Bassy Plays Hardball

Bassy had joined me at the table after mom left. The two of us are a study in contrasts -- we literally have nothing in common except our last name and the names of our parents. I stole a glance at him. Goodness, I can't believe he's gotten so tall and handsome now. If we weren't related.... just kidding.
"Vanna," he began, clearing his throat. I knew it was coming. When he wants to tell me something he starts humming and hawing and he has these long pauses in between words.
"What is it, Bassy?" I looked up from the ratatouille to see his blue eyes boring into me. When he wants to get serious, he lets me know about it.
"This adoption business -- if I'm gonna be uncle to these children, I'd like to go to Egypt with you and meet them."
My mouth flew open. "You -- go to Egypt?"
"Is there anything wrong with me going?" he asked me. "I mean, I'm old enough to go now."
"Bassy!" I tried to remind him that he was still in school.
But he had already backed me into a corner. "From what you say on the blog, they sound pretty cool."
I let out a smile. "They're awesome, really."
"Who knows, maybe I could go inside a tomb or two."
There's something more than a little bit unsettling about tagging my kid brother along on tomb raids. What have I done to this poor little boy?

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

I strongly suspect Bassy is going into the family biz.

My mother long ago gave up on my prospects of becoming a musician. To be quite honest, she never really tried. And my father never pushed me. Though I like music, have had guitar lessons, and like playing, there were other things I liked more, namely painting, astronomy, writing, and chess, among others. And of course there were my secret forays to the cemetery at night.

So I'm not surprised that she is now fiercely overseeing Bassy's musical development. Of course, it helps her that he has more talent in his pinky than I have in my whole body. And he seems to have an interest in it, if only because she is pushing so damn hard. What he doesn't seem to have, though, is the 24-7 obsession with music that dad does. He has other interests, like computers and cartoons and cooking.

I think Bassy should do whatever he wants to do with his life, not because mom wants him to do it. Sometimes I wonder if one of these days, he is going to rebel. So far, though, he hasn't, and mostly it's because of his demeanor. He isn't like me at all, and about that I'm actually glad. I think if mom were doing that to me, I would have rebelled already.

More girl trouble

Yo, Bas here. Just givin' y'all the 411 on what's been goin' on here while mom & dad are runnin' around Egypt with Vanna. Don't show mom this pic of me drinkin' llama juice. She'd have a heart attack.

I headed over to my friend Jeannine Ratliff's after school and ran into... her twin sister Paige. Let's just say, even though she's prettier than Jeannine, she's not a very nice person.

She came jumping down my throat for no reason at all. I was actually trying to be friendly with her.

School is a drag, tho. I wish Savannah was here to help me with geometry. She's the math whiz of the family. Truly, I dunno how she does it.

After I finished my geometry homework, I went outside 2 listen to Paige, who'd picked up a guitar and was tryin' to strum a few bars of my dad's pop-classical hit "I Would If I Did."

So, I was outside talking to Jeannine, and Paige came interrupting us, too. One of them is bad enuf. Both of 'em... well...

Mom and dad go to Egypt!

So, I'm checkin' my email and Vanna's blog post, and I find out that she's filled out papers to try to adopt these 2 Egyptian kids.

Personally, I think she's crazy.

Not that the kids aren't cute, from the pix she posted they're adorable... but I'm not sure about this.

Apparently mom has found out about Vanna's plan, too. Of course she's found out. It was in the paper! If mom wasn't already teed off at Vanna, if they hadn't already had this big blowup over her book, then this latest thing has really set her off. So much so, that she and dad booked a flight and headed to Egypt themselves! Since I still have school, I plan to stay at Noah and Neil's while they're gone. I can't see myself in this house by myself.
I'd only been to Noah's place once before, when I was still little and Neil's parents were getting married.

Interview with a Mummy

Hey, it's me, Bas. My globetrotting sister is in Egypt (again), lol.

Welp, here it is. It's my sister's book. It was published the day before she came back from China. It's caused all hell to break loose in the house and the whole town is talking about it. Daisy, who works in the bookstore, says it can't keep enuf copies on the shelf to keep up with all the peeps askin' about it. I'm not gonna read it, myself; heck, I've heard more than enuf about it from mom and other folks. Daisy says she's started to read it and she's like on page 49 or somethin.'

I do think the hoopla over the book caused Vanna to leave this time. She and mom had this huge fight right after she came back from China and they're not even speakin' to each other now. Mom is upset over the book; she says Vanna painted an unfair picture of her in it. For the record, Vanna says it's all fiction.

What I do know is on the front page of it there's a dedication in it to Aunt Margaret. I didn't know her that well, she died when I was a baby. Vanna says she was a 2nd mother to her, though.

Breakfast with Bassy

Very early the next morning, after the dust settled, Bassy and I were eating pancakes in the kitchen. He was starting to fill me in on what was going on while I was in China.

Then, he told me, "Vanna, mom's upset about your book. She said she didn't like what you wrote about her in it."

I shook my head. "Bassy, mom is upset about more than the book. This has been building for some time now."

"But why? Why can't you get along?"

"Bassy, sweetie," I told him, "a lot of the stuff that happened between us happened well before you were even born."

"What kinds of things?" Bassy was really, really pressing me. He was pressing me to answer questions I wasn't ready to answer.

"She doesn't like what I do for a living, for starters."

"For what it's worth, I think it's pretty cool what you do." He flashed me his gigawatt smile. It's the same one dad has, the kind that lights up an entire room. "Everybody at school wants to know where my sister is going next."

"She wants me to get a nice boring office job or to sit at home waiting for some mythical prince to rescue me."

"Say," Bassy asked, his eyes lighting up, "how'd you get that gig? And why do you do it?

"I signed up for it, at this website. Easy peasy. "

"Why do you do it? I mean, why'd you sign up for it?"

"'Cause I like to push myself, test my limits. 'Cause when I was younger I used to like to explore the catacombs in the cemetery."

"You went in there?"

"Sure did. Plenty of times."

I would have continued the conversation, but my plane was leaving for Egypt. I had a mission to finish.

Continued on The Savannah Plumb Chronicles

Me and Daisy sittin' in a tree....(cont'd)

Hey Vanna, u'll never guess what happened...

It all started, oddly enuf, when I confronted Daisy 'bout Ernie. I made her promise me it would never happen again.

I couldn't jus' throw away our friendship over him.

Had to admit, she felt really, really good in my arms. I still have the scent of her perfume in my nose.

"Baby, you're like a masterpiece -- you get better with age."

"Ohh -- say it again!" she cried.

Well, you can guess what happened next. Haha

Yep, it was pucker-up time. They say there's no time like the first time. Ahhh.

To top off this really, really good day, I'm chillin' on your bed, Vanna.

Luv u. Later, Bas