Almost Flying - Hardcover

Arlow, Jake Maia

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0593112938 ISBN 13: 9780593112939

Verlag: Dial Books, 2021

Inhaltsangabe

In this Stonewall Honor book, a week-long amusement park road trip becomes a true roller coaster of emotion when Dalia realizes she has more-than-friend feelings for her new bestie.

A Stonewall Honor Book

Cover may vary.

"Dalia’s journey to self-discovery is refreshingly honest, and this entire cast of characters will steal your heart.” – Maulik Pancholy, actor and Stonewall Honor-winning author of The Best At It

Would-be amusement park aficionado Dalia only has two items on her summer bucket list: (1) finally ride a roller coaster and (2) figure out how to make a new best friend. But when her dad suddenly announces that he's engaged, Dalia's schemes come to a screeching halt. With
Dalia's future stepsister Alexa heading back to college soon, the grown-ups want the girls to spend the last weeks of summer bonding--meaning Alexa has to cancel the amusement park road trip she's been planning for months. Luckily Dalia comes up with a new plan: If she joins Alexa on her trip and brings Rani, the new girl from her swim team, along maybe she can have the perfect summer after all. But what starts out as a week of funnel cakes and Lazy River rides goes off the rails when Dalia discovers that Alexa's girlfriend is joining the trip. And keeping Alexa's secret makes Dalia realize one of her own: She might have more-than-friend feelings for Rani.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Jake Maia Arlow is a podcast producer, writer, and bagel connoisseur. They studied evolutionary biology and creative writing (not as different as you might think) at Barnard College. They live with their girlfriend and their loud cat in the Pacific Northwest.

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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 anactual 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 forOoh, 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...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Dial Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2021
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593112938
• ISBN 13: 9780593112939
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 352
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Mayer, Paape, Voigt Kompakt Schallplatten GbR; https://www.kompakt.fm; ; Werder Str. 15-19; K�ln; 50672; Deutschland