Four Things My Geeky-Jock-of-a-Best-Friend Must Do in Europe

  by

  Jane Harrington

  To Dad & Mom—

  my traveling buddies through Ireland, Williamsburg, and life.

  Text copyright © 2006 by Jane Harrington Shapiro

  Cover photography by John Sanderson copyright © 2006 by Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.

  Cover design by John Margeson

  Layout by Kelly Rabideau

  All rights reserved. International copyright secured. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc., except for the inclusion of brief quotations in an acknowledged review.

  Darby Creek

  A division of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.

  241 First Avenue North

  Minneapolis, MN 55401 U.S.A.

  Website address: www.lernerbooks.com

  Harrington, Jane.

  Four things my geeky-jock-of-a-best-friend must do in Europe / by Jane Harrington.

  p. ; cm.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-58196-041-7 Library bound edition

  ISBN-10: 1-58196-041-7 Library bound edition

  ISBN: 1-58196-047-6 Scholastic Book Fairs edition softcover

  Summary: Written in the form of letters to her best friend, Delia, back home, Brady tells of her adventures while on a Mediterranean cruise with her mother and of her progress on Delia’s list of things she must do, including the search for a “code-red Euro-hottie.”

  1. Self-confidence—Juvenile fiction. 2. Teenage girls—Juvenile fiction. 3. Friendship—Juvenile fiction. 4. Mothers and daughters—Juvenile fiction. [1. Self-confidence—Fiction. 2. Teenage girls—Fiction. 3. Friendship—Fiction. 4. Mothers and daughters—Fiction.] I. Title. II. Author.

  PZ7.H23815 Fo 2006

  [Fic] dc22

  OCLC: 60636984

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  4/1/11

  eISBN: 978-0-7613-8278-2 (pdf)

  eISBN: 978-1-4677-3214-7 (ePub)

  eISBN: 978-1-4677-3215-4 (mobi)

  Friday, late in the afternoon

  * * *

  Dear Delia,

  It is the first day of my trip.

  Hm. I guess if you’re reading this, then it can’t be the first day anymore. Considering how slow the mail is, I may even be home.

  But how can I be home? It’s the first day of my trip.

  How sad. I’ve already confused myself. Of course, it’s not my fault—it’s YOUR fault. I’m just following the first of your (rather bossy) instructions, which you (rather rudely) wrote on my hand, under the title:

  FOUR THINGS

  MY GEEKY-JOCK-OF-A-

  BEST-FRIEND

  MUST DO

  IN EUROPE

  Nice, Delia. REAL nice. I love you, too.

  You know, a person isn’t a GEEK just because she gets better grades than a certain OTHER person. AND a person isn’t a JOCK just because she does a lot of sports. (Well, okay, maybe she IS a jock if she does a lot of sports, but WHATEVER.)

  It IS an HONOR, though, Delia, to have your creative work—in PERMANENT MARKER—all over the palm of my hand, on my fingers, and extending up my wrist. It is just GREAT! (NON. That’s Italian for “not.”) Your tiny printing and artsy squiggles bring to mind that cool henna painting women do on their hands when they get married in India. Only I’m not getting married, I’m not in India, and it’s not particularly cool. And I’m fairly certain the Indian henna painters don’t write out lists of things to do. Such as:

  #1: WRITE REAL LETTERS TO YOUR

  BEST FRIEND EVERY DAY, DESCRIBING

  THRILLING ADVENTURES.

  So, okay, I’m writing to you, but—unfortunately—I have no thrilling adventures to tell you about. We are still at the airport, where we’ve been sitting for hours. We had to get here real early for “security checks,” which turned out to be a lot of real intensive, highly invasive, totally scary NOTHING. We’ve just been sitting here and sitting here, bored, surrounded by all the other people who got here early, and no one is checking anything—except maybe their watches.

  My mother (or “mio madre” in Italian, pronounced mee-o mah-drah, according to our phrase book) keeps trying to show me pictures of Italian sculpture in this book she’s got, but I feel it is my obligation—as a new member of the World Teen Corps—to appear bored by things like that. Having this letter to write is a good excuse for not paying attention to her, since I don’t want to be rude about it. Of course, given what I discovered this morning, I think I have good REASON to be rude.

