Almost flying, p.1
Almost Flying, page 1
Dial Books for Young Readers
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, New York
First published in the United States of America by Dial Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2021
Copyright © 2021 by Jake Arlow
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2021936275
Ebook ISBN 9780593112953
FRE
Design by Cerise Steel
Cover art © 2021 by Marcos Chin
Cover design by Maria Fazio
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
pid_prh_5.7.0_c0_r0
To Jina, my squirrel.
If our friendship survived middle school, it can survive anything.
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Acknowledgments
About the Author
CHAPTER ONE
MY heart starts thumping before the video even loads. And then it pounds even harder as Mega Drop Unhinged (“If You Don’t Puke, We’re Not Doing Our Job!”) comes into view. I can’t believe I haven’t watched a POV video for this roller coaster before.
The opening shot is a sweeping look at the whole ride. It’s taller than every other coaster in the park by a mile, its steel track stretching up into the sky. Human beings shouldn’t be able to hurtle through its giant loops and twists and (mega) drops and come out unharmed.
But somehow, we can. And somehow, it’s the most amazing thing in the world.
Well, okay, fine. I don’t actually know how amazing it is in real life. The truth is, I’ve never been on a roller coaster. But I’ve watched pretty much every roller coaster point of view video in existence, and that has to count for something.
So, there’s that opening shot of the ride, and then the perspective switches so that it’s like I’m sitting in the front row of the roller coaster. That’s what the camera position’s like in all POV videos. There’s excited chatter behind me, which dies down as a voice crackles over the loudspeaker. “Keep your arms and legs inside the coaster at all times.” The ride groans, releasing a burst of air. “Now, sit back, relax, and try not to think about that Mega Drop!”
The roller coaster rumbles and creaks, and we start climbing. I keep my head as close to the screen as possible, so it’s almost like I’m actually on the ride. In the video, it’s a cloudless day and the way we’re tilted back makes it feel like we’re just going to keep riding up into the sky forever.
But then we get to the top. There are a few seconds where I can’t see the track in front of me and I can’t see anything below me and it’s just blue going on and on and on and there’s no horizon and maybe no one else in the whole universe.
I want to stay here, in this moment before the drop, a little while longer. So I pause the video.
It really does feel like I’m in another world when I’m watching roller coaster POVs. It’s a world where the sky is always blue and cloudless. Where you’re safely flung through the air on a set track with a group of happily screaming riders sitting right behind you.
Most of all, it’s like another world because of the whole never-been-on-a-roller-coaster thing.
I know that’s super weird, that I watch these videos when I’ve never been on one. I first found POVs when I was trying to convince my dad to take me to an amusement park, but that was like a year ago and we still haven’t gone. I thought I could use the videos when I presented the idea to him, but I never even made it that far.
I felt guilty about wanting to ask him to take me somewhere so expensive, and somewhere where he couldn’t just hop on his computer and send a spreadsheet over to his boss if he needed to, because he always needs to.
I don’t want to sound like I’m not happy watching POVs, though. Like, they’re the best.
But that doesn’t matter. Because this’ll finally be the summer where I ride an actual roller coaster. I know my dad’s saved up a bit of money since last year, and I just need to convince him that it’s worth it, even if it is expensive.
And now it’s crunch time: There are only three weeks left of the whole summer. Three weeks to make this happen.
I just need a good plan.
The problem is, I’m completely terrible at coming up with ideas. Abby was the one who always came up with our schemes, so this is new for me. And if Abby hadn’t ditched me, I bet I’d already have been to, like, every amusement park in the country.
And there it is again.
That feeling I get when I think about Abby. It’s how I imagine I’d feel if I was riding a roller coaster with a drop that went on forever: close to puking, too weighed down by gravity to move. Miserable.
I take a deep breath and press the space bar on my dad’s laptop to start the video back up, which immediately makes me feel a thousand times better. The person holding the camera angles it down so you can see the drop, and my heart is pounding because it feels like I’m about to drop.
In the distance, there’s this parking lot with all these tiny cars and trees. But the coaster is so high up that it’s barely visible. It’s like the only things that exist are the roller coaster and the sky.
Suddenly the train can’t hold still any longer and we’re zooming down the track and I can almost feel my stomach flip and then the camera is upside down and the person filming is screaming and the sound of the wind is so loud and I know I should lower the volume but I don’t because you can’t lower the volume in real life. And I hear something that sounds like knocking at a door, but I figure it must just be the car rattling on the turquoise tracks so I keep twisting my body along with the video—left and right and left and right and—
“DALIA!”
