THE ACCIDENTAL VOYAGE (Excerpt from chapter one, Mr Pipes and Annie and Drew in Rome)
“
Pizza !” thought Drew, breathing in the savory aroma of herbs,
tomatoes, fresh-baked pizza crust, and heaps of melting mozzarella
cheese. He licked his lips and rolled his eyes in anticipation as he
raced—rather, putted—along the Via di Borgo on his blue moped. He
inhaled again, and promptly sputtered and coughed as his lungs filled
with the diesel fumes of a passing bus. Steadying his moped, he blinked
several times, trying to see Mr. Pipes and Annie riding ahead of him
through the smoky gray haze.
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“Hey!
Wait up!” he called, trying to coax more speed out of the tiny electric
motor. They raced on, unable to hear above the din of the city and the
frantic buzzing of the electric bicycles. Drew pedaled furiously. He
must have slowed down back there at the pizzeria. Glancing back over his
shoulder, he decided it had to be pizza— pepperoni pizza. A new scent
filled Drew’s nostrils as he raced around the next corner, still trying
to catch up. Lining the streets under cover of rows of white canvas
awnings, vendors waved bunches of colorful flowers and shouted at people
to stop and buy. Though eager to catch up, Drew slowed down for a
better look. Without warning, a yellow Fiat coughed past him on the
left, and with a squealing of tires and a sharp blast of his horn, the
driver cut Drew off, narrowly missing his front tire. Drew clawed at the
brakes on the handlebars and swerved. His eyes wide with fright, he
desperately tried to avoid a large bucket of carnations in his waggling
path. With a crash! and a sploosh! , water from the bucket drenched him
from head to toe, and he landed in a sodden heap surrounded by limp
flowers, an empty bucket, his crashed moped, and a stomping-mad Italian
woman. “ Imbecilio! ” cried the woman, her black hair tied back in a red
scarf, and her brawny arms on her hips. Drew sat up and cleared a
mangle of soggy pink petals from his face. In spite of the language
barrier, he detected from her bulging eyes and expressive hands that the
woman was less than happy with him. Something about her reminded him of
an Italian opera he’d once seen on television. Had he understood the
spoken part of Italian, he would have heard the following: “Do I look
like somebody who can afford to have a bucket of flowers wasted? No! My
precious, precious flowers. What on earth are you doing in Rome, anyway?
You came for the driving, no? I know, I know, you’re a tourist—probably
American.” Drew caught the word “American.” But it had an “o” at the
end; in fact, it sounded like most of her words had an “o” at the end.
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“Whatever,
whatever, I don’t have to like the way you drive your moped. All right
all right, anyway: I know, in Rome tourists are our bread and
Gorgonzola. La, la, la. You come to see all our old stuff—we have the
best crumbling old stuff in the world! And you come to eat our food—we
have the best food in the world! And I had— had , mind you—the best
flowers in the world until you smashed them into this heap of rubbish!
Anyway, we have the best everything else in the world, right here in
Rome (well, maybe not the best tourists)! Do you think I don’t know all
this? No. But why did you have to ruin my flowers? Why? Why not Luigi’s
or Signora Pellagrino’s? Why me? Why?” Drew stared dumbly back at the
woman and wondered how she could say all that without taking a breath.
She probably wouldn’t understand if he apologized. But maybe if he spoke
really slowly— “I a-m s-o s-o-r-r-y,” said Drew, speaking as loudly as
he could. She just stared. He tried again, this time holding his hands,
palms up, and shaking them for emphasis with each word. The hands seemed
to help. She answered in Italian: “Yeah, yeah. So sorry, are you? Lot
of good that does my poor flowers, no?” Drew wished he could make her
understand, but after another pleading look into her angry face, he
fumbled in his pocket for a handful of lire—Mr. Pipes had told them that
it took lots of lire to buy anything. He thrust the money into the
flower lady’s fist and disentangled himself and the moped from the
flowers and bucket. Dripping wet, he yanked red carnations out of the
handlebars and spokes, clambered back onto his moped, and urged it after
Mr. Pipes and his sister. So this is Rome , he thought, frowning and
wiping a flower petal off his wet cheek. He strained to see Mr. Pipes
and Annie through the weaving traffic. His sister’s blond hair flashed
in the sunlight as it streamed from under her helmet. He thought back on
Mr. Pipes’s first letter outlining his plan for an adventure in
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Italy.
Drew wasn’t so sure about Italy; why not just go back to Olney and have
another summer of adventures on The Great Ouse, sailing and fishing and
exploring the countryside with Mr. Pipes and the Howard children? He
did miss Bentley and even his sister Clara. Ah, but then Mr. Pipes had
mentioned Italian food. It’d better be really good , he thought, after
all this . Then he remembered the wonderful smells of that pizza. Give
Italy a chance, give it a chance , he told himself. Meanwhile, Annie
held on tightly behind Mr. Pipes and gazed from left to right at the
bustling city. Her imagination raced back in time at the sight of an
ancient arch or crumbling column, and the next moment she felt a
smothering uneasiness at the chaos of surging, perspiring bodies and
impatient motorists blaring their horns and hammering with their arms
out open windows against the sides of their cars. Everyone seemed to be
talking and gesturing at once, and traffic seemed to go round and round
without ever getting anywhere. The racket was deafening. Mr. Pipes had
said that Italy involved some inconvenience to the foreign adventurer,
but he assured Annie that they would not be disappointed and that
perhaps the greatest adventure ever awaited them in the land of the
early Christian saints—and martyrs. Mr. Pipes rounded a corner, and
Annie closed her eyes and breathed in the fragrant scents of carnations,
gardenias, and a variety of roses. Row upon row of flower stalls lined
the narrow street. She nearly turned all the way around on the back of
the moped, taking in the heavenly panoply of color as she and Mr. Pipes
rode past the flower market. She caught sight of Drew at the far end of
the street and tapped on Mr. Pipes’s shoulder. “Drew’s pretty far back!”
she shouted next to the old man’s helmet. She hoped he’d slow down or
even stop so that she could look at the flowers—and Drew could catch up.
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Annie
felt their moped sputter to a stop as Mr. Pipes parked at the far end
of the flower market. She hopped off and admired the rows of buckets
overflowing with yellow, red, green, and white. “I wish Rome was all
like this; I could stay here all day,” she said over her shoulder to Mr.
Pipes. “I understand perfectly, my dear,” said the old man, his white
hair glowing in the sunshine as he took off his helmet. “The Campo de’
Fiori, or field of flowers market, is a refreshing relief from the
otherwise rather sooty, gray stones and concrete jumbled about. It is
like that in Rome, one-time capital of Western Civilization: dust,
sweat, and general messiness give way around the next corner to beauty
of the most extraordinary magnificence.”
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