  It all began when she told me to put “essentials” in my carry-on pack for the plane ride. “In case the luggage is lost,” she said, “we should have things to get us through several nights.” I thought “several nights” of stuff was a bit much, but I decided not to question it, since she’s been sort of nervous lately and acting a little weird(er than usual). I know it’s all because this is her first trip to Europe, but she’s making ME nervous, too, since, OF COURSE, it’s my first time, too. It’s amazing that she’s gotten to be forty (or however old she is) without EVER going outside the U.S. She grew up in one of those ginormous families, and she says even a trip to McDonald’s was a major outing that had to be planned and saved up for weeks in advance.

  ANYWAY . . . I scrounged my room for “essentials” and began stuffing them in my pack—you know: CD player and CDs, chocolate, sunglasses, gum, lip gloss, more chocolate, lollipops, magazine, etc. At some point, while doing this, it occurred to me that I’d forgotten to get a new book for the trip. So, I decided to search the house for a paperback I hadn’t read. That’s when I stumbled across this old, dilapidated book on a shelf in the living room, entitled: 2500 First Names of Boys and Girls with Their Origins, Meanings, Etc., Etc.

  Intrigued, I started looking through it, and I found some of the most FABULOUS names—Prunella, Urania, Dorcas, Hagar, Portia, Sela, stuff like that. And the meanings were even better. Sela, for instance, means “a rock,” and Portia means “pig woman.” (Oh yeah, I’ll be naming my kid THAT.) I was having a great old time, laughing out loud at the thought of kids in the halls at school calling out, “HEY, DORCAS! DON’T FORGET ABOUT VOLLEYBALL PRACTICE TONIGHT!” when I got the idea to look up my OWN name. At which point I stopped laughing, shut the book, and went searching for someone who had some serious explaining to do: mio madre.

  I figured she was in her bedroom packing, but it turns out she was in the dining room dropping her snake into a pillow-case. This did not strike me as odd (we’re talking about my mother here), but it did strike me as funny. Even though I knew perfectly well that she was putting it in the pillowcase so it wouldn’t get loose while she cleaned the tank (something which has been known to happen), I couldn’t resist saying, “Oh, so THAT’S what you meant by ‘essentials.’”

  She laughed, and I was thinking how nice it was that she appreciated my sense of humor, until I remembered that she was in big trouble. I held up the name book, and she immediately volunteered, enthusiastically, that she’d used it to pick all our names.

  “So, then, you read the meanings,” I said, leafing through the pages, stopping at my little sister’s name. “And Clare means ‘the light.’”

  My mother smiled and nodded as she set the pillowcase on the floor.

  I skipped forward a few pages, until I found Irene’s name. “Oh, this is a beauty,” I said. “My older sister’s name means ‘peaceful.’”

  Mom hesitated a sec, then nodded as she reach
ed into the tank for the water dish.

  “But this is, by far, the best one,” I said, finding—after an appropriately dramatic delay—the entry for my own name. “I’ll read the whole meaning: ‘Brady, male or female, from the Gaelic “Bradach,” meaning “broad clearing”—or “the big one.”’”

  (I’m guessing, at this point in my letter, Delia, that you are having a hysterical laughing fit. To this, I have one thing to say: Happy Bunny says ZIP IT!)

  “Huh,” Mom said in an isn’t-that-interesting sort of way. Refilling the water dish and returning it to the tank, she added, “Finished packing yet?”

  (Typical mother move. When in trouble, nag.)

  Choosing to ignore such a completely ridiculous and totally irrelevant question, I asked her, “Is it possible to be a dyslexic clairvoyant?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, chuckling. “Why?”

  “You picked names that were an absolute backward prediction of my sisters’ personalities.”

  “Huh,” she said again, as she reached into the tank and scooped out the old litter.

  “Mom,” I said, “HOW could you give Clare—CLARE, who is in OUTER SPACE—a name that means ‘the light’? And Irene—well, I won’t even go there.”

