My spring travelogue   

It’s spring break, Saturday morning. Right now, I’m on the flight, let me catch you up on what’s going on. I’m a 9 year old, Roe Baker . My mammi bought me this book to keep me engaged during the trip, and it’s also part of my homework from Mrs. Chesterfield’s English class. She says that we’re going to write an essay about our spring break. Lucky for me, my spring break is packed with excitement. I have a big list of things I want to do. During spring break, I’m going to meet my cousins, aunts, uncles, and Poppy (that’s what I call my grandma because she loves poppies). I have created an important list of to-dos of my hope for this break:

• Eat pasta with Poppy. My favorite is Alfredo spaghetti.
• Go to the Trevi Fountain with my cousin Isabella. She’s 27 and super cool.
• Do a TikTok dance with Julia (Isabella’s younger sister).
• Visit Zia Anna and Zio Mel and go on a picnic with them.
• Best of all, I’m finally going to meet my big brother, Gabe.

After Gabe decided to study architecture in Italy, we hadn’t seen each other for three years. He only visited during Christmas, but after he and Mom had a fight about how he was too young to be taking high school and college architecture classes, he decided not to come back. Gabe is really smart, so he started taking architecture classes and internships while he was still in high school.

                                  Plane landed now at Poppy’s house
Sorry for the sudden stop, the flight attendant made me keep everything away since the plane was landing. After a long 9 hour flight of sitting in a crammed seat with a bunch of strangers, and another car ride that was 30 long minutes, we finally arrived at Poppy’s house. Soon as the car stops, I practicaslly practically jump out looking for Gabe. “Ayyy Roe my dear, you’ve become so biggg nowww” Poppy greets me, I chat really quickly and look around for Gabe, since last time I saw him, he lived in Poppy’s house. Except he wasn’t there, “Grandma, where’s Gabe?” I ask only for her to reply that he’s not here. Apparently he hasn’t been living for the past 2 years.  Grandma told me that since he completely finished high school, he’s staying in the college dorms. 

After that Julia walks in grandma’s house, except she’s with older kids and Gabe. 

As soon as I see them I run over to hug them. Gabe doesn’t recognize me at first, but when he sees my bracelet he once made, he recognizes me. 

He kneels down and hugs me, “Hey Roe forgot yall were coming here today”, he still had the New York accent, I look at him, his face shows his guiltness, he really did forget we were coming today. Just because he forgot me doesn’t mean Julia did, but she did forget our handshake. She chats with me about how school is until one of their friends had to interrupt.

“Heyyy grandma” Gabe says cheerfully and hugs her, Poppy sure does look happier with Gabe.

I tried to not let my smile fade when Gabe seemed to show more excitement with grandma and Julia forgot our secret handshake. Although I made sure to practice our handshake just so I don’t mess it up. 

But I will keep my hopes up, I’m sure Isabella will hang out with me before her marriage in another few days.

I try to tag along with Gabe and Julia’s friends, except they are all tall and I didn’t understand a thing. All they spoke about was college classes and drama from their classes. After around 10 minutes of trying to act like “I belong with them”, we all gathered around the picnic tables in the backyard. It wasn’t like the American backyards from home, instead of giant pools or interesting mini gardens with flowers, the Italian backyard had the architectural oasis (That’s what mammi calls it).  

I walked on the stepping stones one by one hopping, I noticed the garden full of Poppies. After grandpa passed away, Poppy has been growing a new poppy all the time in memory. She said they were also grandpa’s favorite, in fact they met in a poppy fair. It’s been 7 years since grandpa passed away but for sure Poppy hasn’t forgotten about him. Personally I haven’t really known grandpa. He was only there for 2 years after I was born. 

I take a seat by mammi at the table, everyone is helping Poppy with getting the table ready, except me. In New York, most days mammi bought pizza or we had salad by the TV in our small apartment.  This sure was different from usal  usual dinner we always have. Minties Minutes later everyone is sitting at the table.  Poppy made Gabe’s favorite, Italian styled pizza. Mushroom, basil, and tomato sauce. At this point, I hated pizza, pizza for school lunch and dinner everyday. It wasn’t Poppy’s fault but I still hated it. Mammi notices me pushing the plate away, she enougares   encourages me to try a bite. I tried a small piece, but I didn’t notice it was super hot. Immediately I spitted it out, “I HATE THIS STUPID PIZZA” I yelled. Poppy looked at the plate and at mammi, she was hurt for sure, Gabe was flushed in embarrassment, he always wanted our family to be perfect in front of his friends. I slap my hand to my mouth, I deeply regret what I said, Mammi pulls me to the corner and tells me what I did was wrong. Before she can get into the lecture of being nice, Isabella walks in. She’s in a messy bun, holding binders, two are labeled with the word wedding, another two binders said had medical reports flying out. I run to her, but she shushes me, she’s on the phone. “I will send you the dress details, we will have 3d pink flowers all around…theme is pink floral designs…yes yes…Luca is fine with it, he chose it the theme…” the call went on for hours.  I run upstairs to the guest bedroom, and here I am, upset about being ignored.

