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  Pour ma mère et mon père. Merci pour tout. Je vous aime.

  1

  I traced my finger over the gold emblem of my new passport. It was blank, but it would have its first stamp very soon. A stamp that said FRANCE!

  My brothers were playing in a lacrosse tournament overseas, which meant that I got to go to . . . wait for it . . . Paris!

  While the boys were off playing lacrosse, Mom and I planned to tour the entire city—the City of Light. That was what they called Paris. What I wanted to do most of all was to take a boat ride down the Seine—that was the river that flowed through the center of the city. My dad had to stay behind for work, so he would miss all the fun. Quel dommage! That was “bummer” in French, I thought, or maybe it was “it’s too bad,” or “scrambled eggs.”

  Giddy with excitement, I placed the passport back onto the middle of the kitchen table, so everyone could see it. It had my name, Gwen Russell; my picture; and my birth date, indicating that I was thirteen. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” I asked Mom for the umpteenth time.

  “Yes, it is. It’ll look even better with a stamp in it.” She looked at her cell phone. “The boys just texted. They’ll be home soon with pizza.”

  By “boys” she meant my three older brothers. There were four kids in our family. I was the youngest and the only girl, the only one who stepped on the mat when she got out of the shower, the only one who took her shoes off at the door, and the only one who’d never traveled overseas. But not for long.

  I pulled up the latest Shock Value video on my tablet and turned the sound waaaay up. I grabbed a broom, played air guitar, and sang along. I didn’t sing when the boys were around because they told me I was terrible, but when they weren’t around, I belted it out. I knew every word to this song.

  Shock Value was only THE most amazing band. I dreamed that one day I’d get tickets to one of their concerts. I wanted to see Winston up close. He was my total fave band member. Maybe because he was the youngest, but also because he was the cutest with a capital C. But I doubted I would ever get to see them in person, since tickets to their shows were like a bagillion dollars. A girl could still dream, and I did. I wasn’t the only one nuts about Shock Value. My brothers and parents loved them too.

  When the video was over, I played it again with the volume lower and jumped over the couch with a notebook in which I wrote song lyrics. I called it my Lyrics Notebook. Creative, huh? I jotted:

  I’m going to Paris.

  Café au lait.

  I can’t wait for France.

  To stroll along the boulevards.

  I admired my work. Okay, so maybe these weren’t the best lyrics, but I was getting better. Maybe one day I’d write a song for Shock Value.

  As I studied my notebook, the door to the garage slammed open, and Josh (seventeen), Topher (sixteen), and Charlie (fifteen) walked in, each carrying a pizza box. The kitchen instantly filled with the smell of boy sweat and garlic. They stacked their slices three high, grabbed extra-large Gatorades, and headed toward the stairs, where I knew they were about to play hallway lacrosse in between showers and burping.

  “Come on, Gwen,” Topher said on his way up. “We need a goalie.”

  The goalie was the one who kept the ball from rolling down the stairs.

  “I’ll be there in a little bit.” I pointed to my mom. “Girl talk, you know.”

  “No. I don’t know.” He flew up the stairs two at a time.

  I sighed.

  I said to Mom, “Tell me again about the flight.”

  CRASH! It sounded like the ball had knocked something over.

  “We’re leaving tomorrow evening, and we’ll fly all night on the red-eye,” Mom said.

  “AWW!” cried Josh. I was pretty sure he’d caught an elbow to the gut.

  I ran up to see the boy drama. No one was dead.

  I hung out, and as the hallway lacrosse game whirled around me, I put my earbuds in, played a Shock Value song, and imagined myself in front of each fab sight in Paris. Mom and I really needed some quality girl time. ASAP!

  2

  I’d never been on a plane ride that long before. It felt like I had just slept in a shoe box, but one glimpse of Paris and I didn’t care.

  As our taxi zoomed, with a capital Z, through the streets, the highway and buildings near the airport gave way to the Paris I had always imagined. The city was already alive with people in the middle of their morning routines. I could see the beautiful cobblestone streets lined with beautiful buildings that just screamed Paris—and definitely didn’t look like Pennsylvania! All the storefronts had chic-looking everything: window displays, awnings, and shoppers—many with their dogs in tow.

  Finally, we arrived at our hotel. The Hôtel de Paris lobby was small, cozy, and warm—maybe too warm—like, stuffy, and I wanted to open a window. In a modern city of glitz and fashion, the Hôtel de Paris felt like a time capsule from another century. The lights of the antique chandelier were dim, and a candle on the check-in desk reminded me of wildflowers. The drapes were heavy and dark, the furnishings were something out of a museum.

  After a long late-afternoon nap (in four-poster beds) to recover from staying up all night watching airplane movies, we walked the boys to the hotel restaurant for dinner with their team, while we joined some fellow tourists gathered in the lobby. Mom and I were taking a special evening tour.

  Mom skimmed over our itinerary. “We’re in group C,” she said, pointing to a sign.

  It was a diverse bunch of about a dozen people—old, young, men, women, all different nationalities, shapes, and sizes. They flipped through brochures and unfolded maps.

