The Diary of Melanie Martin

by Carol Weston

  Mom and Dad never stay mad at Matt.

  After a while, Matt said, “I'm done. I can't eat any more.” I couldn't either because I'd poked around and found enough unruined spaghetti.

  Dad said, “Pass your plate over here.”

  Matt said, “It has my drool on it.”

  “Don't say ‘drool,’ ” I told Matt. “Say ‘saliva.’ ”

  “Just pass the plate,” Dad said, sounding mad again, and he ate up Matt's pork chops—drool and all—before paying the bill.

  Mom asked, “Who wants gelato?” Gelato (Jay La Toe) means ice cream.

  We all said, “Me! Me! Me!”

  So we left and found an ice cream store under some streetlights, and Matt and I each got a cone. He bit off the bottom and started slurping out the ice cream. I felt like doing that too, but Dad was watching so I had to eat mine the regular way.

  At least my cone lasted longer than Matt's.

  We walked around, and I bought two more postcards. I could not, repeat not, buy a postcard of David standing there stark naked, so I bought a close-up of just his head. Even though Venus is acting more modest than David, she is every bit as butt naked, so I bought a postcard of just her head too.

  Before we went back to our car, we stopped at the Straw Market to pet a bronze statue of a wild boar. They say that if you rub its snout, you will come back to Florence. Its snout is super shiny because everyone rubs it.

  I rubbed it too. I do want to come back someday. But not with Matt the Brat. Or Dad the Grump. Maybe with Cecily. Or Christopher—on our honeymoon!

  P.S. My writing hand is now as tired as my walking feet.

  March 22

  Dear Diary,

  I asked Mom and Dad if I could phone Cecily. They said, “Absolutely not,” which I pretty much expected.

  Cecily's middle name is Florence, and she dared me to ask my mother about girl things while we're in Italy. Actually, she double dared me. Cecily turned ten a while ago, and she thinks she's very mature. She grew out of her Barbies and gave them all to me. (Some were practically new, and others had really horrible haircuts.) Anyway, Cecily has been thinking about wearing a bra but is afraid to ask her mom. I'm not embarrassed to talk to my mother, but I'm also not developing! We're only in fourth grade!!

  Speaking of bras, Italy is full of underwear stores and I figured out why.

  Today Paola, the pensione lady, gave us toast and jam and juice and coffee and tourist tips. It was more like breakslow than breakfast, but we are now visiting fishing villages in Cinque Terre (Cheen Quay Tair Ay). The houses are pink and green and yellow, the streets are too narrow for cars, the boats bob up and down in the water, and the villages are all connected by trains.

  I noticed clotheslines stretching along outside the windows. Dad said that most people in Italy hang their clothes out to dry because electricity is expensive. Well, if your panties were flapping in the wind, would you want your neighbors to see holes in them? I don't think so! Bad enough that people can see your underwear at all! I think that's why Italians need so much new underwear and so many underwear shops.

  Mom says I'm very observant.

  Once, in a garden, I observed two dragonflies mating.

  Since Mom and I were on the subject of underwear, I asked, “Mom, when do you think I should wear a bra?”

  “I don't know,” Mom said. “It depends on when you need to and when you want to.”

  I said, “Okay,” and that was that. I don't really get what the big deal is. Unless Cecily's mom doesn't want her to grow up or something.

  My parents want me to grow up. Probably because they still have Matt to be their itty-bitty cutesy-wutesy baby.

  I want to grow up too, but I'm not in a mad rush. I mean, sometimes it's hard being the oldest kid in the family, because I'm not that old.

  For example, Matt can laugh at naked statues, but I can't. Matt can eat ice cream cones from the bottom up, but I shouldn't. Matt can skip down the sidewalk to avoid stepping on cracks, but I'm supposed to walk like a young lady. Matt can hand Mom a gum wrapper, but when I try that, she says, “Hello? Do I look like a walking, talking trash can?” At the doctor's, Matt's eye chart has fun things like houses and apples, but mine has only plain letters. Even at McDonald's, Matt can ask for a Happy Meal, but Dad wants me to order just a burger for heaven's sake.

