Italiano

Due

"I said no, Emmaline," Emma's mother, Tamara says. "Do you know anything about Italy, Walter?" Tamara looks over at Emma's father.

"Only that they have good food," he says without looking up from his newspaper. "Emma, I think your mother is right."

"Your reason is, "I said so." That isn't a reason, Mom!" Emma crosses her arms over her chest. Emma's parents are accountants and are very overprotective after Emma's older brother died in a car crash, they wanted nothing to happen to their only child.

"Emma. I said no."

"Maybe I don't care about what you say."

"Maybe we'll take away your keys." Emma gasps. Her parents take away her cell phone, her television, her party privileges but never her 2005 GMC Sierra.

"That isn't fair, Tamara," Emma says in an adult voice to her mother. "I just need you to sign this slip saying I won't go." Emma hands her mother the permission slip.

"This says that you need permission from a parent or guardian before going to Venice!"

"Oh, is that what it says? Sign in anyway."

Her father looks up from his newspaper and turns around in his chair to face his only daughter.

"Emmaline Isabella Robinson," he starts. "We don't want another Brandon." This makes her mother sniffle.

"But Daddy," Emma sits on the recliner's armrest. "I am a whole lot more careful than Brandon was. It's only a week and a half. It's an educational trip, for crying out loud! I have to stick close to Mrs. O' Brien anyway and take another final! What else do you want me to go through?"

"Do not speak of your brother," Tamara finally says after seven tissues. "Just hand me your keys and go to your room."

"Not Brad!"

"Yes Brad. Hand them over."

"Fine!" Emma hands the keys to her mother and stomps downstairs.

"I'm gonna be telling all my friends what shitty parents you are!" Emma yells over her shoulder as she reaches the bottom of the basement stairs.

"Cell phone, right now!" A cell phone comes flying up the stairs and lands on the ground at the top of the stairs.

"I still have a computer!" But there was no reply.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I should've bet one million dollars that your parents weren't going to let you," Wilma says to Emma the next day at lunch. "They are still heartbroken over Brandon."

"Well, I don't know when they are going to get over him!" Emma takes a bite out of her apple. Brandon was Emma half brother. Her mother's son from a previous relationship. Her father loved him like a son whenever he was around. Emma never saw him much.

"You know he was your brother," Issy points out. "I'm really surprised your not heartbroken as well."

"I've gotten over it, it was six years ago," Emma counters. Mason sits down next to Emma holding a box.

"You got the stuff?" Emma asks him. Mason nods and peels off the tape of the outside of the box.

"Got what stuff?" Jackson asks. He feels left out not know his best friend's plans.

"I know that kit!" Isaac says, pointing at the object in Emma's hands. The kit was red and it contained a small flashlight, a sheet of thin, light blue paper and a green marker. Mason's cousin owns a joke shop, so he got this half off.