Read an Excerpt
Bon Voyage, Connie Pickles
Chapter One
New vocab: un quai (a platform); ne pas manquer (to be in time for); foirer (to mess up)
Friday, March 28
Eurostar, car 16, pulling out of Waterloo, 8:58 a.m.
I think I can honestly say this is the most exciting moment of my life.
Julie, who is reading over my shoulder, says that I'm a tragic human being and that the most exciting moment of her life was halfway through Wednesday night when she met Karl. This is what I say:
a) Karl wears red pants and she once told me never to trust a boy who wore red pants.
b) I bet he only lasts two minutes. None of her boyfriends lasts longer than that.
c) She should keep her big nose out of my diary.
Squiggles on page due to undignified scuffle. Now I have my pen back. (It's a lovely, thin-nibbed Pentel.) Okay, they weren't red; they were "wine-khaki." And okay, she hasn't got a big nose. Just medium.
She's listening to her iPod now, staring out of the window with a lovesick expression on her face, so I've got a few minutes' peace.
Oh! I can't believe I'm finally on my way. I'm always telling everyone that Paris is my natural home and now's my chance to prove it. I know it's only two-and-a-bit weeks and that it's only a French Exchange, but I feel in my bones that something important is going to happen. Obviously I am going to be busy tracking down my long-lost grandparents (the deliciously named de Bellechasses, who disowned my mother when she ran off with my poor, dead father). And obviously I am going to be getting over William, myoldest friend whom I just happened to fall in love with—after he started going out with my next-door neighbor. But I'm also going to be as one with the French way of life. I may look embarrassingly English now—thick tights and floral dress from Oxfam are a mistake and I've made my skin blotchy by picking at those spots on my chin—but in two weeks I will be a changed person. I will be chic. I will be soignée. I will be pimple free. I will probably wear black.
Hang on, there goes Julie's phone. It's Monsieur Baker. We got separated from him and the rest of the group in Departures. It was so chaotic, what with Cyril and Marie, my half brother and sister, charging around and Mother all teary and William and Delilah—but I'm not going to think about that now—and what with Karl being there in his red—I mean wine-khaki—pants that by the time we got through Passports I was a limp rag. Julie yanked me into WH Smith to buy a copy of Bliss and some cigarettes and I let the situation slip. (Honestly, I don't know why someone as prim as me is best friends with Julie. Or vice versa.) The line was ridiculous and by the time she'd paid and slotted her Marlboro Lights into the back pocket of her jeans—some feat of engineering considering how tight they are—the others had disappeared up the ramp. There was a drunken man taking off his pants and trying to pee at the bottom, so the ticket collector was a bit distracted and we fanned our passports and ran through. The train was already making noises and I had to yell to Julie to run—she's wearing wedge espadrilles (honestly, in this weather!) and her boobs were bouncing up and down in her stripy halter top. "Hurry up!" I shouted. "We can't miss the train. Paris awaits!"
She couldn't breathe when she finally sat down. Turns out you can't smoke on the train anyway. Good thing, too. I love Julie, for all her faults. I don't want her to die of lung cancer before she's even lost her virginity.
Kent, 10 a.m.
I am slightly concerned about the others. I was all for going to join them in car 18 about five minutes ago, but Julie says Monsieur B. will come and find us if he's that bothered. Now she's nodded off to sleep with her mouth against the window and I don't have the heart to wake her.
I've just reread the details of my French Exchange student.
Name: Pascale Blanc
Family: father (hotel supplier); mother (a housewife); two brothers (older)
Hobbies: fashion, rock music, literature
She sounds intriguing and I like her handwriting on the form. Her family sounds tidy and grown-up, too. Just the sort of thing I like. Mine's so higgledy-piggledy, what with my own father being dead and Jack, my stepfather, being divorced from my mother, and Marie and Cyril being so irritatingly little. Sometimes I think I'm the only person who keeps everything together. A conventional family with older siblings will be restful. I'm not so sure about Pascale's hobbies. Julie says it's about time I took some interest in fashion and rock music. Julie's not impressed with my personal style—what I like to call "thrift shop chic," i.e., anything I can find that's wacky and cheap. Julie thinks I need to be a bit more upscale and a bit less downtown. I'm so glad Pascale likes literature. I've started Madame Bovary, which is quite hard work. Pascale's probably read it several times and I expect we'll discuss it late into the night.
Train track in the French countryside,
11:40 a.m.
I went to sleep. It must have been the rhythm of the train. It seems to be running faster and smoother on this side of the channel. Of course it does. Everything is better here. Julie's still snoring next to me. I can't believe I missed the tunnel. I'm actually in France. The landscape is beautiful. Flatter than I'd imagined—dark, furrowed fields stretching out like giant, rumpled handkerchiefs under the lowering dark sky. (Sorry, I must stop trying to be too poetic. It's just showing off.) A church . . .
Bon Voyage, Connie Pickles. Copyright © by Sabine Durrant. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.
