Grandma Balthazar pours coffee into her cup You’ll learn to love Paris You just need to give it a chance Grandma Balthazar dresses fancier in Paris Back home in Three Rivers she wore a pink sweatshirt that had a puffy white cat on the front In Paris Grandma Balthazar wears loose shirts and leggings She wears scarves and puts sunglasses on her head like a headband She says When in Rome But we aren’t in Rome We’re in Paris Everything is already different I don’t understand why her clothes need to be different too I push away my plate of waffles They smell good but I am protesting I did give it a chance I say It’s cold and rainy and I miss my friends Especially Roxanne who makes the best fluffernutter sandwich in the world I squeeze the heart-shaped Best Friends necklace I am wearing Roxanne gave it to me 8
before I moved to Paris Actually it is my Be Fri necklace Roxanne has the other half and her half says st ends When I squeeze it I feel a little like Roxanne isn’t thousands of miles away I feel a little like she could be right down the street eating pancakes with Granny Bee Granny Bee is Roxanne’s grandmother Granny Bee is short for Granny Becky which is short for Granny Rebecca My stomach makes a loud gurgling sound My waffles are buttery and steaming I wish I hadn’t pushed them away Dad leans his elbows on the table Let’s break this down he says It is cold and rainy here sometimes But it’s sometimes cold and rainy in Massachusetts too Mom smiles at me And you’ll make lots of friends when school starts tomorrow Grandma Balthazar nods her head Maybe one of them will make great sandwiches too She 9
takes a sip of her coffee and brushes a hand over her pile of silver hair I love Grandma Balthazar’s hair It’s gotten even more silvery since we moved to Paris I miss her cat sweatshirt but I like her new hair Yeah maybe I say But I don’t think I will make lots of friends tomorrow And I really don’t think any of them will ever make a fluffernutter sandwich as well as Roxanne I keep my head down on the rainy walk to the Métro I squeeze my necklace the whole way I keep my head down when we step into the Métro station too But then we have to squash past a whole bunch of people who are getting on or off the train I look up while we walk through the station I’m afraid I am going to get separated from Mom and Dad and Grandma Balthazar in the crowd There are too many people It’s hard not to get bumped away from my family 10
If only Grandma Balthazar still wore her pink sweatshirt with the cat on the front Then it wouldn’t be so hard to keep track of her in a crowd But now she dresses like all of the other people in Paris So it is actually very hard to keep track of her in a crowd But I don’t get separated A lady with a giant red purse bumps into me I trip Then I go crashing into a man wearing a real baby on his chest The baby is in some kind of backward baby backpack Sorry I say but the man doesn’t smile at me Maybe he doesn’t speak English I don’t know how to say sorry in French We finally get through and step onto the train I am crammed in the middle of Mom and Dad and Grandma Balthazar And Mom and Dad and Grandma Balthazar are crammed in the middle of a thousand French strangers I feel like a crayon in a too-full box 11