  A guy who looked a little older than me, wearing a shirt with the hotel’s logo, came over. He was cute in a soccer player–like way: a few inches taller than me, with sun-bleached hair pulled away from his face and tied into a ponytail. “Êtes-vous Américaine? Are you American?” His accent was adorable and totally added to his cute factor.

  “Yes. I’m Gwen Russell.”

  “Ah, someone was looking for you.” He scanned the people in the hotel lobby and pointed to the familiar face of Brigitte Guyot. I’d met Brigitte in Pennsylvania when she and her family were living in the US for work that her dad was doing with my dad. We all hung out and became friends. She was like the big sister I never had, kind of a lot older—nine years. But then her dad’s job moved them back to Paris.

  He added, “You are going on the night tour to la côte d’Albâtre. It is . . . er . . . egg salad.”

  “Egg salad?”

  “Um . . . how do you say? . . . Formidable?”

  “Excellent?”

  “Oui. Excellent! We say excellent too.” He pointed to his name tag. “My name is Henri.”

  “You work here?”

  “Un peu . . . er . . . a little, when I am not in school.”

  He turned me in the direction of a podium where a woman stood. “Listen carefully. She does not like it when people do not listen,” he said. “I see you plus tard . . . er . . . later?”

  “Yes,” I said. I knew a little more than basic French, because I’d studied it in school and listened to some CDs, but mostly I’d learned it from Brigitte and her parents
when they were in the US.

  Brigitte was exactly like I remembered, except maybe a little older. Here’s the deal: Brigitte was very nice but a little unusual.

  Her brown hair was longer now, past her shoulders, and she was still very thin. She was tall—very tall, in fact. It seemed like her legs were longer than the rest of her body. Her glasses were square and thick. Her pants were pulled up too high, and she’d buttoned her shirt all the way up to her neck. Her unusual style actually made me smile, because the thing was, it suited her. She was kind of a quirky girl.

  I hoped my outfit described me in a way that said, Bonjour, Paris! Gwen Russell is in the house! With three brothers, I was no expert in fashion, but I’d gotten sandals, hair clips, and lip gloss for this trip. Those were big advancements to my wardrobe.

  Before I could talk to Brigitte, a small woman wearing a crisply starched uniform and a name tag identifying her as Madame LeBoeuf stood behind the tour guide podium. She glanced at the clipboard in her hand.

  “Welcome to the Hôtel de Paris,” she said with no French accent at all. If anything, from her drawl, I’d have guessed she was from Alabama or Louisiana. “Tonight we will travel by bus to”—she paused at the French location—“Atretat, which is on the coat de Albetross.” Man, she’d butchered Étretat on la côte ­d’Albâtre. She continued, “Where they launch the lanterns.” She clapped twice to get the attention of a couple who was talking. She pointed to her ears and mouthed, Listen up. Henri wasn’t kidding. She was serious about paying attention. “I will be joined tonight by my assistant.” She waved to Henri, who was lifting a tapestry suitcase onto a cart.

  Henri waved back, but his mouth gaped open for a second like this was a surprise to him. He forced a smile.

  I was psyched to hear this because I wanted to talk more to Henri. He was cute, French, and seemed about my age. Plus, if he was as sportif as he looked, we had something in common.

  I was good at most sports. Kind of by accident, really. You see, I’d been recruited for every backyard game my brothers played. Whoever was “stuck” with me on their team pressured me to be tougher, faster, and stronger. This meant that I made every team I tried out for. Now I was a three-sport girl: soccer, basketball, and lacrosse. It also meant that I often had black eyes, fat lips, and bruised legs. I’d had more broken fingers than anyone—boy or girl—in my school. I had a few girlfriends, but mostly I hung out with the boys.

  Recently, I’d been trying to be more girly. My hair finally reached my shoulders, and my mom had bought me some trendy new clothes, which I’d brought with me.

  Madame LeBoeuf continued, “You must stay with the group at all times. Raise your hands to ask questions. Speak slowly and clearly so that everyone can hear. Capeesh?” she snapped. Then she said, “If you require the facilities, now would be the time. We’re leaving in five. That’s minutes, people!” Her yelling definitely had a southern twang, proving there was nothing French at all about Madame LeBoeuf except her name. I used the translation app on my phone. Le boeuf was “beef.” Kind of a perfect description of her too.

  Everyone in group C scampered to the bathroom. But not me. This woman wouldn’t scare me into going when I didn’t have to. Instead I went to see Brigitte.

  She hugged me, instantly transferring hair or fur or something strange and fuzzy from her shirt onto my new V-neck tee, which I’d tucked into capris.

  “Gwen! The little sister I never had.” I figured Brigitte was probably twenty-two years old now. “I am so glad you are both here,” she said to Mom and me. “You are going to have a wonderful trip!”

  “Are you coming on the night tour?” Mom asked her.

  “Yes! I wouldn’t miss it. I’ve lived here all my life and I’ve never been to la côte d’Albâtre,” she said. “Besides, I want to hear all about every little thing going on in Pennsylvania.”

