Celebrity Read online

  Front page news?!?

  Victoria settled on the couch and patted the cushion beside her. I sat obediently and waited.

  “I probably should have showed this to you earlier, but I didn’t know what to make of it,” she said. “I picked it up at a convenience store this morning.” She pulled a folded newspaper from her bag and spread it out on the table before us. “There,” she said, pointing.

  I just about fell off the couch.

  I knew enough to recognize the format of a European tabloid. It’s not like it’s a serious newspaper or anything, more like the National Enquirer back home. But that picture was me! On the front page!

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  episode one:

  Celebrity

  by LINDA GERBER

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  An Imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

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  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

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  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

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  Registered Offices: Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Published by Puffin Books, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 2012

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Copyright © Linda Gerber, 2012

  All rights reserved

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA IS AVAILABLE

  Puffin Books ISBN 978-1-101-56696-1

  Design by Theresa Evangelista

  Text set in Adobe Caslon

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  ALWAYS LEARNING

  PEARSON

  For Haley, my Cassidy muse

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: Special thanks to Elaine Spencer for making it happen; to Kristin Gilson for her guidance; to Tricia Cowan and Sally Cutting for their Spain expertise; to Aisling, Christella, and David for their Irish input; to Luisa Chu for her travel show wisdom; and to Theresa Evangelista for another awesome cover!

  Contents

  1

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  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

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  21

  Epilogue

  I like a challenge.

  My grampa used to say my determination was something that could get me far in life. What he didn’t say was that it could also get me in trouble.

  I found out just how much trouble the night I snuck out of our apartment in Spain.

  The tabloids have printed at least a hundred different versions of what happened next. Some of the stories are true. Most of them, not so much. I still have to laugh that the papers ran them at all.

  I mean, since when am I news? First of all, I’m only twelve (almost thirteen). Second, before Spain, hardly anyone even knew who I was. No, I take that back. They might have seen my picture on one of those celebrity shows or in a magazine, but never just as me. I was always an accessory, an extension of my parents—Cassidy Barnett, daughter of reality TV stars Julia and Davidson Barnett.

  See, my mom and dad host a travel show called When in Rome. Not only that, but my mom has written about ten international cookbooks and my dad has his own line of travel accessories. Until Spain, my only job was to jet around the world with them, watching from the sideline. Hardly anyone ever noticed me.

  But then everything changed.

  What happened that first morning wasn’t my fault. Well, okay, it sort of was, but none of it would have happened if the airline hadn’t lost my suitcase, so at least partial blame belongs to them.

  The way I see it, I wouldn’t have had to sneak out if I could have set up my room properly. I’m not talking about full-on decor or anything, just a few things I bring with me when we travel. We move around with the show so much that I could easily end up sleeping in a strange bed in a strange room every few weeks. Having my stuff set up helps make each room feel like mine.

  I have a brass incense burner I bought in India, a string of star-shaped twinkling lights from France, a fuzzy Japanese Hello Kitty pillow, and—most importantly—a framed picture of my grampa and me that was taken at his farm in Ohio.

  That picture was the last one we ever had taken together. We’re sitting on the creaky old porch swing in front of his house, and Grampa’s smiling straight into the camera like he knows he’s going to be looking out at me from the other side. I can almost hear him telling me, “Wherever you go, Cassie, I’ll be there with you.”

  But he wasn’t there that first morning in Valencia, all because of the stupid airline.

  It was still dark outside when I woke up. At first, everything was fine. I lay in bed and listened to the pipes knocking in the walls, imagining all the places we were going to visit for the show that day.

  Then I remembered. I had no suitcase. The cute new sundress I’d bought to wear for my first day in Spain was lost in some airport somewhere. Worse, without my things, my room felt empty. Empty. EMPTY.

  I switched on the lamp to chase away the shadows, but—even with its authentic Mediterranean touches—the room looked even bleaker in the light…. like a really well-furnished cell. The air smelled stale. The closeness of the walls made my skin itch. I couldn’t stand it. I had to get out. Out of the room, out of the apartment, out of the building so I could breathe again.

  The problem was, my mom and dad were still asleep, and it would have been rude to wake them up just to ask for permission, right? I wasn’t going to go far. Maybe just walk around our temporary neighborhood a little bit. Explore the surroundings. We were staying righ
t in the middle of the historic district, so I could probably get some good pictures for my blog—even if it was still kind of dark.

