Alright, this is February 19th, 2015, 3.36pm driving on the 101, just passed quarter of Madera shopping center and I want to record some notes about the Papyrus Diary. A coming of age novel middle grade possibly, you know, a young adult fiction about a boy who discovers his first love while spending a summer in Egypt. So first chapter begins with, begins in an empty lot in Texas in Houston. It's an empty lot undeveloped piece of the street block. It's almost a lot of pine trees on it, it's almost forced like given the density of pine trees. And the group of boys would rarely hang out there because it wasn't as cool as the other lot which had the bike track on it. But on this particular day one of the boys found a playboy magazine with a pack of cigarettes on top. So they're all standing around wondering who's it was. If it was Stoney's, Stoney was this mythical boy that they all believed was the best BMX writer in the neighborhood but no one had ever seen him. But they said he could do the best tabletop of any boy they'd ever seen. So anyway, they're all standing around and finally it's agreed that no one is going to claim this playboy magazine or pack of cigarettes they decided to divide it up. So I'll leave the details of dividing up the playboy magazine to another time. Obviously they could argue over blondes and burnets and breast sizes, thus indicating young male obsession with the female body and presumption that the objectification of women that's all women are good for. So they don't know any better as much as they should. So then it comes to the cigarette pack. So it's about five boys and five cigarettes. Actually, six cigarettes. The first kid who claims he found it is going to ask for two and then everybody else gets one. So they all divided up and decided that tomorrow something forces them to leave and they will have to come back to the lot or somewhere else they agreed to meet somewhere else. And smoke them all. So one of the boys, little Mo, I'm going to call him for now. So the curfew goes and they all have to go home and when he goes home he discovers that his mom is packing for Egypt. He had forgotten or perhaps she had forgotten to remind him, but he comes to his room and he finds a suitcase on his bed. And his mother telling him, you need to pack for the summer. Our plane leaves tomorrow. I had been telling you this over and over again. Get started. And he silently obeys her. And this is when he kind of goes off on stuff like I know she means well, but I'm not looking forward to this at all. I didn't even want to go to Egypt. All the reasons in the world why an 11 year old would not want to go to Egypt. He lists them. So they pack and they get on the plane. Somehow that chapter has to end. Not really sure where it's going to end. Perhaps. We could end in security because their port security was lax but like he has your standard X-ray. And he's trying to decide what to do with the one cigarette that's his. He can't really keep it. I mean he can't just put it in the coin tray and assume that security is going to let him take it. And he's also worried that if he puts it in his bag they'll see the cigarette. Maybe he has a phone call to one of his friends who tells him put it in the lining of his suitcase. Or wait for a guy to come wait for someone to go through security who has cigarettes and follow them. Which would lead which would allow for some kind of funny stalling right before security. Maybe he sees someone go in the bathroom who is a smoker and decides to follow them to see. And then he follows him all the way through to security. So essentially if he would stall mother get really annoyed say yes to go to the bathroom. And then perhaps doesn't have to go to the bathroom. Then you know all of a sudden we got to go now we got to get to security. And as he gets through security he waits to stand right behind the man who is pushing his luggage. And as they get to the X-ray machine the man empties his jacket and his cigarettes. And the boy tries to do the same. He tries to put his cigarette in the man's tray. I'm not going to know how to do that because the handoff is kind of weird. We told kind of like a heist situation. And then he tries to figure this one out. So maybe it's just discussed as a scenario among the boys instead of actually being carried out. But something has to work he has to figure out how to do this how to smuggle a cigarette through customs. A single solitary cigarette. Maybe he decides he's going to dissect the cigarette. That's also a possibility where he takes the tobacco out of it. And he unrolls the paper and hopes to roll it back again. So that's another possibility. Maybe the boys discuss that. What's the third plan? So he's got. What would you smuggle a cigarette through customs? You've either got to put it in someone else's stuff. Take it apart. What does a cigarette look like? You could disguise it as something else. You could pass it off as a set of golf pencils. Who goes around with a pack of golf pencils? And the funny thing about this is why are a group of 11-year-olds? Why is it so hard for them to not be able to get a cigarette? So cigarettes were sold in machines. Maybe they removed the machines. And that's one possibility. Maybe they removed the machines when they started putting in the stop and go everywhere. Maybe the old owner and the big, they started tearing down the grocery stores and putting up big grocery stores that didn't have these machines. And they made you order from the cashier. So that's another possibility. And if you were to hide it in pencils, you would have to put it in a pencil case and inside it's luggage. So that's another possibility. But does he get away with it? Does he get the cigarette? He's able to smuggle the cigarette through security. If so, what does that mean for the person? What does it mean if he actually is able to do it? Maybe he's not. Maybe it gets destroyed in the process. And that is kind of like a foreshadow. Or maybe he is successful but then realizes he has to keep it. And it becomes sentimental and he has to hold on to it. And he doesn't know he has to figure out how to hold on to it. And that's when he goes to the corner store and Egypt discovers that they sell chocolate cigarettes. But he doesn't realize that he could have. And that might be the funny part of the whole story is that all he has to do is walk up and buy cigarettes in Egypt. So yeah, by the time