A Field Guide for Heartbreakers by Kristen Tracy Read Free Book Online

somewhere behind me. And thanks to my two years of high school French, I was able to translate a four-year-old boy’s remark that his endives had been acrid. I peeled my ears for Czech. I’d only memorized a few words for the trip. Dobr´y den, which means Hello . Pomoc! which means Help . And Kde je vécé? which translates to Where is the toilet? At the moment, nobody seemed to be uttering those phrases.Mrs. Knox returned and led us toward the giant automatic doors. They parted, and we stepped into the damp Prague evening. The terminal was bright but quiet. A handful of people were boarding a bus dozens of yards away, but we appeared to be the only travelers in line for a cab. “This place is dead,” Veronica said. “Where are the taxis?”“It’s the middle of the night,” Mrs. Knox said. “Give it a minute.”Beyond our bubble of light, the Prague landscape was cloaked in darkness. A soft mist floated through the air at my knees. Without thinking, I reached down and trailed my hand through it.“Did you drop something in the land-fog?” Veronica asked. “No,” I said. I watched the mist part like a curtain around me. A Czech candy bar wrapper fluttered by. Before I could try to read it, a white cab pulled up and crushed it beneath its front tire. An unsmiling blond man got out of the cab and brusquely hefted Veronica’s suitcase into the trunk. Then Mrs. Knox’s, then mine.“Thakurova Forty-one Praha Six. Masarykova Kolej,” Mrs. Knox told the driver.We climbed inside and sped through puddles down a dark, broad street. We passed under streetlamps every few seconds, and I caught glimpses of houses, apartments, and trees. The scenery grew increasingly urban. We passed under what appeared to be a metro platform. My stomach flipped. I was dying to take the metro. I wanted to speed through this foreign city upright, like people did in movies, holding on to a pole. We didn’t pass a single McDonald’s. Or Taco Bell. Or billboard. The urban scenery gave way to a stretch of grassy fields. The air rushing through my window felt heavy, like you could wear it. Ohio was chemical and fishy. But this place was sweet and metallic. It made me thirsty. The driver pulled onto a major roadway, and suddenly, through the fog, I could see a dense cluster of lights dotting the horizon. In the mix of black-and-gray darkness I searched for Prague’s famous skyline, its countless dramatic spires and steeples rising up in the distance. “Look!” I said, nudging Veronica. We were in Prague! “I will never remember any of these street signs,” Veronica complained. “Italian is way easier.”I pulled my Czech dictionary out of my bag. “We’re good. This has all the phrases we’ll need.”“But look at that street sign!” Veronica said. “ U dejvichého rybnicˇku . Do you see all those letters and accent marks?” She leaned into me and whispered, “We’ll never be able to get far on our own. We’re screwed.” It was 2:07 a.m. when we got to the dorm. The building loomed in front of us like an enormous and boring block of cement with windows.“This place is so square,” Veronica said.“It’s supposed to be,” Mrs. Knox said. “It was built by communists.”“Ugh,” Veronica said. “The whole thing is pigeon-turd gray.”I wished the whole thing had been pigeon-turd gray. Inside, we encountered the dorm’s two dominant colors. Dull white. And bright yellow.“Whoever designed this place must worship the egg,” Veronica said. “Let’s try to say as little as we can until we get a good night’s rest,” Mrs. Knox said.A tired young woman with dark hair eyed us from the front desk. When Mrs. Knox introduced herself, the girl silently slid a fat envelope over the counter. Mrs. Knox tore it open and dumped out the contents.“We’re staying in separate wings,” she said.Veronica poked me and smiled.“Let’s get you to your rooms first,” Mrs. Knox said.But before she could guide us anywhere, a group of