Four Things My Geeky-Jock-of-a-Best-Friend Must Do in Europe by Jane Harrington Page B

and chilled for the rest of the train ride.
    I’m glad I had that chance to relax, because mio madre went right back into manic-mode the second the train stopped. The first place she (very literally) dragged me to was the San Lorenzo Market, which was, actually, AWESOME. We MUST go there, Delia—you would not believe the stuff! The leather jackets are amazing! I wanted to try them on, but before I had one off the hanger, Mom said we had to move on.
    “Time to see David!” she said, over her shoulder.
    “David?” I asked.
    “Michelangelo’s David!” she answered.
    I glanced back at the leather coats of the San Lorenzo Market, all waving their sleeves at me (YES, they WERE), and then I followed my mother into the crowded street. She was jetting along so fast I could hardly keep up. At one point I lost her completely, but that was not my fault. It was YOUR fault, Delia. I was passing this crowd of teenage, back-packed boys who were speaking what might have been German (but what would I know?), and I stopped for just the briefest moment to scan the group for any signs of Euro-hottiness. When I looked ahead again, my mother was nowhere to be seen.
    “This is NOT working,” I said, aloud, to myself. (No, I don’t know why.)
    One of the German-ish boys looked over at me and said, “America?”
    “Yes,” I said, looking closely at him, sizing him up as a code-orange. If nice, I could easily bump him up to red, I thought. Which made the nervousness start rising, rising . . .
    “Where?” he asked.
    . . . rising, rising . . .
    “Across the Atlantic Ocean,” I said, knowing IMMEDIATELY that I was, well, an IDIOT. He wasn’t asking me where America IS, of COURSE, but where I LIVE in America.
    (Hottie hunting OBVIOUSLY has an adverse effect on IQ. Which might explain some things about YOU.)
    He and all his friends started laughing at that, which avalanched him right into the Euro-glacier zone. I felt a sudden, crushing need to see my mother (which should give you some sense of the humiliation level).
    I darted down the stone sidewalk, pushing my way through a large glom of people spilling off a bus, and found my mother standing on a street corner. She was scanning the crowds, and when she saw me, she signaled me over and said, “Come ON!”
    “Aren’t you even a LITTLE relieved to see me?” I asked, catching up to her roadrunner pace. “I could have been kidnapped by gypsies!”
    “I don’t think they KIDNAP people, Brady,” she said. “What would they DO with a bunch of tourists? They probably just steal your money and go.”
    Then (CUE THE GYPSIES), a man dressed in a red suit appeared in my path and started entertaining us. He had a large water bottle balanced on top of his head and a dog that hopped on its back legs. (Uh, the dog wasn’t on his head in case I didn’t make that clear.) Then, out of nowhere, two little kids—like, five years old or less, I swear—started bouncing around me, tugging at my backpack. My mother shooed them off and pulled me along.
    Looking back at the red-suited man (who looked NOTHING like Johnny Depp, by the way), I said, “If those are the gypsies, I’m REALLY disappointed.”
    “We are SO behind,” Mom complained, grabbing onto my hand, now, and shooting down the street.
    “Mom,” I whined, “slow down!” But she was completely oblivious.
    Then, remembering the piece of paper in my jeans’ pocket, I pulled it out and scanned her list of (seemingly useless) Italian phrases. “E-BASTA!” I yelled, grabbing onto a nearby lamp-post. My arm almost came out of its socket, but it was worth it because she stopped.
    I braced myself for the expected impatience of mother-turned-drill-sergeant, so IMAGINE my surprise when she SMILED at me. I had, apparently, impressed her with my command of the local language. “What, dear?” she asked.
    “Mom,” I said, panting (for dramatic effect). “I’m HUNGRY.”
    “But I planned on eating after the Uffizi,” she said, pulling