he gets to Egypt, maybe he... I think that's the chocolate cigarette pack is what he uses to hide his real cigarette. Maybe his brother gets into the pack and tries to eat the tobacco one thinking it's chocolate and gets sick. And his cigarette is destroyed that way, at least. That should happen later in the summer because then he'll think his plan is over. But really all he has to do is go to the store and smoke a cigarette. So anyway... Let's say he's successful and barely successful at getting the cigarette smuggled into Egypt. That would be a good chapter. But anyway... And his attempt to first find a hiding place for the cigarette, he starts looking around the house. Yeah, so first part is discovering the cigarette. Second part smuggling the cigarette. Third part, hiding the cigarette. And what do you do in order to hide it? Well, he's looking around the apartment. And let's not forget that there will be a chapter in the book that deals with the arrival in Egypt, the drive, the observations that he makes of Cairo, how foreign everything looks, how out of place he feels and how smells different when he actually arrives in his parents' apartment. That is, I don't know, four or five flights up. Three flights up if I remember correctly. And one common bathroom feels dirty. Nothing that he's used to in the United States. The next morning waking up to the call to prayer. Probably... And make some kind of comment about that. They could arrive on a Thursday and then Friday and then he's forced to go to the mosque with his uncle. So that's another possibility. But anyway, he discovers when he just looks for a place to hide the cigarettes he discovers his parents, his mother's letters to his father. It's in a box that is too soon to discover them possibly. It's possible that he finds a quick hiding place and needs to look in somehow later in the story. What does the discovery of his mother's letters show that his mom was a woman instead of just a mother figure to him? I think the most significant thing that it demonstrates is that as he's trying to communicate with the girl across the street, I don't know, call her what name to give her. I'll call her the mystery girl for now. The mystery girl will have to have a human side to her. I think the discovery of his parents' letters will coincide with him learning something about her. In the very same day, that makes her seem more human to him. In some ways, she's no longer the mystery girl. She's Amina. Good enough name. Amina who wants to know why, who has her own set of anger, she's angry that her mother has to have this chip on her shoulder. It's like, why did America have to ruin my mom? This leads into the story of what she knows about her mother's former fiancee that she was engaged once before. How did she find out that her mother was engaged once before? She must find a picture of the picture and show him. Amina is a little bit more of an amina to find out that their parents aren't who they are, but they are at the same time learning something about each other. Anyway, after a couple days of touring around Cairo, when they've overcome their jet lag, maybe they don't push them so that they can just fight it. They drive out to the pyramids the very first day. The pyramids are an indication that they don't get to go to the pyramids until the very end. I don't know if it's possible, but you'll see how it plays out. That's another aspect of the story. She doesn't speak enough English to talk to. She only speaks Arabic. The apartment was always abandoned, but empty, so she never had a balcony to stare at. When they arrive, all of a sudden the shutters are open. She can see life inside that apartment. Her mother is extremely agitated because the very last time she saw this apartment with people in it was when most parents were leaving. We may live there. It was one of the things that was just too hard to deal with. She was the most mother-thought she could totally enjoy life in Cairo and never intended on coming home. She found the job teaching English while her husband worked in a factory as the manager of a sugar manufacturing plant. They enjoyed a good life for themselves. But there were just realities that hit them. She was expected to be a mother to have a baby. She didn't necessarily adapt well to being an Egyptian woman as much as she could never be an Egyptian woman completely in Egypt. She looks at him like someone. She's attracted to him, but she doesn't like that she is. She loves her mom. She wants to help her mom, but she also wants to meet this poor. If they know you, you don't know what they know. They know that there was any kind of problem between the two families. Meena's mother will always. What does Meena say to him? Maybe she knows the fruit seller and she has the fruit seller. He's obsessed with this fruit seller. He watches the fruit seller go to each home and put fruit. He takes walks his cart by the house. He tells them his price for the block. My sister said you sold it at this much. They argue you can hear all the arguments. Maybe he sits with his cousin and they watch the fruit sellers. The problem is there has to be an error of mystery. He left the loan to buy the fruit. He tells him to run an errand and he tells him to buy the oranges. They have a few months of time. They have a few months of time. They don't have any bruises on them. He ends up with a clue or an indication that this girl is trying to engage in conversation. He wants to find out why he is so special. He's his own mother in some backwards scheme. He's jealous that his mother seems happy. Even though his dad died, she's not happy. She's the man who left her. He left the family behind. He's the one who left her. He's the one who left her. He wants to get his attention. Maybe she puts something from Texas. Maybe she gives him a pack of cigarettes. Maybe he loses his cigarettes and gives it back to him. He's the one who left the family behind. He's the one who left her. Maybe he's the one who left her. He's the one who left her. Maybe he's the one who left her. Maybe he's the one who left her. Maybe he's the one who left her. Maybe she tells him she's sorry for his loss. The rest is in your life. The change is in your life. He might understand. That will essentially start the plot. Maybe he asks his mother about their neighbors. Maybe he knows he might have to be sneaky about asking his mother. Maybe he... Well, let me think about this.