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"Mouy who picked you up at the airport in his Mercedes?"

She laughed "Oh, right I’d forgotten that Sorry about that, sweetheart Old habits are hard to break I’le But it wouldn’t hurt to keep that fars don’t work out You never know"

I finally got them onto a bus uptown, and then alked across town to Macy’s, where ious experience before practically fainting at the price tags All she bought was a shopping bag with a logo on it to take home to her sister Dad and I then successfully pushed her outside

"It’s not that far uptown to Times Square," I said, once ere back on the sidewalk, "but let’s take the subway There’s soht in Times Square that adds to the experience" That hat Gemma and Marcia had done to me the first tihtly against her chest and glared at anyone who caed a little closer to me I was sure I’d felt much the same way my first time on the subway, but it was such a daily part of my life that I didn’t even think about it anyeeks andus In spite of what Owen and Saht of anyone or anything that looked like itand we boarded "We don’t need to sit down," I toldoff at the next stop" The three of us stood around a pole, Mo anxiously around the car and at all the people around us

"You do this every day?" she asked

"It’s not so bad You get used to it" My usual traveling companion didn’t hurt, but I didn’t share that with her

When we reached the Forty-second Street station, we fought through the crowd to get off the train and head to an exit "If everyone would wait their turn, that would be easier," Mom huffed "They don’t have to push and shove"

"It’s a way of life, Moht into Tiht, but it’s still soht have been used to New York, but I still got a little thrill of excitement when I went into Times Square This was the noisy, chaotic New York that outsiders usually pictured when they thought of the city In et that this side of New York was there

I kept a hold on each parent,of tourists while ns

"I wonder what their light bill is," Dad said with a frown "Seems like a waste to me"

"Would you just look at this?" Mom said, over and over "Ohwhere they broadcast Good Morning A station, and some of the theaters "A lot of the Broadway theaters are actually on side streets," I added

"So this is Broadway, then?" Mom asked, her eyes ith awe

"Yes, this is Broadway Exciting, isn’t it?"

"And look at all these people Hey, thatany clothes!"

I turned to see the guy as fa only his underwear and a pair of boots "Oh, hi to catch his death of cold It’s freezing here" I held tightly to her aro tell him to put some clothes on so he wouldn’t come doith pneumonia

My dad stared at another person on the street "Well, would you look at that," he said with a chuckle "That boy must have fallen face-first into his tackle box"

I turned to see a teenager playing drus "Don’t stare," I hissed at Dad as I held on to his aric, when I’d seen even stranger things on the streets of New York that nobody else seemed to notice, this hat I’d been afraid I looked like--a green tourist straight from the sticks "This is probably the weirdest part of New York," I said "The rest of the city isn’t like this" Well, actually, there eirder parts of the city, or so I’d heard, but tourists generally didn’t go there, and I didn’t plan to tell my parents about them