Free The Diary of Melanie Martin by Carol Weston Page B

Veh Dare Chee means good-bye.
    At the airport, signs everywhere said
Vietato Fumare
    (Vee Ay Ta Toe Foo Mar Ay), which means No Smoking. But people were smoking anyway. Everywhere there were No Smoking signs and smoking people. Disgusting! People smoke too much in Italy. The restaurants don't even have No Smoking sections!
    I was thinking about reporting the smokers to a nearby policeman, since we're already friends with half the policemen in Italy. But then I noticed that even the policeman was smoking!
    It's pretty
ridicolo
(Ree Dee Co Lo). That's Italian for ridiculous.
    We checked our luggage and showed our passports, and Dad gave us thousands of
lire
to spend before the plane took off. Thousands! Over ten dollars each! You see, you can take Italian money to an American bank and change
lire
into dollars, but banks charge for that, so Mom and Dad figured what the heck, let's just blow it at the airport duty-free shop. Duty-free means no taxes. Like: Everything's on sale! Plus, it was our last chance to buy souvenirs. And Mom says she owes me some back allowances.
    Which she does. Big time.
    Anyway, Mom and Dad bought these gross dried-up porcini mushrooms and also this bottle of green liqueur with a fig in the middle of it. Yuck. We'll get home and they'll invite people over for dried mushrooms and fig liqueur. I bet even grown-ups would rather have hot dogs and soda.
    Hot dogs. I almost forgot about hot dogs. I'm glad America has hot dogs. And Chinese food. And chili. And bagels. I wrote another two-liner in my head:

    With the last of the
lire
, Matt bought three key rings for his backpack. I helped pick them out.
    I bought postcards. At first, to my naked eye, all the postcards seemed to be of Rome. But I looked behind the front ones and saw postcards of other cities too. There were even postcards of the whole
Birth of Venus
and the whole
David
, so I bought those to show just Cecily. (Not to show my classmates!!!)
    I also bought chocolate.
Cioccolato
(Cho Co La Toe). Another important Italian word.
    The chocolate I bought is called Baci (Bah Chee), which means kisses. If you don't mind hazelnuts, Baci are better than Hershey's Kisses.
    Speaking of kisses, Mom and Dad are in a good mood and are drinking airplane champagne again. Last night they said they were happy Matt and I are getting along so well. Well, we're happy
they
are getting along so well!
    In the airport, Dad even complimented Mom on her Italian and said she sounds better than ever. He said she is good at Romance languages and at romance. Mom just smiled.
    And get this: Mom ended up being glad she met Sophia, because Sophia promised Mom lots of art posters and slides and books that she can use for teaching. Karen said she'd bring them to New York when she returns next week.
    Mom started working on this funny quiz for her students called “Are You Art Smart?” She says she doesn't like to give killer tests because the point of art isn't to memorize facts but to see things in new ways. She saysyou learn more by making art than by taking tests. So far, here are her questions:
Michelangelo's most famous sculpture is named
    a.
Stu
b.
Jimmy
c.
David
Which Italian artist painted the
Mona Lisa
?
    a. Lisa Mona b. Leonardo da Vinci
    Leonardo DiCaprio
Botticelli painted
The Birth of
    a.
Saturn
b.
Venus
c.
Pluto

    We got them all right, but Matt said, “You should make Uranus a wrong answer.”
    Mom said, “Uranus?”
Matt said, “Not
my
anus. Uranus!” and cracked up.
Mom said, “I'm not in the mood, Matt.”
Matt said, “You
should
, Mom.”
Mom said, “I'll think about it,” which means no.
    I'm going to stop writing in my diary now and startwriting that poem. Matt's right. It can't be that big a deal. I'll just plain do it.
    Matt asked Dad what Italian tourists like to do in New York. Dad thought about it and said they like to go to the Statue of Liberty, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Wall Street, Fifth Avenue, Central Park, maybe the Metropolitan Opera,