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

right at lunch.
    Dad said, “Don't talk that way, young lady.”
    “It's okay,” Matt said. “I'm used to it.”
    “Melanie, I know you're angry,” Mom said, “but apologize to your brother.”
    I mumbled, “Sorry,” but I felt like kicking him under the table. Or pushing his tiny heinie right off his chair.
    Mom said, “You're off to a good start with your poem. I'm sure you can do even better.”
    “I agree,” Matt said. Little turd.
    “Rome wasn't built in a day,” Dad added. “More like a couple thousand years.”
    Lunch came, and Matt grabbed a big slice of pizza and ate it right up, and no one even realized that I was still mad.
    Which I was.
    Or maybe Mom did realize it, because after a while she put a slice in front of me.
    I was going to let it sit there and get cold, but Dad said,
    Melanie, dear, you've written quite wittily.
Now eat your pizza and let's enjoy Italy
.
    Mom laughed, and you could tell Dad thought he was the poet of the world.
    I didn't feel like pizza. I felt like punching someone's guts out.
    Matt's, for instance.

    P.S. The sun is now setting and Rome looks all rosy, and you can sure tell that it wasn't built in a day.
    same day

    Matt is still upset because DogDog isn't back, even though Paola promised to send him. To cheer Matt up, I started playing circus and doing acrobatics on the hotel bed with him. I was getting really good until by mistake I flipped upside down in the air and landed on the floor on my face. My eyebrow rammed into the frame of my glasses, and my glasses didn't break, but my eyebrow got a gash in it and was all bloody.
    Mom and Dad came in, and I could tell Mom was trying not to get hysterical. She kept saying, “At least your eye is okay. At least your eye is okay.”
    Dad said he would stay with Matt, and Mom should take me to the hospital since she speaks Italian. Dad sort of rocked me on his lap and held a cold wet washcloth to my eye while Mom called down to the front desk of the hotel and told them to have a taxi ready.
    Next thing you know, Mom and I were in the emergency room.
    Mom started babbling away in Italian, and after along wait, with me sitting between a wheezing old man and a lady with a broken finger, the receptionist said it was my turn. A nurse gave me a lollipop, and a handsome young Italian doctor said in English, “I am plastic surgeon. I help you.” He had a little accent, and he said, “You are pretty girl—I will make sure you remain pretty girl.” (That was sweet.)
    He gave me three shots right in my eyebrow to make it totally numb, and then he said, “This won't hurt” and sewed seven tiny stitches. I've never had stitches before, but I didn't feel them. (Phew.)
    I was almost glad I didn't speak Italian because I didn't want to have to explain to the handsome young doctor about pretending to be an acrobat.
    I did thank him in Italian, though. I said,
“Grazie.”
    Back at the hotel, Dad said he couldn't believe what a good job the doctor did. He said I looked cute as ever. I thought Matt might say I looked like Frankenstein because of the stitches, but Matt didn't say anything, he just hugged me. Mom said we were lucky a plastic surgeon was available.
    Cecily once told me that plastic surgeons are thedoctors who give old ladies face-lifts to get rid of their wrinkles and who give big fake Barbie bosoms to ladies who want them. I think it's weird to have surgery if you don't need to, but I'm glad plastic surgeons are also the doctors who repair kids who've been in accidents.
    Mom and Dad made us promise not to do any more acrobatics in Italy.
    Duh.

    P.S. Here's how to say eyebrow in Italian:
Sopracciglio
(So Pra Cheel Yo).
    March 26
afternoon

    Dear Diary,
    Matt is lost. Really and truly and forever lost this time.
    And it's my fault.
    Mom and Dad would probably kill me, except then they would have no children at all.
    Also we're in the Vatican, which is where the Pope lives, so it's not exactly an ideal place to kill your