Free A Nice Fling is Hard to Find by Sarah Mlynowski Page A

about making rules. In third grade we had club rules, in the fifth we had
Barbie rules, and in the sixth we introduced boy rules. Since we both had a
crush on a scrawny boy named Chet, we decided we’d each have to choose someone
else to like. No hurt feelings allowed. We never liked the same guy again. And
I’d know, ’cause we tell each other everything. I’m the person she called when
her parents separated. She fed me banana sorbet after I got my wisdom teeth
pulled. She’s going to be my BFF until we’re eighty and living on a beach in
Florida, complaining about how our grandkids never call us and that we can’t
hear the TV.
    “Here’s my rule—I’m calling dibs on the Texan,” she
whispered soon after takeoff, motioning with her head to a guy in a Teens
Tour France! T-shirt sitting four rows back, near the bathrooms.
    “Oh sure, take the only cute guy on the trip,” I said,
poking her in the side.
    “Uh, hello? Remember me? ” Tommy asked, waving. “I’m right
here.”
    Whoops. “Sorry Tommy,” I said, laughing. “One of two cute guys on the trip.” I felt kind of bad about that one. Of course Tommy’s
cute. Not in a hello-I-need-to-make-out-with-you kind of way, but in a
isn’t-he-sweet, brotherly kind of way. What can he expect? He looks too much
like my almost-a-sister best friend for me to think of him any other way.
They’re not identical, but they both have dark brown hair and the same
foreheads. Of course, he’s almost six feet, and she’s barely five foot four.
And he has his dad’s dark brown eyes, and she has her mother’s hazel ones. And
her lips are pencil-thin and his are full. When his are outlined in lip liner,
they’re especially humongous. Why would Tommy use lip liner? Part of one
of our many “boomerang dares,” which involved all of us having to do things we
didn’t want to do in the name of absurdity. In this case, we got to put makeup
on him, but we had to drink Tommy’s Tornado, which was string cheese, raisins,
Tabasco sauce, and seltzer, in the blender. Yum. Not.
    There’s no mistaking me and Becca for twins. I have green
eyes and light brown hair—stick-straight brown hair. Boring, boring, boring.
Maybe I should get highlights to liven up my look? Or not. Becca tried
highlights last year, and they were tough to keep up. She also tried lowlights
and pink-lights and cropping it and extensions . . . Becca likes to try a lot
of things. I, on the other hand, have never tried anything different or exciting.
    Until now.
    I returned my focus to Becca. “You know what? You can have
everyone on the tour,” I said with determination. “I’m only considering men
with accents.”
    “Go, you!” Becca exclaimed, putting her arm around me. “I
raised you well, little one.”
    Becca likes to call me “little one” because at five foot
one, I am the only person she knows who is shorter than she is.
    “Long Islanders have an accent,” Tommy piped up with a grin.
    “ Foreign accents,” I clarified. “Italians, Russians,
Spaniards . . . but most especially, Frenchmen.”
    Tommy kicked off his Adidas sneakers and pushed them under
the seat in front of him. “What about Brits? Or Australians? Who gets them?”
    “Good question,” Becca said. “I do like Brits. And
Australian guys are super sexy. They’re all tanned, muscled, and blond.”
    “You can have anyone who speaks English,” I told her. “The
only language I’m speaking is the language of love.”
    That’s when Tommy groaned and said, “You’re such a
cheeseball, Lindster.” He reclined his seat, pulled out his iPod, and put in
his earbuds.
    Becca is poking my side now. She wants to play the travel
Battleship she brought. Gotta run. Not that I’m GOING anywhere . . . except
France . . . oh, whatever. Can you tell this is the first time I’ve ever kept a
diary?
    Wednesday, July 11 6:00 a.m. France Time!
    Bonjour TJ ! We are here. Nous sommes ici .
And by ici , I mean sitting on the cold floor of