  “If I have this dyslexic power to predict the future . . . backwards,” my mother said over her shoulder, as she dumped fresh litter into the tank, “then you won’t ever be ‘the big one,’ right?”

  (I ask you: Do all parentals have this annoying habit of using LOGIC to twist arguments to their advantage?)

  “Unfortunately,” I said with a sigh, “I already AM ‘the big one.’ Haven’t you noticed? I’m huge.”

  “You have an athletic build, Brady.”

  “Gee, thanks,” I said.

  “I thought you liked being athletic,” she said.

  “‘Being athletic’ and ‘having an athletic build’ are two very different things,” I told her. “One is good, and one sucks.”

  “You know I don’t like that word,” she said. “It’s so inappropriate.”

  (EVERYTHING is inappropriate. Movies, songs, TV shows, apparently the English language now—I can’t keep up.)

  “Okay. But all I’m trying to say is that ‘athletic build’ doesn’t sound like a compliment to me. It sounds like a euphemism for BIG.”

  “Huh,” Mom said, reaching down to pick up the pillowcase.

  “Tell me honestly, Mom, do you think the way I’ve been growing lately has been, uh, NORMAL?”

  “NO!” she cried.

  Shocked by such a bold display of honesty—from an adult, at least—I gave her an outraged-teenagy sort of glare. (I’ve been working on that.)

  “I didn’t mean NO about THAT—I meant NO about THIS,” she said, holding up the pillowcase, which was quite obviously empty. Poking her finger through a hole in the seam, she added, “Longfellow’s loose.”

  Then the house filled with a sound akin to an elephant stampeding down the stairs, which—as you’ve probably guessed—was my dear older sister.

  “Irene, ‘the peaceful one,’ has awakened,” I announced.

  “Distract her, PLEASE,” my mother said, dropping to the floor.

  Though it was hard not to feel sorry for her there, pathetically prowling around on all fours, it was not a sense of sympathy which prompted me to help my mother. It was merely the desire to ward off one of my sister’s tizzie fits, which she is known to have about, well, EVERYTHING, as you—and all other people with ears—are aware.

  I stood in the doorway and cheerfully said, “Hi!” as my sister stomped down the last of the stairs.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Irene asked. “Why are you being so nice? And why are you standing in the doorway?”

  “No reason,” I said, still smiling.

  She stared at me a second and then said, “When did you get so BIG?”

  “MOM! I yelled, turning to look at my mother, who was now under the dining room table. “I TOLD you I’m big!”

  “She just means you’re taller than she is, dear,” my mother said.

  But Irene, in her ‘peaceful’ way, said, “NO, I mean she’s BIGGER than I am. And I DON’T like it. I’m three years older than she is, so why did SHE end up with BIGGER—” She stopped suddenly at that point, apparently taking notice of the fact that our mother was slithering around on the floor. “What are you looking for?” Irene asked.

  “Oh, nothing important!” Mom said perkily.

  “Uh, why did I end up with bigger what?” I asked Irene.

  “Don’t tell me, DON’T TELL ME!” Irene yelled, ignoring me, and getting her tizz all revved up. “You are NOT planning to leave on a trip with that SNAKE loose, Mom! NO WAY!”

  “Dad will be here,” my mother said, her head halfway under the radiator, “and Clare. They’ll find it if—”

  “Oh, no! No! NO!” Irene shrieked. “This ISN’T going to happen. You’re going to FIND the snake, Mom. Why do we have a snake in the FIRST place? NORMAL FAMILIES DON’T HAVE SNAKES!”

  Even though I wanted to get to the bottom (or top, I suspected) of what Irene almost said, I knew there was no getting through to her for a while. So, I went upstairs to finish packing.

  As I passed my little sister’s room, I noticed she was on the computer (per usual). I decided to stop and ask her something.

  “Clare,” I said, “do I look bigger to you?”

  “Bigger than what?” she asked, staring at the screen, which had about twenty-five IM boxes stacked up all over it and a whole pack of virtual ferrets crawling around.

  “Bigger than I was before,” I said.

  “Before what?” she asked, still tapping away on the keyboard.

