Chapter 1 "Where would you go, if you could go anywhere?" Daniela Ciccola, who used to hate me, digs her toes into the wood chips and gives her swing a big heave into the air. We''re friends now. It''s the first day of sixth grade, and she had all spring and summer to get over the falling-out we had last year. To thaw , you could say. Warm up. Defrost. The schoolyard is quiet except for the rhythmic squeaks of our swings, begging to be greased. But then, it''s only eight o''clock, and school doesn''t start until eight forty-five.
The four of us--Jack, Daniela, Benji, and I--decided to meet here early, before everyone else shows up. I twist my swing around until the chains are a tight braid and squint up toward Rindge Avenue, where Darlene, the crossing guard, is putting on her neon-yellow vest. "Is this like a wizarding transportation situation?" I ask Daniela. "You don''t have to take a twenty-four-hour flight or anything, just wish to be somewhere else and-- poof --there you are?" Daniela whooshes past me. "I''m asking about the destination, Maple. Not how you get there." "Jack?" I spin around so I can see Jack Wells, my best friend since last year. "You''ve been basically everywhere.
Where''s the best place to go?" Jack has had an above-average interesting life so far. His mother is in the Foreign Service, which means he''s already lived on multiple continents. She''s in Syria right now, where she''s not allowed to bring the family, so Jack and his dad are here, living with his grandparents. You never know whether Jack is going to be excited to talk about his life of international intrigue, or prickly. Bringing it up with him is always a gamble. Mostly because he misses his mom, I think. I can understand that, even though my mom is right here. Jack is at the other end of the swing set from me.
He shrugs. "I mean, it depends what you''re looking for. Big city? Natural wonders? Historical significance?" Daniela drags her swing to a halt and snorts. "You guys are killing me. Maple is worried about the logistics, and you sound like a travel agent." Okay, so she''s not wrong. But why is she even asking? It''s not like any of us can just pick up and take a vacation. We''re sort of tied to our parents for that kind of thing.
And my parents'' idea of a vacation is a road trip to New Jersey. (Because of "the environmental cost of air travel," according to my mother. But I think it''s mostly because of the money.) "Does it have to be on planet Earth? I''d like to visit the moon," Benji pipes up. I''ve known Benji since last fall, too, when the four of us were thrown together in Ms. Fine''s fifth-grade reading intervention group. "We don''t send humans to the moon anymore," says Daniela, pumping her legs to get her swing moving again. "Oh, I''m sorry, I thought this was a hypothetical question.
" Benji rolls his eyes at her behind his thick glasses. "Silly me." "Well, I''d go to Argentina, and tour the whole country from one football stadium to another," Daniela announces, as if this was the only correct answer. "Don''t you mean soccer?" I say, mostly to annoy her. It''s pretty obvious what she means. Daniela is obsessed with soccer. "It''s fútbol down there," she repeats, with extra emphasis on the Spanish. "In Argentina, people really know how to appreciate the art of the sport.
" Because it seems like a lot to explain to my friends, I don''t answer Daniela''s question at all. But if I had the chance to go anywhere, I''d probably go to India, where my dad''s family is from. I''d like to meet my great-grandparents and our other relatives who still live there. We get to video chat with them sometimes, but it isn''t the same. You can''t really know people through occasional calls. And you can''t really know a place without smelling it, tasting it, feeling the weight of the air on your own skin. For a quicker trip, I''d probably go to Ellis Island in New York City. That''s the port where my mom''s side of the family--Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe--arrived when they first came to this country, oh, about a hundred years ago.
Maybe more. It''s hard to imagine crossing an entire ocean in a boat. All those days of nothing but sea on every side, and then one day you see the Statue of Liberty rising up into the sky in front of you. So you know you''re almost "home"--except it isn''t really home, not yet anyway, because you''ve never been there before (and it''s probably nothing like the real home you left behind). Around us, school is starting to come to life for the first day of the new year. Kids are tromping through the gates, waving goodbye to parents who stay chatting on the sidewalk out front. I glance at my watch: eight thirty-five. Time to slide off the swing.
"Shall we?" We head toward the front door of Clara Harlowe Barton Elementary and Middle School, my school since kindergarten. Daniela marches at the front with her arm looped through Benji''s, while Jack and I bring up the rear. My new usual. This isn''t the group I expected to be starting sixth grade with once upon a time, but unexpected doesn''t always mean bad.