Lost in London (8 page)

He had us. He totally had us in a you-are-my-puppet sort of way. We had to do this for him or we’d possibly get arrested.

This was definitely not boring, but ending up in a British prison was not the kind of life-changing experience I was looking for on this trip. I could look forward to being locked in my room, with the exception of school or weeding, for the rest of my life. Suddenly I was keenly interested in Pluto.

“Why can’t you do the paper yourself?” Sam asked.

“That’s none of your beeswax either. Just do it. Fast.”

“He’s bluffing,” Gordo said to Sam, loud enough for Sebastian to hear.

The phone made a jerking sound on the other end. Sebastian said, “Oh my goodness gracious, what just happened? What did I do? Did I just accidentally upload one of those incriminating videos? I think I did.” He ended the call.

Caroline hissed, “He didn’t.”

Sam showed us his screen. It was a video of me and Caroline—well, our feet—trying on shoes. Lots of shoes. The clip didn’t show our faces.

“Un-bloody-believable,” Caroline said. “Let’s do this ridiculous Pluto paper for that pastry midget. We can work at my house.”

Things were getting more un-boring by the minute. Maybe a little too de-bored-ified.

“First I’m getting that phone,” Sam said. He stormed into Daphne’s and came back a few seconds later with a flush to his cheeks and no phone in his hands.

Gordo patted Ellie’s back. “Can you handle it?”

Ellie made a muscle with her arms. “See these guns?” She walked into the store. A minute later she returned with a mini multicolored layered cake.

“What is that?” I asked.

“A petit four. Isn’t it cute? It’s like a little rainbow baby sandwich made of cake. Wanna bite?”

“No, thanks,” I said, but I was still hungry. I had heard about this thing called a full English breakfast. Supposedly everyone ate it. Where was it now? None of my new friends knew how popular it was, obviously.

“No luck with the phone?” Gordo asked.

“Oh, that.” She popped the remaining little morsel of petit four into her mouth and reached into her back pocket. “Here you go.”

“How’d you do that?” Gordo asked.

“I have my ways,” Ellie said. “But don’t get too excited.
He showed me the flash drive, a little plastic worm. It’s very adorable, actually. And fitting, because he’s like a worm.” She handed me my new phone with the hi-res camera, and I thought that maybe the decision to do a photo montage of my trip wasn’t such a good idea after all.

Sam asked, “Don’t you think he’s made other copies of the videos and photos?”

“We’ll have to worry about copies later,” Gordo said. “But I think we shouldn’t trust anything Sebastian says.”

We crammed into a taxi, which made me feel like I was a gum ball inside a machine. It took us to the Metro station. “It’s a fifteen-minute train ride to Brentwood,” Sam explained.

We sat on the train, and I couldn’t help thinking for a second about the Hogwarts Express. Of course, this was
nothing like Harry Potter’s train. It was shiny and modern, with half of the seats facing one way and the other half facing the other way.

“Shh,” Sam said. “Look at the telly.” He indicated a flat screen in the front of the train car. Two news reporters stood in front of Daphne’s.

The female reporter said,
“Shortly after opening this morning, Daphne’s employees discovered that several thousand pounds’ worth of electronic equipment was missing. The investigation is just beginning and we’ll certainly report details on this case as they unfold.”
The name “Skye Summers” was written on the screen under her face.

The male reporter, Cole Miles, said,
“Indeed, Skye, what does surveillance footage from the Daphne’s security system show?”

“It seems that with the big power outage last night, the whole system was down. Authorities are presently looking for the night watchman for answers,”
Skye said.

Cole said,
“More on the Daphne’s theft later. But now to sports. Let’s talk about football.”
The screen switched to a scene of what I would call a soccer game.

“There really was a theft last night,” Caroline said. “What are the chances of that?”

“You tell us,” Ellie said.

“What do you mean?” Caroline asked.

“I mean, why would you take that stuff? It’s not like you need it.”

Caroline snapped at her, “We didn’t steal anything. Do you see any stolen electronics?”