Oh.
I pull out my earbuds and slam the computer shut.
“Can I come in?” my dad asks.
“Uh, one sec!”
I grab the nearest book and open it to a random page so that when he comes in, it’ll look like I was reading.
I don’t even really know why I hide the videos from him. It’s the only thing in my whole life that my dad doesn’t know about. We’re close like that. Which makes sense, because all we have is each other.
We spend a ton of time together, so sometimes it’s tough to hide the POVs from him. We even have a shared weekly schedule. Like on Sundays, we’ll ride our bikes down to the bay and spend the mornings there, and if it’s low tide we’ll look for horseshoe crabs. They’re usually dead, which is kind of sad, but my dad does this thing where he’ll pick them up by their tail and pretend they’re talking to me. He’ll make them say things like “Helloooo Dalia, would you like to play?” in a creepy voice that makes me laugh so hard.
They’re super weird looking, the horseshoe crabs, with a hard brown shell on top and ten wriggly legs underneath. My dad likes to tell me about how they’ve been the same for millions of years, since before dinosaurs even existed. It’s pretty amazing that they figured out their thing and now they don’t need to change, ever. They’re always, always gonna look the same—like weird giant shells with eyes and a spikey tail. I like that about them.
So anyway, I’m sitting on my bed pretending to read, and I try to make it look like I’m concentrating really hard. “Come in,” I tell my dad. I nod at the book a little bit, like my dad does when he reads the newspaper. I’m going for Ooh, look how interesting and sophisticated I am, but it must just look like I’m a bobblehead, because when my dad comes in he asks, “What’s wrong?”
Nothing.”
“You’re reading? In the summer?” He clutches his chest like he’s about to faint. “Who are you and what have you done with my daughter?” I laugh a little and roll my eyes. “Well, I don’t want to stop you from reading about . . .” He examines the front of my book. “1001 Tax Breaks and Deductions?”
And there goes my cover. I guess I should’ve checked to see which book I grabbed before I let my dad come in. But that’s just the sort of stuff that happens when your bedroom is also your dad’s office.
When we first moved into this apartment over a year ago, he told me we could decorate the room however I wanted. He even got me a sparkly blue pillow that kind of looks like the ocean on a sunny day, to try to convince me that it would be okay that we were moving out of the only home I’ve ever known. As if to say “Who needs two parents living in the same house when you have a sparkly blue pillow?!” I told him that I was too old for a sparkly pillow, but it’s secretly my favorite thing in the room.
My bed is an island in a sea of boring dad business. We never got around to decorating the rest of it.
So, he’s looking at me, waiting for an answer as to why I’m reading his tax book.
I tell him, “It’s never too early to start thinking about taxes.” That’s something he’s told me before, so I hope it’ll work now that I’m basically just repeating it back to him. “And I’m a teen now, so I’m gonna need to know these things.”
“You’re thirteen, Dalia. Why don’t I worry about the taxes?” He walks over to my bed and sticks out his hand. I give him the book.
“Were you just looking for a book, or . . .” I trail off. I want to get back to watching my POV videos.
“Oh, right, right. I knew there was a reason I came in here.” He sits on the edge of my bed, looking nervous, which is weird. “Want to get bagels?”
Why is he nervous about getting bagels? Is there some sort of bagel shortage?
Before I say yes, I have to ask the most important question when it comes to getting bagels with my dad: “Where?” There are like a gazillon bagel stores in our town, but there’s only one good one. I’m kind of a bagel connoisseur, so I keep track of these things.
“I was thinking . . .” He rubs his hand on his chin, like this is a huge decision. But we both know what he’s going to say. “Bagel Boys?”
Ding ding ding! That’s the right answer. I mean, it makes sense. My dad’s passed everything he knows about bagels down to me. And he knows a lot about bagels. Partly because we’re Polish Jews, so our people basically invented them, and partly because we live on Long Island, which is like the bagel capital of the world.
So obviously I tell him I’m in, because how can you not be in when there’s Bagel Boys involved? Plus, maybe this is the opening I’ve been waiting for to finally ask him to take me to an amusement park.
There’s no harm in asking. I just have to do it.
* * *
˜˜˜
We ride our bikes to the shop, and my dad locks them up on the bike rack outside while I order our usual (an untoasted fresh-out-of-the-oven sesame bagel with cream cheese for me and a toasted everything bagel with butter for dad).
