The Diary of Melanie Martin (6 page)

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.

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.

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, the
Italians 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.

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 all
got 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 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 number 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. And
Mom 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.

Somehow he made friends with an Italian boy his age, and they slid on slides together and played inside the jaws of Monstro, the whale that almost ate up Pinocchio.

I didn't see anyone my age to hang out with. Even if I had, I probably would have been too embarrassed to say
ciao
(Chow), which can mean both hi and bye. I
was looking at an Italian dad pushing his son on a swing, and an Italian mom walking with her teenage daughter holding the crook of her arm, and Mom and Dad talking on a bench, and Matt playing with his new friend. Suddenly I felt a little homesick, which was strange considering I was with my entire family.

I started wondering if the four of us stick out more than we blend in. Dad had on his palm-tree vacation shirt with jeans and sneakers, but Italian men, I noticed, wear more formal clothes and loafers. Mom also had on jeans and sneakers, whereas Italian women look all stylish, as if they could be heading off to church or a party. And Matt, in his baggy T-shirt and sweatpants, was a total ragamuffin next to his Italian buddy in khakis.

I was beginning to feel self-conscious about my own pants and top too. I mean, some Italian teenage girls wear their jeans so tight, I don't know how they even wriggle into them. And they don't wear them with regular long-sleeved shirts and sneakers but with body-hugging sweaters and high-heeled sandals. If we ever moved to Italy, I bet it would take me months just to figure out how to dress right.

Anyway, my favorite part of Pinocchio Park was when we left, because you have to exit through the gift shop. There is absolutely no other way out. Mom and Dad didn't like that. Matt and I did. He bought an ornament thingy that if you pull a string, Pinocchio's arms and legs go up. I bought postcards—because, after all, Pinocchio is not naked!

The reason there's a park, or
parco
(Par Co), about Pinocchio in Collodi is that the author of the book that became the movie that became the video liked the town so much that when he finished writing, instead of signing his name, he signed Collodi.

Mom said creative people sometimes use different names. Mark Twain and Marilyn Monroe and Ringo Starr and Dr. Seuss are all made-up names.

Maybe I should call myself

Or spell Melanie without the e. Or keep the e but dot the i with a flower or a heart.