  Reminding myself that Clare isn’t really in the same time-space continuum as the rest of us, I headed to my own room to see if I still fit through the door.

  WHEN did my life get so humiliating? Oh, yeah! It was yesterday. At the mall. With you! Which brings me to the second (really pushy) instruction you wrote on my hand:

  #2: WEAR THE BIKINI . . .

  I can’t BELIEVE I let you force me to buy that thing. All I wanted was a nice, one-piece, racing-style swimsuit, like my old one, which seems to have SHRUNK or something—stop laughing—but NOOOO. You had to go on and on about how people don’t wear one-piece, racing-style suits on Mediterranean cruises. How people ONLY wear bikinis.

  HOW EMBARRASSING that I had to get different sizes. I don’t mind so much that the bottoms are a medium. It’s the top that bugs me—I can’t BELIEVE I needed the big one. (I said, STOP laughing.)

  Still, I wouldn’t have such a problem actually WEARING the thing—it’s blue, after all, and you know how I feel about blue—if it weren’t for your next (outrageously pushy) instruction:

  #3: IN PUBLIC!!!

  Oy vey. (As my grandmother says.)

  You think this is no big deal. You tell me, “I’ve been wearing bikinis since I was ten!” No offense, Delia, but I don’t think you’re a whole lot bigger now than you were at ten. But me? It’s like I’ve been exposed to radiation. If you had THAT going on, you might be self-conscious about wearing a bikini, too.

  (Well, maybe.)

  Sorry, Delia, but I’ll have to finish this rant later. We’re BOARDING! YES!

  Your globally active friend,

  Friday, later in the afternoon

  * * *

  Dear Delia,

  It’s a whole two hours since the last letter, and I wish I could at least report that we are flying over the Atlantic Ocean, but the truth is, we still haven’t left the DC airport. Yes, we did board, and yes, it was on time, and, yes, we even rolled down the runway, but then we had to stop because of a major thunderstorm in Chicago, which is where we’re supposed to get our flight to Rome. So we’re sitting here on the runway. Well, we’re not sitting on the runway. We’re in seats, in the plane. On the runway.

  You may be wondering WHY we’re flying to Chicago at all. Of course, this is assuming you have some know
ledge of geography, which is unlikely, since you hate that subject. So, I’ll explain all this at a level appropriate to your understanding—say, first grade? It’s like this: Our airport is in Washington, DC. (With me so far?) Chicago is WEST of DC, while Rome is EAST of DC. WEST and EAST are OPPOSITE directions. So, NOW, of course, you are thinking, “WHY would they fly in the direction that is AWAY from the place they are going?”

  That’s a very good question, Delia! But I’m not going to tell you the answer. It has to do with airlines and hubs and cruise packages and it’s all MUCH too boring to talk about. I know this for a fact, because my mother talked about it for an hour. Finally, I had to resort to the only proven method for distracting her: Georgia Nicholson. I rooted through my pack until I found a copy of Knocked Out by My Nunga Nungas, which I opened and began reading. She forgot completely about her hub-and-cruise-package jag, and we went right into the same conversation we always have when she sees me reading (or re-reading) (or re-re-reading) a Georgia book. It went like this:

  MY MOTHER: Those books are so inappropriate.

  ME: But, Mom, you’ve never read one. Aren’t you judging a book by its cover?

  MY MOTHER: Yes, you’re right. Let me borrow one, and I’ll read it.

  ME: No!

  Then she left me alone—as she always does—and I immersed myself in Georgia’s painfully familiar but nonetheless extremely humorous problems. It wasn’t as fun as reading out loud with you, late at night, in British accents, but it did pass the time, and bloody well. (Why do the Brits use the word “bloody” all the time? Ew.)

  Speaking of Britishness, that was fun watching Bridget Jones’ Diary the other day. Except when my mother came home and had that fit about us watching an “inappropriate” movie. What I want to know is, IF she thought that movie was SO inappropriate then WHY did she leave it IN the DVD player when she left for work? And, if it’s SO inappropriate why did I hear her laughing hysterically when SHE was watching it the night before? Really, what kind of mother is THAT?