  I wrote a new poem:

  same day

  Dear Diary,

  After the train ride, we made sure to buy our picnic stuff while all the stores were still wide open. Well, at the cheese store there were about a billion different kinds of formaggio (For Ma Joe), and this woman behind the counter kept slicing tastes for me and Matt to try. She was smiling at us and sort of congratulating Mom and Dad for having bambini bellissimi (Bam Bee Nee Beh Lee See Me)—beautiful children—which was nice and all, except I'm much older than Matt, and she was acting as if we were six-year-old twins. Plus, she'd ask me, “Ti piace?” (Tee Pee Ya Chay), which means “Do you like it?” and I didn't have the heart to tell her that I'd have been a whole lot happier if she ran a candy store. Matt is pretty good at trying stuff, so he didn't have to fake-smile as much as I did.

  Anyway, we took our picnic and walked on a footpath high up on the hillside above the blue blue sea. The path was called Via dell'Amore (Vee Ya Dell Ah More Ay), which means Lovers’ Lane. I took two photos of

  Mom and Dad. In one, they are kissing, and in the other, I told them to say, “Formaggio!”

  When we got to an empty bench at the end of the path, we set up our picnic. Three flies buzzed over.

  I sang, “Shoo, fly, don't bother me,” but Matt acted all petrified.

  “They're flies, not bees,” I said.

  “They have germs!” Matt said. “And look—is this fly poop?” He pointed to a teeny speck on his cheese.

  “Oh, big whoop,” I said. “Don't be such a baby.”

  “Eat your lunch,” Mom said. “Flies don't poop.”

  “Yes they do, Mom,” I said. “Everything poops. A fly would burst if it didn't poop.”

  “That's right,” Matt agreed. “Even ticks and spiders poop. And when you had lice, Melanie, I bet they pooped all over your hair.”

  “You are so gross!” I said.

  “In school,” Matt said, “our goldfish sometimes swims around with a stringy poopy hanging from his tush.”

  “Not tush,” Mom corrected. “Tail.”

  “Anus,” I said.

  “That is enough!” Dad said. “We're having a picnic, and I do not want to hear any more talk about poop. Is that clear?”

  “Matt started it,” I said.

  “I don't care who started it. I want it ended,” Dad said.

  Just then the sweetest little cat came by, and I took pictures and Matt fed it salami. Mom said cats love fishing villages because cats love fish. (Salami too, I guess.) Dad said Italy is shaped like a boot, so we could name the cat Puss in Boots.

  I wanted to name it Little Ittle—the Ittle was for Italy. Matt wanted to name it Kitty.

  I said, “That's a lame name.” (Another rhyme!)

  Matt hit me in the arm, so I hit him on the ear, and Dad glared at us and said, “Cut it out!”

  Mom said, “Melanie, let's go buy a postcard.” I knew she was just trying to change the subject. Well, we picked out a card, but Mom had credit cards and travelers’ checks and zero Italian money, so Dad had to come over, and by the time we bought the postcard and Dad gave Mom some lire from his travel wallet, we realized that Matt had wandered off.

  He was lost!

  Mom and Dad both turned to me and asked, “Where's Matt?”

  I said, “How am I supposed to know?”

  At first I was mad at Matt for getting me in trouble again. But when we couldn't find him anywhere, I was worried. I mean, going up alone in our building elevator was one thing, but we're in a foreign country!

  Dad went down to the docks to look for him, and Mom and I looked all around and climbed a stone tower a
nd saw rooftops on one side and the sea on the other.

  But no Matt.

  I was getting very worried.

  Finally, Mom said, “I bet he went looking for Little Ittle,” so we went down an alleyway to a fish restaurant where we'd seen tons of cats.

  And there he was! Petting a cat he had namedPink Nose. Mom was relieved, but Dad yelled at Matt (hee hee), so I did too.

  Matt said I was an E.B.S., which stands for Evil Big Sister.

  I said he was an A.L.B., which stands for Annoying Little Brother. I even added, “You're so annoying, you're like a mosquito in human form.”

  Mom told us to stop fussing and asked, “Who wants gelato?”

  We all said, “Me! Me! Me!”