  Brigitte led us outside to the tour bus. I didn’t get on the bus right away because I heard a familiar sound and started to wander toward it. A guitar.

  There was a guy with a full beard, knit cap, wild hair, and sunglasses (at night), strumming and singing. The words were in English, something about running away. He stopped singing after lyrics about leaving worries behind. Brigitte nudged me to get on the bus. I did, but I wanted to come back later and hear more. In my town, no one hung out on the street and jammed like that.

  Many seats were already taken, so all three of us couldn’t sit together. Henri called me over to sit next to him. Yay!

  Brigitte sat with Mom, and the two of them began to chatter.

  I looked at the guitar guy through the window. “Is he there a lot?” I asked Henri.

  “Every day. I see him at other places too. Do you like music?”

  “I love it. My fave band is Shock Value. Do you know them?”

  “Everyone knows Shock Value. They are very famous in France. One of the guys is French.”

  Together we said, “Winston!” He was the only French member of the band.

  We shared a laugh. “They’re big in America, too.”

  Henri asked, “You hear of the legs?”

  “The legs?” I asked. Then I pointed to my legs. “Legs?”

  “Non. Non. Not legs. It is like a story that I tell you and then you will tell another person . . . how you say? . . . Leg—”

  “Legend?”

  “Oui! Legend. You hear of the legend of the lanterns?”

  I loved a good legend almost as much as I loved Shock Value. “Tell me.”

  “Parisians, they fly lanterns to the night sky at Étretat to welcome l’été . . . er . . . summer,” Henri explained. “If you make a wish as you let your lantern”—he raised his hands over his head and then made a pushing motion—“out of your hands, it will come true.”

  And at those words, I knew exactly what my wish would be—an awesome week in Paris.

  3

  As the bus lurched down the streets of Paris, Henri asked me questions about my home and my school. I told him about my best friends, Lily McAllister and Addison Harper. And I asked him questions about France and his job. I thought it was pretty cool that he had a job at age fourteen. It was because friends of his parents owned the hotel.

  “I play football,” he said. “You call it soccer.”

  “I know it!” I said. “Me too!” I didn’t add that I could play football football, too, and I knew how to box, wrestle, and lift kinda heavy weights. He didn’t need to know that.

  “I scored a winning goal today,” he added.

  “That’s great! Congratulations.”

  “My friends were on the other team, and they are”—he made a growling face—“about me.”

  “They’re mad?”

  “Oui.”

  “We call that sore losers,” I said.

  He nodded at the new term, but I didn’t think it actually made sense to him.

  Our chat was cut short because Beef, who was driving, called Henri in her loud, husky voice.

  He hesitated to respond, like maybe she would forget.

  She bellowed, “Henri!” again.

  “Are you afraid of her?” I asked him.

  We studied her. She had pulled a paper clip off a stack of stuff set on the armrest. She unfolded it and used an end to pick at her teeth.

  “A little,” he said as he reluctantly made his way up the aisle to the driver, where he listened to her.

  While he was away, I took my notebook out of my drawstring backpack and crafted a few lyrics:

  I met a boy in France.

  He told me about a legend.

  I planned to make a wish.

  And let it sail away on a lantern.

  In Étretat, we parked at a dirt field leading to the top of a rocky cliff.

  Beef handed everyone in group C a paper lantern, and Henri followed her with candles and a light
er. There were a lot of other people launching lanterns off the edge of the cliff, and many other tour buses parked on the dirt.

  I took a candle from Henri and stuck it on a poky thumbtack thingy inside the paper lantern. He lit it with his long lighter, careful not to burn the paper. I walked to the rope line that held people back from the edge of the cliff, and just like Henri had pantomimed, I pushed my lantern out toward the stars, letting it catch in the breeze. I watched it glide into the sky, which was blacker, with brighter stars, than in Pennsylvania. And I made a wish.

  All the tourists in group C and hundreds of others threw their lanterns into the sky too. It was cool how the wind got under the lantern’s paper edges and lifted it, as if the flame was hanging by a parachute. It looked like a swarm of slow-moving fireflies gliding in the blackness until the twinkle of the lanterns blended into the sparkle of the stars.

  Henri stood next to me. “Did you wish?”

  “Yup. And I’m very good at keeping secrets,” I said.

  “I will tell you mine. I cannot hold a secret.”

  I said, “No. Don’t. Then it won’t come true.”

  “It still might,” Henri said. “No one knows.”

  “I’m still not telling you mine.”

  “D’accord,” he said. “My wish was—”

  I put my hand over his mouth. I don’t think I’d ever actually touched a boy’s lips, besides JTC’s (that’s my abbreviation for Josh, Topher, and Charlie). And when I covered their mouths with my hand, they would lick it. So gross. I moved my hand away before Henri could consider doing the same. “Don’t tell me,” I said.

  He slouched like he’d given up.

  I didn’t know how long wishes usually took to come true, but these lantern ones seemed to take effect fast, because I was already having an awesome time in France with Henri.

  Just then he blurted out, “I wish Les Bleus win the World Cup!” And he ran away.

  Leave it to a boy to waste a wish on soccer!