Lucky Me (15 page)

The Cliffhanger lifted me, and I began to fly, totally free, with the mid-Atlantic summer wind in my curls. Carissa and I held hands until the wind was too strong. My screams caught on the air and sailed away, maybe over the ocean, maybe all the way to Castle Ballymore, to Finn.

From up there I could also see the dunk tank that the student council from my school had donated. Each year the class president chose the color that we painted the tank. This year I'd chosen green. That's right. I'd become class president. Carissa had demanded a recount when a fistful of ballots had mysteriously turned up under a rock in the school courtyard.

BLING!

Someone had nailed the bull's-eye, and Avery Brown splashed into the tank.

Finn.

Not a day had gone by when I hadn't thought of him.

As I flew through the air, I scanned the crowd below, wishing he was here too.

Suddenly I saw a flash of sandy blond hair.

Could it be?

When the ride ended, I ran ahead of Carissa. “Hey,” she shouted after me. “You gonna barf?”

I ignored her and kept running.

“Finn?”

The guy turned.

It wasn't him.

“Sorry,” I apologized. “I thought you were someone else.”

Carissa caught up. “What's up with you? Where are you going?”

“I thought I saw him,” I said.

“Him? Finn? Again?”

“Yeah. But I was sure this time.”

A familiar voice from behind me said, “Well, would you look at the time? It's 12:10.”

I turned and saw Finn. He was dressed like an ordinary guy in cargo shorts, a white T-shirt, and sandals.

I stepped closer. “It really is you.”

Carissa said, “Hello, castle dweller.”

I gave her a look that said,
Scram
.

“Jeez,” she said, backing up. “I'm going.”

“I didn't expect to see you,” I said, turning back to Finn.

“Surprise!”

I laughed. “Good one.”

The band behind us started playing the newest hit from The Warehouse Boys.

“I love this song!” Carissa yelled. She started dancing around. The crowd grew louder with the music.

I leaned into Finn. “It's really good to see you.”

He took my hand. “I had to come here to ask you something that I didn't get a chance to in Ireland.”

The fountain next to us turned on, spraying water high into the air. Then a thousand little white twinkly lights wrapped around floral garland turned on. It looked like fairies carrying flowers.

“What?”

“Do you still think that letter was bad luck?”

Then I had the best snow globe moment yet: Finn took my chin in his hands, closed his eyes, and gently touched his lips to mine. He held me tight. It was—how can I explain this?—awesome!

Maybe that letter was pretty lucky after all.

I traced my finger over the gold emblem of my new passport. It was blank, but it would have its first stamp very soon. A stamp that said
FRANCE!

My brothers were playing in a lacrosse tournament overseas, which meant that I got to go to . . .
wait for it
 . . . Paris!

While the boys were off playing lacrosse, Mom and I planned to tour the entire city—the City of Lights. That's what they call Paris. What I wanted to do most of all was to take a boat ride down the Seine—that's the river that flows through the center of the city. My dad had to stay behind for work, so he would miss all the fun.
Dommage!
That's ‘bummer' in French, I think, or it's ‘too bad' or ‘scrambled eggs.'

Giddy with excitement, I placed the passport back onto the middle of the kitchen table so everyone could see it. It had my name, Gwen Russell, my picture and birth date, which said I was thirteen. “It's beautiful, isn't it?” I asked Mom for the umpteenth time.

“Yes, it is. It'll look even better with a stamp in it.” She looked at her cell phone. “The boys just texted. They'll be home soon with pizza.”

By “boys” she meant my three older brothers. There are four kids in our family. I was the youngest and the only girl, the only one who stepped on the mat when she got out of the shower, the only one who took her shoes off at the door, and the only one who'd never traveled overseas. But not for long.

I pulled up the latest Shock Value video on my tablet and turned the sound waaaay up. I grabbed a broom, played air guitar, and sang along. I didn't sing when the boys were around because they told me I was terrible, but when they weren't around, I belted it out. I knew every word to this song.

Shock Value was only
the
most amazing band. I dreamed that one day I'd get tickets to one of their concerts. I wanted to see Winston up close. He's my total fave of the band. Maybe because he's the youngest, but also because he's the cutest with a capital
C
. But I doubted I would ever get to see them in person
since tickets to their shows are, like, a bajillion dollars. A girl can still dream, and I do. I'm not the only one nuts about Shock Value. My brothers and parents love them too.

When the video was over, I played ict again with the volume lower. I jumped over the couch with a notebook in which I wrote song lyrics. I called it my Lyrics Notebook. Creative, huh? I jotted:

I'm going to Paris.

Café au lait.

I can't wait for France.

To stroll along the boulevards.

I admired my work. Okay, so maybe these weren't the best lyrics, but I was getting better. I hoped that one day I'd write a song for Shock Value.

As I studied my notebook, the door to the garage slammed open, and Josh (seventeen), Topher (sixteen), and Charlie (fifteen), walked in, each carrying a pizza box. The kitchen instantly filled with the smell of boy sweat and garlic. They stacked their slices three high, grabbed extra-large Gatorades, and headed toward the stairs, where they would play hallway lacrosse in between showers and burping.

“Come on, Gwen,” Topher said on his way up. “We need a goalie.”

The goalie was the one who kept the ball from rolling down the stairs.

“I'll be there in a little bit.” I pointed to my mom. “Girl talk—you know.”

“No. I don't know.” He flew up the stairs two at a time.

I sighed.

I said to Mom, “Tell me again about the flight.”

CRASH!
It sounded like the ball had knocked something over.

“We're leaving tomorrow evening and we'll fly all night on the red-eye,” Mom said.

“AWW!” I was pretty sure one of the boys had caught an elbow to the gut.