“No,” Ellie said sheepishly.

“Exactly.” Then under her breath I think she said, “Idiot.”
What kind of person calls her friend an idiot?

Gordo said, “The police will figure this all out. Don’t worry your pretty little fashionable heads about it.”

I forced a smile. I hoped Gordo was right, because the videos and photos that Sebastian had would surely put Caroline and me at the scene of the crime
during the crime
.

•  •  •

From the train station we walked a few blocks to meet Liam, who was supposedly picking us up after we’d all met for breakfast following the sleepover at Ellie’s. On the ride I clicked an e-mail to my mom and dad. My mom had probably scrubbed every surface of the house worrying about me.

Approaching the manor house, I was again reminded of how big and fabulous it was. Ivy and moss crept everywhere.

We planted ourselves in her kitchen while Caroline got her iPad. “I cannot believe Sebastian has the nerve to
blackmail me. He is more of a weasel than I thought. Just thinking about him makes me feel all icky.” She rubbed her arms.

Liam brought us an assortment of juices and baby-size muffins.
Yay, Liam!
I was starving, so I popped one into my mouth whole. I saw Sam look at me, and I thought he was going to call the Hungry Police, but he didn’t. The next muffin I took, I broke and ate in smaller pieces.

Mrs. Littleton stepped into the kitchen. “Oh, hi there, gang. Jordan, I got an early text from your mama. She was a wee bit angry when she got your message that said all y’all have done is shop and have a pillow party.”

“Pillow party?” Caroline asked, confused.

“You call it a sleepover, but we used to call that a pillow party in my sorority days,” Mrs. Littleton said.

I thought for sure that Ellie was going to blow our cover story. She fiddled with the lace table runner. “The pillow party was very . . . pillowy. We had a pillow fight and a pillow pile and um . . . ah . . . uh . . . We made a fortress out of blankets and pillows.”

I was officially impressed. I doubted that Ellie with a
y
would have thought so fast on her feet. The fortress was an especially good detail.

“Really? A fort?” Mrs. Littleton asked.

“Yup,” Ellie said. “That was J.J.’s idea. Apparently
Americans like to build stuff with blankets and pillows.”

“J.J.’s?” Mrs. Littleton looked at me to make sure I was J.J. I nodded. “Cute,” she said.

Caroline said, “This was after we spent a positively perfect day at Daphne’s.”

Mrs. Littleton said, “Did you hear the news that there was a break-in last night? The telly said there had been some mischief and a theft—jewelry, I think.”

“Electronics,” Ellie corrected her.

Caroline said, “J.J. got some nice additions to her wardrobe. I mean, look at her. Better, eh?”

“I did think there was something different about ya. I thought it was just the blond streak in your hair. Do you think your mama is going to be okay with that?”

“Oh, yes,” I lied. “She is totally into exploring new fashion.” I really hated lying. “I don’t know when you saw her last, but she has become quite a collector of shoes, like Jimmy Choos. Ha! That rhymes.” (Last night I’d learned that Jimmy Choos were a really hot brand.)

“A bore,” Ellie said.

“What?” I asked. “What did you say?”

“We call someone who collects lots of shoes a
shoe bore
.”

“Okay. Right. Well, that’s what she is,” I lied again. “A bore from a shoe store. Ha!” I did it again.

Mrs. Littleton said, “Well, it sounds like y’all have
had great fun. But your mama was peeved that you were shopping instead of working on your school assignment.”

Caroline mumbled something like, “Heaven forbid we take a break from studies over school vacation.”

“She was?” I asked.

“I haven’t heard her so mad since we got splashed with a hose at the homecoming football game. Ohhh, we had been having such a good time until that happened.”

“My mom had fun?”

“Oh, all the time! She loved it!”

I was sure she had my mom confused with someone else from college.

Mrs. Littleton said, “But don’t worry. I took care of everything. I promised her that you would spend the rest of the week hitting all the places on your list. To calm her down I told her y’all would text pics to her from each sight.”

