Taking Tuscany (17 page)

Instantly all eyes shift to the screaming pink blob on the hill. Dominic quickly looks back at me, “You okay, Angelina?”

“Y-yeah …”
Hardly. But who wants to compete with that?

I watch Dominic charge up the hill to the rescue. Annalisa is holding up one leg and balances herself against Dominic, while he wraps his arm around her. Bianca is running down the hill toward me. I slowly climb to my feet, wincing from shooting sensations in my arm.

“What happened?” Bianca asks, when she reaches the bottom of the hill.

“Bad landing. I hurt my arm.”

J. R., Dino, and Benji pack up all of our stuff and take turns pulling me home on the sled. Meanwhile Dominic and Annalisa hobble off toward Annalisa's house. I could have sworn she was limping on the other leg at first.

By the next morning the snow is nearly all melted. I show up late to school with a cast on my arm. “A smooth break,” the doctor told Mama. “Should be better in about six to eight weeks.”

I pass Annalisa in the hall. From her “call of the wild” that echoed down Poppy Hill yesterday, one would expect to find Annalisa in the hospital today. Oddly she seems to have made a miraculous recovery. The second she sees me, a quick limp starts up
.
“
Lei è stata ferita
?” she asks. You got hurt too?

“Yep.”

“I was going to go to the doctor, too, but my leg felt a little better after I got home, so I decided just to brave it out.”

“Uhh-huh.” Whatever.
Spotting Bianca, I make my way toward her.

Before I reach her, a voice in the crowd yells out, “Angelina
, ma che è successo
?” What happened? I'm quickly engulfed by a circle of people. Annalisa looks on longingly, probably wondering where she can get a wheelchair.

At lunch Dominic comes over to my table looking sheepish. “
Buongiorno,
Angelina.”
Before I have a chance to answer, he says
, “Scusami.
”
I'm sorry.

I just nod. I think we both understand what happened here. The funny thing is, I feel more sorry for Annalisa than for myself.

16

Fun on the French Express

“I'm not sure how comfortable I am sending A. J. off alone on a train with her …”

“Sending me
where
with
who?
” I ask, entering the kitchen, unexpected. I love the way my family makes plans for me without asking me first.

Mama turns around, alarmed to see me. “Nothing.”

“Oh, Mama, come on, it's
my
life—what are you doing with it this time?”

Nonna walks into the room carrying her giant coffee mug. “Well, there you are, Angelina Juliana. Are you ready to go visit Sainte Foy with me?”

“Huh?” I quickly look at Mama. “Where am I going?”

“Okay, everyone, just hold on and sit down.” Mama pours coffee into Nonna's mug, then gives Daddy a warm-up splash while passing him the baton with her eyes.

On cue Daddy says, “I think it's a great opportunity for Nonna and A. J. to spend some time together with Nonna's relatives. A. J.'s never met her Great Aunt Ada or the Renzos before.”

“
More
relatives?” I sigh.

Mama finally forks over the information. “Nonna has been invited to spend a few days visiting her sister in France.”

“France? I get to go to France? Wait a minute … who's Sainte Foy?”

“Sainte Foy is the little twelve-year-old martyr who was beheaded,” Nonna chimes in.

“Delicately put,” Daddy comments.

“
What?
I don't want to see a twelve-year-old with no head!”

“A. J.,” Daddy says calmly, “Nonna's sister lives near the village of Conques. The abbey there houses the statue of Sainte Foy. Nonna wants to go on a pilgrimage with her sister to see the shrine of the little saint.”

I'm intrigued. “The statue has a head, right?”

“Yes, the statue has a head. Nonna thought since both of you have such a passion for the saints …”

“I do?”

“Sure you do,” Mama says. “Remember your statue of Saint Francis?”

Um, okay …
I have one statue of Saint Francis back in my critter cemetery … not sure if that qualifies as a passion, but if it will get me a trip to France …
“Right. So when is this pilgrimage supposed to happen, anyway?”

“That's what we're trying to decide,” Mama says. “First we need to feel comfortable about you and Nonna traveling alone on the train for the better part of a day.”

“It's not
you
we're worried about,” Daddy mutters to me.

Mama continues, “You'd be staying with the Renzo family in Nîmes, then drive on up to Conques and spend a few days together there. It would only be for a weekend, and with the snow starting to fly, the sooner you go, the better—probably this weekend.”

“
This weekend?
Will I miss any school?”

“You'd miss Friday and the following Monday, for travel days.”

That's two days less torture for me.
“I'll go.” A train ride with Nonna will be a cakewalk compared to going to school. I mean, how tough could it be?

First thing Thursday morning, I let my teachers know I'll be missing two days of school, in case they insist I do some homework to keep up. My language teacher says we will be analyzing classic works of poetry and has a small collection to choose from. As I ramble through the stack of books piled on her desk, one of them catches my attention, mainly because it's in English. The title piques my curiosity as well.
The Hound of Heaven
by Francis Thompson. Picking it up, I begin to read.

I fled Him, down the nights and

down the days;

I fled Him, down the arches of the

years;

I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways

Of my own mind; and in the midst of tears

I hid from Him, and under running laughter.

Up vistaed hopes, I sped;

And shot, precipitated,

Adown Titanic glooms of chasméd fears,

From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.…

It may be in English, but I can't make any sense of it.

