Ann Martin - New York, New York!

"Nine-fifty-nine and fifty seconds," I murmured. I began a countdown. "Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one . . ." Ding-dong! I just love punctual people.

I checked through the peephole, then unlocked the door. "Hey!" I exclaimed as Richie entered the apartment. "Where are your crutches?" "Gone," he replied proudly. "I went to the hospital yesterday afternoon. The doctor gave me a walking cast, see?" Richie held up his foot. Then he showed off his walking. "Doesn't hurt a bit," he added.

"Wow." I was impressed.

"Ready to do the town?" "Just point me in the direction of the first sight," I replied.

Richie aimed me out the door. When we were on the street, we hailed a cab. "Madison and Sixtieth Street, please," said Richie.

"What's there?" I asked.

Richie shrugged and smiled. He wasn't going to tell me.

When the driver stopped at the intersection Richie had requested, I climbed out of the cab and looked around. I raised my eyebrows at Richie.

"Here we are," he said.

"Where?" "Right here. On Madison Avenue. One of the finest shopping streets in the city. Here you will find Laura Ashley clothes, cowboy boots, boutiques, and bookstores. It's the soup to nuts of the shopping world." "Thank you, Mr. Tour Guide," I said.

We walked around until Richie's ankle began to ache. (I bought a booklet of New York postcards to send to Jeff in California.) Then we took a bus uptown and walked a short distance to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

"Look at this," said Richie, pointing. "I love this sight." We were standing before the stately stone steps to the museum entrance. Above us hung large, colorful flags announcing special exhibits. Richie and I walked slowly up the stairs and stepped into a great, hushed hall.

"How much does it cost to get in?" I whispered.

Richie pointed to a sign. I think it said, "Pay what you wish, but you must pay something." That was nice. You could pay whatever you could afford.

We walked around for awhile, but a museum was really not the best place for Richie. Too much standing. So we left and ambled down Fifth Avenue. On our right was Central Park.

"Even I have been to the park," I said.

"Isn't it wonderful?" replied Richie. "A park right in the middle of this huge city. Eight hundred and forty acres of greenery." (I didn't mention it, but he sounded an awful lot like Mary Anne.) When Richie grew tired, we grabbed another cab. "Grand Army Plaza, please," he said. We rode down Fifth Avenue until the park came to an abrupt end. The cab pulled over to the curb.

"Now where — "I started to ask.

Mr. Tour Guide cut me off. "The square before you is called Grand Army Plaza. Beyond that is the Plaza Hotel, the setting for the famed book Eloise, and also the place where, years ago, my father proposed to my mother. Down Fifth Avenue are more fine stores. Steuben, FAO Schwarz, the New York Public Library shop, Saks Fifth Avenue." "Whoa." "However, we will not be shopping in them. It's lunchtime." Richie led me to one of about a million vendors' carts that were blocking sidewalk traffic. "Two tacos, please," he said.

"Richie!" I whispered loudly. "I don't eat meat." "Oh. Right. One vegetarian taco, one regular taco." "Are you implying that I'm irregular?" I asked.

"I hope not." The meatless taco turned out to be good. The shell was filled with lettuce, tomato, gua-camole, and cheese. I ate the entire thing, trying not to think of all the warnings I'd heard about vendor's food.

"Now for dessert," said Richie.

We crossed the street and continued down Fifth Avenue until Richie stopped in front of a store called Godiva. The window was filled with boxes of ...

"Chocolate?" I said, trying to hide my disappointment.

"Some of the best you'll ever taste." "But I don't eat sweets." "Okay. You don't have to eat a whole piece. Just try one. I promise you'll like it. I'll give the rest of the box to my mom." Against my better judgment I found myself saying, "All right ..." Richie bought a tiny but very fancy gold-wrapped box of candy. When we left the store, he opened the box and handed me a chocolate. Claudia would have polished off the entire contents of the box before leaving the store. But I took Richie's offering and bit into it gingerly as if it might be a bomb. Mmm. The chocolate was fabulous. I finished the piece, but Richie didn't bug me to eat any more. He put the box away.

"It is now time to see Chelsea," said Richie, and we took another bus down Fifth Avenue to 23rd Street. When we got off, Richie turned right. We walked and walked . . . and walked.

"How's your ankle holding up?" I asked.

"Okay. It likes Chelsea." We were no longer on 23rd Street, but we were still heading west (according to Richie). The blocks began to look different. I saw fewer and fewer tall apartment buildings and more and more houses. Well, that's what Richie called them. But they didn't look like houses to me. They looked like short apartment buildings. Many of them were brick, and they were connected in long rows, with a flight of steps leading from each front door down to the street. Patches of grass actually grew in front of some.

"If you like the grass, you should see the backs of these places," said Richie. "In the middle of the blocks are amazing gardens and terraces. People have planted trees and flowers. They can sit outside on their patios or porches. I'd trade our fire escape for a garden any day." From Chelsea, we took a couple of subways and somehow wound up in a very different neighborhood that Richie called SoHo.

"SoHo?" I repeated. "That's a funny name." "It stands for 'south of Houston Street/ " said Richie. (And by the way, he pronounced "Houston" the way it looks — house-tun — not like the big city in Texas.) On Houston, we wandered in and out of art galleries and stores. One store, a clothing store, was overrun with actual live animals, which was weird, since it felt a little like a jungle to begin with. You'd thumb through a rack of safari outfits and find yourself facing a tree, a large parrot perched in its branches. And dogs and sleepy-looking cats roamed everywhere. Strange.

When Richie needed a rest, he said, "How about some cappuccino?" "Sure," I replied, so we found a restaurant with small round tables set out on the sidewalk. We sipped our cappuccino and watched the world go by.

"It's sort of like eating at a cafe in Paris," I said, and Richie grinned.

By the end of the day, I was exhausted, and I thought Richie's foot was going to fall off. We had sampled Indian food at a tiny restaurant in the East Village. We had wandered through the maze of little streets in the West Village. (Once, Richie got lost.) We even took the subway to Chinatown. When I told Richie I'd already been there, he said, "Well, have you been to Little Italy?" "No." We walked, like, two blocks and found ourselves in a world of Italian restaurants. A street fair was in progress and Richie urged me to sample a cannoli, even though it was filled with sugar. Hard to believe that just a few blocks away were Chinese restaurants, egg rolls, pagoda-shaped phone booths. . . .

"What do you think of the city?" Richie asked when we were finally heading home, our stomachs stuffed.

"It's full of food," I replied.

Richie laughed. "No, really. What did you think?" "It's amazing. I've never seen it this way." "I know. You've seen Central Park, the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, the World Trade Center, right?" "Right," I agreed. "And those were fun experiences. But you're the best tour guide I've ever had." I realized that I had not been scared once all day.

Mary Anne.

Chapter 17.

O had never been to South Street Seaport and I was dying to see it. It's an area in lower Manhattan that during the 1800s was known as the "Street of Ships." It was the shipping hub of the city, a busy place, swarming with seamen, merchants, and immigrants, and a harbor crowded with all kinds of sailing vessels. Over the years, the seaport deteriorated, but it has now been restored and is an area of museums, restaurants, and shops contained in waterfront buildings from the 19th century. There are things to see: street performers and fabulous ships, as well as plenty of special events such as fireworks. You can go to the seaport to eat and shop, or you can go there to discover history.