“You got it,” Tony says. Tony works every Sunday morning, so he pretty much knows our order by heart. He even gets us coffee without me having to ask.
“Now, don’t go bouncing off the walls on account of me,” he says with a wink. It’s a little inside joke that Tony and I have, because he only ever gives me decaf.
Bagel Boys is always crowded on Sundays, but the table my dad and I like to sit at is empty. It’s tucked into a back corner, squeezed between a window and a mural. The mural’s of a giant sesame bagel that has eyes and a face eating a faceless poppy-seed bagel and giving a thumbs-up. My dad likes to comment on it every time we sit here.
“Does the bagel know he’s eating himself?”
“Daaad.” I say it like it’s two different words, but I can’t help smiling. He’s so predictable.
Once we’re settled, I immediately press the outside of the bagel to my face.
“Bagel facial?” he asks.
“Of course.”
I know it’s weird, but when a bagel is fresh out of the oven it feels like a warm hug on my face. My dad discovered it one morning and decided to call it a bagel facial, because when you put it on your cheek it makes your skin feel all steamy and fresh. And now I like to give myself a bagel facial whenever we come to Bagel Boys early enough for fresh bagels.
I split my bagel into four quarters and take a big bite of the quarter that has the least cream cheese on it. I always save the most cream-cheesy part for last.
“Hey, so, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something.” My dad lifts the lid off his coffee, blows on it, and takes a sip.
Of course my dad chooses the moment right after I take a huge bite of my bagel to tell me that he’s been “meaning to talk.” I swallow and then ask, “What is it?”
My heart starts pounding. My dad’s never “meaning to talk,” because “meaning to talk” is code for something’s wrong. The last time my dad was “meaning to talk” he told me that he and my mom were getting divorced. He was crying when he told me, which was scary and horrible. It was only the second time I’d ever seen him cry. (The first was back when I was in third grade when my mom left for three weeks without telling us where she was going.)
When my dad told me that he and my mom were getting divorced and she was moving to New Jersey, it didn’t surprise me. Not really. My mom may have only moved out about a year ago, but she was mostly gone before then, leaving me and my dad alone for days at a time. And even when she was home she would just sleep on the pull-out couch in the basement and watch old DVDs all day.
But it was still awful.
And now I definitely can’t ask him to take me to an amusement park. Because whatever he’s about to say is probably gonna be scary and horrible and there will be no room in my brain for roller coasters or fun ever again.
I know it’s bad, but my brain always gets super focused on the worst possible thing that could happen. And since I know my parents can’t be getting divorced again, I think that it has to be something worse. Like, not even “I lost my job” worse. More like “There’s a mob boss looking for me and I gambled away my life savings” worse.
See, I told you. My brain makes everything seem ten times worse than it actually is. It’s probably not even that bad.
My dad puts his coffee down. “I have a girlfriend.”
CHAPTER TWO
OR maybe it really is That Bad.
I’m sure I misheard him, so I ask, “What?”
“I have, you know, a girlfriend.”
“A what?” I can’t be hearing this right. Dads don’t have girlfriends.
I really want to ask him what the heck he’s saying, but I can’t seem to form words. Maybe it’s all the cream cheese stuck to the roof of my mouth.
“A girlfriend, Dalia,” he says. “A girlfriend. A woman I’m dating. In a romantic way.”
“Oh.” I swallow. It’s definitely not the cream cheese.
This is bad. This is really, really bad.
“How do you feel about this?”
“Fine,” I mumble, because what else am I supposed to say?
“Are you sure?”
No. “Yeah.”
He lets out a big breath and rubs his palms together, then takes a bite of his bagel. Of course he can still eat, he didn’t just find out that his dad has a girlfriend. Meanwhile, I can’t even look at my bagel. And at this point I’m really regretting agreeing to go to Bagel Boys. Why couldn’t he have told me at a bad bagel store? You don’t tell your daughter about your new girlfriend at the good bagel store. I’m sorry, but you just don’t.
This is way worse than finding out about the divorce, because at least I saw that one coming.
My mom leaving felt logical. There were signs. This, on the other hand, my dad having a girlfriend, feels completely wrong. I mean, I never even saw my mom and dad kiss. The only thing I ever really saw them do was fight.
I must be quiet for a pretty long time, because he asks me what I’m thinking.
