when we got back was to convince the teachers to let us hold a sale to benefit the Welcoming Wheelchairs charity.
I noticed the vibe between Tom and Célia was
more relaxed than on the way there, and after a while, Naïs fell asleep. Dear future human, I think it was the best day of my life.
Wednesday
Tom and I spent the afternoon at Nico’s house. He got the T-shirts and hats! Complete success!
This is gonna be epic! Now all that’s left is to find a way to persuade the teachers to organize the fundraiser during the end-of-the-year school party. And believe me, unless there’s a miracle, I have no idea how we’re going to convince them!
Friday
Today was our last day of Reading Passion, and Mrs. Raymond, Naïs’s grandma, saved a special surprise for us.
Guess what? The winner of the readers’ choice contest was Cannibal Burger. But something even better happened when we arrived: the author, Gad Slimaud, was right there, sitting behind a desk!
A literary star! Can you believe it? SWEET! I have to admit it bumped my motivation up a notch. We took the chance to ask him a ton of questions:
How did he know he wanted to write books?
Where does he find inspiration?
Do you have to have disheveled hair and wear glasses to be a writer?
What’s it like to be famous?
How did he get the idea for his first book, War of the Noodles?
Does he believe in aliens?
It was honestly really interesting. At the end he offered us each a signed copy of Cannibal Burger. So cool!
Right as we were about to leave, Mrs. Raymond asked Nico and me to stay. I was terrified she’d make us sign up for the club again next year. Then Gad Slimaud came out from behind the desk, and we then had the surprise of a lifetime!
Don’t ask me the details of why or how this crazy coincidence could happen, but basically Mrs. Raymond arranged everything.
It turns out that, after her party, Naïs told her grandma all about our IAG project. So Mrs. Raymond immediately thought to invite Gad Slimaud, who, in addition to being a writer, is also the president of a little thing called Welcoming Wheelchairs. Can you believe it?
And the best part: not only was the charity ready to help us but also Mrs. Raymond got permission from the principal of the middle school for us to have our sale at the end-of-the-year party!
Friday
After everything I told you about last time, I’ve been really busy between the end of school, tests, and especially
preparation for the charity sale. Nico, Tom, and I have been more overwhelmed than ever! Especially since Tom still hasn’t gotten over his “separation” from Célia, so he’s been doing everything extremely slowly, like the big slug he is.
Thankfully, with my parents’ permission, we turned the garage into IAG headquarters. You should’ve seen the mess we had in there . . . between the boxes of T-shirts and hats, the banners, and the stand we made. It had taken over all our weekends, but it was even better than in Middle School Madness. Naïs and Lena even came by at one point to see us.
The big day is tomorrow, and I have some serious butterflies!
Sunday
It’s crazy how in only forty-eight hours,
so much can happen to one person. I have TONS of stuff to tell you. Yesterday was the most incredible day of my entire existence. Tom, Nico, and I showed up to school super early and set up our IAG stand. The place was deserted. It didn’t start out so great, because the only spot the principal had reserved for us wasn’t exactly in the middle of the playground.
Let’s
just say the odor that was wafting out from the bathroom was absolutely terrifying. At least once we hung everything up, our stand looked great.
Then we lucked out, because Raoul turned up, clearly having just applied some cheap cologne. And believe me, he’d really outdone himself. I don’t know how, but Nico managed to sucker him into being one of our models and wearing some of our clothes. This vain bozo didn’t need to be asked twice—he was convinced all the girls from school would fall for him. But what he didn’t know was that we’d ONLY asked him to be our model to mask the smell coming from the bathroom with his “fragrance.”
Little by little, the school filled up.
Thanks to the help from the teachers and all the other students, we were able to recruit lots of people for our fundraiser. Practically the whole school wanted to help Welcoming Wheelchairs and help disabled people adopt service dogs. But we wanted most of all to show Lena that we’re all supporting her!
Naïs, Lena, and Célia were also running a cake stand. At one point, they brought a piece of cake for each of us . . . even Raoul, which wasn’t really necessary if you ask me.
And, coincidence or not, Naïs made licorice gingerbread. . . . Think back—does that remind you of anything that might have happened around this time last year?
I’m sure she winked at me right when she gave me a piece.
“MIA”
Martin was supposed to have a toy sale, but he didn’t show up till noon. Mrs. Raymond and Mrs. Toinou hosted a reading workshop promoting Cannibal Burger
. Not to brag, but our stand was by far the most popular.
To give you an idea, I guess you could say . . . it was the RAID OF THE CENTURY! We sold everything!
In the schoolyard, almost everyone was wearing a smiley hat or T-shirt that read, “
It’s All Good!” Not that I’m easily moved by this kind of thing, but honestly, “The impression was striking,” as Gad Slimaud might say.
Speaking of which, around three o’clock an enormous truck pulled up in front of the school. The principal opened the door, and Gad got out with two hefty guys. Inside the truck were five wheelchairs.
Oh yes!
I forgot to tell you, all that was Nico’s brilliant idea. After the last meeting of Reading Passion,
he asked Gad if it would be possible for Welcoming Wheelchairs to lend us a few wheelchairs for a “roll race.” The best way to raise awareness among “normal” people is