“That is an exceptional poem, Angelina, one of the best, but also one of the most difficult to understand. Here …” Signorina Luzi hands me a book that explains the poem, which is much longer than the poem itself. “
Hound of Heaven
is a poem written by a young man from London in the late 1800s. He lived a tragic life but envisioned God as the Hound of Heaven, who pursued him with unrelenting love. I wouldn't recommend this to many students, but with your ability, I think you might be able to grasp it with the commentary. Try to read the poem while you're away. We'll have a writing assignment when you return. You'll each be writing a poem, similar in style to the poem you choose but will be relating it to your own life.”

That will be interesting.

Friday morning Mama and Daddy wave good-bye as our train pulls away. They have misgivings written all over their faces. Daddy mouths the words
good luck
. I have no idea what they are so worried about. We are on our way to France. I am sitting on a train instead of being harassed at school. As far as I can tell, this is a good trade-off.

“Nonna …
what
are you doing?”

“I'm changing my stockings.” Nonna is rolling her tights down around her ankles, but still has her boots on.

“Nonna, you can't do that on the train, pull them back up.”

“Why? I want to wear my red ones instead.”

“You can change into the red ones when we get to France—you have to wear black tights in Italy.” When dealing with Nonna you have to use her kind of logic if you want to get anywhere.

“Oh.” She looks at the legs of a woman across the aisle. Her stockings are black, thank goodness. “Okay.” She pulls them back up to her waist. I try to shield the other passengers from having to see her bloomers, which would not be a good way to start anyone's morning.

Pulling out my travel journal, I begin documenting my trip. Nonna pulls a breadstick out of her purse. Everything takes me twice as long with this big cast in the way—at least it was my left arm I broke instead of my right. I'm holding my page flat with the weight of my cast while composing.

Travel Journal Entry: November 3, 1972

A Train to Sainte Foy

I stare out my train window as the November snow begins to fly. I, too, am flying in my soul. I am on my first pilgrimage to France to visit the resting place of the brave little martyr Sainte Foy. I don't know what to think, as I have never been to visit a saint before, or heard of one so young as the little Foy.

As I'm watching the silent snowfall, a quiet hush falls over me, a hush of wonder and stillness … peace …

Crunch … crunch … crunch …

Nonna is gnawing away on her rock-hard breadstick.

Crunch … crunch … crunch …

“We can go to the dining car if you're hungry, Nonna.”

“Let's do that. I love dining cars.”

I pack up my travel journal and help Nonna out of her seat. Navigating the narrow aisles is no easy task, trying to keep Nonna upright and not bonk anyone in the head with my cast. The dining car is at the far end of the train. I'm feeling kind of seasick already.

By the time we arrive, Nonna is still standing and I've only bonked three heads. There are no empty tables, so we ask to join another family. They seem friendly—until Nonna reaches in her mouth, pulls out her dentures, and sets them on the tea saucer in front of her.

The kids' eyes bug out of their heads.

“Nonna,” I whisper, “you're not supposed to do that in public. You need to keep those in your mouth.”

“Oh.” She grabs them off her plate and sticks them back in her mouth.

I'm thinking we'd better leave before Nonna pulls any more surprises. “Nonna, let's go buy some sandwiches and take them back to our seats.”

“Why can't I stay right here?”

“Because we have a better view from our window.”

She looks out the train window. “You're right.” She stands up. “If any of you would like a better view,” she says to the family, “you can all come back and look out our window.”

They nod politely.

The highlight of the train ride was Nonna's two-hour nap. Running a close second is my sticker-book collection, which has kept her obsessively busy for the past three hours. She has taken every sticker on and off the pages at least fifty times each. I'm just praying the stickum will hold up for the trip home, or we're all in trouble.

The announcement finally comes that we're arriving in Nîmes. I start to gather up our things and put them into our bags. “Okay, Nonna, I need to pack up the sticker book, we're almost there.”

“Almost where?”

“Nîmes.”

“I don't want to get off. I'm staying here with my stickers; I'm not done yet.”

“Nonna, those are my stickers, and you are done for now. You have to save some for the trip home.”

“Oh, that's right.” She hands it over to me.

There's really nothing to finish
—
it's just a book full of stickers that you can arrange any way you want. I'm just grateful she seems to think it's an ongoing project. These stickers are worth their weight in gold.

The conductor reaches out to help Nonna off the train. She swats his hand away. “Get your hands off of me, buster.”

I apologize for her and thank the man. As soon as we step onto the platform, I start looking for someone who looks like Nonna. Mama says Nonna and her sister could almost pass for twins, but the main difference is their sharpness of mind. According to Mama, Ada's ducks are still all in a row. I guess it goes without saying that Nonna's ducks have all flown south.

Escorted by a short little couple, I spot a tall woman who is the spittin' image of Nonna heading directly toward us. This must be Ada. “
Bonjour,
Juliana,” the short lady calls out to Nonna.

Ada's son and daughter-in-law, Rudi and Gina Renzo, look quite short and stout next to Ada, who stands slim and statuesque between the two. Nonna stops dead in her tracks. She stares at her sister and tears fall from her eyes. “Ada, Ada,” she cries, and falls into her arms.

I introduce myself to my great-aunt Ada and my …
I don't know
… twice-removed great cousins? Rudi and Gina are ecstatic over having a blonde relative in the family. I'm glad someone can appreciate it. On another very fortunate note, they all know English. “We are so pleased you could come,” they tell me. “Come, we will feed you.”

And feed us they do. When we arrive at their quaint French cottage, a big feast awaits us. Normandy pork with apples … peaches in crème brûlée … yummo! I've decided I like French food. Over chocolate mousse I learn that Gina is my first cousin, once removed
.
She
tells me to just call her Gina. That's a relief.