Meg Cabot - Every Boy’s Got One

Then, not five minutes ago, a small but very determined missile hit my bed, tearing off my very comfortably arranged sheets and shouting in my ear that it was time to get up and get in the car.

I vaguely recall that this missile seemed feminine in form—not an unpleasant way to be roused. Until I realized just which, precisely, female the form belonged to.

Then a cup of coffee was shoved in my hand, and I was urged to dress. Which I did. And then, when I wandered downstairs, wondering what was happening and why Frau Schumacher was at the stove, making what appeared to be soup of some kind, I was very rudely snatched, shoved outside, pushed into the passenger seat of the car, and driven off at considerable speed down the driveway by someone who is apparently not exactly familiar with a stick shift.

A someone who looks remarkably like Jane Harris.

On crystal meth.

Oh, that’s right. It’s all coming back to me now. We’re supposed to be escorting Mark and Holly to Rome so that they can apply for some sort of form at the US embassy.

Except that for some reason, Mark and Holly do not appear to be in the car with us.

“Um, Jane,” I ask, in what I hope is a soothing tone that won’t startle the young woman beside me, looking so wild-eyed behind the wheel. “Aren’t we forgetting something? Or should I say, someone? A pair of someones?”

She seems barely to register my presence in the car, she’s checking so frantically in the rear view mirror for a hole in the oncoming traffic so she can make the turn onto the strada principale.

“Mark and Holly have food poisoning,” is her surprising response. “They won’t be able to make it. We have to go without them.”

“I see.” I’m trying to sound as reasonable as I can, seeing as how she is clearly unaccustomed to driving and conversing at the same time. “And am I to understand that we’ll be applying for whatever form it is they’re lacking?”

“Yeah.” She tosses something into my lap. Looking down, I see that it’s a pair of passports. “Don’t worry, I got their passports. Their birth certificates, too.”

This strikes me as highly amusing.

“And do you really think that the US embassy is going to issue this form to us just because we’re holding our friends’ passports and birth certificates,” I ask, playing along, “simply because we ask them to, as a favor?”

“No,” comes Jane Harris’s somewhat startling reply. “They’re going to issue the form because we’re going to tell them we’re Mark Levine and Holly Caputo.”

This is definitely the funniest thing I’ve heard all morning.

“Isn’t that going to be a little difficult?” I ask. “Seeing as how Mark is dark-haired and wears glasses, and I’m fair-haired, and have twenty/twenty vision?”

Next thing I knew, Mark’s glasses were hurled into my lap.

“I filched them off his bedside table,” my kidnapper explained. “And you can’t tell his hair is that dark in the picture. It’s black and white. You could say it got bleached in the sun, or whatever, if anybody asks. Which they won’t.”

Sadly, I’m starting to wake up now. Even more sadly, this is all starting to seem less and less like a dream, and more and more like a real-life nightmare.

“Wait a minute. Are you serious?” Because she LOOKS totally serious. And we are hurtling down the strada principale—past signs that say ROMA—at a very serious speed. “We’re going to POSE as Mark and Holly?”

“Why not?” She is passing a large truck carrying—predictably— numerous live chickens, stacked high. They squawk at us hysterically. “All we have to do is show our IDs and sign some forms. What’s the big?”

“The BIG,” I say (since when did people start leaving off the word ‘deal’ when asking what the big deal is, anyway? Is this an artist thing? Mary does this, as well), “is that that is what I believe is called forgery. And probably perjury. And maybe a whole bunch of other things, as well.”

Jane Harris has not once turned her head in my direction. She is wearing sunglasses, which makes it extremely difficult to see her eyes, and thus whether or not she has gone absolutely and completely bonkers.

“Oh, please,” she’s saying. “Like we’ll get caught. Mark’s a doctor, remember? No one can read his signature anyway. And I’m an artist. I’ve been forging Holly’s mom’s name on report cards and tardy slips for ages. I think I can easily manage to do Holly’s. You can just scribble something for Mark’s.”

This has progressed from a pleasant game to an entirely unpleasant situation.

“Jane,” I try again. “Are you kidnapping me and forcing me to go to Rome with you to commit fraud against the US government?”