  In school, when we were studying families, Miss Sands said that oldest kids tend to be worriers and youngest kids tend to be spoiled. At least that's what I think she said. Doesn't that stink, though? If I had to pick between being worried or spoiled, I'd rather be spoiled.

  Maybe I am spoiled, because after the ice cream, Mom and Dad bought us really cool Italian leather shoes. If I am spoiled, though, it's just the right amount.

  On the drive back to our hotel, Matt felt carsick. Dad pulled over because, even though we were gladMatt wasn't lost, we still didn't want him to puke his guts out all over our rented car.

  Cars should have carsickness bags the way planes have airsickness bags.

  We had to wait a while for Matt to feel better, so Mom pointed at the mountains and said, “Do you see those white streaks?”

  Matt asked, “Is that snow?”

  “Marble,” Mom said. “Carrara (Car Rar Ah) marble.” Mom said it's the kind that Michelangelo used for the David. She also said that even though David fought a giant, didn't David look like a giant himself?

  I liked seeing how a mountainside could get turned into art. I also liked how David, who wasn't even a grown-up, was a giant because he saved the day.

  I wish I could save the day and feel all proud of myself. Instead of getting blamed all the time.

  Sincerely,

  March 23

  You know what's worse than an air pocket? A pickpocket.

  We went to Lucca (Loo Ca), which is a town surrounded by old stone walls that once protected it from bad guys. Dad parked the car just inside the walls, but he wasn't paying enough attention because he was about to see Puccini's house, and Puccini (Poo Chee Nee) wrote operas, and Dad loves opera.

  I hate opera.

  Dad says, “You'll like it when you're older.”

  I hate when he says that.

  Anyway, Dad and Matt visited Puccini's house, and Mom and I went running in and out of churches that were cool and dark and churchy-smelling. Mom said they were “little jewels.” I'm not that into churches, but I like being alone with Mom without Matt.

  We had all agreed to meet on top of the Tower of Guinigi (Gwee Nee Gee), so Mom and I climbed up its bazillion stairs and got to the top, where there are actual oak trees growing. I'm not kidding. Big old shade trees sprouting up high above Lucca's red-tiled rooftops. It was so pretty and peaceful, I could have stayed forever. Of course, I had no clue about the Big Problems in store for us, and I also didn't think twice about the lavender-gray clouds right overhead. Well, by the time Dad and Matt arrived, Little Matt said he was keeling over from hunger, so that was that, we had to head straight down for lunch.

  We ate in the piazza (Pee Ot Za). A piazza is a town square where people used to gather for meetings and to say hi and to buy and sell stuff. But this piazza was oval, not square, and it was mostly just full of restaurant tables and pigeons.

  Matt felt underneath our table and said it had tons of A.B.C. gum stuck to it.

  “A.B.C. gum?” Dad asked.

  “Already Been Chewed,” I explained.

  “Wash your hands,” Mom said. “Both of you.”

  We went to the bathroom, and I did not burn myself with the C-is-for-Hot water.

  Matt gobbled his lunch in about two seconds, then started sneaking up on the pigeons to make them go flying. I like feeding them more than scaring them, but not Matt. He could spend all day chasing pigeons, just as Mom could spend all day looking at art.

  I stayed seated. Dad told me to sit up straight and stop tipping my chair back. Mom said, “Napkin in your lap-kin.” Dad told me to use my fork, not my fingers. Mom told me to finish my pasta. I was tired of everyone telling me what to do and of watching Matt (since I didn't want him to get lost again), so after a while, I yawned in a really obvious I'm-getting-bored kind of way.

  Dad asked, “What's wrong now?”

  Without whining at all, I said, “You promised to take us to Pinocchio Park.”

  Dad ate his last bite of cannelloni and said, “You're right, kiddo. I did. Let's go.”

  But no one could remember where the car was!

  Dad looked at his maps, and Mom asked people directions in her Italian, which must not be so great after all. (If it were fantastico, I wouldn't have been face-to-tentacles with an octopus the other night.) Well, theItalians were pointing and waving and moving their hands around and smiling, but Mom just looked more and more confused. Then we walked ten minutes in one direction and ten in another, and still no car.