  Did I mention it was four in the morning?

  The early hour would make slipping out a little tricky. My mom and dad’s bedroom was right across the hall from mine. Plus, there was a doorman on duty down in the lobby who might ask questions. But as I said, I like a challenge. I figured I was up for it.

  That was my first mistake.

  Getting out of the apartment was easy. My mom and dad aren’t exactly known for being light sleepers. Which was good because my dad snores loud enough to drown out a 747. They probably didn’t even hear me tiptoe past their room and out the front door of the apartment.

  Sneaking down to the lobby was the tricky part. The elevator was one of those really old cagelike things that rattled and groaned whenever it went up and down. If I didn’t want to wake up everyone in the building, I had to take the stairs, and that meant I had zero chance of getting past the doorman unnoticed. The staircase emptied out right in front of his desk.

  Sure enough, I got only about halfway down the steps before he glanced up from the soccer game he was watching on the small television at his desk. From his bland expression, I couldn’t tell if he recognized me or not. Like I said, my mom and dad were the television stars. I was just a footnote. But he had to know I belonged with the Americans who had arrived that night. If he wanted to rat me out, he’d know exactly who to buzz, so I had to make sure he didn’t think there was a reason to rat.

  I gave him my best celebrity smile and practically sang “Good morning!” as I bounced down the rest of the stairs.

  “Buenos días,” he replied, but he didn’t smile back. His heavy black eyebrows huddled together like he was unsure what he was supposed to do next. He kind of half stood, stooped over, like a question mark hanging in the air.

  I pointed to myself and then to the revolving glass front door. “Going running.”

  His face relaxed, and he settled back into his seat like I figured he would.

  See, the thing about most grown-ups is that they would rather not know if something’s wrong because then they have to deal with it. So as long as I acted like it was perfectly normal for someone my age to go out running alone before the sun came up, it was a pretty good bet he wouldn’t bother me. Or alert my mom and dad. Or notice that I was wearing purple Converse high-tops, not running shoes.

  I breezed through the lobby, waving good-bye to the doorman as I passed his desk, but he had already turned back to his game.

  Once I was safely outside and down the block—out of sight of the apartment building—I paused to pull my cell phone and earbuds from my pocket. I quickly put together a playlist of Spanish music that ran exactly thirty-four minutes. That way, when I got to the last song, I would know it was time to turn back. Just to be safe, I also set the phone’s alarm so I’d be sure to make it to the apartment before the time Mom and Dad usually woke up.

  After all that, I finally relaxed. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, savoring the smell of freedom and Valencia. I know that probably sounds weird, but every city has its own smell—especially in the morning before it gets buried under exhaust fumes and heat. In Valencia it was a combination of concrete and oranges and fresh-cut grass, with a faint, salty sea tang that drifted in with the mist from the ocean. I made a mental note of it, and set off to find some pictures to post as well.

  I started my blog when my grampa first got sick. Because his medicine made him feel tired a lot, he had to stop driving and he couldn’t do as much around the farm as he used to. I hated that while my mom and dad and I were off seeing the world with the show, his world was shrinking. Gramma finally got wireless at the house and bought him a laptop so he could sit out on the porch and still be able to get online. It helped for him to have something to keep his mind occupied, she said.

  I had just gotten a new cell phone with a camera from my mom and dad for my birthday, so I decided to keep a photo diary of our travels for Grampa. That way he’d have some kind of connection with us whenever he got online. I wrote him notes and took pictures I thought would make him laugh. Like Dad asleep on the plane with a big string of drool hanging from his mouth. Or Mom prepping for a segment with rollers in her hair and the makeup tissue tucked into her collar.

  When Grampa died, I kept the blog going. It made me feel like I was still connected to him in a way. I continued to send him messages and talk to him as if he was with me. I kept looking for things I knew would make him smile.

  It didn’t take long before fans of my mom and dad’s show discovered my blog. When the When in Rome producers saw how many followers I was getting, they offered to host my blog on their website. They even bought me a nicer cell phone with a better camera—this one with video. That should have been my first clue that the blog wasn’t just about Grampa anymore.