“You can’t be serious?” Caroline asked, as though the idea of checking if she was lying was completely absurd, even though she had
just
told a whole story about a sleepover party that never happened. “She wants to spy on us? Why doesn’t she just send a babysitter to trail around after us?”

I was totally embarrassed. Even though I was on the other side of the world, my parents were still looking over my shoulder.

“If that’s an invitation,” Mrs. Littleton said, “I’d love to go with y’all.”

“Yay!” Ellie said. “You’ll be like one of the gang, except older and more . . . more older than we are.”

Caroline pursed her lips in anger, but spoke in a careful and controlled voice, “Um, I think NOT.”

Mrs. Littleton said, “Caroline darlin’, I gotcha a little something. Come on into your daddy’s office so I can give it to you.”

“What is it?” Caroline asked.

“Ooh, it’s a surprise.”

Caroline followed her stepmother out of the room.

“What do you think it is?” Ellie asked.

Gordo shrugged. “Could be anything. Remember the time she got a Vespa scooter? Her mum didn’t even know she was too young to drive it.”

They returned very quickly. Caroline was smiling.

“What was it?” Sam asked.

“What?” she asked.

“The surprise.”

“Oh, it was kinda like a secret surprise. No biggie, really,” Caroline said.

“No biggie,” Mrs. Littleton confirmed. “So, lemme just get my coat and I’ll come along with y’all today.”

Caroline said, “As much fun as that would be, I think it’s a richer adventure for J.J. to experience London with us, just us, friends her own age.” She put her arm over my shoulder and said to me, “You are going to have an awesome time.”

“Well, I want J.J. to have the fullest experience possible,” Mrs. Littleton said, like it was a big sacrifice for her not to hang out with us.

“That’s what we all want,” Caroline said. “We’ll certainly text you pictures from each sight we visit. Oh, and those pics will be perfect to use for your photo montage assignment.” I thought Caroline had quickly changed her mind about sightseeing.

“It’ll be heaps of fun, I’m sure,” Mrs. Littleton said, and exited the kitchen.

There was a moment of silence. “I think that went well,” Ellie said. “She bought the whole fortress thing.”

Caroline announced, “I’m going to take a shower. Can you start on planet Pluto? We have to do a supergood job on it so that those videos stay under wraps. If we get discovered, it would be very bad for me.”

Gordo said, “Daphne’s couldn’t ban you for long. You’re their best customer.”

“Well, I don’t want to risk it. Besides, I have more to lose than shopping.”

“Like what?” I asked.

“A lot,” she said, offering a nonanswer.

As if commanded by the queen bee, Gordo took the seat at the iPad and began telling us what he was writing: “I am Sebastian Lively, and I am a jerk. I am not the one writing this paper because I’m a cheater . . .”

“Stop that,” Caroline said. “Don’t joke around.”

“You’re smart,” Ellie said to Gordo. “Can’t you just whip it out or something?”

“Of course he can,” Sam said.

“Bril,” Caroline said, and left for her shower.

“Sure,” Gordo joked. “I’ll write a research paper in the next few minutes while you pals just hang out.”

“That works for me,” Ellie said. She didn’t get that Gordo had been kidding. At least, I’m pretty sure he was.

Gordo googled some sites and sent pages to the printer at the other side of the kitchen. Sam read them over and tossed out random Pluto facts that made me think maybe this could be a good paper.

When Caroline returned to the kitchen, she was surrounded by shower scents. Her wet hair was combed out and hung lower than it had last night. She wore new clothes: a flowy peasant blouse, black jeans, and ankle
boots with a heel. I noticed that she had also put on a new palette of makeup. “J.J., Liam left you fresh towels.”

As much as I was enjoying working on the paper with Sam and Gordo (Ellie really wasn’t into it), I left. I was excited to use my new hair straightener, and makeup, and to wear another new outfit. As I walked down the hall to the bathroom, I heard Sam and Gordo talking about the solar system, and the printer hummed.