  It's easier to get lost in Italy than in New York City. Why? Because at home it's mostly numbers (like Eighth Avenue and 16th Street) and straight streets that form a huge tic-tac-toe board. But here, instead of numbers, the streets have Italian names, and instead of being straight, they curve around and form a big fat maze.

  The sky got darker, and the air got cooler.

  It started to drizzle.

  It started to rain.

  It started to pour.

  I wanted to take a taxi. That's what we do in New York. But Mom said, “Be patient.” She and Dad weren't being patient.

  Mom was saying, “Well, think, honey, where could it be?” And Dad was saying, “Sweetheart, you were there too. You tell me.”

  They were acting like Matt and me.

  For fun, Matt and I decided to act like them. We allgot under this big awning, and Matt was saying, “I just love the opera. La la la la la!” and I was going in and out of invisible churches and saying, “Oh, what a little jewel!” Then Matt said, “This is excellent wine,” so I said, “Napkin in your lapkin, Melanie.” Then Matt said, “The car is this way!” so I said, “No, no, it's this way!”

  Instead of laughing, Dad threatened to give us a time-out.

  I'm a little old for a time-out.

  Sometimes I'd like to give Dad a time-out.

  Matt said, “I wish it wasn't raining water.”

  I said, “What do you want it to rain?”

  “Lemonade.”

  “That would make everything sticky.”

  “Milkshakes.”

  “That would make everything gloppy.”

  “Hot chocolate.”

  “That would burn people.”

  “M&M's.”

  I agreed that M&M's would be good, but I said they would hurt if they hit you. Matt said everybody could use upside-down umbrellas called candy-catchers.

  He's obviously been thinking about this.

  I couldn't decide if Matt was being cute or dumb or if he'd just gone loco in Lucca. But then I noticed two guys standing next to Dad, helping him find where we were on the map. One started leaning in really close to Dad. Too close! One of his hands was on the map, but the other was reaching toward Dad's pants pocket! Right when I figured out what was going on, the man grabbed Dad's travel wallet, and both guys ran. Zoom! Through the rain and around the corner. Dad was about to run after them, but Mom wouldn't let him.

  I wish I could have warned Dad and saved the day.

  Dad blamed himself for being such an “easy tar-get”—such an obvious tourist, with his guidebook in his hand and his camera around his neck. He said he had had about 150 dollars in Italian money, which was now gone gone gone. He had had credit cards too, but at least he could call a phone numbe
r to cancel them. He also had had a photo of me holding Matt when he was a baby, and he hated to lose that, and the thieves wouldn't even want it.

  Dad felt terrible. Since he was so mad at himself, Mom stopped being mad at him, so that was one good thing. But then Matt started crying. I think it worried him to see that even parents do stupid stuff. Plus, he had been playing catch with his squooshy toy and he dropped it in a puddle and the flour made a gloppy mess—so no more souvenir.

  Well, we found a police station and made a bunch of phone calls, and a policeman wrote down everything Mom said. It took forever, and at the end, he said we should be more careful.

  Duh. Thanks a lot, Officer.

  Personally, if I were my parents, I would have felt pretty embarrassed to have to admit that we got pick-pocketed and that oh, by the way, we had no idea where our car was. I mean, I doubt the policeman was impressed with how smart we were. He took us to a bank machine so we could get more money, and Mom let me press the buttons. It was cool how colorful Italian lire came shooting out instead of old green American dollars.

  Fortunately, the policeman drove us around until we found our car. And Mom and Dad stopped arguing. AndMom still has our passports and a different credit card. And we're all together. At home, Dad's always away on business and Mom has meetings meetings meetings.

  Since it stopped raining and the day wasn't over, we did go to Collodi to see Pinocchio Park. It has long, skinny metal sculptures of Pinocchio, Geppetto, and Jiminy Cricket. Matt and I sat next to some Italian children at a puppet theater. We understood about Pinocchio's nose and everything, but we didn't really get all the jokes since they were in Italian. Well, every time the Italian children laughed their heads off, Matt laughed his head off too, ho ho ho ho ho, just like Santa Claus.

  “Why are you laughing? You don't even get it,” I said, but he kept laughing like a little hyena.