Free Just One Day by Gayle Forman Page A

seen the watch, fingered the heavy gold links. Read the engraving.
    “It’s too much.” And it was. In every way.
    “Time stops for no one,” Mom had said, smiling a little sadly. “You deserve a good
     watch to keep up.” Then she’d snapped the watch on my wrist, shown me how she had
     an extra safety clasp installed, pointed out that it was waterproof too. “It’ll never
     fall off. So you can take it to Europe with you.”
    “Oh, no. It’s way too valuable.”
    “It’s fine. It’s insured. Besides, I threw away your Swatch.”
    “You did?” I’d worn my zebra-striped Swatch all through high school.
    “You’re a grown-up now. You need a grown-up watch.”
    I look at my watch now. It’s almost four. Back on the tour, I’d be breathing a sigh
     of relief, because the busy part of the day would be winding down. Usually we had
     a rest around five, and most nights, by eight o’clock, I could be back in my hotel
     room watching some movie.
    “We should probably start seeing some of the sights,” Willem says. “Do you know what
     you want to do?”
    I shrug. “We could start with the Seine. Isn’t that it?” I point to a concrete embankment,
     underneath which is a river of sorts.
    Willem laughs. “No, that’s a canal.”
    We walk down the cobblestoned pathway, and Willem pulls out a thick Rough Guide to
     Europe. He opens to a small map of Paris, points out, more or less, where we are,
     an area called Villette.
    “The Seine is here,” he says, tracing a line down the map.
    “Oh.” I look out at the boat, which is stuck now between two big metal gates; the
     area is filling up with water. Willem explains that this is a lock, basically an elevator
     that lifts and drops the boats down differing depths of the canals.
    “How do you know so much about everything?”
    He laughs. “I’m Dutch.”
    “So that means you’re a genius?”
    “Only about canals. They say ‘God made the world, but the Dutch made Holland.’” And
     then he goes on to tell me about how so much of the country was reclaimed from the
     sea, about riding your bike along the low embankments that keep the water out of Holland.
     How it’s an act of faith to ride your bike around, with the dikes above you, knowing
     somehow, even though you’re below sea level, you’re not under water. When he talks
     about it, he seems so young that I can almost see him as a towheaded little kid, eyes
     wide, staring out at the endless waterways and wondering where they all led to.
    “Maybe we can go on one of those boats?” I ask, pointing to the barge we just watched
     go through the lock.
    Willem’s eyes light up, and for a second, I see that boy again. “I don’t know.” He
     looks inside the guidebook. “It doesn’t really cover this neighborhood.”
    “Can we ask?”
    Willem asks someone in French and is given a very complicated answer full of hand
     gestures. He turns to me, clearly excited. “You’re right. He says that they have boat
     rides leaving from the basin.”
    We go along the cobblestoned walkway until it lets out in a large lake, where people
     are paddling in canoes. Off to one side, next to a cement pier, a couple of boats
     are moored. But when we get over there, we find out that they’re private boats. The
     tourist boats have left for the day.
    “We can take a boat along the Seine,” Willem says. “It’s much more popular, and the
     boats run all day.” His eyes are downcast. I can see he’s disappointed, as if he let
     me down.
    “Oh, no big deal. I don’t care.”
    But he’s staring wistfully out at the water, and I see that
he
cares. And I know I don’t know him, but I swear the boy is homesick. For boats and
     canals and watery things. And for a second, I think of what it must be like—away from
     home for two years, and here he postponed his return for another day. He did that.
     For me.
    There’s a row of boats and barges tied up, bobbing in the breeze that’s kicked up.
     I look at