The Diary of Melanie Martin by Carol Weston Read Free Book Online

that you're outside the city, so you can sort of take it all in. I mean, Rome has been growing and action-packed for, well, almost forever. Rome was here before people even knew about TV or cars or freezers or Scotch tape or e-mail or vaccines or M&M's or anything.
    Dad said Rome is called the Eternal City.
    Mom pointed out the Vatican and said that tomorrow we'll see the Sistine Chapel—“one of the masterpieces of the world.”
    It took Michelangelo almost five years to paintthe whole ceiling, and he had to do it lying down on a bunch of scaffolding with paint dripping on him from above, and he didn't even like to paint as much as he liked to sculpt.
    “Did the paint drip into his ears and nostrils?” Matt asked.
    “Probably,” Mom said, looking sort of sad for Michelangelo. She told us that one reason why Michelangelo sculpted so well was because he had done something illegal.
    “Against the law?” Matt asked, his eyes all big and round.
    “Against the law of the time,” Mom said. “He dissected corpses so he could better understand human anatomy.”
    “Huh?” Matt said.

    “He cut up dead people,” Mom explained, “so he could see how their muscles and bones hung together.”
    Matt didn't say another word. Michelangelo is a lot to think about.

    This morning Mom asked, “Who remembers the
David
?”
    Dad and Matt and I all said, “Me! Me! Me!” because it's fun to say “Me! Me! Me!”
    So Mom said, “Let's go see two more of his marble sculptures,” and we followed her around like a bunch of art students from one big musty church to another.
    The first sculpture was of Moses carrying the Ten Commandments. Moses has funny little horns popping out of his head. Mom said they symbolize rays of light.

    The second sculpture was of Jesus carrying the cross. After Michelangelo made it, some religious peoplethought it was inappropriate to see Jesus’ you-know-what, so they added a big bronze loincloth.
    Matt said, “It looks like a metal diaper.”
    Mom agreed they should not have changed his work: “You don't tamper with genius.”
    We also walked around and took photos of this big old column and visited a place called Trajan's Market, which used to be a giant shopping center like an ancient A&P or Zabar's, but now it's just mounds of red bricks piled up on each other. Lots of stray cats and kittens seemed curious about us, but they wouldn't let us get too close. (I wish we'd brought salami!) Dad told us to forget the cats and try to picture people from biblical times bustling around and buying oil and spices.
    Matt said he was a “Starvin’ Marvin” and he didn't want to picture dead people buying food, he wanted to eat food. So we went into the nearest pizzeria and ordered lunch. While we were waiting, I figured it would be an excellent time to show Mom and Dad my poem.
    I took it out of my pocket. It was a little wrinkled, but I started reading it out loud, all eight lines.
    When I was halfway done, Matt took his gum out of his mouth and put it on the tip of his knife and held it over the candle on our table as if he were toasting a marshmallow.
    Dad told him to behave.
    I kept on reading my poem, and when I finished, I was sure everybody would compliment me.
    But Matt put his finger down his throat as though he were about to throw up, and Mom scolded him but didn't say one word to me.
    Finally Dad said, “It's cute,” then made about a million suggestions.
    I was hoping Mom would defend me and say, “You don't tamper with genius.”
    But she didn't. She just agreed that my poem was cute.

    “This poem is not supposed to be cute! I worked hard on it!”
    “Simmer down,” Dad said. “No one expects you to be Dante.”
    “Who's Dante?” I asked.
    “A famous Italian poet,” Mom said.
    “You didn't work that hard on it,” Matt said. “You whipped it off because you wanted to get it over with.”
    “You don't get it!” I said. “I hate you!” I couldn't believe I said “I hate you!”