She refuses to see the gravity of the situation, replying merely, “Oh, shut up and drink your coffee and keep writing in your little machine there, if it makes you feel better. There’s some of Peter’s brotchen in the back if you want it. And I’m not kidnapping you. I’m not demanding a ransom from anybody for you. As if anybody’d pay it if I did.”

There must be some sort of Italian law that forbids this sort of thing… taking advantage of a man in a less than wakeful state, and forcing him to drive hundreds of kilometers to a city he only just came from a day or two before, where he will be forced to impersonate another man….

She’s wearing Adidas, but I can see still see the cat tattoo. Is it because it’s so early, or can it really be… well… winking at me?

Travel Diary of Holly Caputo and Mark Levine

Jane Harris

This is going to work. This HAS to work.

I know Cal doesn’t think it’s going to (big surprise).

But what does HE know? He’s been against those two getting together since before any of this even started. Look at him now, asking for the key to the men’s room. He STILL looks as if he doesn’t know quite what hit him. His hair is sticking up in the back in the most peculiar—but strangely erotic—fashion.

EROTIC???? What am I THINKING???? I am on a MISSION here. I can’t be thinking about sex at a time like this!!!

This HAS to work. We’re halfway to Rome now, and it’s only a little after ten. We should get there before lunch… well, probably just as they’re closing for lunch.

But that’s okay. It’s the US embassy. They can’t POSSIBLY take a four-hour lunch at the US embassy. They’re AMERICAN, for God’s sake. They probably take an hour lunch, like all normal people. So we can fill out the form, get the APOSTILLE, and get back on the road by two or three o’clock, and be home before dark.

PLEASE let them only take an hour for lunch….

___________________________________________

To: Jane Harris <jane@wondercat.com>

Fr: Holly Caputo <holly.caputo@thenyjournal.com>

Re: Where are you?

Sorry if there’s typos in this, I can’t really see very well, my head is pounding so much. But where are you guys? Frau Schumacher— who is being so sweet to us—says she doesn’t know, that you just took off without a word to anyone….

Well, I’m glad, anyway. I mean, that you’re not here to see this. I hope you’re off having fun somewhere. I’m so sorry for spoiling your vacation. And the wedding. I know how much you were looking forward to it. Almost as much as me—02q9375)(*&@

Sorry, I couldn’t stop crying there for a minute, and lost sight of the keyboard.

Anyway, I’m glad you and Cal seem to be getting along now, and hope you’ve gone to Loredo or somewhere. There really is some lovely sightseeing in the area. The Madonna’s house, for instance. Apparently angels lifted it and brought it from the Holy Land and dropped it here in Le Marche….

I was just wondering, though, have you seen Mark’s glasses? He swears he left them on the nightstand, but now they’re gone.

Not that it matters, since the only place he’s going is the bathroom. Still, it’s strange.

Well, write when you get a chance. Oh, God, not again—I have to go—

Holly

Travel Diary of Holly Caputo and Mark Levine

Jane Harris

We’re here!!!! The US embassy!!! We made it with minutes to spare!!!! Cal took over the driving after the Mobil station, and we practically FLEW the next few hundred kilometers.

Plus, he insisted on taking this different route, which didn’t go through the mountains. Which was good, since I forgot my Dramamine. We reached Rome at five minutes to twelve.

And now we’re here!!!!

I must say, this place isn’t at all like what I would have thought. I mean, inside, it’s kind of like my dentist’s office. There are all these chairs and people waiting and a glassed-in reception desk and you have to take a number (well, that’s more like at my butcher’s than at my dentist’s, but whatever). Our number is 92.

I have to say, the Modelizer is being much better about this than I’d thought he’d be, judging by his initial reaction in the car, when he finally woke up. I admit I kind of shanghaied him. I knew he wasn’t really awake when I made him get in the car.

Still, he’s taking it like a total sport. He hasn’t uttered a peep of anti-marriage propaganda all morning. Maybe the guy’s finally coming around after all.

Fat-bottomed girls/They make the rockin’ world go round—

Oh my God, I can’t BELIEVE that’s all we had to listen to the whole drive! We are heading STRAIGHT to a music store the minute we get out of here and buying another CD. I don’t care what. ANYTHING but Queen.