As the hallway lacrosse game continued above my head, I put my earbuds in, played a Shock Value song, and imagined myself in front of each fab sight in Paris. My mom and I really needed some quality girl time. ASAP!

I had never been on a plane ride that long before. I felt like I had just slept in a shoe box, but one glimpse of Paris and I didn't care.

As we zoomed through the streets in the taxi, the highway and industrial-looking areas near the airport gave way to the Paris I had always imagined. The city was already alive with people in the middle of their morning routines. I could see the beautiful (and potentially fall-inducing) cobblestone streets lined with beautiful buildings that just screamed Paris—and definitely didn't look like anything I saw in Pennsylvania! All the storefronts had chic-looking everything.

Finally we arrived at our hotel. The Hôtel de Paris lobby
was small, cozy, and warm—maybe too warm. In a modern city of glitz and fashion, the Hôtel de Paris felt like a time capsule from another century. The lights of the antique chandelier were dim, and a candle on the check-in desk reminded me of wildflowers. The drapes were heavy and dark, the furnishings something out of a museum.

After a long nap (in four-poster beds) to recover from being up all night watching airplane movies, we walked the boys to the hotel restaurant for dinner with their team while we joined some fellow tourists gathered in the lobby. Mom and I were taking a special tour of Paris that night after dinner.

Mom skimmed over our itinerary. “We're in group C,” she said, pointing to a sign.

It was a diverse bunch of about a dozen people—old, young, men, women, all different nationalities, shapes, and sizes. They flipped through brochures and unfolded maps.

A guy who looked a little older than me, wearing a shirt with the hotel's logo, came over. He was cute in a soccer player-like way—a few inches taller than me, sun-bleached hair pulled away from his face and tied into a ponytail. “
Etes-vous Américaine?
Are you American?” His accent was adorable and totally added to his cute factor.

“Yes. I'm Gwen Russell.”

“Ah, someone was looking for you.” He scanned the people in the hotel lobby and pointed to the familiar face of Brigitte Guyot. I'd met Brigitte in Pennsylvania when she and her family were living in the US for work that her dad was doing with my dad. We had all hung out and become friends. She was like the big sister I never had. But then her dad's job moved them back to Paris.

Henri added, “You are going on the night tour to la Côte d'Albâtre Étretat. It is . . . er . . . egg salad.”

“Egg salad?”

“Um . . . How do you say? . . .
Formidable?
”

“Excellent?”

“
Oui.
Excellent! We say
‘excellent'
too.” He pointed to his name tag. “My name is Henri.”

“You work here?”

“
Un peu
 . . . er . . . a little, when I am not in school.”

He turned me in the direction of a podium, where a woman stood. “Listen carefully. She does not like it when people do not listen,” he said. “I see you
plus tard
 . . . er . . . later?”

“Yes,” I said. I knew a little more than basic French because I'd studied it in school and listened to some CDs, but mostly I'd learned it from Brigitte and her parents when they were in the US. By just hanging out with them, I'd picked up a lot of phrases.

Brigitte was exactly like I remembered, even though I hadn't seen her in a while—and she was older than me. Here's the deal: Brigitte was very nice, but she was a little
unusual
.

Her brown hair was longer now, past her shoulders, but still very thin and mousy brown. She was tall—very tall, in fact. It seemed like her legs were longer than the rest of her body. Her glasses were square and thick. Her pants were pulled up too high, and she'd buttoned her shirt all the way up to her neck. Her unusual style actually made me smile, because the thing is, it suited her. She was kind of a quirky girl. I hoped my outfit described me in a way that said, “
Bonjour
, Paris! Gwen Russell is in the house!” With three brothers, I was no expert in fashion, but I'd gotten sandals, hair clips, and lip gloss for this trip. Those were big advancements to my wardrobe.

Before I could talk to Brigitte, a small woman wearing a crisply starched uniform and a name tag identifying her as Madame La Beouf stood behind the tour guide podium. She glanced at the clipboard in her hand.

“Welcome to the Hôtel de Paris,” she said with no French accent at all. If anything, from her drawl, I'd guess she was from Alabama or Louisiana. “Tonight we will travel by bus to la Côte d'Albâtre Étretat, where they launch the lanterns.” She clapped twice to get the attention of a couple who were
talking. She pointed to her ears and mouthed, “Listen.” Henri wasn't kidding. She was serious about paying attention. “I will be joined tonight by my assistant.” She waved to Henri, who lifted a tapestry suitcase onto a cart.

Henri waved back, but his mouth gaped open for a second like this was a surprise to him. He forced a smile.

I was psyched to hear this because I wanted to talk more to Henri. He was cute, was French, and seemed my age. Plus, if he was as
sportif
as he looked, we had something in common.

I was good at most sports. Kind of by accident, really. You see, I'd been recruited for every backyard game my brothers played. Whoever was “stuck” with me on their team pressured me to be tougher, faster, and stronger. This meant that I made every team I tried out for. Now I was a three-sport girl: soccer, basketball, and lacrosse. It also meant that I often had black eyes, fat lips, and bruised legs. I'd had more broken fingers than anyone—boy or girl—in my school. I had a few girlfriends, but mostly I hung out with the boys.

But recently, I had been trying to be more girly. My hair finally reached my shoulders, and my mom had bought me some trendy new clothes, which I had brought with me.

Madame LeBoeuf continued. “You must stay with the group at all times. Raise your hands to ask questions. Speak
slowly and clearly so that everyone can hear.
Comprende?
” she snapped. Then she said, “If you require the facilities, now would be the time. We're leaving in five. That's
minutes
, people!” Her yelling definitely had a southern twang, proving there was nothing French at all about Madame LeBoeuf except her name. I used the translation app on my phone. LeBoeuf was “Beef.” Kind of a perfect description of her too.