Mammi is giving me space which is better than her embarrassing me in front of older kids.

3 days later

Mammi said I was making a huge fit and she said I’m too much for her or Poppy to take off with all the wedding planning, I didn’t make a fuss since she was right, and she sent me to zia and zio’s house. Zia Anna was very busy and so was Zio Mel. I didn’t do anything, there wasn’t anything fun happening, especially since school was going on right now, everyone was busy. I mostly tried to play with Firago, their pet cat. It passed the time quickly, especially without my travelogue it made it boring. Mammi had been busy with helping the wedding. Isabella’s mammi and papa were flying back from New Zealand work trip the day before her wedding, so mammi made sure everything still went on plan and went with traditions. Soon as mammi picked me up we went to the tailor, I was going to be the flower girl. Seemed fine to me. Mammi picked up lots of pink dresses, they were all identical. 

When we got back home, I found Gabe sitting on his bed. “Hey come here glitterbug”, I forgot about the name, he always called me glitterbug since I would always spill glitter all over myself. I try acting cool in front of him before he thinks I’m a little baby, “Yeaa whats up bro”, “Nothing, I have to get back to work now” he quickly says . I try not to hide the disappointment from my face, I thought we were actually about to have a brother-sister conversation after 3 years.To break silence Isabella comes “I HAVE AN EMERGENCY” Isabella comes in screaming, this time since she’s not on the phone, I ran up to her. “Heyyyy Roe” she says, I hug her and she swings me around. “I am so so sorry for ignoring you a few days ago, there was a lot going on with the wedding and a new patient at the hospital”, “Yea, I understand” I told her. Although inside I hoped she said we wanted to make it up for me. 

For the rest of the day I tried to just be with Poppy,  at least she listened to me. As Isabella and mammi were talking more about the wedding, Poppy spent lots of time with me in the garden. She showed me the right types of soil to add for the poppies we planted. For a long time, it felt super nice to hangout with Poppy. 

On flight

 The day before yesterday, Isabella officially had her wedding, it was beautiful. I was a wonderful flower girl, mammi said I was amazing. That day a few blocks from the banquet hall outside, was a homeless man. I gave him 1 euro from all I had in my pocket, I expected a thank you but he told me a quote, I had no idea what it meant, “Even when life doesn’t go the way you planned, don’t give up on where your story can lead”. 

I was really happy for Isabella, but now it meant she won’t get to hang out with me anymore. She would be busy. She and Luca would be with the toughest patient together so there would be no chance she would get to spend time with me anymore. But just as I started to lose all my hope, Poppy comes into the guest room, and she tells me we need more soil. I remember 2 days ago I saw 5 bags of soil, with no energy to ask, I went along. I take a quick power nap on the way, but when we arrive, I notice this is nothing like the place where Poppy buys soil. Unexpectedly, she drove me to the Trevi Fountain. There was Gabe holding lots of coins to throw in, Julia who was getting her camera ready, zia Anna and zio Mel on a bench with pizza.It was different but good.I look at them gratefully and thank them. “Gabe planned this you know” Poppy whispers. I run over to Gabe immediately and hug him, he hands me a couple coins just as Julia counts down for a tiktok video.  I look down at the coins, unsure of what to wish for. I got all I wanted, I stayed straight and then handed my coins to mammi, Poppy, zia Anna and zio Mel. We all talked till late at night until mammi realised our flight was the next day, we all got back home. On the whole ride home I smiled wide. I got to do everything, of course it wasn’t to every detail but it was fine. When I was getting ready to sleep, Poppy came into the room with my travelogue. “Roe I saw your travelogue, I’m sorry not everything happened for what you hoped earlier”, “Poppy a man once told me never give up on hope, it was still a good spring break” I tell her with a warm smile. 

Before I knew it was soon time to leave, I hugged Gabe one last time, Julia did our secret handshake with me once more. “Love you my Roe” Poppy calls out as me and mammi climb into the taxi. Gabe screams, “I will be waiting for you”, “Next break” I yell back. I roll down the window and look outside at the beautiful sky just as the house fades becoming smaller and smaller

Written by Anisha Pradeep