  Within weeks, my hundreds of followers turned into thousands. Mom and Dad weren’t thrilled to have so many strangers following me, even if most of those followers were fans of the show. After a long discussion with the network, it was decided I could keep blogging as long as I followed a strict list of guidelines, which included disabling the comments. The last thing my mom and dad wanted was some creeper talking to me online.

  So anyway, that’s how it all started. I’ll admit that when I snuck out that morning, it did occur to me that just in case I wound up getting caught, my mom and dad might go easier on me if I could say I’d done it all for the blog. Proves how much I know.

  Our apartment building sat across the street from the Plaza de la Reina, which put us within walking distance of everything in Old Town—the Turia Fountain, the basilica, and the Valencia Cathedral with its miguelete tower.

  I wandered through the historic district, mostly just getting background images that I would edit later when I wrote about our first day in Spain.

  Hardly anyone was out that morning, only a few cars going through the roundabout and maybe a delivery truck or two. It was peaceful and quiet as I walked along—just me and my camera and the music.

  The last song in my playlist was just ending as I reached the Plaza de la Virgen. I checked the time. Close. I quickly tucked away the earbuds and set the camera to video. The plaza had its own music in the sloshing of the fountain and a quartet of birds too impatient to wait for dawn. It was the perfect sound track for a quick vlog message to go along with all the images I’d been filming.

  I propped my phone on the edge of the fountain, making the Door of the Apostles and the Valencia Cathedral my backdrop, and took a few steps back.

  “Buenos días, Abuelo,” I said to the camera. “That means ‘Good morning, Grampa.’ We got to Spain late last night, but—”

  Just then my phone started to vibrate, buzzing and skipping over the stones toward the pool of the fountain.

  “Crap!” I jumped and managed to grab the phone right before it fell into the water. My heart felt like it was going to pound its way right out of my chest. The alarm meant I had to get back to the apartment. Fast.

  I held the phone at arm’s length and finished quickly. “I’ve got to run, but I’ll give you an update later. ¡Nos vemos pronto! That’s Spanish for ‘See you soon.’ ¡Adios!”

  The doorman was standing behind his desk when I rushed back into the lobby. He’d been talking on the phone, but he cut it short and set down the receiver when he saw me. His little television wasn’t on anymore.

  Oh, crap, I thought. He knows I snuck out.

  Dread clawed at me every step up the staircase to our apartment. If the door guy knew I wasn’t supposed to be out on my own, someone must have told him. Someone like my mom and dad. They were probably waiting for me on the landing, ready to lock me in my room. I trudged even slower.

  The door to our apartment was silent and closed, just the way I’d left it. Maybe all wasn’t lost. I pulled the key from my pocket and reached for the door when a shape stepped out from the shadows.

&
nbsp; “Oooh. You’re in trouble.”

  One of the cool things about

  traveling around the world with a television crew is that it’s almost like having family everywhere we go. Our fixer, Bayani, has been with the show since the first season, so he’s like a big brother to me. A really loud, obnoxious big brother who thinks it’s funny to jump out and scare me at five in the morning. He’s twenty-five, but with his shaggy black hair and lanky build, he doesn’t look that much older than me. He doesn’t act that much older, either.

  I slugged his arm. “Don’t do that!”

  He just grinned. “Where’ve you been?”

  “Shhh!” I hissed. “Quiet.”

  “Not gonna help.” Bayani shook his head. “You’re hosed.”

  “Hosed? Seriously? No one says that anymore.”

  He laughed, and I had to shush him again.

  “When did they find out I was gone?” I whispered.

  “Not sure.” He didn’t even bother to keep his voice down. “Ten minutes ago, maybe? That’s when they woke me up to join the search. You should get inside. They’re about ready to send out the caballeria.”

  “The what?”

  He rolled his eyes. “The cavalry, Cass.”

  “How would I know that?”

  “Pretty obvious from the context.”

  “Yeah? Well, I’m sorry I didn’t—”

  “Cassidy.” Dad’s angry voice cut me off. “Inside. Now.”

  My stomach sank right to the tiled floor. I turned slowly. He was standing in the doorway, arms folded tightly across his chest. Mom stood right behind him. Both of their faces were puckered and pinchy, like they’d eaten bad kumquats or something.

  Beside me, Bayani took a step back, as if the trouble I was in might be contagious. “I’ll, uh…. yeah. Later.” He turned and retreated down the stairs.